Dear Diary

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I can’t believe we’ve been journaling here on LifeTransPlanet for three years now! It’s amazing to me. But I’ve always liked journals, or diaries as I called them when I was a kid because I liked to think about what it would be like to read my diary in years to come. Writing a journal, a diary, or a blog helps you to reflect on the moment that you are in right now and also to remember the past and what can come in the future.

When I was eight years old I received my first journal and started writing in it. Mostly I wrote about all my pet animals including my pet duck, Beep Beep, my pet rabbit, Flash, my dog Ginger, and our pet rooster, Clem. I also wrote about my friends and later, boys. Occasionally, world news crept in such as the first war in the Middle East. It’s funny how much changes, and how much stays the same. (Click pictures to enlarge diary posts and photo)


Thinking about the future and chickens- not much has changed :-)

“And now I have a rooster” …”December 2, 1990 Sunday Did you ever notice that in the year 2000 I will be 20. I think that’s neat”


With my brother Justin and my dog Ginger around 1988

I hoped people would be interested in my journal -and still do with this one

“June 11, 1990 …I got a duck he’s only a week old and man he’s big! My thearoy is that when I get really old a scientist will read this and make me famous…”

Big changes, like moving and death, have always made me “Super Sad” -and still do

“Jan 14, 1991 Tomorrow’s war in Iraq which is so sad.”  “Jan 25, 1991 Flash died! Everyone’s sick in my class and war is terrible too….” “Feb 6, 1991 I’m trying to get over Flash but it’s hard. I haven’t been so sad. Everything around me is changing, America (war), my life (mom got a job), I met more friends, brother, starting school in Fall, moving, aging, changing schools…”

I still write a personal journal in addition to this blog. I write with a pen and paper. It helps me to try and figure things out. To vent. To put into words the mumbo jumbo of feelings that sometimes come over me. A lot of times after I write I am able to better deal with the world and see it from a different perspective.

It has also made it so that I am not afraid to write. I know that being a “perfect” writer won’t ever happen and only makes writing seem difficult, but that I can be a good writer.  To do that I have to actually write something! Being able to write without anyone correcting me has made it so that I am able to say whatever I think as grammatically and politically incorrect as I want to be. It is very freeing! I know not everyone likes to write, but for me, journaling is a great stress reliever and creates a historical document I can always look back on like this first one when I was a kid. Journaling is about the present, it creates history and it helps to look to the future. The ultimate time machine.

Three years journaling online. Three years of animals, activities, changes, super sadness and super happiness. I wonder what it will be like for future kids in the world of journaling their lives. I will be waiting and writing to find out.

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Cheap Tix to Cheap Trick

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Every year here in Greeley (at least for the last 80 or so) we have a July 4th celebration put on by the Stampede.  It used to be a community “potato festival” as that is what was grown in this area..Potatoes.

Somewhere along the line a private company took over ownership of the fair.  Since then it’s turned into a bigger and bigger deal.  They run the parade every year, the rodeo and the island grove park carnival.   One of the benefits to this is they draw in some pretty big names in music. They’ve had Def Leopard, Kid Rock, Keith Urban and numerous other acts.

Last night we had tickets to Cheap Trick and rode our bikes to the fairgrounds.  Blue Oyster Cult opened up for them.  I think we were the only people that rode our bikes.  The people watching the gate kind of laughed as we rode past them and bypassed the $10 parking fees.


Ticket Stubs

The fair has increasingly gotten more and more expensive.  I’d imagine back in the days of the Potato Fair it was pretty cheap to walk to the park.  They’d have some games and maybe a baking contest.  Now it’s $10 to park your car and another $5 just to get into the park.  A Turkey leg will cost you $8 and a lemonade $4.  That makes the regularly priced tickets to see Cheap Trick($17) not so bad in comparison.   We got them for $5 which is usually the cost to just walk around.  Not bad!


At the show! You can see the meat packing plant in the distance

The concert was pretty good.  We recognized a few of their songs from the radio and there were a few people that seemed to know every song.  I am sure this was a pretty big deal for them.

We got an “Indian Taco” (that isn’t really a taco and isn’t Indian either) as we walked around the food court.  We ran into a few people that we know and then watched the concert.  Overall it was a fun night .

Walking around the fair grounds after dark

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Buen Provecho…¡Comida!

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Since it is summer (verano) and all the food is growing, people are out having bbqs and enjoying the weather, I thought today’s Spanish tip could be about food!

Food probably has the most variation among Spanish speaking countries. What one country calls “turkey” for instance can be many different words in different countries. However, here is a starting point.

Food –Comida, Alimento

Breakfast is desayuno

Lunch is almuerzo -or in Spanglish –lonche

Dinner is cena

Snack –Bocadillo, Refrigerio, Merienda, Tentempie -I’ve heard many words for snack, but no consensus on the standard. I usually use bocadillo

Tengo hambre =I’m hungry (Literal translation is “I have hunger”)

Tengo sed =I’m thirsty.

Comer = To eat. For example, “Me gusta comer” means “I like to eat” -if you like a certain food, you can add that food to the end. “Me gusta comer fresas” =”I like to eat strawberries”

Estoy lleno(a) –I’m full -When I lived in Mexico, everyone said this, but when I did, I was corrected by my host family to say “Estoy satisfecha” which is a more polite way of saying the same thing basically “I feel satisfied”.

Buen Provecho –I find it interesting that we don’t have an expression in English to say that we hope the food is good, that we enjoy it, that we have a good appetite for it. Instead we’ve borrowed from the French with “Bon Apetit”, or simply say “Enjoy”. But Buen Provecho is used at even the most casual of dining experiences in Latin America, so it is useful to know.

Many foods that have become folded into American dininig experience are known by their Spanish names -most commonly from Mexico such as burrito, taco, chimichanga, tortilla, jalapeño, churro, torta, salsa, tamale, rellenos, enchilada, and more. Many other countries such as Puerto Rico have different foods with different names. Sometimes they are the same food, but just called by a different name. Some foods in Puerto Rico are: pinchos, mofongos, tostones, pasteles (different than pastel in Mexico which is cake -these are closer to tamales), coquito (a drink), and more.

However, there are many other more common foods that may be good to know:

Bread =Pan

Egg = Huevo

Butter = Mantequilla

Fruit = Fruta

Apple =Manzana

Vegetable = Verdura, Vegetal

Zanahoria =Carrot

Grains =Granos, Cereales

Flour =Harina

Meat =Carne

Beef = Carne de res

Chicken =Pollo

Fish =Pescado (as opposed to pez or peces that are still swimming)

Milk =Leche

Cheese =Queso

Nut = Nuez

Candy/Sweets =Dulce(s)

Sugar =Azúcar

Postre = Dessert


For food, there is a lot to know. Everyone has to eat and there’s lots of variety! However, this is usually an area that most people learn just by doing, so don’t worry too much about it. If you have the basics, you’ll learn the foods (hopefully) by eating them with people who speak Spanish! And it will definitely be a little different wherever you learn it. ¡Buen provecho!

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How to Rebloom a Christmas Amaryllis in June

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Similar to what I received

A couple of Christmases ago, my grandma gave me a giant amaryllis bulb as a present. These are fun to grow because indoors even in the dead of winter they will bloom and give you a flowering treat. We watered it and that winter we had a nice big Amaryllis. I kept the plant (surprise, surprise) and continued to care for it, watering it, etc because I thought it would come back the next winter with another showy bloom. But it never did!

It just had these long green leaves that hung off the table. They aren’t ugly or anything, just not anything worth looking at. So I checked the internet how to rebloom an amaryllis flower. Apparently they are actually called a hippeastrum, but commonly called an amaryllis since it’s in the same family. They are tropical plants (yay! I can have them in Puerto Rico in the yard!), but they need a dry season. The dry season was what I wasn’t allowing it to have because I watered it like the other houseplants.


You can see it to the left shooting up like asparagus

So it said to put the plant somewhere dark and forget about it for about a month or two. I put it in the garage in mid March and told Britton I would take it out on tax day April 15-a day I was likely to remember.  I left it there, didn’t touch it or water it or anything for about 40 days or so. Then I (thankfully) remembered to take it out and gave it a good watering around April 15th. One of the two long leaves had died back yellow, so I cut it off, but the other one was still alive.


Just about to open -with a spider on it

I wasn’t sure if it would make it, but it was worth a shot. It started growing another leaf and then right before we left for Puerto Rico in mid May (about a month after I revived it), I noticed a shoot coming from the center. When we returned it was growing tall just like the rest of the jungled yard. It just kept climbing and climbing until finally it started to develop blooms and burst forth with huge blossoms.

So, now you know how to get an amaryllis to bloom again! Just treat it really badly for about a month and it will shower you with beauty. 🙂 You don’t have to do it in June, just plan out about two-three months before you want it to bloom. Then put it in your closet or somewhere that won’t freeze and forget about for about a month. Then pull it out, water it daily and it should bloom for you in about a month from that time. This plant really should be an Easter favorite instead of Christmas as it resurrects itself after you are sure it must be dead!


Awesome!


Super tall with a smooth stalk

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