Tracie's World

Well, it's that time of year again - the weather is getting cooler, and the summer veggies are starting to slow down. So yesterday I pulled up my fading tomato and cucumber plants, as well as the last remnants of my basil. In their place, are a couple of varieties of onion - your basic yellow and green.  Supposedly they will keep growing all throughout fall and winter, and by spring, I should have a nice bunch of onions. Next week, the remaining peppers that never changed color will get the same treatment. Out they will come, and in their place will go a bunch of garlic.  I've never planted in fall before, so this is a bit of an experiment. But I use onion and garlic in pretty much everything I cook, so I'm crossing my fingers that everything will survive the winter. Hopefully, come spring, I'll have a good variety of both onion and garlic for stir frying, as well as to add a savory aroma to my balcony.

A friend of mine had a birthday this week, and as is our custom, we planned an evening for her. She is a huge Glenn Beck fan, and the thing she most wanted to do to celebrate was to go see a movie he did called "Unelectable 2012".  I'm pretty unpolitical anymore, so this isn't something that would really be my cup of tea. But that's what she wanted to do, so there you have it. We arrived at the theater, and went to purchase our tickets, expecting it to be the price of a normal movie. WRONG.  Since it was a special event and all, we got to be ranted at for the not-so-small price of $19 - PER PERSON! Ouch! Strike 1. We entered the theater to see that we had added to the crowd of maybe 6 other people, which made for a grand total of 9 of us. Now I know why it cost so much. You have to charge extra when no one wants to see your movie. Strike 2. The movie itself is basically a recording of his traveling roadshow.  He has a few partners in crime who join hi...

I've been hearing a lot the last year or two about a concept called Bountiful Baskets.  It's a food co-op, where you go to their website to put in your order, make your purchase, and then they go with everyone's contributions to purchase produce. At a given time each week, you go to pick up your order, which is mostly produce.  The idea is that you'll pay less for your produce, get to try things you normally wouldn't (because you never know what you're going to get beforehand), and eat healthier.  My sister-in-law has been doing it for awhile and highly recommended it. I tried it for the first time this week and early this morning I went and picked up my order. This is the result: For the record, what you see before you is 1 seedless watermelon, 1 honeydew melon, 5 apples, 2 avocados, 3 tomatoes, 3 heads of broccoli, 1 pound of strawberries, more pounds of bananas than I know what to do with, 1 head of romaine lettuce, 1 bunch of collard greens, a...

Yesterday Angel and I made our annual trek up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Snowbird for Oktoberfest.  Not only was it a chance to go a little crazy with Bratwurst, sauerkraut, and polka music, but it was a chance to see the fall colors, and I have to say, the day did not disappoint.  The color was magnificent, and the bratwurst was awesome. (The food menu - we settled on bratwurst, sauerkraut, and warm potato salad, washed down with a can of diet pepsi.) (Some of the entertainment, a group called Alpenfolk - they led us in several different polkas, an Edelweiss sing-along, and a rousing rendition of The Funky Chicken - which I of course had to get up and participate in). After lunch, we purchased tickets for the Tram, that goes to the top of the mountain. What with my issues with heights and vertigo, it's not what I call an enjoyable ride. But I do ok as long as I keep my eyes closed, or focused straight ahead. But it's pretty awe-inspiring once you...

So I started out 2012 with just a couple of goals, both of which were around improving my physical health.  After that, I kind of forgot about adding to my list, and it's only been in the last few weeks that I have taken the time to kind of add to them. Inspired by the Relief Society Pursuit of Excellence program, one of the goals I have added was to develop some skill in another language.  And I've been trying to figure out which language I should focus on.  Years ago in college, I studied German, and even though I enjoyed it, I never stuck with it.  And now that so much of business is conducted in Spanish and Chinese, I was thinking that maybe it's time I did something different. So with this goal in mind and trying to decide on a language, I had an "aha" moment while I was watching "The Sound of Music" last night. Back in college, one of the things we did was learn some songs in German, as it was supposed to be a way to get you comfortable u...

Friday evening, in celebration of the Blue Moon, Holladay hosted a "Blue Moon Festival" at the Holladay town plaza.  My friend Stephanie works for the City, so she and I, along with her two girls, walked down to check it out.  It was my first time getting out to a Holladay City function, and it was a great evening.  It sounds like this was a first of it's kind event, and Holladay pulled it off nicely, despite a little controversy over having a beer garden.  There were more people there than expected, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.  There were booths of artwork, jewelry, music, and fun things for the kids to do - art projects, and a build-your-own jump rope booth.  Of course the girls needed to get one of those!   We walked around for awhile, and then walked across the street to what is likely to be my new addiction - Top It Frozen Yogurt.  It's one of those places where you pour yourself your own soft-serve yogurt, pi...