Moab is perfect in April

I went to Moab this past weekend with Rachelle and Nathan (my sis and bro-in-law). We had a fabulous time - it was a perfect weather, not too hot, just a little breeze. It was actually a little cold on Friday.

We went to Arches one day. We hiked to Delicate Arch - a pretty hard hike but so worth the effort. It is an awe inspiring sight. It took us about 3 hours, but really we sat up there by the arch for almost an hour.

My favorite arch that we just discovered is Sand Dune Arch. It is a little, non-descript .2 mile hike, but such a hidden treasure. The hike is in between two giant walls of red rock, and as you go up the canyon, the ground turns to sand, until by the time you get to the arch, you are standing in a giant red sand sandbox of beautiful fine grain red sand. We spent another hour just sitting there, playing in the sand with our bare feet. It was the perfect thing to do after hiking to Delicate Arch - the cool sand felt really good on our tired and sore feet.
Our other activity of the weekend was Letterboxing. I think I've written about it before. I finally got my stamps carved about a week before this trip. I found a letterbox in West Jordan - my very first letterbox. I love it! Moab is saturated with letterboxes. We could have spent the entire time we were there looking for letterboxes. I tried not to be that annoying about it. We ended up finding 10 letterboxes. We searched for 2 others but didn't find them. So, we did spend a good deal of time on this, but the searches took us to some beautiful places. We found Moonflower Canyon up Kane Creek Rd because we were searching for a letterbox.
I think I even got Rachelle and Nathan a little bit intrigued by the activity. They were good sports and went along with my crazy ideas - I wasn't sure if they would like letterboxing or not.
Now I am wanting to go searching for them everywhere I go. There are some in Idaho Falls and Jackson that I want to look for. There are also quite a few in the Salt Lake area, so that will keep me busy for awhile.
This is a self portrait of the two of us at Double Arch. (Not sure that's the right name...)

I love exploring this world of ours. The southern Utah area is one of my favorite places to go. The red rocks are beautiful. We were discussing how it is a different kind of beautiful from the Wasatch Mountains, or the Tetons. But, I love both of them.

I am going to check on my 33 Things list soon. I think I have a few things I can already check off. Yea!

Someone does actually read this blog...

Ok, so I was feeling down about things when I posted the other day. I hate dealing with car problems...that's why I need a husband! But, several prople told me they actually read and care about what I write. So, I will continue. Sometimes I think I should make a schedule for myself, and do a creative post once a month, and a month in review post, and a weight loss post, etc. But, then i remember that I hate schedules. So, it is in the back of my head to do that, but I am not going to even say I will do it on any sort of schedule... whenever I feel like it...that's when things happen around here.

But, honestly, I think there is something weird and therapeutic about writing a blog, putting your thoughts and words out there into the universe for anyone to read. I admit, though, that I have written several posts in the last little while that have not been published. Just a little too personal.

So, I have been doing a lot of thinking, pondering, wondering about my life. I find it interesting how life changes. How my thinking changes. I have gone for many years, enjoying my life, feeling like things were going fairly well, feeling happy for the most part, content with what I was doing. I am not in that place anymore. I don't know why my mood has changed. Well, I could name of several things that I am sure have triggered some of this thinking, but I think it is just time for introspection on my part, to decide if I am on the path I want to be on, to contemplate my next steps, to see if there is anything I should be doing differently.

I hate the topic, but the economy is on my mind a lot. My job security has taken a hit, not that I am going to lose my job soon, but it is a worry. Other people have been let go, and it is being discussed among the managers in production if there needs to be more layoffs. Our work has slowed down considerably, and we are not seeing a huge pickup anytime soon. So, I think about it, wonder what is going to happen, stress myself out thinking about what I would do if it did happen, where I would work.

Of course, I would go work at Archivers. :) I loved working there. It was a very happy place for me. I felt confident and valued as a team member there. We always had a good time at work. I realized I really do like working in a retail store. I love seeing all the fun new products coming in, and I even learned to enjoy helping people figure out what they needed. (That was one thing I wasn't very good at, giving my opinion, offering suggestions to customers...)

I am off on a tangent.

I realized tonight that my confidence level in my job as a graphic designer is not the same as that confidence I felt at Archivers. I do not feel that same confidence at PDC. I know there are many factors involved in that thinking, but it is something I am trying to figure out, wondering how I can find that confidence again. Because, I used to have confidence in myself and my job. I thought I did a pretty darn good job at designing those phone books. And, honestly, I am not sure if it is something other people have said or done to make me feel this way, or if it is just me not feeling confident. Deep thinking, I know.

This is the kind of thing I have on my mind constantly now. My commute is good for this kind of thinking. Or maybe bad, because i have too much time to think. I need to come to some conclusions on some of these things, or at least answer some questions for myself, because i am sort of making myself crazy with all this in my head. I think it is just a time of growth and discovery for me. It is good. I am trying to embrace it and learn what I am supposed to be learning. And, if change is supposed to happen, I want to be ok with it. I stress out about changes when they first happen, but I have come to know and understand that it is usually for the best, and life always calms down again, and you get back into a routine, and it's all good.

I just hope that too much change doesn't happen all at once. I think my head might explode if that happens. One thing at a time, please.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to be a perfect writer, so don't judge me for bad grammar or bad sentence structure or things like that. Posts like this one are just me writing stream of conscious style, so it is a little disjointed sometimes. I hope it sort of makes sense. And if not, you are seeing into how my crazy random brain works. :) And, once again, no pictures. I'm still working on that.

Why do I even have a blog?

That is the question I ask myself sometimes. I am horrible at updating it, and frankly, when I do write, I don't have much to write about. I like posts that have pictures, but I haven't downloaded any pics for awhile, so you are going to get a post without any pictures. Sorry about it. It was either this or no post at all...

I got my tire fixed today. So, I am a girl, and I hate pretty much anything to do with taking care of a car. I can put gas in it, and I even get the oil changed when I'm supposed to, but it is definitely not my favorite activity. So, in my new car, there is a light for my tire pressure, and the light has been on for awhile. When it first came on, I checked the tire pressure myself, and put some air in. Light was still on. I looked at the tires, and they looked ok to me. So, I let it go for awhile. Then, I went to ID, so I went to Discount Tire before I drove up there, and they put air in all my tires. The light went off for a day. So, the light has been on for a few weeks again. I look at my tires almost every time I get in the car, they looked ok to me. Last night, my uncle came over to visit my grandpa, and he told me one of my tires looked low. Ok, so it's true. I need to do something about it. Ugh. I gave myself a pep talk, pretended to be Marsha, and went to Discount Tire this morning. I go in and tell the nice worker that I think I have a slow leak in my tire. He was very nice to me, but at that point he kind of gave me the, ok-you-are-a-girl-and-don't-really-know-what-you-are-doing look, and said, "Do you know which tire?" As he's asking, he looks out the window at my car in the parking lot. I said I thought it was the passenger rear tire, and he says, "Yea that one looks low." And, he and I were both right. I had a nail in the tire. They fixed it. Didn't charge me anything. The light went off, and has been off all day. Let's hope it stays off for awhile.

I know, that was a long story for a silly thing. But, as all of this happened, I was just thinking about how boys have a sense about stuff like air in tires. They can look at a tire from a long ways off and know if it is flat or not. So, I emailed my sister this morning and told her that. She wrote back and said that yes, that is true. But, girls have an inate sense, too. She said: But girls just have different senses. Like I can smell that Fred* is burning the rolls (almost everytime he bakes something), but do I tell him to take them out, or let him learn and let them burn? Tough call in life.

*names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Anyway, her response was just funny to me. Very true, but funny. Boys and girls have different talents. Like, my little brother was born with the ability to make every kind of car noise imaginable. I was not born with that ability. But, I'm sure there is something I can do that he can't.

So, that was the excitement of the day.

I have a long commute these days, which really isn't bad. I don't mind driving. Especially in my new car with a brand new nail-free tire. I think a lot on my commute. I listen to good music. (My current cd is Ryan Shupe's newest, "Last Man Standing" I believe is the name of the cd. My favorite song is "10,000 Lakes". So good!) I pray sometimes. Today I was thinking that if there was a way a could dictate blog posts while I was driving, I would probably post every day. I think up some good things to write about on my drive. The problem is remembering them after I get home. I'm still working on that.

A few things I'm looking forward to:
• weigh in tomorrow, I think I'm going to do pretty good this week. hopefully...
• Moab in a week with my sis and her hubby. Love Moab! Love the Moab Diner, been dreaming about going back to that place for years. Love Arches. Love the red rock everywhere.
• spring, warm weather, wearing flip flops and capris - getting rid of my winter wardrobe
• Cafe Rio tomorrow for lunch
• bike ride in Grand Teton National Park with my dad, fulfilling one of the things on my list for this year.
• meeting my newest niece, Capri, when she makes her appearance sometime in late May/early June
• sleeping good tonight. Which means I need to get off the computer and head that way soon.