August 17, 2012

• {Color} Yellow *And my people watching obsession*

  Yellow is not a favorite color of mine. I am not sure why.  It is SO bright and cheery and makes a person feel happy, yet I realized, especially yesterday, that I have very little yellow in my house. I don’t think I own a single yellow piece of clothing either.

  Strange and interesting. How one person’s absolute favorite is something that another person is not drawn to.

  I worked yesterday and I learned that my office, also, contains very little yellow. Trust me. I looked. The only yellow items I could have photographed were so boring and had no story to tell that I decided to just skip it.

  Nevertheless, I did manage to capture some yellow throughout my day…

  

  A lone banana on my little fruit stand that I bought from Ikea.  I actually don’t like bananas. But they are healthy and they are cheap and they are a quick snack.  So I keep buying them and about 1/2 of the time they go to waste.  Did I mention they are really cheap?  That way, if they go to waste, I don’t feel too bad. This one is just perfect right now.  I probably should get around to eating it!

  

  Remember how I made little cheese shapes for Nikki’s birthday party?  Well, this was the scraps from that. It made a perfect little snack to take along in my lunch today.

  

  Yellow sticky notes. I use them. A lot. And my phone. And other (strange) methods to remember things.

  Sometimes I worry about how forgetful I am. I am constantly writing things down and tricking myself into remembering things.

  Case in point:  Just this week, on Wednesday, Jeremy asked if I could take the truck to town and get a tire that needed to be picked up.  No problem.  But…I know myself.  I knew that in the hurry of getting the kids and myself out the door when it was time to leave, I would, out of force of habit, just get into the minivan and drive away.

  So, I did what any sane person would do.  Earlier in the morning, I went and hid the key to the van. I put it inside the glove box instead of leaving it in the ignition, where it usually is.  That way, if I did forget and got into the van to leave, I would be like “Where the heck is that key?” and then I would remember that I was supposed to take the truck and run that errand for Jeremy.

  I guess I know myself pretty well, because after having someone stop buy to pick up a piece of furniture from us, making sure the kids were all ready and had gone to the bathroom, grabbing a last minute snack, and heading out the door for Nikki’s doctor’s appointment, I headed straight for the van. The kids were already all in there…ready to go.  I put my purse and other crap into the van, sat down in the driver’s seat, put my hand up to turn the key and then I thought “Where the heck is that key?”

  And that’s when I said “Ooops, kids.  We have to get out. We were supposed to take the truck.”  Do you feel like I need medication for this? Or is this something you can relate to?

  The bad news was: I took the truck for the day and didn’t replace the key to the van back to its original spot. It was still in its (apparently) very good hiding spot. So when Jeremy went to get in the van to leave for his guy’s night out, he couldn’t find the key and had to call me.  But it all worked out!

  
  

  

  This yellow book that I am reading right now for book club.  I am only on about chapter 3. Maybe I will have to take it along camping this weekend.  So far, I give it about a two star rating.

  

  Abandoned pool floatie.  The weather has already turned cooler here (its only mid-August, God. Did you know that?) and so we emptied out our pool 1/2 way already.  The kids can still splash in there.  I had picked up two of these floatie things at a garage sale and they are wonderful. Turns out, I think they are meant for snow, but they work great in water too. And…they are made with much tougher material than pool floating devices usually are made of, so they are the only ones that have survived a summer of use.

  
  

  

  Pretty yellow flowers that are blooming everywhere right now. I don’t know what kind they are, but they grow on a super high plant. I think the ones down by my garden are probably at least 6 feet tall…with the flowers mostly up towards the top of the plant.

  
  

  

  I think that this is goldenrod.  Correct me if I am wrong. I went to take a picture of these flowers and how perfect was it that there was a yellow (and black) bumblebee on them?  I like this snapshot.

  

  I took a close-up of this flower too, because I thought it was really cool how each little individual flower is kind of star shaped, but you would never notice that from a distance.

  
  

  Warning: Abrupt change coming up.

  
  

  

  Once Jeremy got home, we headed out to a dirt track race. My sister in law had the kids for the day while I worked and agreed to keep them for the evening (and overnight…bless her heart!) while we went to a race.  Races are normally not on Thursday nights, but this was a special Modified Touring Series that was in town on a Thursday.

  I had not been to the races all year yet, and I was honestly missing it.

  There is something about the sounds and smells of the racetrack that I love.  I tried to decided what the smells are and I think it is mostly the smell of fuel and rubber and cigarette smoke and fried food.  I know that doesn’t sound that great, but you have to just trust me. It really is!!  There is no other smell in the world like the smell of a race track. 

  Jeremy and I used to go all.the.time.  But having kids and more responsibilities kind of slowed down our race track attendance. Now sometimes Jeremy just goes with his buddies instead of with me. Which is cool. But I wanted to get to at least one race this summer.

  
  

  

  There is lots of yellow at the race track.  Mostly the paint and graphics on the cars.

  
  

  

   

  But there is also yellow on the people. 

  Did I mention that one of the things that I love about the race track (or really, anywhere I go) is the people watching.  I am an avid people watcher. Lately, I have been trying to figure out how I could get paid to people watch.  Then I would just do that all day. That’s how intrigueing I think it is.  I’m sure I “get watched” sometimes too. But since I am largely unaware of that, its all good.

  Hopefully I wasn’t too obvious in my watching (and even photographing) my people watching subjects at the race track.

  First off…

  Guys in mustard yellow sweatshirts. This seemed to be a bit of a theme.

  
  

  

  This bearded dude not only was wearing a mustard yellow sweatshirt (why, oh, why?) but also was eating a cold meat and cheese sandwich of some sort that he had taken out of a plastic baggie. I so hate cold meat and cheese sandwiches that it almost made me gag watching him happily chow down  on it.

  
  

  

  Subject #2 wearing mustard yellow.  This guy was sitting a few rows below us with 2 of his buddies. They seemed to be having a great time.  At one point, he was holding a beer in one hand and an energy drink in other.  And here the people who invented “Sparks” thought they were on to something new!  I guess it isn’t illegal if you have your highly-caffeinated drink and your booze in two separate cans, now is it? Who said people aren’t ingenious?

  I also saw a third guy wearing mustard yellow.  But I was not quick enough on the (camera) trigger.  He was also wearing a cowboy hat and jeans that were pulled up way too high. I very much regretted not getting a picture of him and waited the rest of the night for him to walk past me again, but it did not happen.  I didn’t think it would be cool to go up to him and offer him $10 to snap his picture.  But maybe I should have at least tried?

  
  

  

  And then there was this guy.  With the buck on his cap and the yellow quilt wrapped around him.  I am pretty sure that he was married (for many years) to the woman sitting beside him, who lovingly wrapped the quilt around his shoulders and smiled at him sweetly and then took the other half of the quilt and put it around her shoulders.

  Seriously. It melted my heart.  The reasons I think they have been married a long time:

  
  

  A)  Who owns a quilt like that when they are newly married?  It looked worn and it looked hand-made and it looked like something you wouldn’t keep around if you didn’t appreciate things that took hard work and time. Kind of like a good marriage.

  B)  The way they interacted.  There was a familiarity and an ease and an unspoken love between them.

  C)  Probably just because in my heart I wanted to believe they had been married a long time. It made the whole thing so much better than if they just met and shacked up last week.

  One other thing in the people watching department:  There was a young girl with GORGEOUS auburn hair who was wearing a purple shirt and smiling constantly. Believe me. If she had been wearing yellow she would most certainly have been photographed because she was so fun to watch. She was at the race track with her (apparent) boyfriend, who was tattoed and pierced and kind of ruggedly handsome. I very much enjoyed watching them. Even though they were kind of big on the PDA portion of their relationship.  Something about her…she was just interesting.  And I think it was mostly because she smiled a lot.

  
  

  

  This is the “Flag Stand”.  See the yellow flag.  The means “Caution” and they wave it when someone spins out or there is a wreck or debris on the track or whatever.

  
  

  *And here is where she waxes philosophical*

  
  

  There is a saying in racing:

  “Cautions breed cautions”  It is very true. When you get the cars all bunched up back together to re-start the race, there is more chance for another wreck, which produced yet another caution.

  There is also this song that is along the same lines:

  “The more I drink, the more I drink.”  Think about it.  Very true. At least for some people.

  And then one that relates to me:

  “The more I write, the more I write.”   I definitely have seen this to be true with me. (I hope you are following all of this, because it makes perfect sense to me!)

  The moral of the story is this:  Habits re-produce.

  So whether there is good things that we are cultivating in our lives or not-so-good things, the more we do something, the more we continue to do that.  Whether it be reading our Bibles or running or cooking meals at home or being patient with our kids or cultivating grace in our lives or whatever.  Think about it.

  *End of muddled philosophizing*

  
  

  

  And one last “yellow” picture.  This is Kenny Wallace being interviewed.  Kenny is a fixture on the Speed channel (for those of you who watch that.  What? No one watches the Speed channel?  Well, I have.)

  He was kind of the super-star of the night there at Rice Lake. And apparently the reason we had to pay an extra $8 each to get in. Because he was there.  Ok, people. He’s not THAT famous.  Anyway, he is a Nascar driver and announcer on Speed and has gotten into dirt track racing in the last few years. 

  I am disappointed to say, though, that he was very “middle of the pack” in the “A feature” race of the night.  I honestly expected more of him.  Oh, well. I guess he better keep his day job.

  Ok. I need to get my butt moving. I have places to go today. And this post has taken far too long.

  There are children to pick up and showers to take and groceries to get and food to get ready for camping.

  Tomorrow’s color:  Green 

  • 9:37 am
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