Update Your Damn Blog

Picture of the Day for 5/31/2015. I've been having a hard time keeping up with my blog with my busy work schedule. Apparently, this has not gone unnoticed. My niece Lisa sent me a very pointed message the other day. Guess I need to update my damn blog!

Star Wars Poster

Picture of the Day for 5/30/2015. Oh my nerdy "child of the 1970s" self was so happy to see a poster in a movie theater tonight for the new Star Wars movie.

Revived Plant

Picture of the Day for 5/29/2015. Uh oh. I left the tomato plant I received at church on Mother's Day outside and kind of forgot it. I figured it was OK since it's been raining almost every day this month. When I remembered to check on it, I was distressed to see that it was definitely not OK. It was dried out and the leaves and stems were brittle. I doused it with water and was surprised the next day to find it had completely recovered! Yay! I can actually be a caretaker of a living thing. Not a great caretaker, but a caretaker nonetheless.

Inside-Out Shirts

Picture of the Day for 5/28/2015. At family lunch today, my sister Robynne pointed out to our sister Paula that her shirt was on inside-out. 

Paula observed to Robynne that her shirt was inside-out too. Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot.

What are the odds?! I looked at my shirt to make sure it wasn't on inside-out as well as it appeared some mysterious inside-out shirt condition was afflicting the Merrill sisters.

Robynne and Paula walked off to the mall restroom to fix their shirts.

Home Turf

Picture of the Day for 5/27/2015. A couple of red robins have decided to call my front yard home. They make me happy whenever I see them.

Blimp Hangar

Picture of the Day for 5/26/2015. This is a hangar that used to house blimps in the now defunct Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, California. The perspective in this picture doesn't do the structure justice- it's massive. Check out this link for some interesting history/pictures. A work colleague and I drove past this on our way back to the office after a client meeting.

Memorial Day in Long Beach, California

Picture of the Day for 5/25/2015. I actually kinda/sorta ended up doing something veteran-related as one should on Memorial Day. I visited the Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier in Long Beach, California. It was short on both veterans and memorials, but it was full of people out and about enjoying the holiday.

The pier is right across the harbor from the Queen Mary.

And this was my view from the restaurant where I had lunch. Not a bad way to spend the holiday.

Memorial Day Attire

Picture of the Day for 5/24/2015. I went with my sister and her family to decorate graves today- the day before Memorial Day I must have missed the memo that said the girls in the family were supposed to wear white pants!

1920s Dress Card Sample

Picture of the Day for 5/23/2015. I've been meaning to blog about this item for a few months now. It's a dress card sample from the 1920s that I picked up at one of my favorite vintage stores. From what I can glean, the cards would be used by door-to-door salesmen or be available at store counters. The cards would come with fabric swatches, provide an illustration of the dress, list the sizes, and list the payment method.

The flapper girl dress in this sample cost $3.95 total. You would pay the representative $0.75 up front and then pay the postman the remaining balance upon delivery. I guess this was the old-fashioned version of not trying something on in the dressing room before buying it.

As I was Googling this item, I was surprised to find this practice continued well into the 1960s. I didn't see anything from 1970 and beyond, but I didn't dig too deep into the topic.

Get Hair Dyed; Buy Rocks

Picture of the Day for 5/22/2015. So, I doubt most people's "to do" lists don't look like this:

1- Get hair dyed

2- Buy rocks

The only reason my to-do list looks like this is because I head on over to the New Age shop right next to my salon right after getting my hair done. The store is filled with stones and crystals with supposedly healing properties.

The brightly-colored stones and crystals are eye candy to be sure and I usually buy a couple. Or a few. Today's purchases included:

1. Siberian Jade

2. Bloodstone

3. Hematite

4. Carnelian

5. Chrysocolla

One Thing Leads to Another

Picture of the Day for 5/21/2015. These were my two purchases at the grocery store today. These two items may seem completely unrelated, but that's not the case because...

one thing...

...leads to another.

Gnome Painting

Picture of the Day for 5/20/2015. My niece Lisa painted this gnome picture for her gnome-obsessed mother for Mother's Day. Lisa's "starting to be gnome-obsessed" auntie is kind of jealous...

10,000 Steps

Picture of the Day for 5/19/2015. One popular fitness trend is to try to get in a minimum of 10,000 steps per day. That is so very hard to do when you have a job that keeps you tied to your desk. I bought a pedometer and I'm giving it a try, despite my rather sedentary work environment. I actually made 10,000 steps today!

Stormy, Stormy, Stormy Weather

Picture of the Day for 5/18/2015. Mother Nature seems to be operating on my timetable which is "oh crap, I need to get around to this task I've been putting off for months." We didn't get much snow at all this winter so Mother Nature appears to be making up for lost time by making it rain incessantly. I don't recall a May like this ever in Salt Lake City. This was the dark and foreboding view out my window at work today as a storm passed through.

Festive Excercise Attire

Picture of the Day for 5/17/20015. This is what I wore to the gym today- a Christmas t-shirt. I wore it without the least bit of discomfort or embarrassment, a clear sign I'm middle-aged and don't care in the slightest about what people think of me, at least when it comes to exercise attire.

Whale Obsession

Picture of the Day for 5/16/2015. I was at TJ Maxx today and noticed these whale Thank You cards. I had to buy some.

Then I thought, they are so cute why not buy two boxes since the price is so good.

Then I noticed the whale journal. So cute. Had to have it.

Then I noticed the other whale journal that was slightly different from the other one. So cute. Had to have it.

Then I noticed the whale file folders. So cute. Had to have them.

Then I noticed the whale clipboard. So cute. Had to have it. 

So yeah, I'm pretty well stocked up on whale office supplies for awhile.

Framed Picture

Picture of the Day for 5/15/2015. I picked up my lithograph from the frame shop today. It came out gorgeous! Now, to figure out where to hang it...

Weight Watchers

Picture of the Day for 5/14/2015. I decided I want to finally tackle those 30 pounds I've gained over the past 2-3 years so I joined Weight Watchers today. We'll see how it goes.

Smiling Dad

Picture of the Day for 513/2015. My brother-in-law Will brought out some pictures of my nephew Rob when he was a little boy in the mid-1990s. I loved this candid shot of my dad holding Rob and the smile on his face. My dad was a very congenial man, but you would never catch him smiling when he posed for a photograph.

Missing Work Meetings

Picture of the Day for 5/12/2015. I love working from home for the most part. One of the pitfalls is that all of my meetings are conference calls. There's no physical meeting room so I just work at my computer until it's time to log in. I get so wrapped up in my work that I tend to dial in late. I've now resorted to setting online alarms. I love www.kukuklok.com which mimics a rooster crowing. It certainly gets my attention. 

Mystery Tree

Picture of the Day for 5/11/2015. When I was taking pictures of the large pine tree in my front/side yard for a recent blog entry, I noticed there's a pretty good-sized sapling growing underneath the pine tree canopy. Hmm. Wonder how that happened and what kind of tree it is.

Mother's Day Meltdown

Picture of the Day for 5/10/2015. I had my first-ever flaming Mother's Day meltdown. We were gathered at my sister Robynne's house and something set me off (long story- I won't go into it here) and I retreated into Robynne's office to cry. Sadly, I couldn't stop crying for two hours even though I really wanted to stop. It's a wretched holiday. I'm not a mother and never will be. It is one of the major disappointments of my life that I just have to compartmentalize and tuck away in a back corner of my mind. Robynne's office is filled with mother figurines and mother storyteller dolls and the irony of the fact that's where I retreated to escape the Mother's Day festivities did not escape me.

Smiling at the Monster

Picture of the Day for 5/9/2015. Here is baby Hazel being held by her uncle Ian in a gift shop at the Little America hotel where we had just met for breakfast. In this picture Hazel's mother Michelle is presenting a monster doll with crazy green hair to Hazel which made her break out in a huge grin. The monster doll with crazy green hair was promptly purchased.

Waiter Photo Bomb

Picture of the Day for 5/8/2015. The family went out to dinner tonight and right at the exact moment I was snapping a picture of baby Hazel the waiter reached out his arm to hand someone at the table their ticket. Perfect timing. He felt so bad, but it cracked me up. On a side note- Hazel is NOT a demon baby despite her glowing red eyes in this picture.

Surprise Baby!

Picture of the Day for 5/7/2015. My niece Michelle made a surprise visit to Utah. She and baby Hazel were waiting for us at the mall for family lunch. Yay for surprise baby visits!

Glowing Sunbeam / Alien Death Ray

Picture of the Day for 5/6/2015. As I was driving tonight, I noticed this sunbeam that was glowing so brightly it was striking. It kind of looked like a ray of light beaming down from an alien spacecraft. Not that I have firsthand knowledge of that... 

Sadly, this picture doesn't do justice to this (the sunbeam, not the alien death ray). 

I'm 38

Picture of the Day for 5/5/2015. The latest trend on Facebook is to post your "how old?" picture from the how-old.net website. You load a picture and their software analyzes your picture and guesses if your are male/female and how old you are. I got 38! I'll totally take that guess.

Gnome Terror

Picture of the Day for 5/4/2015. Some people should not be allowed to own naked gnomes (ahem, my sister Robynne). She's allowing her naked gnome to terrorize the residents of what looks to be a tiny mountain chalet.

Loud Pinecones

Picture of the Day for 5/3/2015. It's pinecone season and since I have a large pine tree in my front/side yard, that means the pinecones are falling from the tree almost nonstop. For such lightweight objects, they make a huge racket when they fall- to the point it sounds like there are intruders in my yard. Scares me every single time I'm coming home late after dark.

Taking Action

Picture of the Day for 5/2/2015. I actually took the lithograph I purchased from the art estate sale I attended last month into the frame shop today. One month between purchase and framing is lightening speed for me. I used to work in a frame shop in my 20s and I love the whole process of taking a "blank canvas" so to speak (pun intended) and experimenting with various combinations of mats and frames until you get it just right. 

Sunset Over the Great Salt Lake

Picture of the Day for 5/1/2015. I flew home today from a business meeting in California. The sun was setting over the Great Salt Lake and it was pretty spectacular. The lake was bright red and orange. Unfortunately, the picture doesn't do the scene justice.