Monthly Archives: April 2012

My Current Projects: goals and progress

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Today I want to check the top priority projects now on my plate, report the progress I made last week and make goals about what I want to do in the coming week.

In the Navy – Key West Chapter: project about my dad’s 20 years in the U.S. Navy. The priority is the chapter on Key West so he can pass it on to the Under Water Swimmer School website to include in their history page.

Due Date: asap

  • Listen to audio tape & transcribe
  • Gather photos and documents

I didn’t get anything done on this last week.

Journal for Martin’s Cove Reunion: a half sheet size journal to help make the trek experience at Martin’s Cove more meaningful. Have time line of handcart company with info about Mary Taylor and her family along with space for journaling and possible adding photos or sketches.

Due Date: July 2012

  • Template and master pages
  • Time Line
  • Quotes from Journals etc.
  • Decide on Binding
  • Logo for Reunion

No progress to report from last week.

Mary: a small (7×7) book about Mary Taylor’s childhood and her journey to the Salt Lake Valley with the Martin Handcart Company for children under 12 to learn about their pioneer ancestor.

Due Date: flexible – would love to have at least a draft for July Reunion

  • Decide on number of pages
  • Flesh out outline

Last week I:

  • Check with Kim on illustrations (I saw her first illustration and it is wonderful!)
  • Get outline from Eric (Kim & I worked on Eric’s outline to combine somethings together)

Goals for this week:

Though I should probably work on “Key West” first, I’d like to get the illustration set for “Mary” so Kim can move forward on them as fast as she would like. And by working on the time line for the “Martin’s Cove” book that will help me to solidify the outline for “Mary.” So my goals are:

  1. Time Line of Mary Taylor’s Journey
  2. Decide number of pages and the illustrations for “Mary”
  3. Start transcribing “Key West”

I’ll report back next Monday on how I did. Do you have any projects in the works? I’d love to hear about them.

Puppy Sitting Pierre

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Yakira and Pierre playing with the jolly ball in our backyard

We have had another puppy in training here since Friday, March 30th. Pierre will turn one year old on the 14th. He has been a very good boy and Yakira has loved having him here. The only challenge is that Yakira wants to play and Pierre is easily tempted. So we had to keep them separated much of the time. They got to play in the backyard most days plus a couple of romps in the house but it wasn’t as much as they wanted. The first couple of nights they had to sleep on tie down to prevent them from playing all night long. Then we tried just pretending to hook them up at night. Finally they just put them selves to bed. It helped when we didn’t tolerate any playing in the bedroom. On Pierre’s last night here the slept the night on the same bed. It was so cute! Today when his family came to get him, Pierre was so excited. He couldn’t calm himself enough to respond to a sit command. It reminded me of how our pups are when we see them at graduation after having been apart for several months. I expect to see Pierre graduating as a guide dog or a breeder before the end of the year.

Yakira and Pierre snuggled together on Yakira's bed

50 for 50 #15 – Passover

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my attempt at seder

Last night I tried to put together a Seder meal for Passover. I did some research on the internet and checked out a book and video from the library. It was overwhelming trying to understand all the parts and pieces of the Passover. There are two reasons I decided to do this for my 50 for 50 this week. First when we lived in Seattle there were a couple of Jewish girls that I remember. Second I wanted to learn more about the passover and how the Jews commemorate this time.

The book I got from the library, “Telling the Story: a Passover Haggadah Explained” seemed very long so when I came across a simplified and modified version of the Seder meal I decided to follow it. It was much easier to make sure I had everything in place that it was much shorter. But I think that I will take the time over the next few days to go ahead and read the book. It will be interesting to compare them. From my research on the internet I used celery instead of parsley. I don’t much like eating parsley on its own. I made the matzah and Charoset from scratch with recipes I found on Allrecipes.com.

I didn’t enjoy the video I got from the library”Chanukah & Passover at Bubbe’s“. It was definitely designed for kids but I expected to like it anyway. When I looked at the reviews on Amazon most people think it is great. Only one reviewer agreed with me.

In retrospect I would recommend finding someone who knows what they are doing and join them for the Passover instead of trying to do it yourself. Still I’m glad I did it. It was interesting and educational. If I every get an opportunity to attend Passover I will certainly take it. Have you ever participated in Passover Seder? I’d love to hear about your experience.

An Afternoon at City Creek Center

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The opportunity came up to see the new City Creek Center in downtown Salt Lake City today. So I packed up the pups, (we are puppy sitting Pierre this week) and picked up my friend, Lisa and her niece, Jessica. Lisa is an official puppy sitter for Guide Dogs for the Blind and so she can work with these puppies in training. Otherwise I would have had to leave one of the puppies home.

City Creek Center is an amazing place with lots of wonderful stores and so many people there today enjoying the spring weather. They had the retractable roof open. I’m really impressed with the design of the place. We didn’t go everywhere. We spent all our time on the upper level so I’m sure I’ll have to go back again in the near future and take a look at the creek that runs through the center. Both Yakira and Pierre did perfectly. They had lots of opportunities to meet all kinds of people and go in all kinds of stores. For the most part we resisted buying anything. Except I picked up a fun sweater at Macy’s for $13. Yakira got tired of going into stores near the end and wanted to stay outside in the sunshine.