What I Learned Taking a Night Tour

Among all of last week’s activities, probably the biggest was visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home and architectural school, Taliesin West.  It’s located about 30 minutes from our home in the desert hills of Scottsdale.  We went with the University of Denver alum group to a Night Lights Tour which is a comprehensive two-hour guided tour and, as the name of it states, takes place during the night.  Have I ever mentioned I’m not much of a night person?  I’m happy to be up singing with the earliest larks, but I’m not great hooting with the owls.  I will just tell you the last ½ of the tour and the drive home were almost torture.  We have visited the National Historic Landmark a few times several years ago, but never at night.  So what did I learn about a night tour? Well, for starters, we were going against what little traffic that was left and coming home was a snap. The weather was absolutely perfect. The skies were clear and beautiful. We were able to see some of the lighting treatments FLW actually invented but never patented. This is really lost on a daytime tour. But for all those benefits, I like day tours best, and curling up with jammies and Jeopardy! is where you’ll probably continue to find me at night.

FLW really was a forerunner in many respects, and his influence is seen constantly throughout Arizona, but for me the sum of the parts is just not attractive.  I appreciate what he did, but ummmm, not for me.  Fun evening, though. Here’s a picture of mural representing the influence of Asia on his design.

Anthem does an Autumn Fest every year with a carnival, booths and a pumpkin patch.  We walked to our beautiful park this weekend to check it out.  It was a warm, fantastic day and I shot this pic I thought was cute with both the pumpkin patch and a saguaro.  Now, you cannot leave pumpkins out here this time of year.  I think they would bake in their own skins and we have wild javelinas who LOVE pumpkins and make a terrible mess while eating them.  How, you wonder, do I know this?  The first year we moved to Arizona I bought some mums in baskets and pumpkins to make a cute front porch vignette.  The next morning it was torn to heck with one little piece of pumpkin rind left.  I was educated very quickly. So, you can bet this pumpkin patch is very temporary.

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What I’m Reading

I finished Head Full of Ghosts.  Now here’s the thing.  In life, you need to feel good about yourself.  I have no time for jeans that make me feel fat or books that make me feel stupid.  If after I read a book, I have to do an Internet search to find out how it ended because I can’t figure out what the author is trying to say, I’m not feeling good about myself.  So what’s up with this story, huh?  It’s the story of a possessed or mentally-breaking-down (never sure which) teen girl, her eight-year-old sister (who is the unreliable narrator) and her breaking-down parents.  I never really expect to feel uplifted when reading in the horror genre, but come on!  Don’t leave me like that.  I guess I’ll ponder on it this week and come to my own conclusion.

I am listening on audio to another Cliff Janeway mystery, Bookman’s Wake.  I’ve mentioned this series before, but as a reminder, Janeway is a former cop turned bookstore owner in Denver.  Why this little series appeals to me so much:

1. The stories and characters are pretty darn good.
2. They take place in a time and place I used to live and am familiar with.
3. They include my love for books, printing, words, fonts.

If any of these seem like reasons to read a book, I recommend.

What I’m Eating

This week we had celebrated with friends twice:  Canadian Thanksgiving with DF (dear friends) Shira and Gordon on Monday and an early birthday for DF Connie on Saturday.  (Any question why my healthy eating regime keeps getting derailed!?!)  On both occasions, we brought the Apple Crisp recipe from Skinnytaste.com.  It’s pretty darn healthy, all things considered, consists of ingredients you already have and is easy to make.  Unfortunately, it absolutely, positively must be topped with vanilla ice cream, so there that healthy goes down the drain.  Many years ago we purchased this apple peeler/corer when we visited Apple Hill in Northern California.  I think everyone owns one now, but at the time, we had never seen one. Here is a similar peeler I found on Amazon. It was fun digging that out and using it to make this delish dessert.

What I’m Doing

Now, take a look at these adorbs exercise pants.  I got them in Hawaii as sort of a souvenir and I wore them to the gym today.  I got so many compliments, but I have to tell you the memory they elicited in me.  Are you old enough to remember when girls had to wear dresses to elementary school with knee socks?  By the end of the school year the elastic on the socks was worn out and I spent the entire day pulling up my socks.  It wasn’t that they would attractively pool at my ankles (that look would be two decades later with leg warmers!), but they would work their way down into my shoes and then it would really be a production getting them out.  Well, these cute pants don’t have enough compression in them and when I exercise or run, they slip down and the crotch reaches for my knees.  So while I’m exercising, I’m pulling up my pants and channeling my inner nine-year old.  What we do for beauty.

On tap for the upcoming week is a velvet-pumpkin making class with dinner out.  Should be a fun girls’ night and if I can con someone into making my pumpkins for me, I’ll have some pretty decorations.  As my DF Terry can tell you, crafts are not one of my strong suits.

Happy week!