Because (a) it was Earth Day and (b) it was a New Year's resolution.

This week was Earth Day, and while that doesn't have the same status as the other holidays, I like to spend time outside, so I opted to complete my first running New Year's resolution: run to Elephant Rock in Mueller Park.

This wasn't new, because I ran there twice last year (one time I walked down after running up), but it was still fun.

I took my phone with me to document the experience--and taking pictures gives me an excuse to stop to catch my breath. But I don't usually run with my phone, and my current phone is bigger than my old one, so I worried it would either fall out or pull my shorts down. (I don't think anyone wants to see me run pantsless.) But I got used to it bouncing around in my pocket. Now, the pictures are purely for illustrative purposes, not for aesthetic purposes. I make no claims to be a photographer (especially with a phone on a cloudy day) or to have an artistic eye.

I see lots of blossoming trees in people's yards (including mine), and I love them, but this was the first time I'd seen a blossoming tree on a trail.

I took this picture a mile and a half up the trail. (My Fitbit literally said "1.50" miles.) The large rock in the middle is the destination.

Last year I was intrigued but weirded out by these little yellow flowers, and now I know that they're glacier lilies. They're starting to wither in the lower elevations, but they're abundant higher up. They're weird in that they face downward and then have petals that curl back.

There were a few arrowleaf balsamroot flowers, but these are more abundant on lower hillsides--so abundant right now that they color the hill yellow. They're not autumn leaves, but they have the same effect.

There were still some patches of snow, but not too much. And thankfully not too much mud.

There are a few bridges crossing streams, but since I've only been up there in June and September, I haven't seen as much water.

These flowers were near the top (and by "top" I mean Elephant Rock, not the top of the mountain). I think they're wallflowers, but I'm not sure. If they are, we have a lot in common.

I made it to the rock! I know someone who got to the trailhead about the same time I did, and he later seemed a bit surprised that I ran up it before he biked up it--but I did get a bit of a head start. I really don't mind sharing trails with cyclists. I'd rather not share them with motorbikes and horses, but they're allowed there. At the rock, my phone told me there was a WiFi network available, which was a bit surprising.

Then I didn't take any pictures on the way down, because it was getting dark, and because I didn't need a reason to stop for a breath. Round trip, it was six and a half miles, but I didn't feel like I had to run six miles; I just felt like I had to run three, because downhill was easy. It was a thousand-foot elevation gain.

And to counterbalance all the pictures of pretty things, I thought I'd put a picture of a not-pretty thing--chewed up food. In the last few months, I've enjoyed making various vegetable soups (carrot, celery, cauliflower, spinach), so I decided to make a Thai-style carrot soup that used an obscure vegetable/herb, lemongrass, which had to be purchased from an Asian store. Since I (a) am not Asian and (b) had never used it before, I used portions of the plant that I wasn't supposed to, and the soup was full of stringy, fibrous inedible pieces. I don't know whether I liked the soup, because the lemongrass kind of spoiled the experience.

The orange tint comes from carrots, and the green spots are cilantro leaves. I'm fine with both of those. But not with stringy stuff.

It was like eating weeds. I remember reading an article that in 1855 and 1856, some pioneers "ate so many weeds during the summer that [their] skin became tainted with green." I kind of wondered what would be so bad about eating weeds, but now I know.

But frankly, turning green sounds awesome.

Seize the week

Several interesting things happened this week. And when I say "interesting," I don't actually mean interesting, but rather new things that I can write about.

We had snow on Friday, which satisfied my need for an April snowstorm. We had like two inches but there was almost no trace of it by the afternoon. I'm still hoping for a year when I see it snow in nine out of twelve months. It always snows in April. May is hit and miss.

With the snow on the mountains this week, I looked out at the Oquirrh range from the windows by my cubicle and saw a prominent cirque I hadn't noticed before--evidence of past glaciation. And North Salt Lake has signs out advertising a city Arbor Day event on May 7, and I thought, "No, no, no, Arbor Day is on April 29!" I'm such a nerd. Or a hippie. One of the two.

The Church Historian's Press this week published online the Journal of George Q. Cannon, and most of the press releases focused on his 1862 meeting with Abraham Lincoln. I was really excited for this, because I have done just a little bit of research on that meeting, but I didn't have the details he provided. So that was nice to have.

All my college French paid off this week, as I was able to determine that an individual had been born in Québec in 1796 instead of 1780. French doesn't have a word for ninety, so ninety-six is literally "four twenty sixteen," and some less attentive person had not noticed the "sixteen" part. You can't forget the seize!

On Saturday I had to give a presentation at a "Family Discovery Day" in Centerville. It was OK; I don't think I was very prepared. But it was a bit of a hard topic. They wanted me to talk about how missionaries are expected to teach investigators and members to do family history. Which is false. They are not expected to do that. I don't have any experience using family history work as a missionary--but I wish I did, because teaching people about family history would have been more productive and beneficial than most of the things we were doing out there. Preach My Gospel has two full pages on using family history to find people, and I never used it, but I wish I had.

Due to preparing for this event, as well as stake conference, I broke some of my New Year's resolutions this week. I resolved to clean at least a little every day, but I missed Friday. And I resolved to lift weights every week (because it's something I hate doing), but I didn't this week. I didn't even go running. It was either go running (on streets because the trails would have probably been muddy) or make spinach-pear soup. I made the spinach soup.

See? I told you it wasn't actually interesting.

Satisfying April

Of the spring months, I think April is my favorite. I am sad that Easter's over, but in a year from this time, it will still be before Easter. Things finally start blooming. The blossoms have left the apricot tree and moved to the plum tree, and soon they will be on the crabapple tree, which is my favorite. (My favorite for blossoms. Not my favorite for fruit.)

On the trails, the glacier lilies are out in abundance, I've seen a yellow-bell or two, the arrowleaf balsamroot is starting to bloom, I've seen vetch of some kind, and there are other phlox-like flowers or flaxflowers peeking out from the dirt. (I'm sure glad I bought that wildflower book in February!)

This week, I got to see the publication of an article for which I researched and wrote about forty footnotes and assembled the appendix. So that's exciting, for me at least.

People are sometimes impressed with my Etch-a-Sketch skills. I'm a terrible artist, but I can draw on an Etch-a-Sketch about as well as I can draw on paper, rather than simply drawing stairs. My cousin's kids were at our house yesterday and they wanted me to draw a monster with a hat, shirt, gloves, ruler, pants, and socks, and then they wanted SpongeBob.

Then they wanted me to draw a vampire with bats and other monsters. (Anyone who knows my history knows I had no problem at all with doing that.)

I feel like I lead a pretty satisfying life. Even if it's not a very interesting one.

Conference week

This week wasn't an overly eventful one, at least not during the work week.

On the Friday before general conference, however, mission reunions abound, and I went to one with my first mission president, President Clark, in Draper. It was good to catch up with various people there (and I felt a little bad about the people I've unfriended over the years), and I had two of my past companions show up. I no longer feel a great need to go to reunions, but it was either that or stay at home by myself (and my parents).

I didn't go to the reunion of my second mission president, S. Mark Palmer, because I didn't know him as well and it was all the way in Provo. If I still lived there I probably would have gone. I feel like he remembers more about me from reunions than from the mission. He actually became a general authority seventy this weekend.

Then general conference itself was good. I didn't think there were as many stand-out talks this time, but I did like Elder Andersen's and President Uchtdorf's talks. It's sad to see how old President Monson is, since he gives short talks and calls the Cheshire Cat the "Chinese cat."

I didn't really have many complaints about the music this time--although I do get tired of "Come Thou Fount," which is the most overratted hymn in the hymnbook (oh, wait...), and I dislike that the MoTab sings parts of songs slowly and quietly, thus sucking the life out of cheerful songs like "O Thou Rock of Our Salvation." But no major complaints.

I like to buy grapes for conference, because then I can eat them to stay awake without guilt. Besides, jelly beans are out of season now.