Watching for changes

Rainy, mostly soggy muggy evening. It was good earlier but it's getting messy. Windy and wet. Even the lens on my camera is cloudy!

I love watching storms on the Internet, the Weather Channel's 'Map in Motion.' There's a cross hair on the map showing the county and I watch big blobs of color head right at us while I watch out the window for changes. Kent was hoping for rain all afternoon so he could try out his rock. Rock plural as in a bunch of rocks set in a spot of dirt right at the end of the whatchamacallit that catches the rain from the gutter-pipe that lets a gusher of rain run off the gutter, and keeps it from making divots in the dirt. Right under the eaves. Right?

I should go out and look at the rock. It's been raining a while, and the gutter-pipe (there's got to be a word for it - sluice?) has been doing a good job shunting water off the eaves. The rock at the bottom, if its installation was successful, this being determined and fairly executed by Kent the major doer-of-things-like-this, should still be there.

I should do a bunch of things, namely quickly review my lesson outline for in the morning, brush my teeth, get out of my Sunday clothes and into pj's, stretch on my ball, put on a Breathe Rite strip and stop blogging. Or the other way around. But I'm comfy and it's a hair early to go to bed (7:07) though it's very dark, and Kent's talking to his parents on the phone, and I'm in the mood to say these few little things.

So one more little thing. I had a good ward choir practice! Oh, I didn't say anything about my new calling did I? Choir director and music chairperson. About half of who can really sing in the ward and only one or two who can't showed up. A smallish group - that's notorious for this ward - a large ensemble kind of. I'm not disappointed. We who came learned three new songs and had a good time. Next practice we add flute and piano obbligato to one! They're gonna love it. The flutist or flautist is worried a little though. She's young, with one baby, and hasn't been playing her flute for a while. I'll give her a pep talk.

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Fennel

Grandma and Avery from Scrap Girls blog.
I couldn't help it. I couldn't even help it. Cute pic. Have to laugh!
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Oooh I can see fennel becoming my new best friend! Did any of you see Food Network Star season 5? Melissa D'Arabian (link) won, and I love, love, LOVE her shows. I DVR them because well we just got DVR, and it's a toy, and because the episodes are on Sundays at 12:30 - not something I'm gonna be watching there and then. I do watch each episode later tucked full length onto my love seat with usually the afghan thrown over me, and in high anticipation.

She does basic food like chicken or potatoes or applesauce in dishes that make my mouth water. And has tricks I'm already following in the kitchen like freezing a pack of bacon and when I want to use it in a recipe, thawing it just a little (or maybe not at all) and cutting about inch-wide strips off the end. Voilà, bacon "strips" already in little chunks that go in the frying pan to crisp. Yeah, they get more of a chop for recipes or are ready for bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwiches, for instance. She taught a trick for fully cooking pan-fried potato bites to make them fluffy inside and crispy outside. Love it! Oh, and I love forwarding through the commercials.

Sounds like Melissa's becoming my new best friend but, no, it's fennel.

Had to ask the produce manager about it the other day and found it finally in the organic section; I've hardly noticed it at the store until Melissa. I just put together her red cabbage and fennel slaw, and ooh there's homemade dressing. It uses the fennel fronds for heaven's sake! I've never seen myself as the "homemade dressing" type - that's Sandra for ya'. I think I can be, though. Just follow the recipe and stir the ingredients together. Yum!

I feel like I'm on a cooking show as I taste this before I put it in the fridge for a few hours. Of course it's good, but I don't know HOW until I have it my mouth. Erm, something you can't do cozily ensconced on the love seat in front of the television.

This is what you get when the summer crops are over. Well, they're in the freezer instead of in the ground, and the fresh garden food is about done. Except for a few tomatoes and green beans. Oh my tomato sandwiches with fresh basil are good! 

Anyway, back to trying new recipes. I'm making hot capriola (Italian ham) paninis from For the Love of Cooking to go with my slaw. I do love this blog and have a bunches of her recipes printed too. Hm. Mm!

Rainy day

A big enormous gigantic limb fell off a pecan tree in the back today. Fell like a brick. I was pedaling away on my bike in the living room with an eye on Oprah (which was on being rude) and saw it out the window at the back of the house hit the ground and bounce. My gosh I got off the bike with the pedals still flying and ran to the window. It wasn't enough - I got out in the rain with my camera. I could see the wrenched end of the limb where it lay next to the trunk and hundreds of nuts scattered under and around the thing. I had to look way up at the tree at an angle to find the break. It's way up.

An unnatural thing.

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The limb. The tallest part on the right is about eight feet. Way taller than me.



Another look.



The wrenched end, kind of hard to make out near the roots.



Below is the limb that fell in August 2007, remember?



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I've got my Christmas music chosen for the ward choir. Seminary breakfast in the morning is organized and the quiz the kids made up the questions for a few days ago is printed. I made Kent a quesadilla dinner tonight with great flavor (from For the Love of Cooking blog) that he promptly smothered with green chiles out of a can. I love watching him love his dinner. I worked out; finished Tea Time for the Traditionally Built today and took it to the library, and got Peace Like a River, and am halfway through The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday on audio-book. I'm also loving William Bennet's Book of Virtues this week, it's on my nightstand, and have come through the end of 1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon and Deuteronomy (almost) in the Bible. I talked to one of my ladies I visit who is in the hospital and feel more encouraged about her - she had a heart attack a week ago and has been in and out of the hospital; has pneumonia. I lugged two big pots of Vinca (periwinkle) (lovely) off my front porch onto the sidewalk under the rain - they like their water from the natural source. Only get drinks from a pitcher every few days. I'm sitting with ice packs on my legs because my quads are stiff. I've exercised and stretched. It's time to go to bed. Regina will be waiting for me tomorrow morning like she was this morning at 4:30: in her driveway. Hopefully then it won't be raining on us.

Writer

So I go to my niece Suzie's - pardon me, Susan's - best-ever blog that I read forward and backward when I can dally a little. Just now. It's like sitting on a rock in a stream with your bare feet in the cold water, amazing and very good; or like a lime Popsicle.

http://www.sothereyouhaveit.blogspot.com/


And find she has another blog. What is this, and when?

And what the heck. Is Sooz a writer, bona fide?

Someone, please. Bring me up to speed here.

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I know, more of Brady-boy.

Pirate!

Okay you guys, rush rush rush to Dana and Brad's blog (link) and see Brady the Pirate. Kudos to Andrew T. for sending the gear! These guys are both my heroes.

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Kent Vilano Beach

Classic

A great day today - sunny and not humid - really rare for here. Blue skies. Church in the morning for me and a nap this afternoon.



And a beautiful sunset tonight. Kent hasn't felt good and has lounged around. He's reading what he calls "my books from the 'Natalie' manual."

You know, I have about eight or so books resting on their sides on a shelf in the sewing room, ones I've kept because their titles are delicious and they make me happy, books by A.A. Milne, James Herriot, Scott O'Dell and Ogden Nash; titles such as The Little Prince, The Bobbsey Twins and Little Britches. And he's going through them! (Heavens! I have a bookcaseful he hasn't seen in two years since I emptied the bookshelf for the seminary students' stuff, putting the books in boxes.) He's playfully and a little curiously figuring me out as he reads books I love.

He finished the Winnie the Pooh classics Saturday. He started on The Bobbsey Twins in Volcano Land (dated 1967 on the inside cover in my handwriting) and finished it today. Just now he's picked up Little Britches by Ralph Moody. Published in the fifties, I first discovered it in junior high and have read it three times. I bought a used copy in a book store in McAllen in the 80's and believe I'll read it again. Kent's on like page 20.

He didn't go to church. For him I think today has been long and boring and tough because of his headache. I wish we had our swings still up, or a shaded arbor magically built, something imaginative for us to have gone outdoors a while today and relaxed in or upon. But mostly the couch has done it for Kent.

Garrett with Popsicle


Brady and Reagan, cousins

For Sandra Who Loves Frogs

Shoot, this title sounds like a Simon and Garfunkel song. ;-)
---
A thing is a thing when it's all by itself.
Bunched in a bunch it's SO something else.
GEESE is a gaggle, and FISH is a school.
These are the words you use. This is the rule.
-->What about FROGS? What is their word?
Probably something I never have heard.
Frogs all collected I never have seen -
But one on a lily pad, green on green;

But one in my garden staring me down,
Wet in the pine straw, brown on brown;
But one in the lake, and only then
Blinking an eye and gone again.

Surely there must be gaggles of frogs -
Armies or puddles or knots in the bogs.
Froggeries! Yes, frog colonies green!
Still, one at a time is all I've seen.

Natalie Holbrook
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Dad took these pictures at the gardens. Click for details. (I'm sure it's one frog!)

No.

More from me. Today I did something I'm proud of. A little hard, but, eh, not so hard in the moment. Nervy though and out of my comfort zone.

First, remember how Jen is coaching me: Take up some space, mom. That doesn't make sense so much unless you know I'm very used to giving the lady in the grocery store with four things in her hands the automatic go-ahead at the checkout counter, the nod that ushers her to the front, me with the buggy (we do say that here) holding fifteen items or less, and me often as antsy as her to get out of the store. Sometimes not, but mostly. Happens a bunch, and Jen's noticed.

Take up some space, mom.

That example will do. Apply it to me in traffic, conversation or marriage and you get the picture. I will say one thing though - Kent thinks he has NOT married milquetoast,

Milquetoast is an American English dysphemism (opposite of euphemism) for a weak, timid, or bland person.

and volunteers the information very gladly. There.

I got a call from Dana this morning - Dana who I visit teach, 22, who's recently joined the church and with her family of three little sons under two and a half and husband squats in a single-wide trailer within the ward boundaries - who needed a ride to her doctor appointment. Dana has no car and needs rides everywhere; her driver this morning fell through, so she called me. Happy to help. I looked at my watch, said what time? and left the house three minutes after Dana said to me now. Got to the trailer park and she came out holding two year-old Michael. Peered into the car and said, I always take one of the kids with me when I go. (Leaving the other two for out-of-work hubby.) I didn't know and I should have guessed. Okay. We're on our way.

How long will you be? I asked as she got herself and Michael out of the car to go into the doctor's office.

It doesn't usually take long.

I countered, Well, you've got to sit in the waiting room, don't you? And take some time with the doctor?  She agreed.

I'll be here, I said.

I left and drove across the street to the hospital intending to visit Gloria (whom I also visit teach) who had a heart attack two nights ago. She was transferred this morning, and now I'm too late. I came back to the doctor's office and idled, calling Faye to find out what's going on with this elderly mother, who it turns out was moved from her room, had angioplasty, and will receive a defibrillator. For the next hour I read Tea Time for the Traditionally Built and dozed. Then Dana came carrying Michael and got in the car and said, The doctor wants me to go over to the hospital for lab work and x-rays. Will you take me?

No, I said.

I say, Do you have someone else who can take you? Now? Or later today, or in the morning? (A stare.) You have a small child with you and he can't go into lab rooms or on the x-ray table with you. I'm thinking of some couple of hours idling in the hospital parking lot, waiting; or walking the halls holding Michael. Worse, even. With some reproach and a little frown she looked at me. I never get this from the person with fewer groceries than me as they get my nod to go ahead at checkout. I was here first you know, but you have the most need and the least stuff. I can tough it out. You go first. No, just that flush of gratitude and a happy smile. So for me it can be like: Dana has the most need and the least stuff and I would almost nod.

And maybe I don't do reproach that well. I cave for fear of... no, that's not it, it's care for the other guy. I'm nice. But hey, what about me? Me too? Me anyway. Me, because. Take up some space, mom, the coaching is.

We talked and she called her husband and she shrugged her shoulders and she told me stories about her sister-in-law with no gas in the van and mother asleep at home who wouldn't come anyway, it's her day off, and husband with the kids and sore ankle and soreness from surgery last week and the doctor needing to get the lab report in the morning, and I listened. And said no.

Michael threw a fit in the back seat. I backed the car out and drove home, away from the hospital. He's trying to tell you something I mentioned to Dana while she answered her phone. He's probably thirsty.

(This because she brought no sippy cup. I'm big into water.)

He's hungry, she said, idling on the phone a moment. 11:30, my car clock reads.

He's had no breakfast?

She nodded, arguing with hubby on the phone then getting a call from Crystal, her sister-in-law. Michael howled and rocked in his car seat. Okay, she turns to me, Crystal's coming - she just got gas in the van.

It's alright.

I knew it. Something in me somewhere knew it even the moment my mouth opened back there to say out loud (to my little shock and surprise) NO. I wouldn't - I won't. The right answer at the right time, clearly for the right reason. Me.

I told Kent at dinner tonight I feel proud. He heard. He's listening on audio-book to How to Win Friends and Influence People, and we're laughing, shaking our heads at how I'm holding my ground and he's practicing being nice.

Oh Pooh

Today has been simple, and I'm glad. But it's 8:00 now and I'm absolutely demolished with tiredness. How can it be I go to bed in the daylight? :) I love my bed I love my bed I love my bed! I'm a gnat's eyelash away from getting in my bed.

You'll never believe what Kent's reading - Winnie the Pooh and House at Pooh Corner. I found my tattered paperbacks on the shelf in the sewing room the other night. When he asked me for proof of Pooh I went looking. He's been for a couple of nights now sitting under the quilt on the couch discovering Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit and the rest, including Small - real name: Very Small Beetle. (Didn't know.) Laughing! Hee-hawing. I tell him he should watch the cartoons next. (He needs to get Eyore's big old deep voice, don't'ya think?) I think we're going to do it . . . silly old us.





Joseph 2007

Drawings

At the end of the first week of Seminary I gave the kids a homework assignment for Monday: draw a verse - any verse - from 1 Nephi Chapter 1. Easy. Here's what they drew.

Alex - "I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents." Alex had much homework on the weekend with her AP classes and managed a quick drawing on Monday morning, pedigree chart-style.



Peter - More of "I, Nephi, having been born . . . " Peter took creative license and drew his parents and included (he said) his dad's five o'clock shadow.



Kyle - Nephi (Kyle doesn't draw people) making "a record of my proceedings in my days . . . a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians." Kyle does technical scale and style.




Tania - The prophet Lehi, Nephi's father, kneeling to pray for his people. And "there came a pillar of fire and dwelt upon a rock before him;" Tania is becoming a gifted illustrator.



Daniel - Ditto, without the fire or rock - Lehi praying for his people in love. This is the perfect basic sketch; like Alex and Anna, plenty of white space.



Nicole - Lehi in a vision with the heavens open and seeing God surrounded by "numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God." Nicole and I draw alike - I'm drawn (no pun intended) to how she uses stick figures.



Anna - Ditto. Lehi's vision of the heavens. Cupie- doll faces on shorty bodies. Go Annie.



Seminary's going good. I think about class all the time and that's okay because I'm more at ease teaching when I've visualized it a lot the day before. Going over the lesson and possible conversations really helps; that's where my mind is. Thinking about scriptures I'm studying does too.

We're holding Seminary in the dining room now around the table which (after three years) makes it feel more like a class and keeps the kids from falling asleep. The couches about swallow you whole in the living room, and we've had regular sleepers every year. Anna and Alex have each put their head down at the table but pop up when we get talking about stuff, so I know they're not bored or asleep. I love being closer to the kids. They agreed to the change and I'm glad. There's been talk though of needing the fireplace in the winter, wanting it, (oh and hot chocolate) they're so used to that; so don't know about this arrangement in a few months.

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So you know about this? Yeah, hurricane season. How did Claudette slip up to the coast? She's giving us a little precip.



---
Joseph, Summer 2009

...a piece of sky

I get sentimental once in a while and feel very Barbra Streisand-ish. Then I get out "Yentl" to listen to - that music makes even the houseplants quiver! My favorite is "A Piece of Sky". . . The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize the less I know. Each step I take, each page I turn, each mile I travel only means the more I have to go. What's wrong with wanting more? If you can fly - then soar! With all there is - why settle for just a piece of sky?

Yeah, well.

I was thinking yesterday, driving home from visiting a friend, how down to earth life is really. It’s like riding in a Jeep (don’t laugh); my one experience with that was on a washboard of a road near the Na Pali coast in Kauai, 35 mph. Bump-bump-bumpedee-bump-bump, five long miles from the highway in to the coast on that dirt road. Not a joy ride. Not even.

I’m writing more seriously today than I do. The last couple of weeks have been bumpy for me and, like the Jeep ride on the washboard road, startling.

My friend dying. I wrote about that.

Seminary starting.

Regina and me changing our walking hour, making the day longer.

Managing constant pain.

A student calling me on the phone with a panic attack, frightened.

A friend’s house flooding and Kent and me having their family over for a meal. A sister I visit calling me to sit with her when she heard her sister-in-law is within days of dying. A sister I visit recovering from hip surgery and on kidney dialysis, using a walker and depressed and lonely. A sister I visit, brand new to the church, having surgery suddenly and needing me several hours a day. A look-see at very very down-to-earth living, all. Sobering.

Hearing of friends losing jobs.

Knowing (without many details sometimes) how family members struggle.

A new calling.

You take life however it comes and try to get on its level, figure it out or maybe don’t. Try to stay with it. There’s a kind of plodding along people do at this down-to-earth level, more than I know or comprehend or like. Sentimental you can hardly be! You mourn with those who mourn; say what you need to say or keep silent; make adjustments; feel sore or affronted or overwhelmed or afraid. Or grateful, in truth.

I’ve been sore at the next door neighbor for months, real sore because he cut down trees that have made me for over five years oh-so happy. They were his to cut, all in his yard, but it so caught me off guard. They were like mine... and I have no say. No more tree tops.

Big, big bump for me.

I was thinking yesterday, driving home from visiting my friend, how down to earth life is really. But I turned the corner onto my street and looked up.



Over my house there, clouds... and a beautiful piece of sky.

----

Chris my brother

Good, good man

I'm back on my computer! Whoohoo! After ten days and a new hard drive and mother board installation, I'm back. Things are NOT the same. From the LAST time my hard drive foundered I wrote a single-page list on notebook paper of all the stuff, sheer stuff, I have to do to get everything the way I like it on the computer - customizing. Installations, upgrades, favorites, resolutions, you name it. So part of me is wilting at the prospect of the days ahead running into walls when I so want it to be easy-breezy.

Thanks to Kent for doing all the hard work of this really. He knew to call Dell. He called Dell; stayed on hold, then explained and re-explained the problems to the tech - remember he's not the guy the crash happened to, he had to hear what happened and why from me first; went through the hardware and software tests they described (right on the computer blue screen) and accepted an invitation to subscribe to another year of manufacturer's warranty. Told me what to expect with the technician coming, what he would bring, how he would call to set up the appointment, etc. Made it very easy.

Kent's worked on the computer each night since the parts were installed after pretty frustrating days at the office, with an employee giving notice and some other breakdowns, with one night a headache. Doing a full backup restore, and then again when it didn't work right the first time; being sent to the Internet when he tried to install Norton where, thank you, he could not go safely because no virus protection was installed yet. Ugh. Worked on the computer more this morning after breakfast when he really wanted to go out and dig potatoes. Calmly he worked on my computer, which is the real gift - calmly, and explaining how everything is ready for me to come back to now.

So I'm back.

I started this post thinking how I want thank Heaven for such a man as my husband. I was washing my T-Fall frying pan at the sink and noticing Kent at the computer still, 9:30, and daylight a-burning. Thank you, thank you for this good man. I say this out loud, or sometimes in a whisper; audible so the heavens can hear. Thank you Kent for my T-Fall pan, I say as I'm drying it and putting it away. This falls in the same category as when I thank him for my good, good supper. What? he's said to me, times before. You cooked it. Yeah, I say, but you worked for it. He's stopped saying what when I say thank you and will look up now and say you're welcome. I walked to the Florida room where he concentrated on my monitor and kissed his cheek and told him thank you for my T-Fall pan. He grunted.

When I was single and finally came up like a periscope out of deep water knowing I wanted to get married, I put together a list of things I hoped for in a man. I don't know where the list is, I didn't save it, so I don't know what all I had on it exactly - but I DO know I got exactly, exactly what I need and very much of what I want. Kent moved on from the computer a little while ago; I started putting together a lemon poppy seed cake after breakfast. I couldn't remember if the rum extract is a teaspoon or half of that, so I came to Kent's computer to bring up my recipe to check. Got sidetracked. (It happens.) I see my own computer waiting for me like a clean slate and go to look for the computer CD that explains about monitor resolution . . . one of the very first things I NEED to get right before I can work on it. The Lemon Poppy seed cake recipe is still trying to come up on Kent's computer. I'm sitting in my computer chair. Kent walks into the room with a measuring tape in his hand and says I need your help please for a second. We go to foyer and he looks at the job he's done installing Levelor blinds on the glass panels to each side of the front door, and has one last thing he has to measure and get an opinion about. I stand beside him while he measures and mutters and jots down 8 13/16s on his 3x5 index card and then 8 1/2, then subtracts one from the other, etc., etc. He's in the zone.

He works whatever it is all out and says okay and I remove to my computer and then say I can't find the Dell CD for my monitor. He walks to it tucked inside the cupboard door and hands it out to me. Now he's in the kitchen - "Don't forget what you're doing in here," he crows. He's laughing. "There are no less than three cupboard doors open and four eggs curdling in this bowl." I jump up and he's right, and he's laughing out loud. I look around: The cake recipe is up on Kent's computer waiting for me. The DVD/CD cupboard doors in the Florida room are swung wide and the contents of three cupboards in the kitchen are gaping at me. The poppy seed cake batter such as it is without rum added is waiting under four eggs to be whipped. I'm in the zone myself at the computer reconfiguring monitor resolution.

Scattered. This is how I work (and get things done). Kent knows. Oh how I love you, he says, not chiding. So genuinely I'm caught off guard. I'm shutting cupboards and adding rum and kissing him on the lips and then he goes out to dig potatoes.

A good, good, man.

Busy

I love my life. Really most days. (Ooooh, sad, just noticed the plant behind the computer monitor is way drooping. A leaf fell. Must water . . . ) Anyway, the crem fraiche peach pie is wonderful. I told Kent at dinner last night I had dessert for us and that it was GOOD! Did you eat it? he inquired. A taste, I mumbled, looking at the pie as he brought it from the fridge - I forgot how healthy a slice I'd wedged out of it after it cooled in the afternoon. It was so darn good after dinner! He likes it hot; me, cold or room temperature.

I've got chocolate chip brownies coming out of the oven this very instant. The dinger is dinging. My favorite recipe, for a family who's had a flood in their house and is having a restoration company rip out their kitchen, and has hardly any use of their cooking stuff. Dinner, I said to Brenda, the mom. I'll bring dinner tomorrow. No, we've got the grill, she says. We've got a crock pot and a griddle and a toaster oven. We're set. We'll eat out. Whatever. Brownies, then, I volunteer. She didn't say no.

This morning I got the batter mixed and looked for my Corning baking pan, 9" x 13," really a little bigger. I love that pan! Not here - it's at the missionaries' apartment or maybe the R.S. president's house after a funeral last month. Darn. So I took off my apron and drove to Target to buy a Pyrex pan. First I went to Tuesday Morning but didn't see one, though – hello! – I saw plenty of other cool stuff; then to Kohl's to buy an item from the ladies' essentials department; then to Target and found my pan. On SALE!!!! 10 x 15! Perfect in every single way. I bought two books for Scott besides, one of which is "Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed." (Of course; he'll love it.)

I haven't mentioned I limped to the store. Making the brownies I dropped the 20-lb. flour bucket on my big toe. When I was putting it away I missed the shelf and it came ringing down on my foot. Boy did I shout, and I could hardly grab a breath for a minute. Regina, I may not be able to walk tomorrow morning – no kidding. Two nights in a row I've gotten to sleep by 8:30 so I can get up at 4:30 a.m. to walk with Regina. We're on week five of walking early in the morning, only the third day at this very early hour since Seminary started, and going pretty fast. Not so much tomorrow. We'll see.

I have brownies cooling on the counter that will be delivered later, my apron still on, chocolate dishes in the sink. A meeting to go to tonight at the Stake center and Linda to pick up on the way. A nap to get, oh yeah, if there's any hope. A sore back from Ron's good therapy - needs ice and stretching - and stiff legs. The mail to get. Books to wrap for shipping. Towels to fold and put away and clean ones to put up in the bathroom. My hair to curl. Chili and cornbread to walk across the street to Joe and Regina in a little while (I love these good friends). My plant to water; and I should vacuum the living room. That's about as much as I can do on a sore toe this afternoon.

I feel happy. I do love my life.

Ice, seminary, potates, pie

Last Tuesday and yesterday, a week apart, I went to Ron for massage therapy. Trigger point stuff. All last week I've been on ice. He said I should put my whole left leg to the knee in a bucket of ice water for 8 minutes, five days in a row. My eyes bugged at that but I nodded. What could I do - he'd put me through half an hour of therapy on my foot and leg the evening before for plantar fasciitis and I was now paying him for yet another hour on my back (where the "switch" is for keeping the legs working right.) NOT take his advice? I don't think so. He puts his own arm, bent at the elbow, into ice water to the armpit and wrist for that long every day - to reduce inflammation and revitalize the muscles.

Kent certainly obliged. Brought me a food storage bucket and the bag of ice I had in the freezer in the garage. When have I EVER kept a bag of ice in the freezer since I moved here? What possessed me to buy it . . . oh right, the potatoes. (More on that.)

I sat on the edge of the tub.

Cold water in the bucket.

Left . . . toe . . . in.

Foot.

Brrr.

Leg.

Ice. Half.

Stinging, numbing, shocking cold.

8 minutes.

Five days.

I'm a champion. I AM!

My back meantime I iced odd times every day, but not at all getting in the seven days he wanted for me. Yesterday I told him and he said, "better than nothing." He believes in ice. "It's your best friend," he says. "Tells the body to send blood (ooo!!) to the inflammation and carry off toxins." They're released when he breaks up the knots in the muscle. You feel kind of wounded for a day after his ministrations and ice REALLY helps.

Seminary started yesterday. Here are paper dolls decorated by my students (six came) and paper clipped to a string tied above my front door and running through the foyer, living room and into the Florida room. (Pre-earth, earth and spirit world.) Sarah told me a week or so ago that she was going to use this string lesson in her class and I copied her. The kids buzzed, cutting the dolls out and decorating and naming them and discussing where they are on their timeline. We had a great class but didn't finish, so the dolls hung on the string all day and overnight. A computer tech came to the house about 3:00 yesterday and said NOTHING, absolutely, as he walked under the paper dolls, read signs taped on the fireplace, and glanced at the white board in front of the television with Plan of Salvation, happiness, love, redemption and eternal life written on it in purple. He fixed my computer and left, ducking under the dolls and likely snickering.



Potatoes Kent dug days ago. They're a project that needs time and absolutely no interruption. A well body. And ICE.

Wash, get the Georgia dirt off. Cut into pieces.



Blanch.



Rescue after a few minutes and...



shock in ice water.



Air dry. Bag in airtight bags for the freezer.



Yay for peaches! They SO say summer! Had a few peaches two weeks in a row, a gift from Becky who picks them and brings them to me. I made peach cobbler which Kent and I ate all of almost in a day. You're kidding me - I never knew peach cobbler was so, SO beyond good. Then peach-blueberry pie, and gave it away in slices to women I visit teach. Kent had one piece but then he's a peach purist, so okay. Next, decided on a peach crem fraiche (krem fresh) pie recipe, but don't have that specialty cream. So I made it. Whipping cream and sour cream shaken in a jar and left at room temperature a day then in the fridge 6 hours at least, and it's ready. The peaches were ripening so they had to go in the fridge overnight - it was a race.

And today, the pie.



I'm dying for a slice.

He's gone

I'm very clear that I create posts on this blog mostly from how I'm feeling right in the moment. Right now I'm sad.



Tom Jennings. Exactly my age, he served in our Stake Presidency for two years as second counselor; from Milledgeville, an hour and five minutes from us and a very beautiful, kind of rustic community, once the capital of this state and the perfect fit for him and his family; with boys now grown to men and gone from home, and a woman who dances, Betsy, who positively sparkles with energy, for a wife and sweetheart. Grandchildren - little ones and babies. Friends everywhere who, like me tonight, are shocked and sad he's gone.



My friend let many of us know early in the year he'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Recently he quit chemotherapy and opted for an alternative treatment in another state, so he's been gone much of June and July. I heard about a week ago he was home, sooner than expected. Today I got the news he passed away last night after being taken off all meds but morphine a couple of days ago. Kent and I have prayed for him and fasted many months - always expressing our love for him and a wish that God's will be done on his behalf - always hoping against hope for miracles for him but without any idea of betrayal of unfairness if his illness should take him. Without a doubt many have been doing the same; he has been the beneficiary of an entire community of prayers and deeply held wishes for life if it were possible.

My friend has passed away. I feel shock and concern for his family and closest friends. I don't for him. He has been cared for and, as I believe, is about the business of the rest of his life on the other side. I'm shaken but calm enough considering my trust in Heavenly Father's plan of life and salvation prepared for all His children. How well and truly I lean on Him every day and on the hope and enabling power of His son, Jesus Christ, upon the full condition of repenting and coming toward Him. My friend, understanding this too, has finished his life with this full trust and hope. His family is strong I believe, strong enough, though today and tomorrow and the next will test them, and the days and months after. I pray for them tonight, in awe of their need. I'm sad that he's gone.

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