My Little Jack

My little boy sleeps soundly on my lap

It's been a while since I've posted about my kitty.  My little Jack is such a terrific companion. I sure love him.  He's taken to our new apartment very well.

He sometimes hangs his head over the side of my legs.
I think he's watching for bugs.  Because you never know.

He sleeps with me at night, enjoys hanging out with me in the evenings, and plops into my lap in the early mornings when I'm having breakfast and getting ready for work.

He enjoys tummy tickles, and also gives excellent hugs.

I love my little boy.

May you be blessed with such a loved one in your life.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Tiffany (background), Brian, Carlos and Ivy at one of the three stations set up with food

Today our company had a Cinco de Mayo potluck.  Our pot luck luncheons are always top notch. There are so many different people in our engineering firm, from so many different cultures, that the food is always a surprise and a delight.

Today was no exception!

One table had everything from Mexican casseroles and crispy tortillas to ceviche

It all began with a couple of email blasts to the employees at 9 a.m.  We were alerted to the fact that there were TexMex scrambled egg casserole and warm churros in the kitchen for breakfast.  They were really good!

From there, we segued to lunch around 11:45 a.m.  There was so much good food!  We had to lay everything out at three different stations in the kitchen.  (I suddenly realized I forgot to take a photo of all the goodies in the Conference Room!  There was a large platter of huge cocktail shrimp in there, as well as all kinds of Mexican beverages in huge containers - horchata, tamarino and other delights.)

Desserts included a beautiful bundt cake,
 but there were also taco fixings and salads to be found on this table

Our engineers like to eat! (Okay, I do too!)  It's fun trying all the different goodies.  We have a large percentage of Asian employees, too, so they bring fun things from their culture as well.  You never know what you might end up with on your plate!  I saw everything from tamales to Chinese noodle dishes.

It's hard to see, but here we have Carlos, Suria, Tiffany,
Ivy and Brian filling up their plates

Our luncheons are always enjoyable.  People often go to lots of trouble and expense with their dishes. It's certainly more fun than the usual sandwich I pack along for lunch!

Someone even brought an elaborate chafing dish.
Carmen's spicy chili rojo was in the crock pot on the right

Carmen is known for her delicious salsa.  Today, she not only made salsa, but a mean chili rojo. That's a meat dish with chunks of beef in a red chili sauce.  It was very spicy and quite delicious!

We gathered in the Corporate conference room to eat.  For a while, intent on our food, no one said a whole lot.

Enjoying lunch around the conference table

They take out the big, executive chairs and bring in smaller, office chairs so we can scoot more people around the table for these events.  They even brought in a smaller table today, to accommodate the crowd.

Joe smiles as everyone else tries to ignore the lady with the camera

There was so much delicious food, and plenty of everything. I really enjoyed everything I put on my plate.  I believe we were all happy campers!

Edward, Juan and our company President, Jimmy, enjoying lunch

Several of our younger engineers complained that the plates were too small, so they were forced to go back for seconds.

Right.

I'm on to you.

For dessert, there were more churros, bundt cake, chocolate-walnut brownies and these adorable little cowboy hat wearing cupcakes.

Cute little Cowboy hat wearing Chilis decorated the cupcakes!

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone!

The Writing on the Wall

Judy and David busy at work

What do you put on a long, blank wall above your bed?  In earthquake country you think twice about that. No heavy thing should go up there, for sure.  But what should it be?

I searched for a long time before I came upon the perfect thing.  A stencil.

Missionary duties are varied!

It was hard finding the right message, though.  I considered Disney themes and various Biblical quotes.  One day I happened upon this text:  "All I have needed thy hand hath provided, great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me."

I began to cry.  I thought of how the Lord has lifted and sustained me, particularly through the last twenty years, through all manner of difficulties. I knew it was the text I wanted on the wall.

So, I purchased it and tucked it away for awhile, as it seemed a daunting task to get it on the wall correctly by myself.

I didn't know where the text came from, but through some simple research discovered it was from a poem written by a man named Thomas Chisholm.  He penned this poem in 1923 about the goodness of God over his lifetime:

Great is Thy Faithfulness

1

“Great is Thy faithfulness,” O God my Father,

There is no shadow of turning with Thee;

Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not

As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

“Great is Thy faithfulness!” “Great is Thy faithfulness!”

Morning by morning new mercies I see;

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—

“Great is Thy faithfulness,” Lord, unto me!

2

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,

Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

3

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,

Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,

Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

The stencil looks nice over my bed.
And it won't fall down and kill me in an earthquake!

It's funny, but the framed art photo on the left is from the same time period as the poem.  My newly-wed grandfather purchased it from an art shop in Oslo in the early 1920s because, he said, he thought it looked so much like my grandmother.

Putting the stencil on the wall seemed like a tricky task for one person, so I waited until I could enlist some help for the effort. Last night the lovely missionary couple serving in our Ward, Elder and Sister Allen, came by and it didn't take much coaxing for them to put the stencil on the wall for me.  Bless them! It was a fun evening.

I am delighted with the results!

The Lord truly does bless us in myriad ways.  I'm grateful for the good people in my life.

Have a wonderful day!

Annika is One

My niece and her little cub, Annika

Our little Annika turned ONE on tax day last month.  It's nice to have a big event to remind one of a birthday.  It's rather hard to forget April 15th!

Annika has already had her first date.

He seems like a nice boy.  He let her drive, after all!

They grow up so fast...

Tulip Time In Oregon

Desiree's Tulip Pots

Okay, I'm late with this one.  Tulip Time has technically passed, but I have been a slug about posting anything for the past few months, and I'm trying to make up for it.

So there.

Desiree, my Oregon correspondent, writes that her pots popped up with Hyacinths in February, and in March came the Tulips in Easter colors!  You can see from the above photo she wasn't kidding.

Right now the Lily of the Valley and Columbine are probably in bloom.  We'll have to see them later, I suppose.  By July the garden will be going crazy with blooms of all kinds.

I asked for a photo of her kitty Rocky - a very macho kitty like my Jack - and I got this note:

I finally cornered Rocky in the bathroom to get him to sit still so I could get a picture of him.  He's a "lounger" ...

I also notice he's sticking his tongue out at his human mom as she's trying to take his photo.  He's a little character!

Rocky sticking his tongue out.  He doesn't like photos!

Under her young cherry trees, Desiree has planted Apricot Perennial Tulips.  I didn't know there were perennial tulips until I read her post and saw the photo.  They're pretty, too, aren't they?

Meanwhile, in other parts of her garden, the white and pink bleeding hearts were just beginning to bloom (in the back, below), while the Adder Tongue (foreground) are looking lovely.

Adder Tongues and Bleeding Hearts

I love the colorful names these beautiful flowers have.

Thanks for sharing this brief tour of parts of Desiree's Oregon garden with me.

Happy Monday!
Have a great week!

Up Above the World So High

The view from the City Club

The City Club Los Angeles is located in the City National Building at 555 S. Flower Street, in the middle of downtown Los Angeles.  It's on the 51st floor, so there is a brief, stomach-dropping ride in an elevator up to the lobby, and a spectacular view once you arrive.

The Club is sleek and modern, but welcoming in its design

The Club, according to the website I looked at, is "the place where diverse community and business leaders come to connect, network, and do business".

My co-workers, Barbara and Carmen

In my case, it was the place where the administrative staff of our company was taken for breakfast on Administrative Professionals Day, April 27th.

My boss, Joel, and Juan, the Company CFO

My company has historically done fun and generous things on Administrative Professionals Day, and this year was no exception.  We had a lovely time up on the 51st floor!

The view, even on a smoggy day, was sensational!

I'm lucky to work with nice, kind people I truly enjoy spending time with.  When we go places together, the conversation is lively.  I consider myself blessed in that regard.

The menu was varied.

The City Club Breakfast menu

Nikita ordered the omelet with veggies in it.  That looked very good.

3-egg Omelet with spinach, tomatoes and mushrooms

I went more basic, and ordered scrambled eggs with applewood smoked bacon, hashbrowns and toast.

Scrambled eggs and hash browns

Others went for the blueberry pancakes.  The pancakes were very popular.

The blueberry pancakes are a specialty

It was a pleasant meal in very nice circumstances.

Veronica from Accounting, and Suria, our Corporate Marketing Director

I kept snapping photos on the sly.  Some turned out better than others.

Jimmy, our company President, and Nikita, from Corporate Marketing

The club is actually the penthouse of the City National building and there are windows in all directions.  We had to wander around and tour the Club after breakfast.

Looking straight down was scary

I'm not sure how a cigarette ended up lodged on the outdoor ledge.  You can see the plaza below reflected in the building next door.  My former boss once took us to another restaurant in nearby Pershing Square. I'm not all that familiar with downtown Los Angeles, actually, even after 30 years of living in this area.  I tend to avoid it because of the crazy traffic and one-way streets.

Many helicopter pads were visible across the skyline below us

The air looked dirty that day.  Only a few days earlier, high winds had made the sky a clear, pristine blue.

There always comes a moment, for me, when up in a tall building like this here in California, where I start thinking, 'Man, I sure hope there isn't a strong earthquake while I'm up here!'

That would not be fun.

Coincidentally, I watched all of this being destroyed fairly recently, watching an old John Cusack disaster movie called "2012".  These buildings crashed and fell apart very dramatically in that film. Nice CGI, but not fun in real life.  I'll pass.

A bird's eye view of downtown

The place had a photo booth in it!  Suria and Nikita got silly and took some photos.

Nikita's shoes are visible as she and Suria take silly photos

Photo booths seem to bring out peoples' inner child.  There was a lot of giggling involved.

We spent a great deal of time just marveling at the view.

Joel, Jimmy, Juan and Barbara enjoying the view

Across the way, we could see orange-vested workers installing windows on the Korean Air skyscraper currently being built.  They are tiny specks of orange just above the window line straight across and a couple of floors up from where we were standing.

This is also the building (below) where a worker recently jumped off and committed suicide.  That was a grim thought as we stood there watching the building progress.  I don't think there is enough money in the world to get me to work on a building like that!  We could see the workmen were tethered with safety harnesses - even so, it looked very scary.  I guess I'm a bit afraid of heights!

If you squint you can see workers in orange vests next door 

As we toured, we saw the grand ballroom, and the Tom Bradley room (below) where ladies were decorating with cheerful pink flowers, as well as some small cacti, for a luncheon later that morning. They and their flower trolley are just out of camera range to the left.

The Tom Bradley Room

What a fun time we had up there on the 51st floor!  It was a lot of fun to see.  And all things considered, I'm sure happy to work in a building much closer to the ground, thank you very much.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

It's that time again!

The Conference Center in Salt Lake

It's spring!  It's April!  It's time for LDS General Conference in Salt Lake City!  It's that special weekend that comes every six months where I can wear my jammies to church... so to speak!

Yes, all General Conference sessions are broadcast via BYU-TV, or on the internet at LDS.org, so they can be watched in the privacy of your own home.

Spring has brought us such a nice surprise...

Sessions are broadcast live - in California they will be from 9a-11a and 1p-3p PST on both Saturday and Sunday.

This is a great time to check out a Mormon church service without actually having to attend church in person.

Or, consider it a treat to hear a prophet speak and give direction to us for the next 6 months.

The Salt Lake Temple grounds are in full bloom for April Conference

 Very often it snows for Conference.  This year, however, I hear they are expecting delightful temperatures.

The iconic Salt Lake Temple

I look forward to Conference every six months.  It's a break from my usual church going, sure, but it's also a time to hear from some very wonderful people who are inspired in the messages they provide us for our time.

My friend Don on the Temple Grounds

My friend Don sings with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  They are a pretty awesome choir.  They will be performing throughout the services this weekend.  It's really a treat to tune in just to hear them sing.

You can also play "Where's Don?" with me.  (Hint: He's usually on the right in the front row of the choir.)

Among other speakers, some, or most, of these wonderful men will also be speaking (below). Behold the Quorum of the 12 Apostles.  They are regarded as prophets, seers and revelators by the church membership.  I have a great love for these selfless guys.  Particular favorites of mine are Jeffrey R. Holland and Russell M. Nelson.

But oh-my-heck (to use an old Utah expression), I love them all.

Here is the General Relief Society Presidency (below).  Some of these terrific ladies will also be addressing us.

And, of course, there will be words of encouragement and comfort from our Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson.  He is now 88 years old.  I don't think he's been doing very well physically since his beloved wife passed away.

He is by no means the oldest of the general authorities, though!  President Nelson is 92!

Tune in and hear for yourself.  I promise you, you will feel uplifted and edified.

Whatever you do,

ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND, EVERYONE!