Cooking Class

For Alicia's birthday I signed us up for a cooking class at Gygi to make French Macaroons! It was so much fun! I haven't taken a cooking class since I was in 7th grade. Even then we were making stuff like lumberjack casserole. Strange though that in that class I won first place for my bread and then failed miserably with my pie. It's been backwards ever since. Anyways, we made French Macaroons, possibly one of my most favorite cookies ever. They are so amazing. They change my life every time I bite into one. Partly because they cost somewhere around 2-3 dollars each from a fancy bakery and partly because they have the most incredibly crunchy crumbly texture with a mouth watering chewy center that you can't find in anything else no matter how hard to try. There's some mystique about making them and little tricks and such to make them turn out just right so the class was fantastic. We got to make the Strawberry Lemon flavored ones and I must say, I think ours were the best. It was fun being in that big kitchen too. I've been dreaming of that oven and Kitchen Aid mixer ever since. We all got to share the results and take them home. Macaroons are so expensive that I think the class paid for itself in the amount of cookies I came home with. Alicia took some better pictures of the finished product and put up the recipes on her food blog here. I devoured them all and left the next morning for a week in the Tetons.

A check off the bucket list

What did you want to be when you grew up?

This is one of my favorite questions ever. I love asking it to people and is one of my standard first date get to know you questions (along with how do you like your steaks cooked.) I love the answers and think it says a lot about someone in what they wanted and how it compares to where they're at now. My answer would have been a science teacher…hey that still is the answer. I never really waivered, I'm fairly reliable when it comes to stuff like that. I know what I want. But that doesn't mean I will say what I want. I had lots of other answers when people asked me that question, just to spice things up. I had some long sprees of Taxi Driver, Heart Surgeon, and Hell's Angel. That's right, I liked to tell people that when I grew up I was going to join a biker gang. I even went so far as to put some Harley Davidson posters up in my room. The funny part of it was that I'd never ridden on a motorcycle. On my 18th birthday Norm took me riding on his scooter (which you have to admit isn't much different when you're riding in the back) but that was as close as I'd come. I think holding out paid off too, because I was finally able to take my first motorcycle ride and it was perfect. We rode David's Harley up Big Cottonwood Canyon on a summery Sunday afternoon. I got to wear a real Harley helmet and leather jacket. If it'd been just a little colder up at the top I could have put on the leather chaps that we'd brought along just in case. That's right chaps, and not the cowboy kind, though they're cool too. Everything looked better without a roof over my head and it reminded me of driving the Fiat with the top down. Plus I was instantly admitted to the coolest club of subtle head nodding and sly two finger waves to all the other Harley riders we passed. That might have been the best part, but it's hard to really choose a best part since it was all so much fun. And what does David want me to do in exchange for this service…take him geocaching. I totally won on that trade. Even better if we take the bike caching.

Aaron's First Birthday!

If you know me you know I'm still friends with my former in-laws. We have lunch, I talk to my ex-husband and sometimes go see a movie with him. I sometimes miss all the extra nieces and nephews I had in that family (they have A LOT). So I was excited when Rebekah invited me to her son Aaron's first birthday party. I'd never even met Aaron since he was born after my divorce. He's their 8th child and was born with trisomy 18 so him having a birthday party at all is pretty exciting. I was glad to go, it was sweet to meet him, and it was fun to see so many of his cousins that I hadn't seen in years. They were so grown up I couldn't believe it. What a fun day.

They had a balloon release for all the other kids he's been around that haven't made it has far as him. Prayers to heaven. It was a sweet idea and looked cool too, but I must admit I didn't bring a balloon and when they handed me one to let go I cringed inside thinking and wondering where these balloons were going to end up. Ugh the sea turtles! But I let it go anyway... The funniest part of the evening was when I got a text from Bryan saying hi and asking what I was up to...."Um, I'm at your nephew's birthday party where are YOU?" He showed up shortly after that and we had a good laugh about how, just by looking at our shoes these days you can tell how incompatible we are. His are even more ridiculous than they look in real life believe me. He's still a nice guy though. Glad I could be on good enough terms with them all that I could share Aaron's birthday.

Rebekah keeps a blog on Aaron's life and it's pretty sweet and informative. Follow it here...

My dad turned 70

I kinda felt old when I turned 30. Since I'm the youngest in my family, I always wondered if it made the rest of my family feel old too knowing their baby sister was 30 but who knows. My parents came through town on their way Nauvoo where they'll be on a temple mission for awhile and my dad was at my house to celebrate his 70th birthday. It didn't seem like it affected him too much, but I think it sure made all us kids feel older. We had two of my brothers over and I baked him some of his favorite desserts. He always loves my marshmallow surprise cookies so I made a batch of those. They brought me some of our beloved tangelos from the tree in the backyard so I made him some mini tangelo bundt cakes which are just incredibly good. And of course no table of dad's favorites would be complete without a lemon meringue pie. It was my first try at one and I have to say it was fantastic. I think it was the home grown lemons from their yard at home that gave me the beginners luck.

I think he liked the hugs and kisses from the grandkids the most though...

"I realized my participation deserved more than just waving a sign"

Is it just me or does anyone else find it totally lame and completely irritating that the news story coming out of Utah these days and making into national headlines is the fact that a college basketball player has violated the honor code and NOT that Tim DeChristopher will be going to prison for making a peaceful demonstration of civil disobedience against the Gas and Oil companies buying our wilderness land? Really? REALLY? I find it infuriating.
I went to BYU and I think that story is alright, it's a chance to show the world that people still have morals and that there's a school that treats everyone equally regardless of their elite status or the benefits they bring to the school. I agree with the decision, but I also think, as far as Davies is concerned it's sort of a private matter. He did something wrong, from the seriousness of his punishment possibly very wrong, and if I were him I'd sort of wish everyone would stop talking about it.
DeChristopher however did something right and no one cares. He's making a huge sacrifice. He's willingly giving up years of his freedom to make a statement about something he believes in. A statement that needed to be made and he did it in a perfectly acceptable way. He did not commit some violent crime of anarchy. He did not hurt anyone. He brought something to the attention of the people and I feel like no one is paying attention. He had the opportunity to plead to lesser charges, not go to trial, and maintain his freedom but he chose not to because he didn't want to back down from the statement he believed needed to be made. He didn't want to let the oil and gas companies intimidate him and win. He's not getting kicked off the basketball team for a season, he's going to prison! People complain and complain about the atrocities committed by these big oil corporations and yet when one of us makes an attempt to stand up against them and open a door for protest and change…we instead discuss who was the best dressed at the Oscars, Charlie Sheen, and BYU students breaking the honor code.
America is great and I love it, but I also think there's a lot of things wrong with it. I believe most people would agree with that. There's stuff wrong with every country, but whereas many countries major problems seem to stem from corrupt governments, I'm starting to believe our corrupt government stems from a corrupt people. Corrupt in the fact that we just don't care anymore. We don't care about what matters. Other countries hate us and give us this spoiled brat stereotype and I honestly think we deserve it. What happened to us? When Rosa Parks broke the law by sitting in the front of the bus she was making a much needed statement in the most appropriate way possible. Peaceful civil disobedience. She was breaking the law, but a law that everyone later realized was wrong. Our history is filled with examples of this, they are the Boston Tea Parties that go down in history as heroes that spurred change and gave hope and inspiration to their fellow wronged citizens to also stand up for what they believe in and for what is right. I believe in Tim DeChristopher's actions and I want to say something cliché like he is ahead of his time or something equally lame and unfitting, but I don't believe he is ahead of his time. Sadly I think perhaps he's behind the times. He's acting like our founding fathers would have acted and we have forgotten how to follow people like that. Tim DeChristopher is brave. I believe he is a martyr in many ways. It takes a lot of courage to do something like he is, trying to be the first in the hopes that others will follow behind you. I want him to be the beginning of change, an uprising of the public, the start of a revolution for a better world. I want the people to see the beauty and importance of wilderness and pay attention to what companies are doing to it behind our backs. I want us to stop sitting on our butts complaining about them but never trying to stop them. I want us to recognize a hero when we see one. When I first posted a comment on my facebook page about this my sister replied with this Edward Abbey statement which is just one of hundreds of his that could be used for a story like this.

"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earth movers, governments and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behavior.”

Unfortunately I believe that whereas Thoreau's behavior was proper and good, ours is just laziness. I want to have hope in the American people, myself included. I want to believe we will continue with what DeChristopher has done. I hope someday I look back at this as the start of something big, but I'm having a hard time maintaining that hope. I don't believe America lacks the right leaders, I believe we lack the right followers.

Read more here and here.

Lessons Learned the Hard (and really scary) Way

And that's all I'm going to say about that. I don't really want to discuss in detail the heart stopping sounds, the mild terror, or the hasty slushy retreat. I'm sure I will be reliving the experience plenty of times in my future nightmares with worse endings. I've learned my lesson.

2011 Goals

They're not too complicated. I don't think they really need explaining. It's not like we haven't all made new years resolutions and goals before right? Here are a couple random pictures from my vacation to Victoria B.C. that I went on 5 or 6 years ago to go with them.

1. Sell my house or get a roommate
2. Make donations every season. Time/Used Stuff/Money
3. Try paddle boarding or hike Mt. Timpanogos
4. Use my gym pass a minimum of 60 times before it expires
5. Climb with 3 new people
6. Take a car trip alone and/or camp alone once
7. Read D&C
8. Go through 4 temples I've never been through before
9. Get paid for baking something with Alicia
10. Use all my kitchen gadgets/pots/pans/appliances once (anything too big to fit in a drawer)
11. Try one new cheese a month
12. Visit/attentd a new museum, national or state park, symphony or ballet, opera or play
13. Read a book by John Muir, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, Vonnegut, and one full book of poetry

2010 - How did I do?

Last year I claimed to have accomplished 8 1/2 of my 13 goals, I think this year I did better with 10 and only 2 total fails (two were halfway met so they equal one together). But I think if you actually reach all your goals, maybe you didn't make them high enough...so I'm ok with a few failures. I tried.
I had good intentions while writing this post to put links and photos in but I'm not going to. I think posts without photos are lame and I don't read them too often, but here I am posting one myself...

1. Read the Bible
This took me the entire year. I finally finished up on New Years Eve. I was so excited I did this. I didn't cheat and listen to any of it on audio book either, I actually read it all. I don't think I'll do it again cover to cover. Not that it's not good....but...you know...it's long.
2. Go to bed before midnight (weekdays only)
Fail. Why do I bother making this goal? I tried harder this time, but I think I forgot it was a goal about halfway through the year. Especially when it snowed and I stayed up to shovel at 1 am and walk around the neighborhood. I'm going to make it a life goal to not ever make this goal again because I always fail and rarely even try very hard to keep it.
3. Be able to do 3 overhand pullups
I have no idea if I came any closer to this and since I hurt my back in December the thought of trying to do a pullup right now makes me want to crawl in bed and not come out. I'm sure I can do one, maybe two now, three? Maybe I could have back in July, but I'm not feeling so great these days. I do remember going to a climbing competition this year and them saying the girl who was currently climbing had a new years goal to do 21 pullups...and I felt instantly weak. I'll call this one halfway and not worry about it. I hate pullups.
4. Lead a 5.11 climb in the gym and a 5.9 climb outside the gym
So close! I was so too ambitious with this goal considering I didn't even lead climb when I made it. I top roped some 5.11 climbs and even a 5.12 outside. I can lead 5.10c in the gym consistently and was onsighting 5.8 outside without a problem. Maybe this year. In the spirit of goals I think I'd call this one a success.
5. Learn to bake bread (good bread)
Successful here for the most part. I learned to make some bread, which I thought was ok, but not great. I even tried out some sourdough bread. I'm confident with kneading bread dough at least. I should have made it a goal to learn to make good pie crust. I did that.
6. Hike to the top Mt. Olympus (or climb I guess...either one)
Double success. In face I did both! Climbed the North Summit and then hiked the regular summit...by myself I might add. I wrote posts on both of these so I'm not going to go into it any more.
7. Cook one recipe from every cookbook I own
Success! I was going to make this into a blog on it's own but never got around to it. This was the goal I was most excited about. I made the last two on New Year Eve at my parents. My dad helped me with the dutch oven for the last one even. 73 cookbooks. Over half of those were in the last few months too. I could not have done this without Alicia's family eating a lot of the finished products for me either, and my family as well. I didn't love serving people dinner from recipes I'd never tried before but for the most part I liked everything I made (I wish I'd eaten less of them...I'm getting chubby) I might write a post of this in more detail, maybe list them all...maybe.
8. Drive Slower (within 5 miles of the speed limit)
Success. This wasn't very fun. In fact I was driving to work this week and thought, oh I need to slow down, can't go over 70. Then I remembered it was January and I could drive faster now! I drove to work at 75 so excited. So I guess it worked since I still didn't drive as fast as I used to. There were more than a few times I passed a cop this year and thought, "Thank you New Years resolutions!" I hope it sticks.
9. Live off the food in my pantry for 1 month
Did it. It was lame. I underestimated my pantry. I should have made this 3 months. I hardly noticed. I wrote about this too.
10. Finish my name change back to Rockwood
Halfway. I got the drivers licence done...which was the biggest thing because now it matches my credit cards and I can get on an airplane without buying a ticket with a different name on it. But I never did my passport, so I'm still Katie Peterson internationally.
11. Get a computer
My parents did this one for me and got me a little tiny laptop for my birthday. It's been helpful. I also got a new Android phone with the Internet so if I combine those two, I totally got this one.
12. Green up my commute to work
I had such high hopes for this one. Carpooling with my brother, riding my bike halfway...nothing ever came of any of it though. Total fail.
13. Visit a beach/state/country/or National Park I've never been to before
Visited a lot of beaches, finally saw enough of Oregon and Montana that I'd count them as states visited, and saw 3 National Parks that I've never seen before. Joshua Tree, Redwoods, and Cascades, though the Cascades I technically didn't enter but drove through the middle of. It's shaped funny. I went further into Canada than I've gone before...if that counts for a country. Who's making the rules? Me? Ok it counts. This goal was met many times over. (thanks to my parents and Jake for the road trips)

If I'd sent out a Christmas Letter...

I spent one Christmas on my mission and I don't remember very much about it, it was fairly uneventful. But a few weeks before Christmas, we got a Christian Calligraphy Art catalog in the mail and from it I cut out a tiny picture of a framed quote they had for sale. I still have it. I don't know how this tiny little scrap of paper has survived so many years but it's still with me and I like to put it up on my fridge at Christmas time. It's simple, but it's one of my favorite decorations. I don't know who said it, or what the company is that sent the catalog, but I still like the quote as much now as I when I first read it 10 years ago.

"If as Herod we fill our lives with things and again with things, if we consider ourselves so unimportant that we must fill every moment of our lives with action, when will we have time to make the long slow journey across the desert as did the magi? Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds? Or brood over the coming of the child as did Mary? For each one of us there is a desert to travel, a star to discover, and a being within ourselves to bring to life. "

I'd like to think that this year I've spent more time traveling the desert, watching the stars, enjoying time with the children around me, figuring out who I am inside, and less time acquiring more things...and I think it's made a difference. Merry Christmas, Katie

The dangers of your own home and graffiti, two things to ponder when snowshoeing

On Saturday I went snowshoeing up the Butler Fork Trail. I went alone and thoroughly enjoyed myself. But as I climbed the steep hill that follows the creek I couldn't help thinking about the dangers I was putting myself in by being there alone. I never felt scared and I didn't go into any immediately dangerous areas, I didn't go so far I might get lost, and I didn't go anywhere I wouldn't be found by others pretty soon. I was meeting up with some friends that evening so I knew someone would be aware I was missing should something have happened. I almost made it up to Circle All Peak but the sun was going down and I wanted to be safe so I turned back just below the top. Nothing happened, I just had a great time and enjoyed the fresh air and solitude of the mountains in winter.

(I'd never been up this trail in the winter but I went in the fall once with Andy and Kris. Here's the same spot in the above picture without the snow)

(The trail was packed into this nice bowl shape and it made me wish I'd packed a sled up with me so I could ride back down to my car.) Back from my first solo snowshoe outing in the canyon this season, I was feeling pretty good about everything. Then...Sunday night...I fell down the stairs in my own house! It hurts a lot more as an adult than I remember from when I was a kid. Luckily I fell backwards and just bumped my way down instead of tumbling Scarlett O'Hara style and escaped with just rug burns and bruises. (It still hurt A LOT) I laid sprawled out at the bottom for awhile and wondered how long it would have been before someone found me if I was hurt and wondering where my phone was. The next day was my day off from work and I had no plans with anyone. It'd probably be at least Tuesday afternoon before someone would think to look for me, but more likely Wednesday.

So to sum things up:

• If I'd have injured myself in the mountains alone in the snow, the skiers I saw on my way down would have seen me within the hour and if not them, at least a dozen people the next day, plus friends would wonder where I was that evening.
• If I'd seriously injured myself on the stairs at my house I'd have laid there for 2-3days with only the helpless hungry cats as company.

The whole experience made me agree with John Muir more than ever when he wrote this:

“To the timid traveler, fresh from the sedimentary levels of the lowlands, these highways, however picturesque and grand, seem terribly forbidding—cold, dead, gloomy gashes in the bones of the mountains, and of all Nature's ways the ones to be most cautiously avoided. Yet they are full of the finest and most telling examples of Nature's love; and though hard to travel, none are safer. For they lead through regions that lie far above the ordinary haunts of the devil, and of the pestilence that walks in darkness. True, there are innumerable places where the careless step will be the last step; and a rock falling from the cliffs may crush without warning like lightning from the sky; but what then? Accidents in the mountains are less common than in the lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even divine, places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers of civilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action. Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand.”

I agree with Muir, I'd rather have died in the canyon with my snowshoes on looking at the stars and the trees than at the bottom of my stairs in my dorky mismatching old pajamas and a pint of melting ice cream in my hand.

Now let's talk about Graffiti. I kinda like Graffiti, but I think it should be limited to train cars, bathroom stalls, and that old abandoned building you pass as you drive to Idaho. Not on trees. If you actually own the tree then I think it's sweet to carve initials inside hearts, but not in wilderness areas. People can not help themselves though, so I guess we should look on the bright side of things.

I do appreciate when people put some thought into it and go beyond just carving their initials... and deep down, I kind of like the way old carvings look on aspens. (A couple of these are from a trail I took along the Alpine Loop a couple springs ago)

But I like the aspens most without any words.

"We had left no mark on the country itself, but the land had left it's mark on us."

Sigurd Olsen

My Awesome Self-Timer Skills

I must say, I have pretty good self timer skills with my camera. I'd been meaning to take a picture up at this spot for a long time and I was finally able to get these shots on my last hike before it snowed. It was super windy and I had to run over to the other summit in 30 seconds before my camera took 3 shots. It got me getting to the summit, almost getting blown off by a huge gust of wind, and then finally just sitting there.

The day before I saw these guys up there with tripods and fancy lenses trying to take the same picture. True it'd have looked a little cooler if I could have gotten it from a little bit higher or had their nice camera but they were kind of jerks and for a little camera I can fit in my pocket I think I do ok. Of course this is still the coolest self-timer picture ever.

Red Butte Foothills

My work is right up against the foothills in Salt Lake. In fact we're almost at the mouth of Red Butte Canyon and I go up and walk along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail all the time on my lunch breaks. Lately though I've gotten a little more adventurous and started exploring the trails going into the foothills. I can't believe I've worked here so long and never gone up there. They are amazing. I'd never have guessed those barren looking hills could be so pretty. The fall leaves were great, the weather is perfect, there's lots of snakes and rabbits and weasels to see, the views and sunsets are fantastic, and I almost never follow the same trail twice. In fact I've started calling them the choose-your-own-adventure hills. I've gone down a trail and had to choose which way to go at a 5 way trail junction and then just around the bend I came to a 4 way junction. It's literally a maze. Sometimes it's hard to pick which way to go. It's almost impossible to not get lost, but with the city so close by, it's also impossible to stay lost. I tried to go to Beacon Hill once and ended up on Red Butte Summit. Usually I get back to my desk and look at google earth trying to figure out where I was. I hope I can still find time to go up there with the snow and the days being so short. Oh yeah, besides snakes, rabbits, and weasels there's the occasional tarantula.

This old homestead is in the boundaries of Red Butte Gardens, at the very back end. When I had a pass to go in there I didn't even know it was there.

Red Butte Summit (Megan should have been in this picture...)

This guy passed me going up the trail as I was hurrying to get back down before I ran out of light. I was wondering if he planned on hiking in the dark and then about 20 minutes later I saw him over my head, paragliding back down.

I don't mind the heat and I don't mind the snow, but I do hate hiking in mud when I have to go back to work after.

Winter Predictions

looking towards the Oquirrh Mountains (not the Ochre Mountains)

The sunset over The Great Salt Lake looking out to the island.

The last day I was able to hike up there before the real snow came, the kind that probably won't melt away again, and it was so incredibly windy!

Sitting at this spot has the best views, except that the highest rock point is covered in hawk poop.

This was the best sunset ever except it was the one day I didn't have my camera with me so I had to settle for a phone picture. My phone stinks at taking pictures.

Random Trivia: Did you know the Salt Lake Temple was originally going to be built out of the red sandstone from Red Butte Canyon? They decided the granite would last longer and started over and the sandstone they brought down was used to build the foundations of some of the older homes and a few churches downtown.