Flowering Trees

The Arboretum is amazing this time of year. Everyone just walks around all blissed out...the air smells sweet...I was sneezing...

Gold Finch

My First Gold Finch!! Check out this bird at my feeder. It's brilliant yellow. I'm sort of a geek about birds. I know all their names and actually get excited about seeing new ones. I'm actually 75 pretending to be 28. (not to stereotype)

Public Enemy

Kelly Z!

This is the filming of a Hollywood movie in Madison! We actually got out of class to walk around the capitol for an hour. I didn't see Johnny Depp, but it was fun to see the cars on the square. I was just happy to be in the sunshine on a nice day. Markus ran into my hairdresser who was doing hair for the extras on the set. Very cool Kelly Z!

A Good Day

Today was a good day.
All of the reasons...
gardening with a good friend
getting dirty in the dirt
Culvers lemon ice
giving a massage
singing karaoke with my favorite 7 year old (not in public)
picking tulips
finishing my homework
going to bed early!

Earth Day

Isn't today Earth Day? The election is hogging all the news. Besides the Google graphic, I haven't seen anything to mark it on the news. I guess I'm not reading the right news.

After looking around a bit these are some links I found:

Did you ever wonder which foods it's really important to buy organic?

Did you ever have the question, "Why bother?" when considering making a green choice?

Puddles

a puddle jumper's lament

The link above reminds me of the fun that can be had in spring...but also the way it teases.

Winter from Hell

It snowed again. Madison is just a smidgen away from 100 inches this year. This is the winter from hell. It won't just die. When I was 10, I had a goldfish like that. It's name was Austin, if I remember correctly. The fish floated, lifeless for about a day...so I geared myself up for the big flush. I poured the bowl into the toilet bowl and suddenly the fish was swimming and kicking in the toilet. So, I had to refill the bowl, scoop it out and it lived for another month. That's how this winter might be.

The cute girl who was our waitress yesterday was expressing her concern in such a cute way. She said, "I'm not from Wisconsin...it can't really snow again can it?"

Yes it can.

Mission Statement

As some of you may know, I have just started massage school at the local technical college in town. I am really excited about this and want to share some of my experiences with you all. As a class assignment, I wrote a mission statement and found it to be really interesting process. If you've never written a mission statement, try it out! This is mine:

"I believe wholeheartedly in the power of massage for the enhancement of health, healing and relaxation. I am dedicated to obtaining knowledge of massage techniques with the goal of creating a sustainable career that supports the general wellness of those I serve. As I continue to care for my own wellbeing, I make healthy choices and demonstrate my compassion by encouraging others on their own wellness journey. I strive to develop and maintain professional healing relationships, while remaining positive and optimistic. I am excited about being part of a rejuvenating healing community of people with similar missions."

Blue Lagoon

This is our last stop in Iceland. The famous Blue Lagoon, a geothermal hot pool in the middle of a lava field heated with the runoff of a powerplant. It was the coldest, windiest day of our trip, so we were one only 10 crazy people lounging in the pool.

With the water full of salt and minerals, floating is easy in any position. The feeling of weightlessness was awesome.

The waters and mud here are famous for their healing properties to the skin. The mud is found in wooden boxes at the edge of the pool, but also more interestingly at the bottom of the warmest part of the pool. It was the softest, squishiest stuff I've ever felt between my toes. It was repulsive and interesting at the same time.

The lifeguard. Poor guy, all bundled in Gortex. He was cold standing in the steam of the pool. Overall, this was a great lasting impression of this amazing island. We totally enjoyed our stay there and look forward to our next trip...perhaps in the summer months with the midnight sun.

Church Tower

This is the view of Reykjavik taken from the top of the Hallgrim's Church. It was unbelievably windy up there, and also very cold. The morning is just starting to break at 10:30am. From the top, you can see how colorful the city is, surrounded by mountains and ocean.

Icelandic Northern Lights

Photographing the lights was trickier than we thought. The funny part was that there wasn't actually anything showing up on the digital screen of the camera. But when we loaded them into the computer, there they were, just like magic! The conditions weren't optimal, as it was a bit hazy so the lights of the city were distracting...but we did see a couple nice glimmers of green!

Salon

This Icelandic cafe was really beautiful. The art was inspiring charcoal drawings of women's bodies, all curled up with rolls of skin...every table decorated with a candlestick. Markus had a lamb dish with egg noodles, I had a chicken salad with wasabi and Doritos. I'm pretty sure they were Doritos. It was spicy, salty and delicious.

Laugadalur Swimming Pool

Geothermal water makes outdoor swimming cheap and possible year round in Iceland. The local pool here has 2 Olymic size swimming pools (one outdoor shown here).

The steam rising made it difficult to see each other in the pool. Underwater with goggles, the water was so clear. The contrast was interesting and made it easy to sneak up on Markus underwater.

These giant foam toys were just freefloating in the warm kids pool. We had it all to ourselves for a while.

Iceland Roadtrip

We rented a car and drove the "Golden Circle" route into central Iceland. This is the tectonic plate of Europe and N. America, the are slowly moving apart, called Thingvellir.

Icelandic horse. They are a very old breed, if they ever leave the island, they can't come back. This is to protect the other horses from disease.

Gullfoss, translated mean's God's falls. We made it just in time to catch this sight before the sunset at 4pm.

The thing about geysirs is, they erupt and then you're wet! I was curious about the hole in the ground, got too close, and then it exploded. But I was faster and escaped the downpour. With hot sulphury steam and water the earth is literally boiling up here...like a giant whale spout. So far, Iceland is great.

Wuppertal Schwebebahn

We visited Wuppertal just to ride the local train. It's unique because the track is overhead with the train hanging from it. Most of it follows the river Wupper. The city is in a small valley, spread out from east to west, and the space over the river was the only place for a train. It's really cool.

Castle

Today we drove to a castle near Wuppertal. It was built in about 1180. Of course it was beautiful, but I've never seen an ugly castle. It must have been crazy to live in that time. There were many examples of the classic knight in shining armor. It seemed that they did a lot of fighting.

Check out the knight.

This is a chair lift that you can ride down into the town.

Gasometer

These are both examples of "old" industry made "new." They are both gasometers, giant old gas cans. The bottom Gasometer is now a museum of sorts. It's 340 ft tall. Inside, the current show is pictures of the earth taken from satellites. Gazing up at the ceiling is dreamy. It's dark with a pattern of lights on the ceiling, it's hard to tell if you're looking up or down...We went up the glass elevator to the observation deck on the top. It was windy.