Creativity – Page 3 – Life in Yosemite

Progress Check

30 October 201529 March 2009 by Theresa

So far we’re 29 days into Lent, and I’ve managed to get a blog post in each day. I’ve missed a few days, and had to back-date, but I’m still at one-for-one, and I usually get that nagging lagging post in the next morning.

It’s a lot more writing than I’ve really ever done before, and the great thing about it is that it seems to be getting easier with each day that goes by. Ideas for things to write about come at me faster than I can get them down. (Knock on wood that it continues.) The conservative part of me is saving those posts for use on later days when I can’t think of something else to say, or don’t have time to get something down, but the longer this goes on, the easier it is for me to build up a surplus of ideas.

Playing the piano like Tom Bopp

30 October 201528 February 2009 by Theresa

Tom Bopp played the piano for the retirement party last night, and getting to see him in action made me think a lot about playing the piano and the power of music. I’d love to be able to play like Tom.

I started learning to play classical piano when I was 5 or 6 years old, and took lessons all the way through high-school. But, I had stopped playing since then, until Tom put his foot down and bought a piano for me about 8 months ago.

Not the Usual Yosemite Fare

30 October 201527 February 2009 by Theresa

This is a strange weekend for me. It is filled with activity options that wouldn’t normally occur to me as Things to Do in Yosemite. When I got here 5 years ago, my list was pretty short – climb, hike (to climbs) and backpack (for far away climbs), but the more I’ve lived here the more I get exposed to all of the other things that are going on in Yosemite.

Observing Lent

30 October 201526 February 2009 by Theresa

I don’t really know too much about Lent. We never observed it when I was growing up, and although I knew it was that period right before Easter, I didn’t really even know how long it was until pretty recently. My in-laws observe Lent, and I think my brother’s family does, and I’ve even tried it once, in the traditional way.

We were visiting my in-laws one year during the beginning of Lent, and my father-in-law was giving up “all the stuff he loved” meaning desserts and sweets. I felt like I’d been eating a lot of desserts lately, and on a whim decided I’d follow suit, having no idea how long Lent was. I was shocked and horrified to find out that I’d committed to 40 days. 40 days!?! In the end, it didn’t really matter, because my dessert-loving father-in-law had a favorite bakery on his morning circuit, and since he wasn’t eating them, brought a pastry home for me. My good intentions lasted just over (or maybe just under, I forget) 24 hours.

But, 40 days is a good number of days to challenge yourself with – long but not eternal, so I thought that maybe this year I would try again to do something for Lent. I’m going to try to publish a blog post each day for the duration of Lent.

Poem by George Bilgere

30 October 201525 February 2009 by Theresa

This was the poem of the day on Writer’s Almanac and it really struck a chord. Thought I’d put it here so that I didn’t lose it. It’s amazing and wonderful that we can catch up with friends and loved ones while dining alone in a cafe, it’s comforting not to have to eat alone. … Read more

Badger Pass powder

30 October 201520 February 2009 by Theresa

With all the snow that has been falling lately in Yosemite, Tom and I have been taking advantage of having Badger Pass basically in our backyard. Even on weekends that we have dedicated to working on house projects, we can often manage to sneak in a least a few turns. Not only has the snow been falling, but it’s been falling low and light, which makes for excellent skiing.

On a personal note, this year I’m starting to feel like it would be OK again for me to get shaken up a little bit, and take a few falls, if you know what I mean. I’m still pretty tentative, but on a relative basis it’s a huge step up from where I was last year. When the snow was firmer I got in a few runs on the NASTAR course, trying to go as fast as I could, and now I’m hitting some rougher terrain with more confidence, and taking some falls. I keep thinking it would be fun to ski some steeps in Tahoe one of these weekends, but of course there is always so much to do.

Skate skiing before work

30 October 201527 January 2009 by Theresa

I admit it. When we pulled into the Badger Pass parking lot this morning, in the dark, I had serious reservations about this being the right time to go for a skate ski. But, we had done the backward calculation, and figured this was when we needed to start to make it in to work … Read more

New Yamaha YDP233 Piano

30 October 201519 June 2008 by Theresa

I have a new piano! I have a new piano! I’ve only been wanting one for, lets see, 19 years or so. Basically since I moved out of my parents’ home and went to college. Unlike a piccolo, or even a guitar, pianos don’t lend themselves to moving around or small spaces, so it’s never … Read more

National Geographic likes me

30 October 20153 April 2006 by Theresa

[Written by Tom] Much to my surprise, National Geographic is buying one of my pictures to use on the cover of one of its Trails Illustrated maps. They are doing a new series of maps of Yosemite that will divide the park into four quadrants and do a high-quality, fairly large-scale map (50′ contour intervals) … Read more

Another new page: art stuff

30 October 201514 July 2003 by Theresa

I put up another new page today – with a couple of pictures that I drew. You can get to it by clicking here, or you can sort of navigate there by going to the 'Leaning Tower' page on the navigation bar on the left to access the rest of my pages, and then click … Read more