The end of the world?

6.5.11

These are some lovely flowers that I got to take home from a baptism after party as a souvenir.  They are now sitting on my kitchen table and bring a noticeable brightness to the room.  I love having fresh flowers around!

6.6.11

Today it rained for about two minutes in Albuquerque.  So like any New Mexicans in their right minds, we ran outside to marvel and enjoy it.  As we ran out to the front porch we watched as our neighbors all did the same.  To understand, you must know that Albuquerque gets rain about seven times a year.  Although brief, those few rain drops were exciting.  We sat out on the porch for a bit to enjoy the lingering smell of moist earth.  The ground soaked up the drizzle greedily.  Soon the blue sky had returned and the sun resumed its bright shining.  

Well, after we got our hopes up for a real thunderstorm, we decided on a very rainy day dinner: tomato soup, grilled cheese, and an artichoke.  I was always a Campbell's Tomato Soup girl until Daniel introduced me to Amy's Chunky Tomato Bisque.  It blows Campbell's out of the water.  We used our newly clarified butter for our grilled cheese sandwiches.  It worked out quite nicely.  Supposedly clarified butter is better use for cooking because it doesn't burn as easily as normal butter.  It also is lactose free.  That doesn't really affect it's cooking quality, just an interesting fact.  

See that little pink spot?  That's the sun.  It was so bright and blood red to hot pink this afternoon.  It definitely had an air of armageddon.  Thank goodness for this age of communication and information.  This end-of-the-world-esque sight is caused by smoke from wildfires burning in our neighboring state of Arizona.  The New York Times said that over 350 square miles have been burnt.  I can deal with the smell of smoke, the thick haze that blankets the city, and the evenings and nights looking like a ghost town from a hollywood blockbuster; I just hope that everyone in Arizona who has to deal with these monstrous wild fires firsthand are doing alright.  I can't even imagine what they are going through.