Somewhere in time

I went to mom and dad's about mid-morning and mom left after a while to go visiting teaching, walking with one of her neighbors to another lady's house up past my house. I finished visiting with dad and walked up the hill myself to my house - then got in my car and started backing out of my driveway. Off to visit teach - it's a morning of it for sure. I backed very slowly about halfway out of the garage and stopped to see through the passenger window my mother and her companion making their way carefully down the snowy sidewalk from the house next door, arm in arm. Going home. They moved toward me on the sidewalk and passed behind without looking up. They should have heard the car idling at the garage, or seen it and waved, but each watched her steps and leaned into the other.

It was interesting from my vantage point to watch their progress. What a surprise to be "happened upon" by mom - but then I happened upon her more like. It felt rare and a little out of time - we haven't lived in the same state

for over thirty-five years much less in the same neighborhood practically on the same street ... pretty awesome! She's a pretty awesome little mother.

It was kind of a "Are You My Mother?" moment.

Or like one of the Mormon Messages on the Church website maybe. You'd watch us in our little vignette to the soundtrack "Somewhere Out There!" Ah no, just being silly... I idled backward into the street and pulled past them and they kept going like they were, and so did I.

Good thoughts

Here's things our Sacrament meeting speakers said in church today on personal revelation:

*Believe in your Father in the heavens. He lives.

*All who repent and are baptized members of the church of Jesus Christ, his divine Son, have the right to the Holy Ghost and the right then to continual personal revelation.

*We need the influence of the Holy Spirit to know the things of God. (President John Taylor)



*Consider the feelings Joseph Smith had prior to his vision of the Father and the Son:

While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine.  It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible. At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God. I at length came to the determination to "ask of God," concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would give liberally, and not upbraid, I might venture. (Pearl of Great Price JS-History 1:11 - 13)

A thought here about this. We can see it's for Joseph Smith as it was for Cornelius in the Book of Acts; a Gentile, a centurion, a just and God-fearing man to whom came a certain vision and, besides, the influence of the Holy Ghost powerfully leading him toward Christ, then baptism in His living church.

*I can stay open to the Holy Ghost, the Spirit, and experience it through feelings, thoughts, words and, at times, tears. How do I stay "in tune" to receive revelation? Be at Sacrament meeting, read scriptures, personal and family prayer, church activities, run from things of the world, attend the temple. The temple is a place to receive revelation and there we are entitled to personal answers to our questions.

*"The ability to qualify for, receive and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life," says Sister Julie Beck. 

1) President Eyring indicates that the key to hearing answers and knowing that God has an interest in our lives is to develop a listening ear. "We’ve got to be quiet and listen. In my life, when I have failed to receive a clear feeling or have missed the voice of the Spirit, it is because I was too busy, too noisy inside, and too full of my own world.”

2) Our speaker said she gets great ideas for advice to give to her grown children and grandchildren and has lately begun to wait before giving that to ask in prayer if Heavenly Father would want her to do it if it's the right thing at the right time, His will. Give our ideas the test of time, she says.

*Personal revelation is an open line of communication from God to our spirits through the Holy Ghost. President Joseph F. Smith: 

“When I as a boy first started out in the ministry, I would frequently go out and ask the Lord to show me some marvelous thing, in order that I might receive a testimony. But the Lord withheld marvels from me, and showed me the truth, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, until he made me to know the truth from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. … He did not have to send an angel from the heavens to do this. … By the whisperings of the still small voice of the Spirit of the living God, he gave to me the testimony I possess.”

Gotta' be

I think by now in our yard
at our old house
birds've gotta' be
singing.

And the flowers and trees budding.

Though on February 13th last year there was this in my yard

(and didn't I love it!)

and this,

by February 27th at

Massee Lane gardens . . . 

whooeee!

It's that time again - tomorrow's the 27th, a year gone. 

It's gotta' be spring in Georgia.

I miss it.

Happy hour

The days are whizzing - it's time again to write. Kent got home and I've picked up speed here as we've furniture shopped and started projects and solved stuff he has to help me think through and decide about. And the other way around.

He's waking at 4:30 a.m. still, his Georgia inner clock wound tight. Thought this morning perchance we'd make it to 5:00, but neh, neh, neh (the Billy goat says on our favorite commercial, ruminating). It's because we're so pOoPEd by 8:00 p.m. we have to get in bed by 8:30 when pretty much my eyes close, and then our eight hours are up at 4:30 and so are we.

We've gotten a lot done before breakfast these days.

*Organized our closet, for one thing. Sadly Kent doesn't have somewhere to mount his tie rack. In this whole house and certainly not in the closet not a convenient spot for the ties. They'll stay on the bed I guess until the day he figures that out.



*Pulled year books and journals and binders off our bookshelves downstairs where they'd been stacked out of boxes weeks ago, and ordered up the regular books. And the DVDs and also the CDs in their shelves. Who uses CDs anymore, I ask you?

*Built shoe racks for the closet; checked the smoke alarm batteries through the house, nine it so happens; dusted the high, high shelf in our bedroom on an 8-foot ladder before then putting pretty things up top (Kent did while I ordered how it should be done, good man); went to Lowe's for an 8-foot ladder which we carried home in the car, three feet of it hanging out the trunk trailing my red Bandanna - Lowe's opens bastante temprano.

And so who has time to blog?

*Made an office. Kent needs his computer of course so this morning he hefted the file cabinets and office cupboard standing in the very middle of that room to the walls (serious work). And the exercise equipment too, and got the computer going on a small table and plugged in the printer and tweaked the wireless router, borrowed the phone from the great room, found his stapler and trash can, prayed over it all and I think is in business.

*Visited the sick, the poor and the fatherless. Uhm, not so much.

And various and sundry things that I won't bore you with. Thank you for reading this far.

In six months we'll be sleeping in til 7:00 - unless I'm walking the hills - and taking breakfast at 8:00 like normal people.

Getting clear

'Round about midnight last night a snow plow lumbered up the street being noisy. I heard it. Snow fell all night and I woke to a white out.



I dressed for choir practice before ever I thought about getting the driveway shoveled - four to six inches of wet, heavy stuff; then putting on pants over my pantyhose to keep me warm and wearing my practically fur-lined Disneyland sweatshirt and hood I went out and did work. One of the girls next door saw me and was out in a trice and together we cleared the driveway, though it was still snowing and I asked her if it was stupid pushing the snow off with more to come. Nah, she answered.

Then to church. Sacrament meeting has been wonderful, two speakers referring to President Uchtdorf's talk from last conference, "Of Things that Matter Most." I jotted down as one speaker listed them the things we may be looking for updates for most any day . . .

News and weather
The stock market
Music downloads
Blog comments
Facebook
E-mails
Apps
Games
Texts
Tweets
Sports scores
Finances

. . . and, he mentioned, these are things we may be trying to do all at once! The speaker wondered if we can lift up your heart, lift up your voice, rejoice again I say rejoice!, and if we can't may it have something thing to do with what we're filling our schedules with?

President Uchtdorf teaches: I think most of us intuitively understand how important the fundamentals are. It is just that we sometimes get distracted by so many things that seem more enticing. There is a beauty and clarity that comes from simplicity that we sometimes do not appreciate in our thirst for intricate solutions.

And by the way, as it pertains to being busy-busy with church service, I noted a statement by Elder M. Russell Ballard who cautions against complicating Church service “with needless frills and embellishments that occupy too much time, cost too much money, and sap too much energy . . . the instruction to magnify our callings is not a command to embellish and complicate them. To innovate does not necessarily mean to expand; very often it means to simplify . . . what is most important in our Church responsibilities,” he said, “is not the statistics that are reported or the meetings that are held but whether or not individual people — ministered to one at a time just as the Savior did — have been lifted and encouraged and ultimately changed.”

I've followed the promptings I had in church to write these here. The last I do before diving into bed - good messages, aren't they (got goose bumps listening), that if followed will clear the mind like sunshine clears the view.

In a nutshell

Here's the thing about writing posts early in the morning.

Not much has happened yet.

Right now I'm mixing up banana chocolate chip cookies and watching the sun come up. But not really because there's enough clouds hugging the east mountains and hanging over the desert that the sun has no chance. SO . . . really just watching I-15 tail lights and headlights, and the last of the neighborhood lights wink out.

My recipe says that when I get the mashed banana mixed in with the egg and sugar mixture it'll look curdled. It does. It's resting and I've measured the flour and stuff and found the chocolate chips to put in and am left wondering nuts or no nuts?

Kent's funny. He's driving with our outdoor-indoor thermometer, a two-piece deal, on board - he's put the outdoor part in the trunk and the other inside the car. He calls a second ago at his first pit stop and says . . . well, his words: So NOW I see the temperature inside the trunk, outside the car and inside the car!

I say, Kent, you're a dang anomaly. You're two weeks from everywhere.

He snickers.

And speaking of that I asked him if he got his usual Milky Way Dark for a snack. (I thought for a half-second here making the segue into this paragraph he'd have gotten a Snickers get it? Dark, but it isn't that. It's the other thing. I can never remember which he likes.)

And anyway (he tells me) he got an Almond Joy.

Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don't.

Harmony

Ponder the mysteries and miracles that make Harmony a place worth visiting. Join the thousands of readers who have fallen in love with the charming world of Harmony, the small town that hosts what Booklist called "the biggest collection of crusty, lovable characters since James Herriot settled in Yorkshire." Home to Harmony is the first book in the Harmony series of six full-length novels. Two holiday-themed novellas round out the series for a total of eight books. 

Well ya'll, this → "Home to Harmony," is what I'm reading. And the series to follow. Years ago I got started on it, how long ago doesn't matter; the books I read stayed with me and I picked up the last four the other day at the library. I'm giggling my way through "Life Goes On" and, well, sighing in all the right places.

I like hometown stuff and stories.

I'll tell you one. This morning I went to the DI in the little town next to the town I now call home, the very town where my little sister lives, and simply ages ago we used to go to DI all the time pretty much arm in arm. This morning I went in there for Tupperware. I'll do this - browse thrift stores for Modular Mates especially since it all costs an arm and a leg full price and ever has, and I'm not willing to sacrifice one or the other for plastic. Someone somewhere is always turning in her Tupperware and then it can be mine for a song. That I can muster, gladly.

There was no Tupperware today. But there were wooden blocks with letters on them on the shelf near the plastics and I stopped, catching sight of two "R"s. Capital letters, nicely painted against the wood, and each font size 300 or so (seriously), taller than the palm of my hand. I saw those "R"s and then two "D"s and reached for the others and for heaven's sake these eight blocks on the rack spell my maiden name. What'd'ya know! $.50 each and I brought them home and am way liking them on my kitchen counter right now. I think Kent'll be good with it - it's my kitchen, right; he has the garage and all the man stuff in there.

If you know me you know it's quite like me to stumble onto a deal like this. Way beyond finding a penny on the sidewalk, which is the most likely. It's hometown stuff finding the penny and all, and this feels surprising and fortunate.

I mean to let you know what I'm reading in case you want to try it - if you're into small town, weird deals and funny folks. Philip Gulley is a master story teller and writer and Quaker minister besides. Probably it's the other way around. I stumbled into Harmony and its quirky characters and lovely endings and I feel at home and fortunate, both.



"I can only make one person happy each day.
Today is not your day.
Tomorrow doesn't look good, either."

—Frank the 70 year old secretary, chapter 9"
Philip Gulley (Home to Harmony: A Harmony Novel)

Tumble

 

So it's this again. 

This time two of them, lodged 

tight 

against the front door 

early this morning.

I opened this very door in the dark very early today without turning on a light inside above me or out. The reason is I heard the girls in the driveway. The two ladies that live next door, and who have enough sense to put on Mukluks,

Mukluks are a soft boot traditionally made of reindeer skin or sealskin and were originally worn by Arctic aboriginal people, including the Inuit and Yupik. The term mukluk is often used for any soft boot designed for cold weather and modern designs are often similar to high-top athletic shoes

coats and gloves and shovel the driveway before dawn after all the snow in the night. I kind of wanted to sneak up on them in the dark, so I quietly exited the house pulling the door to and skirting the tumbleweeds and called their names as they worked near the street on the last of the snow piles.

They laughed at me in my Birkenstocks (yet, and ever) and no-coat, no-hat, no-gloves attire. Just me visiting a minute and saying thanks, eh?

But I'd locked myself out. 

Drat it, again.

It's no use describing the goofy lock on the door or giving my best excuses. (That I DIDN'T lock myself out yesterday as I left; how then I tried the door and lock to make sure of that. Success!) I did this dumb thing the other day, grrr; pulled the front door behind me and then (oh sadness), not turning to check because I knew and realizing full well I couldn't get back in (blast) walked down the hill and up to mom and dad's to borrow a key to my house. Not a week ago.

What a laugh this morning. Hi you guys, I said to the snow shovelers and they were glad to see me. In a heartbeat and with my hands to my cheeks then, I realized I was out of my house for good. So I told them and they shucked off their coats and boots and gloves and hats and dolled me all up and sent me down the hill (and up) to mom's. At which place I arrived well before 7:00, and got the key.

You'll wonder how it was my parents were up so early and so happily forked it over. The weren't. They had to be called by me from the girls' kitchen phone first, which identified me to dad when he answered his phone in his sleep as my neighbors and startled him, which startled mom. (So I could say I was coming and please open the door?) Then I came, and they were good as gold. The porch light was on and their door unlocked, mom a little frowzled and in her jammies peeking out from their bedroom at me and dad in the living room dressed and only slightly rumpled, with my key. His key actually; delighted to offer it and without, thank you please, the expected counsel. I took the key, made a baa-ing noise since I was the wee-est bit sheepish and vamoosed, clumping noisily off the porch in my neighbor's rubber boots.

In in a trice. All well. Before I got in though, I picked up the weeds by one spiny tendril each and tumbled them off my front porch.

Goin' nowhere

 Storm coming . . .

See what I found on the front porch after the wind blowing hard all night.

Right on the mat.

(Hello!)

Mom and I had our shoes on to go walking 

about 10:30 this morning, 

started up the hill by my house, 

and then said, 

uh, no,

when we about got blown 

over.

Should have seen us.

(Laughing!)

Nope.

 -----

 'T'will be snowing later. 

Hope that calms things down.

It's sure a go nowhere day.

Cancelled visiting teaching.

Cancelled grocery shopping.

Cancelled everything tonight but 

sitting 

here

watching,

snuggled under a 

blanket.

Tuesday

I'm more and more rushed at blogging, though I "think" blogs in my head all the time that I would create if I got more than just a few moments at the computer. (Blessing or curse? That's pretty fun!)

Our get-together for dinner last night with Mark, Chris, Mom and Dad, Laura and Sharm, their kids Skylar and Shayla and Sam but not Shana and Justin and Russell (sad), me, Dan, Amy, Joseph and Andrew was way fun. Dinner was good old comfort food Beef Stroganoff over wide egg noodles or baked potatoes, green beans drenched in butter, salad, rolls, and Valentine sugar cookies we got to frost ourselves and put sprinkles on, thanks to the little boys and Amy who baked them. There was too much, but what do you do when six people you think are maybe going to be there aren't. There's leftovers! Chris bustled around getting stuff into Tupperware (he knows his way around my kitchen, right!) and so did everyone else work to pull down the one folding table and folding chairs and clear dishes and tablecloths and fill the dishwasher with dirty everything. That's my kind of party!

After, Mark, Chris and Laura and me sat in the living room with the lights down talking. Catching up. We chit-chatted, then shared (and cried) and told stories and finally looked on Google Earth on one of the two iPads in the room for the neighborhood we grew up in. Found the house and followed the streets all directions to former houses, schools, the church, swimming pool and finally the Gulf coast! I'm agog and aghast at the technology here and how adept the boys and Laura are at using their gismos. Laura learned from Mark though that you use just a finger and thumb to manipulate an image on the screen, maybe enlarge or reduce it or turn it, not just any bunch of fingers. It's not magic, Abracadabra!

Dad's coming to get me in about 10 minutes to drive with mom and the boys to our appointment with a social worker. Mom's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease and we're attending now an educational meeting today. I'm dressed and, after a short sleep (whew, went to bed after 11:30) and creaks and sounds I'm trying to get used to in my bedroom when the wind blows hard here (sliding glass door and window shuddering in their frames and the tail end of the Christmas lights which happen to have been left attached to the covered patio making staccato sounds on the stucco - that'll HAVE to be fixed), I'm ready for the day. I've prayed. This day, like every day, needs that. God only knows - so truly - what's to come.

Love and friendship

We come to love not by finding a perfect person,
but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

~ Unknown ~

Oh how true, this!

Here's a "love and friendship" quote as a Valentine's Day gift to you.
I miss you and love you all my dear family and friends! You know who you are.
(Yes, you!)

This is my wish  for you: Comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag, beauty for your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being, faith so that you can believe, confidence for when you doubt, courage to know yourself, patience to accept the truth, love to complete your life.

Sometimes quietly, sometimes at the top of your voice

I keep going from quiet to noisy, quiet to noisy to quiet. It's quiet at my house and noisy most everywhere else! For instance . . .

1) In my car listening to my current audio book from the library The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. The author Alan Bradley MUST be British, has to be - the audio book is narrated by a mega-talented Brit, a lady doing the high-pitched sounds of cheeky Flavia, the 11 year-old main character in all her moods, and every other Tom, Dick, and Harry in the story. Including a young German soldier, Flavia's two snitty sisters Ophelia (Feely) and Daphne (Daffy), a reclusive father, Haviland; hoity-toity Aunt Felicity and rustic villagers;  and Dogger, the war-shocked man-of-all-trades-around-the-castle. AND the (what do you call'em who play opposite the main character?) antagonists . . .

Antagonist (from Greek ἀνταγωνιστής - antagonistes, "opponent, competitor, rival") is a character, group of characters, or an institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend. In other words, 'A person, or a group of people who oppose the main character, or the main characters.'

It's been a noisy bunch and I LOVE it on the road, either driving north on the back streets and (aagghh) moving through consecutive school zones at 20 mph or flying on the freeway; NOT when I jog in my car the about eight or nine houses down the road it is from my place to mom and dad's. Not then - too "start and stop" and start again later, and I forget my place.

2) At mom and dad's with the TV on much of the time. The news, or an old movie. Or now since Chris is here people for a meal, or us crowded in together at a restaurant, six of us were yesterday, and the corny jokes thank you and stories and hoots of laughter. The  good, good kind of noisy.

3) With the kids and grand kids. When they're here or I'm there, Amy, Dan, Joseph and Andrew and I can make a racket. Dan not so much, but the rest of us manage it. The first thing Joseph wants to do is wrestle with me if he can get me to the floor. Andrew's a jumping bean! And loves dumping the toy bucket. "Nana" get's said more than a few times . . . when we're at the house it's in my face, right nose to nose; on the phone both boys want my attention; when we're driving together it's from the back seat.

"Nana," says Joseph from the back seat of the car day before yesterday after he and Amy and I all talked about the words opinion and fact.

"What, lovey Lou," I say.

"I have a fact about spiders."

"Let's hear it."

"Spiders have Big Round Bodies."

"Nana," he pronounces again.

"What?"

"I have an opinion about Andrew's hair."

"I'm ready," I say.

"It's brown."

"Nana?"

And so it is. It's not high decibels but it IS constant.

Last Sunday night after dinner and playing with toys and wrestling we pulled the lights down and sat by the fire in the fireplace and all sang Primary songs. Even "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" with it's loud "-BEAM!" sounded perfect in that place.

It's quiet here this morning. Too. I've put beef stew together and that takes about half an hour prep; got up early to do it so it can steep in the crock pot this morning and early afternoon.



Too quiet while I work. But I've had my thoughts. I think about how caring of mom my dad is. And the other way around. They DO for each other. I thought about that. I think about Kent who I'm missing, and the kids and grand kids in two other states, and Jen rising probably now and getting ready for church; and Scotter, and wonder what they're up to. Natural while I'm puttering around this kitchen . . . oooh, a little Mo Tab would be good about now.

My cell phone just shrilled! Good grief the ring volume is high . . . Chris texting me.

And now it's quiet and I can hear the clock ticking.

A day today

The mountains are back to their wintry brown this afternoon. The snow has gone from about halfway down. They're wearing white caps though. Yesterday and the day before they were chillingly blue head to foot. I love to watch from here the weather gather in the west and move toward my house. From here I can see both down to the valley floor and up to the mountaintops: if my street is getting lightly snowed on, the valley is getting sleet and the hills above me are getting buried! That was fun to watch last week. This week, today, is boring. February isn't pretty - outside my window right this minute is a doleful brown. Thank goodness for blue skies and puffy clouds.

I drove up the I-15 corridor this morning stopping at a few places to shop. Smith's for groceries and gas; Ross to return two rugs I bought yesterday; they don't work.  Kohl's to look at rugs, and they're expensive, gee; Tuesday Morning for odds and ends and I walked out with nothing. A furniture store and, ta da! Bar stools.



Then this evening to mom and dad's with Laura to make up a meal plan for when the boys are here. Because my brothers are coming for a few days. Mom was chipper as she sat with Laura and me at the dining room table and we plotted meals for the next several days. We complimented her hair - it's been permed and it's soft and she did it up yesterday. Washed it and rolled it and combed it out. She was also chipper because she'd found a blouse she's been looking for in the closet, one with tiny plaid to it. She and I were at the store last week and she picked out a new blouse, lavender, that reminds her of the plaid one she's been missing. Shortly into meal-planning tonight she changed into her new blouse and we've admired it. With meals planned, a good hair day, a "found" plaid shirt and a brand new blouse and her two daughters to chit-chat with, mom's been happy tonight. Dad too, because he's happy when mom's happy.

He's been sick with a cough and cold. He said to me last night after dinner something like: "My day started out perfectly this morning when I got my first kiss from mom!"

"It was just a rub-on," mom said, standing up and starting to clear the table. She looked at Dad.

Dad about split a gasket he laughed so hard. Me too.

"Reason she's saying that," Dad said when he could, "is because I've been so sick we haven't given each other much of a kiss for a few days.

Mom smiled matter-of-factly and carried dishes to the sink.

Today

I have a snippet of time.

Yesterday and the day before it was warm. Ish.

Today I wear a coat! Sunny but pretty cold. The mountains are blue.

Yesterday mom and dad and I went to mom's appointment at the Cognitive Disorder Center and we know more than we did the day before.

Today I have a million feelings and questions.

Yesterday I started the day reading in 2 Ne. Today I'll do the same. I wake every morning hungry for the words in the scriptures.

Today I'm grateful to have a coat, energy, something to do and a beautiful view.

Sunday

I'm aware, muffled through the adjoining wall of mine and my neighbor's homes, of piano music this morning. It's audible but I can't name that tune. It's a hymn, appropriate for today, and I'm mostly getting bass. That's how good the sound barrier and insulation is between our homes. I worried my two neighbors would be able to hear our television or grand kids or me knocking around in the food pantry at odd times but, no - Jamie, one of the ladies, says no, don't worry! So I'm not. When I talked with her yesterday in her own home (and got a tour of this mirror image almost of mine, and measured her kitchen table to help me figure out what I should be looking for size-and-space-wise) she laughed and said she hasn't heard a thing, not a peep, from us and would I please phone over if I ever want to hear any piano selections! I'll knock on wood is what I'll do - the living room wall, and hold a tin can to it on my ear! Julie plays beautifully.

Julie popped over one night last week muffled to her chin in a red coat and scarf (and rosy-cheeked) to say hello. It wasn't late but WAS dark and the porch light wasn't on and there I was answering the door to this shadowy who-knew-who in my loungy clothes. For I was lounging in front of the TV upstairs almost nodding off, having just put on my heavy Disneyland sweatshirt over my hoodie over my long sleeved shirt, and lime green fuzzy socks. I was under a blanket when she knocked. Down the stairs I skidded to let her in. She apologized for not meeting me sooner and wouldn't stay since she was on her way in from work, so we stood in the front foyer and gabbed a minute only. Like Jamie she's quick to laugh and has a lot to say and I think (though she works full days and is the YW president in the ward I'm guessing) we'll see a lot of each other over the fence.

Scott's happy birthday and another good day

Scott's birthday - him across from me at the restaurant waiting for Dan and Amy and the boys to arrive for lunch.



Cake and ice cream at Dan and Amy's. Amy's fastidious about getting the candles right!


Birthday present time. Joseph's first. He blurts out what's inside ever before Scott gets the tape all off. A PARACHUTE! (Sorry, no good pictures of Joseph this round.)



And now for Andrew's - wait for it . . . VELVET ART!



And there was a DVD from Dan and Amy. I told Scott I'll make him a fleece blanket, so that'll be a birthday project more like, not a wrapped present.

And the parachute takes the day! Let's drop it from the top of the stairs says Scott, and Joseph and Andrew are overjoyed! Down, down they go to wait. Oh-oh, new house rules after Uncle Scott goes home, huh.



Andrew's turn - kind of tense he is to be hoisted above Uncle Scott's head overlooking two flights of stairs.



Scott said the kids could use his presents til he came to visit again - what a riot! Andrew threw the velvet art from the top of the stairs. It flied! he announces, and Dan rolls his eyes. After Scott left to celebrate with friends (more food and frolic) Dan and Amy and I went to the furniture outlet and once there wandered a bit, then gathered our collective wits about couches, bar stools and bedroom suits. (Suits? Suites? The last one I think.) I bought a saddle bench or sawhorse bench - a bar stool really, sturdy and wide and beautifully finished in distressed dark wood. In the plain light of day tomorrow I'll see if it's perfect at my bar. So far it's working in the kitchen light tonight, but daylight's the true test. I bought one bar stool. I need two more like it and'll have to hunt in other stores in other towns. It'll take time, as the lady who helped me at this store said the bar stools like mine showing up on the computer in two other stores are actually attached to tables - all for (shucks) bookoo bucks.

Bookoo - a phonetic spelling of the french word "beaucoup" combined with a word starting with the letter "b" which is a slang term for $$$, thus creating a "fun to say" turn of phrase for a lot of money.

Not my deal. I'll wait for these stools to come unattached; call the stores in the next few weeks hoping that'll go my way. If not I'll do an eclectic pairing with other stools I may like. I'll have to hunt. We'll see where this goes. Ah, this one fits me perfectly - and the kitchen - and I love that.

Home, home to my house tonight. It's not late but it's dark outside and cold, and the cities are twinkling below me. It's quiet here after all the busy hours . . . I've worked HARD today and played just as hard. I asked Kent to say to anyone at church tomorrow (if they ask) that I'm doing well and I miss being there with them. So much! I love so many in our home there; miss rubbing shoulders and watching eyes light and seeing familiar expressions - still feel more a stranger here than not and often wish for the crowd of faces and voices familiar and dear to me there. I have a hole in my heart for the absence of friends back home that being with family and new friends here doesn't fill. It won't. It's okay - the two, loss and new love, change and possibility, go side by side in us often. I met the two women who live next door (I call them girls - we're all the same age) earlier this week and they've generously welcomed me to the neighborhood. Thrown their arms around me. I can come to belong here. For tomorrow though I brave another Sunday in the new ward learning folks' names and catching their eye, and wish with all my heart that Kent will convey among our friends in our old ward all he knows it would be in my heart to say if I were there.

Good day

I'm plenty thirsty all the time. I notice as I work around the house and my heart rate goes up and I swig a tall ice water. I notice at lunch it's usually water I want - I'm parched. And especially at night when I rest I want to drink. My lips are chappy, and Natural Ice for my lips, Mentholatum for my nose, and Jergens Lotion for my hands and elbows and feet and face morning and night keep me from being dry as a stalk. I've bought rubber gloves for washing dishes. Didn't use to have to do this all stuff - but, then too, my hair used to be curly in the bangs and frizzy on the sides from the extreme humidity, my natural moisturizer. Now it's aridity I'm living in, chappy but hair-happy!

Though the temperature readings in my car have been 30 degrees or below during the day (and today it got up to 38) I'm coatless generally. Not sweaterless for sure, it's brisk - I keep my hoodie on. But it's more than I can do to pull on and shuck off a coat a few times a day when I go out, especially as warm as I get going up and down these stairs working inside the house. Out into the cold sunshine feels good mostly. At night I sit in the chair with a blanket to my chin wearing my clothes, socks, a hoodie and a fuzzy sweatshirt over that because I keep the house so cool day and night. I practiced running the fireplace this evening to get the hang of it and within 20 minutes had to turn it off. Too warm just now. Like many other states in the nation we've had our few days of cold cold cold and I KNOW I'll be cranking the heat up if that comes back. 0 degrees and such. There's chances of snow in the next few days.

Kent and I are reading in the Book of Mormon the part about Nephi building the ship and then the family's journey to the promised land.

Dawn of a Promised Land, by Frank M. Thomas


I keep being startled and amazed at all Nephi can do. I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, he says and then asks the right questions of the right people (especially the Lord) at the right time for exactly how to do it; and carries a conviction he can do all things in the strength of the

Lord; and is a doer! The family leader. I love the verse where he says (contemplating building the ship) that he goes to the mount oft and prays oft to the Lord. I keep looking up and thinking during my reading, knowing the things I'm studying can be applied to me.

Reflecting, I've prayed today, read scripture and been productive. I've asked good questions and solved dilemmas. I've served. I got my new visiting teaching route by the way... the visiting teaching coordinator in our ward came to the house and introduced herself, a girl my daughter's age, and handed me my list of sisters and the name of my companion on a piece of paper. I'm flexible I've told the R. S. president who lives about three houses from me. (I think I'm going to need to be!) I've listened to promptings, recognizing them as that, and done pretty well today. I'm no Nephi, though I feel some days that I'm in a wilderness like he was. Literally and symbolically. I'm no Nephi, but I have called on God today for help, and I've managed.

I'm off. It's funny, I'm going to my chair to sit under my blanket 'cause I got cold sitting here at the computer. With a glass of ice water!

A funeral and a family

In a few hours I'll drive with mom and dad to the funeral services of an old friend, David Hoki. My parents' friend from when our family moved to South Texas in 1960. He's Japanese, a fine father of children I grew up with.

We got word over the weekend he had passed away, and dad has been asked to speak at the funeral. I lay in bed this morning watching the sky lighten and thinking about reuniting with members of this family.

When I was very young the oldest children were in high school. I rode the bus every day miles and miles to my elementary school in the care of one of the daughters four or five years older than me and riding on to the junior high school. She had to have watched over me as a favor to my mother. I remember her telling me a game we could play one day on the bus - seeing who could count the most cars! I won! I'm positive that gave her a few minutes breather from my awful chatter.

Her older brother rescued me from falling out of a moving car and from drowning. Really! The mother in this family brought me home from somewhere with her kids in their station wagon. It was blue I remember; and of course those were the "no seat belt" years. I eyed the door handle near me; remember looking at it and knowing I would pull it. I did and the door swung open. I don't know how fast the car was moving but the road whizzed past, dizzying me as I fell toward it grasping for the door. The brother lunged from the very back and grabbed my clothes. The road came to a stop as he held me away from that wide open door.

He was in the group of big boys and girls that pushed off on a log raft into a lake at a branch picnic. How did I get on the raft? I sure didn't belong - I belonged on the bank with the little kids, but there I was on the end of the thing heading into the deep part of the lake. And into the water? It's like me to fall or jump - I did when I was four into the swimming pool at the apartment complex my grandparents owned, and grandma jumped in to save me. I only remember panicking, clinging to the front of the raft as it nearly ran over me pushing along, and nobody seeing. How was it HE noticed and grabbed me? (Again.) I'll never know.

I'll be glad to see the family today who come. The mother, Amy,  passed away in the seventies as a young middle-aged woman, and the father remarried a woman from Japan

whom his son had met on his mission. They had three children in the late seventies who'll be in their thirties now and I won't recognize them, though I know their names. Here is a photo of David and Fumiko serving as Mission President in the Japan Sapporo Mission from 1982-1985.

The oldest of the original children was always beyond my ken; the second oldest, older than the brother that rescued me (who I've not heard of since I was a child), remained in our home town after he married, eventually became my bishop, my first husband serving with him in the bishopric. His children are our children's ages, and these are all grown now with careers and children. He and his wife attended the funerals in the last few years of both my first husband's parents, so I've seen them. It will be good to see them today.  But I've not seen their sister who sat with me on the bus for years and years, though I grew up with her and know her married name. Nor have I seen their brother who is about a year older than me; I know his wife's first name but not where they live. I know nothing of their youngest daughter who in my mind is connected with the day President Kennedy died. It might be I got news as a little girl that she was born that day, but probably I'm wrong. I DO remember hearing from mom that President Kennedy had been shot. She played with my little sisters always. I spent years of my life with these people and they're like smoke to me now, vanished almost into thin air.

I wonder who else will come? This father we honor was a quiet man, thoughtful rather than talkative as may be the custom of the Japanese. He came through the war years, and his history I know only vaguely; has at some time in his life lived in Utah, may have been born here, but settled in the Rio Grande Valley as a farmer, raising a large and capable and beautiful family. I'll know more after today and feel differently by night than I do now, pulling up memories here from childhood.

Pictures at last!

Kent and me with Dan and Amy's boys after dinner Friday night, our first in the new house. First time to have company over, first time for the stove, microwave and dishwasher and for trying out where I put everything in the kitchen. Hoo boy we're both tired and it shows.



The boys were ecstatic about the elevator.



We instituted a buddy system with them for roaming the house: Don't unless you're with an adult. They were wonderful! Love how responsive the boys are - we went up and down a few times because it made them so happy. We explored and found the bucket of toys under the stairs and brought it up.

The view from my poor camera last night. I was sad I can't capture a better look-see through the glass but, no, my camera isn't resolved enough and it's too, too cold to go outside and stand in my driveway taking pictures.



Same overlook, same poor camera articulation.



Lots of things are out - not where they belong. And please . . . what time is it?



The night we arrived we had to unload the car which was packed full. We came to the house. It was SO WEIRD! Please, I just wanted to go home to what I know and love back home! We unpacked, leaving most everything on the main level we were so tired, though we toured everywhere making mental notes and taking it all in. Kent remarked a while later, we paid money for this house, we have the keys to it and our stuff is in it now but it sure doesn't feel like ours!

It's taking time. We've worked hard to get our things in the nooks and crannies here they belong in. It's alright, it's perfect, in fact. We're right where we need to be - at the right time in the right house for the right reason. It's panning out. A week here I already feel more comfortable. Really. I won't mess around with this "moving" subject much longer. We're in. We're home.