Headaches Are Made Of This

It's the good wife's 30th at the end of this month. So I was thinking I should organise a party.

Then I realised I'd never organised a party before.

Shit!

Nevermind I set forth with my planning.

Should be fairly simply to inform everyone of date, place, etc I thought.

Then I remembered we lived in a canyon with poor cell coverage.

Shit, Again.

Then I realised that every party needs a game. Preferably something frivolous, silly and with little point.

Bugger

I settled on a mass game of Subbuteo between the invited guests thinking that a knockout game would involve a few laughs but then I remembered that this party is going to consist largely of latinos and latinas, a combustible prospect at the best of times but factor in the fact that the only 2 guests who might enjoy such a game (the father and step father) don't exactly like spending time with one another and its probably not exactly going to be a great success.

This might be the only party I ever arrange.

I should probably just hope that the subbuteo gear doesn't turn up on time. Or that noone gets the invites.

Its probably just as well I wasn't in charge of our wedding.

This Is The Life!

Its been a while, almost 5 weeks since we moved. We had been looking for a new place to rent for a few months. Without having much luck. For various reasons none of the places that we were looking at felt right.

Then for some peculiar reason I decided to look outwith our agreed ideal areas. I came across one property that just seemed to suit our lifestyle. But it was right at the upper echelons of what we wanted to pay for a rented property, and it wasn't just outwith the areas that we were previously looking at, but way out, neither me, nor the wife had much hope that we had found the place to move to. Until we got there.

The drive into Emigration Canyon, with the wooded hillsides and narrow twisting roads is seriously beautiful. When we arrived at the property I think its safe to say that we both fell in love with the place. It had everything that we wanted and more, we had been expecting to have to make some compromises here and there, but then we found everything that we wanted in the one place. In it we found a decent sized kitchen, which as we are both foodies that was important to us. A spacious living room area in which we could entertain the wife's family and friends. Ceiling fans to make those hot August Utah nights comfortable. A wood burning fire to make those long months of winter cosy. A garden to call our own, one where we can grow our own potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, etc and yet more space to entertain in. A safe place for the kids to play, no traffic to worry about unless you include the cyclists that like use the canyon as their playground.

It even came with its own bomb shelter in case Al Qaeda took a dislike to the Mormons of Utah.

A 10 minute viewing and we were ready to sign up there and then. Unfortunately there were a lot of people interested in the property and so we had a one to two week wait where we dared not dream that we could get it, and yet were were sick to the stomach in case we didn't. Fortunately, here we are 6 weeks later, living the dream.

In the summer it feels like 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than elsewhere in the city, and for someone who comes from my part of the world that makes a world of difference. Its so peaceful and quiet and unlike the rest of the city that its a joy to come home from work. We finally have that place that we can be proud of, I love hearing my father in law say "I freakin' love this place", he's been here 3 weekends already despite the fact it takes him over an hour to get here.

I would go outside and take a picture of the paradise that we live in but its raining. I'm telling you, its just like home!

So here's one from 15 minutes down the road, taken a few weeks ago.

Pigeons & Rock Don't Mix

If you were reading nowriterjustanoverthinker at the tail end of last year you may remember that I made a list of positive resolutions that we had to work our way through for the year, well finally we are finding the time to do just that. We have also invested in bikes for each of us which was not part of the list.

Since then we have bought tickets to go see Bell X1 in San Francisco, which helps us to tick off two items on the list in October. Last Monday we got around to seeing our first gig of the year at the USANA ampitheatre in Salt Lake, a great venue for a hot summers night, and a great band in Kings of Leon. Thankfully they stayed the course and somechileanwoman and I had a good time. I didn't realise how lucky we were until I read the bbc news site yesterday that the Kings were forced to abandon another gig in St Louis due to pigeon poop.

Sometimes I forget....

....That I'm the foreigner. It must be the sun it does funny things to my brain.

Its funny little things that remind me I'm not in Scotland any longer.

Like when its 84 degrees outside at 9:23 in the morning and the kids are saying "I'm cold!"

I'm already cursing how hot its going to be and how much I'm going to suffer and they are putting on another layer of clothes - what the freak!

Its been so long I forgot how to write

Since the time when the snow stopped falling, work has been good. Far busier than I dared hope for. It hasn't allowed much in the way of family time, watching the world cup, or blog writing but it has allowed for family piece of mind time.

As good as that feels its feels good to have a day off from working. Scottish people probably shouldn't work in the desert we just aren't designed for it. Much like the worms in these parts that spend a couple of minutes above ground I pretty much suffer in anything above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, thankfully I can get by with the little help from diet coke (sadly there are no 750ml glass bottles of Irn Bru available here), and lots of sun tan lotion.

The worms here aren't so lucky. In sympathy I spend a lot of time reburying any worms that I accidentally dig up, back in the home country I wouldn't bother its wet enough, and cold enough, that the worms could last for hours on the surface of the soil but here they die quicker than the Robins can catch them.

Well most of the time.

One thing I have been enjoying while working outside here is the different varieties of wildlife. I would never have seen a hummingbird back home, nor dragonflies as big or watch my wife scare the crap out of some quails. Unfortunately I've never had the camera on hand to photograph the quails or the hummingbirds I have seen this summer, I am getting paid to work after all, but I have captured some of the slower moving wildlife.

It's Not So Shite Being Scottish

Scotland might not have been invited to the party (again) but at least we don't have to listen to those vuvuzela horns.

Not that I have seen many games myself (be careful what you wish for working 50 - 60 hours leaves little time for blogging or watching the fitba). Although I have managed to record every one of them on the dvr I have only had the time to watch just two games thus far.

England and the USA game was even more boring than I had predicted. Too much hype and not enough desire by either team to win. In contrast the Chilean - Honduras game was much more interesting. Chile having enough chances to score 5 or 6 goals but were as inept at putting them away as any Scottish World Cup side. Looks like I married into the right nationality.