joanna

When I moved to Seattle, I was more-than-lucky that a close friend from high school already lived in the area. Joanna and I grew up in the same neighborhood, and she's been one of my dearest friends for years. This photo was taken ten years ago, the day before I started college.

Joanna's remarked several times about how our friendship (and the circle of friends that we formed) was one of the best things that could have happened during her teenage years. And the same goes for me - we all became friends at just the right moment. And now, once again, having Joanna in Seattle has been one of the best things that could have happened to me. Last year was the hardest year of my life, and it was so, so, so wonderful to have a good friend that I could talk to - someone who knew my mom, who knows my family, and who knows all about me. Although I've made some great friends up here, Joanna and I have a history and understanding that just can't be replicated - we know the same people and have had so many experiences together.

And now, Joanna's moving back to Utah. The whole move is happening rather quickly, and I'm still adjusting to the idea that she will be gone. I'm so sad to see her go, but I also selfishly feel like the timing is good for me. Joanna was here for me during my really hard year - and sometimes I think she didn't even realize how much she helped me. When I first moved here and was dealing with a new baby (not to mention postpartum depression), my mom's diagnosis, etc., going to visit Joanna gave me the impetus to get showered and dressed in the morning. Just the fact that she was nearby helped to keep me sane. And now that I feel like I'm in a better place, I (grudgingly) guess that I can let her go.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of me and Joanna:

When I came home from my mission, Joanna was my "companion" for an hour or two until I was officially released. We went and watched a ward basketball game together -pretty adventurous for a returned missionary, eh?

We went out for a movie and dinner last Friday; it was our last GNO before Joanna leaves. It's so crazy to compare these photos to the ones we took in high school and college. We look so old! And we don't have such a carefree look about us anymore. Sigh. I guess that's what happens when you have kids: the responsibility and stress really becomes apparent, eh?

I know this isn't "goodbye forever," but I'll miss you, my friend. Keep the vibe alive.

a few recent realizations

• I don't really like romantic sub-plots in novels. I don't mind when characters fall in love, I guess, but sometimes I get annoyed when a book tries to interweave romance into an already-good story. I've just finished The Hunger Games, and I started to get annoyed when Peeta and Katniss began to deal with a lot of romantic silliness. I felt like the plot was great without all of that mushy stuff (but maybe I'll change my mind when I read the other two books in the series).
• I don't know that much about recent film. Every couple of months I am reminded that I am completely ignorant on this subject. If someone wants to talk about movies created before say, Funny Girl (1968), I'm all there. I can talk a lot about Frank Capra, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Hitchcock, Audrey/Katherine Hepburn, and various old musicals. But I'm a deadbeat when it comes to conversations about recent movies. And to tell the truth, I can't tell if I'm totally bothered by my ignorance. I know that J and I could easily switch off our documentaries/foreign films/silver screen classics and watch something more recent or popular, but I'm not quite motivated to change.

farewell, summer

School starts in little over a week. It's been interesting to reflect over what I've done this past summer. In June I embarked on a quest to find "the most awesome textbooks in the world" for my ancient and Renaissance art classes. I spent several weeks reading snippets from a bigillion books, and my coffee table constantly morphed in appearance, depending on what titles I was perusing or rejecting. This picture was taken several weeks ago, at the height of my ridiculous endeavor.

Although I was glad to become familiar with so many textbooks, but I wish I had just buckled down and decided on textbooks earlier in the summer. I could have gotten a lot more prep work completed if I had committed to a text in June. I realized that one could spend their whole life examining new textbooks (if they wanted), and I've got to be a better decision-maker next time. Even if a great book has some minor faults, it's better to go with that text than to spend weeks trying to find something that doesn't exist.

Ironically, now that class is starting next week, I suddenly have lost the desire to prep. In truth, I've gotten a lot of work done and I'm sure that I will be fine when school starts. But at the point when I should be pushing towards the finish line (which really is the starting line for a new school quarter), I just want to sit around and read about Henry Box Brown. And watch "America's Got Talent" (while being fully aware that its an utterly ridiculous show). And surf the net, trying to track down some Brazilian friends from São Paulo. Maybe I should embrace this laziness, at least for a day or two. After all, I won't have another true vacation for some time...

labor day 2010: olympia

The last leg of our weekend excursion involved a quick visit to Olympia, the state capital. J and I wanted to see the Capitol Building, and we knew that Sam would like to visit the Children's Museum there. And to be honest, those two places seemed like were the main attractions of the small city. It was too cold to visit any parks, so our trip was fairly short (which was fine, since we were on our way home).

Here are some pictures from the museum:

Sam with Current Obsession #1: Dinosaurs.
(On a side note, I can't believe how much I have learned about dinosaurs (especially dinosaur identification) since Sam began this dinosaur phase. Did you know that the Brachiosaurus has nasal openings on top of its head, high above its eyes? I've also learned that "saur" or "saurus" does not have to appear at the end of the dinosaur title, but "saur" can appear in the middle of the word, as is the case with ParaSAURolophus.

Sam with Obsession #2: Sea Animals.
(Especially sharks that like to munch on the legs of unsuspecting moms.)

And here we are: the Washington State Capitol. There were really interesting column capitals around the drum of the dome, with a large flower was placed in the center of each capital (see below). I wonder if they could have more symbolism or significance beyond the idea of beauty, but this government website seems to attribute all the other flowers in the building to signify simply "beauty". Harrumph. I wish there was a more interesting response. It would be cool if the flowers were specific to Washington or the Northwest, but they seem a little generic to me.

And, that was our fun little trip. I think we'll visit Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens next year, but I don't know if we'll make another trip to Olympia. We'll see. Sam loved the museum and has wanted to talk about it every day since we came home, so who knows? Maybe we'll come here again, too.

labor day 2010: mt. st. helens

This has been a weird week. I think Labor Day threw me for a loop; I haven't felt very productive since we got back. In an effort to try and produce at least something tangible (well, "e-tangible" I guess, since this is a blog post), I'm going to finish detailing our mini-vacation.

And I have to add a historical point here, because when we visited Mt. St. Helens I couldn't help but wondering who was "St. Helens." I've heard of St. Helen, but not a "Helens." So...I looked it up. The peak was named in 1792 after Alleyne Fitzherbert, who was British Ambassador to Spain at the time and held the title "Baron St. Helens." (The explorer who named Mt. St. Helens was Captain George Vancouver. Although he chose fellow countryman Baron St. Helens as the namesake for this volcano, Vancouver chose to honor fellow British naval officers for other nearby mountains: Hood, Rainier, and Baker.)


On the way toward the Mt. St. Helens peak, we stopped at the Forest Learning Center, which is one of the visitor centers for the Mt. St. Helens park. This is a really great center, especially for kids. Sam was entertained by the exhibits and the "hands on" learning room for children. As you can see, they also have a mini helicopter for kids, which Sam loved.

There was a short nature trail near the center, which promised a "vista" to the valley below. The trail obviously was made several years ago, before the reforested areas grew back. When we reached the end of the path, this was our vista: trees. I guess we can't be too upset, though. We didn't have a marvelous view, but it's good to know that the forest is recovering from the volcanic blast. Nonetheless, I wouldn't really recommend this short walk to future visitors. There's many more interesting things to see and experience.

As we drove closer to the peak, it was really interesting to drive through the reforested areas because all of the trees were the same species, and all of the trees were exactly the same age. I never realized it before, but it's normal to observe lots of variety on mountain landscapes, with trees of different varieties and ages. It was weird to not see that usual variation on the mountainside. When we were driving through this area, it felt like we were in some virtual world with CGI effects - it was like we saw the same tree over and over and over...


Near the crater, we visited Johnston Ridge Observatory (which is the best place to go to observe the geological changes which have occurred since the eruption in 1980). A lot of the land around the volcano peak has been preserved since the eruption. Scientists don't want the land reforested or manipulated, because they want to observe the natural ecological/geological processes. For that reason, there is still a lot of the volcanic eruption. This image shows a ridge which is right next to the volcanic peak. If you click on the image, you'll see that the whole mountain is covered with trees that have been pushed over in the same direction (i.e. away from the volcanic blast). It was really strange to see many slopes covered with dead tree trunks that were all lying in the same direction.

The only disappointment of the trip? We didn't get a good glimpse of the crater itself, thanks to our ever-present Washingtonian clouds. Ah well. We want to come back and do some hikes in the area anyway, and I'm sure we'll get another chance to see the top of the mountain.

If you want to see some really cool photos of Mt. St. Helens before and after the 1980 eruption, go here. It's crazy to compare the two photographs at the beginning of the slideshow - the mountain looked so different beforehand.

labor day 2010: mount rainier

We decided to take a relatively last-minute trip to visit Mount Rainier and Mt. St. Helens this past weekend. Although it was a little cold, we were lucky to have pretty good weather. This was such a fun trip that we've talked about making it a tradition each year - there are so many other trails and parts of the mountains (particularly Rainier) that we would love to explore.

We started our excursion by heading to Sunrise, which is the highest point that one can ascend Mt. Rainier by car. We picked this spot because there are several hikes in this area (see a list of day hikes at Mt. Rainier here).

Instead of doing one really long hike that day, we decided to do a sequence of short hikes. This picture is taken along the Nature Trail hike at Sunrise, which goes along Sourdough Ridge. This is a really easy hike and can be completed in 45 minutes - 1 hour.

After finishing that hike, we walked across the Sunrise trailhead to the Emmons Vista Overlook trail. This wasn't a very spectacular hike, but I did like seeing Secret Lake in the distance. This photo actually doesn't do justice to the coloring of the lake that day: it was a bright turquoise blue. I'd love to come back and do this hike another time.

As we left Sunrise, we got some great hiking advice from a ranger. J told her that we wanted to hike Silver Falls, and she recommended that we park just past the of the Stevens Canyon Entrance (the turnoff to Paradise, another popular Mt. Rainier area). She explained that from that parking lot there are two different trailheads, one to Silver Falls and the other to Grove of the Patriarchs. This isn't the typical way to hike Silver Falls (there is a much longer route described here), but I really recommend doing this hike if you have time constraints. It was easy to do Silver Falls, then backtrack to the parking lot, and begin a second hike to Grove of the Patriarchs. The two hikes are very different, and Grove of the Patriarchs is especially interesting and beautiful.

At the top of Silver Falls

Silver Falls


Grove of the Patriarchs is an area full of beautiful, ancient trees. There are interesting signs explaining the types of trees (as well as their history) along the trail.

Sam standing in a semi-hollow, fallen tree.

We stayed in Montlake that night, which is a little town between Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. This is the sign for the our motel. Don't be put-off by its dated appearance - the motel was quite clean and comfy, even though the air was a little stale.

We had our own little cottage for just $60. Not a bad deal, eh?

More weekend adventures to come. If you want a sneak peek, look here.

one of those weeks

It's been one of those weeks, my friends. I've felt really stressed out and anxious all week, and I know that a lot of it is because I've hardly had any adult interaction. Most of the friends who live nearby are out-of-town this week, and J has been working late (he's been gone about 12 hours each day), which means that I'm stuck with Sam all. day. long.

I've felt really whiny and opinionated lately, so I thought I'd give a smattering of the thoughts that are bouncing around my head this week:

• I don't understand the logic of mothers who choose to do housework or take a shower while their baby naps. (Maybe someone can explain the reasoning behind this?) Before Sam was born, the best advice I ever found was something to this effect: "Take care of all your chores, errands, duties while the baby is awake, so that naptime can be your own time." This advice saved me from insanity, especially when Sam was a newborn. I feel like if I only get two hours of free time each day, I'd like to spend it doing something interesting and rejuvenating.
• If you blog about a dense topic like art history, you need to keep your posts short and concise. No one wants to open up Google Reader and find that the equivalent of a book has been uploaded onto your site. Keep your posts to just a few paragraphs, so that the average reader (and even fellow art historians) will stay interested.
  
• I wish that I had a more organized life, so that I could do all of the things that I would like to do. I want to read more books, I want to practice singing, I want to have time to simply think and meditate during the day. I probably devote too much time to studying art history and prepping for my classes, but I feel like my time is so limited. It seems like if I'm not watching Sam, I'm either prepping for a class, squeezing in some time with J, or sleeping.
• I am still a working mother, even though I'm on summer break. Prepping for classes takes a lot of work, and I don't have time to do all the things that stay-at-home moms do. I wish I had more time to hang out.