Friday, July 26, 2013

A Birthday, more salt, job search and a Nevada Taco Truck

Lets start with some good news (not that there is any bad news, really.)

On Sunday night I'll be going in for a training so that I can start as a wellness screener at health clinics.  The hourly pay is very good, and I am scheduled M-F next week.  The work won't be consistent, but I'm happy to have something while I look for permanent positions.

Last weekend (my birthday weekend) we drove to Stansbury Island in search of petroglyphs.  We couldn't find them.  This marks the second time in my life in which a petroglyph search yielded no return (see Panama 2012).  

Since we were half way to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Wendover, Utah, we decided to go.  They were pretty neat, and we were able to take our shoes off and walk in the salt (which was under about 3 inches of water.)  We took a few pictures and headed back to the car (it was pretty hot, with no shade).  

Since we were right on the Nevada border we decided to drive across.  We immediately saw a casino, liquor store, and XXX lingerie store.  Luckily there was a taco truck in the parking lot of said underwear store, so we each had two before heading back to Salt Lake.

The following day we drove up to Park City to have a look at their Sunday Market.  We bought 2 iced coffees while we walked and an avocado-pistacio popsicle.  It was pretty good.

We then drove to Kamas, ate lunch at a little diner, then walked around Mirror Lake.  It was a nice day. (any time a hike is not "uphill", I typically have a good time ;)

The birds have been plowing through the seed in the feeder like its going out of style.  Every so often I'll skip a day of filling it, but I always feel bad when I see them looking for the seed.  

Ryan is taking is ACLS test right now, he studied a lot last night.  While he studied I made our favorite soup...Rachel Ray's Corn and Salsa Tortilla Soup.  We make it every summer and it never disappoints.  

And thats about all thats new so far!  Ill be coming back to Canfield the first week of September to celebrate my Grandparents' 60th Wedding Anniversary.  Looking forward to it!

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Salt Lake so far

We've been in Salt Lake a good three weeks now.  We were fortunate to have a solid week before Ryan had to start his residency.

We've done quite a bit outdoors despite the triple-digit temperatures we had for a while.  We've enjoyed  some moose-spotting near Silver Lake.  We hiked to Grandeur peak among others.  The wildflowers are really something in the mountains.

My loyalty card to City Cakes (a vegan bakery with lots of gluten-free stuff) is almost full already!  

Our flowers and oregano are surviving pretty well on our little balcony.  A heavy rain did, however, knock a bunch of petals off of the geranium.

Birds have enjoyed stuffing their faces into our bird feeder and flinging seed absolutely everywhere.  We rectified this by getting a bracket at home depot and hanging the feeder about a foot out from the balcony.

The balcony has been really nice for breakfast.  We promised ourselves that we would use it - nice 2 apartments ago we had a balcony and only went out there to cut Ryan's hair.  Now we eat breakfast out there and have had a dinner out there as well (you were right mom, its nice not to be facing traffic).

I applied to several jobs, and I should have by Utah nursing license by the end of the day.

I've been learning my way around little by little while Ryan is at work.  There is a mexican grocery store here that I really like, Smith's and Ream's have been pretty good for basics, and Whole Foods is very close.  Got the library down the street, and Sports Mall (a gym I joined) has some really good group fitness classes.

I had an interview with a homecare company a couple days ago, so I'll call them today to follow up.  Seemed like they were going to take me on.

Ryan's been enjoying his residency.  Some of the days are a little long, but we knew they would be.  He spent 4th of July weekend on call, and had to go in a few times, but at lease he isn't on call for Christmas or Thanksgiving.

Thats all for now - I know this post a is a little scattered.  Looking forward to my friend Stef visiting this week.  I'll blog more after that.  :)