Tracie's World

It's well-known to those that are acquainted with us, that the Edwards family loves to sing together.  You could say that we come by this naturally - Mom and Dad met in college choir, and the rest is history.  All growing up, we did musical numbers in church, sang in school choirs, and on every family trip, you could bet on there being a version of "White Coral Bells" sung in a round.  We can't help it, we just love to sing. I for one have always felt that it went a lot deeper than just singing as a family. More like a love of singing was deep in my DNA.  The Edwards surname originated along the border of England and Wales, and it's also well-known that the people of Wales love to sing.  So although I have no historical proof, my own feeling has always been that it's the Welsh in me.  And that singing is something that stays with a  person of Welsh ancestry, no matter the years or the miles removed from Wales. This was kind of confirmed for me ...

I've been remiss in not mentioning how my garden is doing lately, so I thought I should give a quick shout out and share a couple of photos.  First, my garden is doing, as they say, "absolutely mahvelous".  My two cherry tomato plants have grown so tall that they are now scraping the top of the balcony and bending over.  My cucumber plant has taken over and crept and clung to over half of the railing.  My pepper plants must be close to 4 feet high (no pepper nubs yet, but I keep hoping), my strawberry plant is lush and gorgeous, and my basil has already supplied me with a batch of basil-walnut pesto. This weekend, I even harvested some cucumbers and some tomatoes, and I'm expecting many more of each.  Bring it on!

So a couple of weeks ago, Inge was telling one of the "upstanding" guys in her ward about the Triple D Divas.  His comment back to her was along the lines of "How could Tracie be in the group? She can't be more than a C cup."  At first glance, this could be somewhat humorous.  But I find I've actually been quite irritated by it.  For one thing, it shows that he has a dirty mind (no, that is not what the Triple D Divas stands for, as anyone who watches "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" or reads my blog with regularity knows), and for another, it shows how shallow he is, and why he has not moved ahead in his life.  There are plenty of wonderful and virtuous single women around, but he can't see it because he's only looking for the shallow things that won't keep a relationship going.  (If I were being snarky, I'd have to mention that he's at least a B cup himself, so he's nothing to sneeze at.) Contrast that with an experience...

For several weeks this summer, I had my own bed and breakfast going.  Or, as my sister refers to it - The "Holladay" Inn.  First to arrive was my sister Wendie and her family who came and stayed for a couple of days in mid-June on their way home to Oregon.  The week after that, it was my brother Todd and his family from Tucson.  The week after that, it was my sister Stephanie and her family, on their way to their new home in Houston.  And a few days after that, it was Mom and Dad, on their way to the MTC and their mission in Mississippi. For the most part, a great time was had by all.  There were a couple of instances of sick kiddoes during the night, but other than that, we kept busy and enjoyed ourselves.  The best part was getting to see so many of my nieces and nephews and have some quality Auntie time with them. Should your travel plans bring you to the Salt Lake area, here's a list of amenities you'll find at Tracie's Holladay Inn: A s...

It's hard to imagine, but it seems my bird woman efforts have possibly been a little to successful.  Because it seems that birds are what you could call "sloppy". Kind of a like a college student's apartment.  They also like to invite their friends, and then fight over the fixins.  Even though it's been fun observing my little guests, it hasn't been so much fun for my geranium plant, which is covered in bird seed.  And it hasn't been so fun sweeping the balcony twice a day. They've also started getting a little daring and coming right up on the balcony.  So I think the bird feeder will be coming down for now, til I can find a better way to manage it. In the meantime, I checked out the Birds of North America website, to see if I could figure out the different varieties that were visiting.  And as near as I can tell, here's who's been in the neighborhood, with a few photos from the website. American Tree Sparrow Black Capped Ch...

So for the last few months, my folks have been working on getting ready to go on a mission.  Their paperwork was finally submitted the first or second week of May, and then it was time to play the waiting game.  We figured it would take about 3 weeks for them to get their call back and find out where they were going. About the third week, I had a bit of an unexpected trip come up to Atlanta.  And the day the call finally arrived, I was on my way home. So I was in the air and incommunicado when they finally opened it.  As soon as my plane landed in Salt Lake, I sent a text to let them know I was on the ground, and moments later got the good news back from my brother.  They had been called to serve in the Mississippi Jackson mission.  I was stunned.  I made him message me again, just to make sure he wasn't pulling my leg (which both my brothers like to do with me). He replied back that yes, it was true. Now, the reason for my initial reaction is...

After an early round of Golf yesterday morning (hooray for golfing weather!), I met up with Inge to go to the 35th Annual Asian Festival.  Basically an event for all the Asian nations represented here in the valley to come together, and showcase their cultures.  There were cultural booths, dancing, and a market, not to mention some absolutely fabulous food. Since I'd missed lunch, I was kind of a starvin' marvin. So we started off browsing the food booths.  We decide to split a plate of Mongolian fried meat dumplings (which looked more like a turnover), but was delicious. We also tried some sticky rice with Mango and coconut milk, which is a yummy Thai dessert.  Of course, as hungry as I was, I just dove right in and neglected to take a picture. But here's a close approximation. Just picture it with a little soy sauce sprinkled over it, and you'll get the idea. After filling me up, we walked around and looked at the various booths, and did a little sho...