Why I love Instagram

I've enjoyed social networking platforms. I'm on Facebook, but seldom post. I have a Twitter account and I've been known to tweet, but I am more likely to re-tweet. I am on Google + but I don't have the hang of it. I obviously blog and I enjoy it a lot, but it takes quite a bit of time. Besides blogging, nothing else has really captured my imagination until Instagram.

It is as if I've been struck by lightning.

I am going to be a shameless advocate here, so please forgive me.

I am one of those people who lives inside my head a lot. I love solitary things--like walking, hiking, reading, writing, (napping), and driving. This rather strong need for solitude can be hard to explain. I love to do those things because it is then that I feel in tune with my surroundings. I notice things and I find many of the things I see moving, rejuvenating and inspiring. Then I want to share those discoveries with people I love.

My very first memory is of the side steps on our house. There were several brick steps and on every other one was a large rectangular (at least 4 feet long) planter of red geraniums. They led to lovely french doors that we didn't use and that were purely decorative.  I would lay down on the step next to the planter and hide. From this position I could look up at the flowers and see them framed against the blue sky and be alone. To this day I love the sharp sent of geraniums and the sky through green leaves.

Instagram captures moments like these for me and then allows me to share them.

Instagram also makes me think of Impressionists. I looked up the definition of Impressionists online and here is what I found (I highlighted what I am talking about in blue):


"impressionism [ɪmˈprɛʃəˌnɪzəm] n 

1. (Fine Arts & Visual Arts / Art Movements) (often capital) a movement in French painting, developed in the 1870s chiefly by Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Sisley, having the aim of objectively recording experience by a system of fleeting impressions, esp of natural light effects

2. (Fine Arts & Visual Arts / Art Terms) the technique in art, literature, or music of conveying experience by capturing fleeting impressions of reality or of mood

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003" 

The beauty of a face just waiting for a subway

I look at Instagram as the whole world recording fleeting moments. Stopping time for just a second and recording what they found interesting, moving, compelling, funny or sometimes just snapping a picture because they were bored.

I find so much beauty in the world. It is what makes life worthwhile to me. The small snatches of beauty that pack every single day. The times that transcend driving carpool or washing dishes. The living in-between.

Instagram also helps me feel connected to other people. I love seeing what my niece has her daughters wear to church. I want to see what family members are eating, where they are going and what they find beautiful.

Another one of my favorite things about Instagram is finding people in other cultures who love the things I do. Who love architecture, landscape, faces and flowers.

The very moment the sun makes something utilitarian beautiful.

I feel connected in ways I didn't think possible. I also feel like the whole world is being documented second by second and then it's gone and the new second is upon us. It's a futile and beautiful documentation of the ephemeral.

The perfect watermelon.

For example, one day I took a picture of the sun and then posted it with hashtag (#) sun. I then looked up on Instagram all the pictures with the #sun. My picture was already buried under 50 or more pictures of the sun--from all over the world.   That's it--it's filed in some digital obscurity.

Of course on Instagram you have followers and people you follow. There is also the possibility of going on Instacanvas to sell your pictures. It's satisfying to connect with people and have them get what you are trying to do--but it isn't why I do it. I do it to just have the ability to capture and share a moment I found inspiring.

The apex of a college career.

Favorite hamburger ever (Toast NYC).

Something grand, like the flowers at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. 

Something unpredictable like petal-less black-eyed susans marching along the trail. 

The weirdness of the mundane in a mass planting of marigolds in my yard.

The grandeur of my favorite mountain, Mount Olympus, in April.

The simple perfection of a Hollyhock as it blooms.

Weber County, and that spells CHEESE!

We did our summer family vacation this year in spring--May to be exact, to see our daughter graduate from college in NYC. So, I looked bleakly ahead to a summer without something special to look forward to and knew I had to come up with a plan. So, I thought and I thought and I thought and then EUREKA--I came up with a wonderful idea.  Visit every county in Utah. Doesn't that sound fun! I've always wanted to do that and now I had an excuse.

I presented the idea to my lovely husband and children and it went over about as well as a lead balloon. I forged ahead anyway and thought that I would just plan little outings and they could come if they wanted to. You know how I love an adventure solo or ensemble--especially if it involves driving and so I didn't get discouraged--No, not me!

A while back in some national magazine I read about an internationally recognized cheese maker in Utah with the company name Beehive Cheese, located in Uintah. Don't confuse Uintah City, which is in Weber County, with Unintah County, like I did. When I looked up the address for Beehive Cheese I was a little disappointed, I was hoping for a trip a bit further away, but then realized that it was only about 40 minutes from my house. Which is great in the long run, because now if I have a hankering for the cheese I can just hop up to Uintah for a fix. 

I was able to talk most of my family to go with me--you ask how?! I bribed them with award winning cheese and it worked! 

How can you pass up a marketing
ploy like this "Handcrafted Cheese and Curds!"

Well, we headed up to the mouth of Weber Canyon, just barely off of Highway 89 and gave it a try. Yum. Yum. Yum.  They've won both American Cheese Society awards (their Promontory Cheese won first place) and World Cheese Awards (the Full Moon cheese won a bronze medal in 2010).

We bought the Promontory, Promontory with Habanero and Ragin' Cajun squeaky cheese curds and they were all wonderful. They are extra creamy and buttery, which I guess is part of their process. They explain it all on the website.

The store inside was tiny and the building itself was tucked away from the highway and behind several other buildings, but it was well stocked and we left a little poorer and a little heavier.

Beautiful Morningside Heights in NYC

We went to NYC all of last week for my daughter's Senior Recital and graduation from the Manhattan School of Music. It was one of the best trips we have ever taken. Everyone was old enough to enjoy the trip and were really good sports, because we walked and walked and walked and walked--just like those pioneer children who sang.

I am always amazed and inspired by the city. When I traveled to NYC before my daughter went to school there I didn't love the city. When my daughter moved there I realized I just didn't like Times Square much, and that is where I'd mistakenly spent so much of my time.

I love my daughter's neighborhood, nestled at the bottom of Harlem, right next to Riverside Park and right in the Morningside Heights section of the city. The picture above is of the view from Grant's Tomb, right next to Riverside Park. Lovely to see so many people learning to ride unicycles on a sunny Sunday (only in NYC).

This area of the city is vibrant, ageless, intellectual, full of seminaries and full of energy from Harlem. Columbia University is near and there are many yummy affordable restaurants and lots of outstanding architecture.

Normal street view

I've become obsessed with front doors, because our new house really needs new ones. New York City is the place to be inspired by doors! These might be a bit grand for our 1960's rambler though.

 

The following pictures are of a courtyard at Barnard. Oh, to be a Barnard woman! We left just before President Obama gave his commencement address there.

Columbia!

Columbia, blending old and new

In most places in Salt Lake you have to get in a car and drive to get groceries and other necessities of life.  It is something that drives my daughter crazy when she comes home. Suburban sprawl makes for quiet neighborhoods, but I do think we miss out on something really nice. Every one of these pictures was taken just a short distance from her room.

We are all mourning--just a little bit--of her leaving New York. Maybe I'll learn to love Los Angeles--where she is off to next.

Utah State Capitol Roaring

My daughter had an extra credit assignment that involved locating various architectural styles around town. I saw the assignment on my desk and made her promise to take me with her. So, when we had a little time after Christmas we went around town taking pictures. It was so fun and I got a little carried away. I thought I would start with Utah's State Capitol Building which I think is beautiful.

This is a bronze sculpture of Massasoit. It was made by Cyrus E. Dallin a notable Utah sculptor. Dallin was born in Springville and is famous for this sculpture of Massasoit as well as the Angel Moroni on top of the Salt Lake City Temple.  I found this out when I became very curious as to why Massasoit was greeting visitors to the Utah State Capitol.

Massasoit was the leader of several Wampanoag groups located around where the Mayflower landed and where Plymouth Colony was founded at the time of the arrival of the Mayflower. He probably helped save the pilgrims from starvation and has a very interesting history. While the history didn't match up with Utah at least the artist did.

After we paid our respects to Massasoit I spent a little time with the lions. As you can see I especially liked the lions!

















Majestic,

















Timeless,

















Different light, different color,

Great down to the detail of paw and fur!

I had to include the mural of seagulls as well. What is a the Utah State Capitol for if not to immortalize Utah's great stories.

What would it be like to live here. . . Castle Valley Outdoors

My Uncle Glendon passed away this fall.  He was loving, generous and so good to us as his extended family.  I haven't been able to write about his funeral yet--I will, but not yet.

My sister-in-law Brodi wrote a really beautiful account of his funeral that made me cry--here's the link.

Here, I am going to write about something he created in the high desert plateau of central Utah--in Emery County, Utah to be exact. It might just be my favorite place on earth and we have been able to spend our Thanksgiving there for years and years. This Thanksgiving I was extra grateful to him for allowing us to be part of his family.

You can get to Castle Valley Ranch from I-70,

from the Moore Cutoff Road (this is a nice little drafty cottage),

















and from Utah State Highway 10 that goes from Price to Emery--my favorite highway in the world and I have to drive it in the daylight. If I don't get to see the scenery in the light I get a little cranky. This is a must because when I drive out of Spanish Fork Canyon and turn on to Highway 10 the sky opens up and I feel free! With only 8 inches of precipitation a year it is incredibly dry but the flip side of that it is also ecstatically sunny!


















Here is a long view of Castle Valley Outdoors--Castle Valley Lodge on right, Muddy Creek Lodge in the middle and Pioneer House on the left (hidden by trees).

 Views, view everywhere

 Camaraderie in the cold

 Sparse and hardy vegetation

There is fish in that thar pond!

Fire pit for s'mores

 Seriously, someone in our family left gasoline out--just so my son's eyebrows could almost get singed off.

Breakfast view

Windy walk around the lake

 Sunset on the fields

 Sunset on the plateau

















Time to go home. I hate to go back home.

Thank you Uncle Glendon for a life well lived and great memories we all treasure.