Happy to re-read this one

Have you ever felt just pluh? How you feel right before you get a head cold or right after your wisdom teeth are pulled and before the meds wear off?

A little off.

My legs hurt this afternoon as if I'd hiked out of a canyon or something and really it's just from going up and down stairs. They were tired. I was tired I realized as I got ready to take a bath late this afternoon with Epsom salts to soak these legs in. I grabbed a book to read in that kind of mood where maybe I don't even want to read.  Hang it all, I just want quiet don't I. And my soak.

I got up on a step stool (ouch) in my closet behind the door and took down... → → →

Like fuzzy slippers my copy is well worn and comforting. I opened to the first page, first sentence which I've read three times before, and this makes four.

He left the coffee-scented warmth of the Main Street Grill and stood for a moment under the green awning.

For joy.

The honest cold of an early mountain spring stung him sharply.

He often noted the minor miracle of passing through a door into a completely different world, with different smells and attractions. It helped to be aware of the little things in life, he told himself, and he often exhorted his congregation to do the same.

As he headed toward the church office two blocks away, he was delighted to discover that he wasn't walking, at all. He was ambling.

Oh please. Thank you. Good heavens I love this book.

Just, just what I want right now.

I have the insane idea Jan Karon is my savior. Not to make light - she's brilliant.

He arrived at the office, uttering the prayer he had offered at its door every morning for twelve years: "Father, make me a blessing to someone today, through Christ our Lord. Amen." 

He looked down into the face of a large, black, mud-caked dog, whose tail began to beat wildly against his pant leg.

It gets better. I got better. Happier. I do love her storytelling!

Moment in time

I saw my little mother walking up the hill toward me with my sister-in-law Karen just a while ago. I was walking down towards a lady's house for a song practice and here came the two. I watched her focus on me a way off and then smile. That was a good thing. The wind whipped at her and Karen as they puffed up the hill; we hugged and chatted and held our sweaters close.

I would hope it was for mom like suddenly spying a rainbow, a "you color my world" sort of moment - it's how it is for me seeing them. I smile. But it was surely more like the other day when mom said to Sarah, the cheese slicer!

(It had been produced from some kitchen drawer.)

I haven't seen this since we left Texas!
--------------

Here she is with Sarah right before she and dad drove Sarah to the airport yesterday. Goodbye my cutest little sister and hello mom.

Movin' on Up

My favorite games in Logic Gamebox so far . . .

(I downloaded the app one day

and then remembered about it only recently and opened it. 

The games are like for kids, but whatever.) 

. . are . . . dum-de-dum

STICKIES

and

FILL THE POT

Kent and I will hand the iPad off to each other in the evenings to work the levels out. That's what we're playing at this month. Used to be Rummikub or Five Crowns or Farkle over the kitchen table. Used to be sitting reading, the house hushed an hour before bedtime; none of that has lost its charm. Just, we've cleared those levels and are movin' on up.

"To Wear"

An e-mail from a friend from scripture study group:

My bedtime reading is a calendar of quotes my son compiled.  Every night I read a quote that impresses me, but I liked this particular thought:  

"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain..."  Exodus 20:7

One translation of the word take in this verse is "to wear."  (Margaret Barker, Temple Themes in Christian Worship at 123.)  If the original meaning of the commandment is indeed that one should not "take upon" or "wear" the name of God lightly or in vain, the commandment takes on a whole new meaning and shifts away from a focus of cursing and swearing to being true to one's covenants.  This is a far weightier matter than the verbal abuse of deity.  Thus translated, the commandment would also make reference to the temple because the Jewish high priest wore in the tabernacle and temple a gold plate in the middle of his forehead that read "Holiness to the Lord."  Exodus 28:36.  The commandment would also mean that a priest should not take his priesthood lightly.    

Food for thought.

Irisz Agocs illustration

http://artistamuvek.blogspot.com/

A beautiful time

I haven't been monkeying around.
It took me parts of
three




days to put together
the last post, and if you read it
through to the end,
well...

you know the

whole "barrel of monkeys" thing.
(More fun than?)
Yes I guess not.

Lots going on. A friend commented, "its been a different kind of 'busyness' for you there... and I don't mean the still-moving-in-kind-of stuff! But fun, family times!" It's too true. I never don't want this in some ways, but in others I MISS the quiet!

My brother Chris and his wife and boys arrived at mom and dad's about 5:00 last night, driving up from St. George (and earlier cross-country from Texas) to spend the week. They're putting their oldest, Spencer, into the MTC this Wednesday in Provo - he's going to Mozambique nine weeks after that to serve his two-year mission. He's understandably nervous and jittery and very excited! They'll go out early this morning to buy one suit and lots of shirts and dress pants Spencer'll need in Africa. Shoes or boots, robust ones he can walk hard in and dirty a little on the roads. Many missionaries must buy overcoats for climates like Finland's and Nova Scotia's; Spence'll need none of that! Sarah and Kaylee her college-age daughter moved from mom and dad's last night to our house to sleep for three nights until they leave for good.

We came to Utah
to be with people
and we're sssuuurrree
getting what we
came for.

There was weather last night and this morning, lashing winds and rain and sleet that maybe Sarah slept straight through, but I didn't. Kent heard it because I nudged him awake to listen - you can't miss an adventure as it's happening! Everything's purple-blue across the mountains and desert. This is how Monday started out a week ago, though at this hour then there was no power so all was bleak instead of awesome. The trash truck has come for one of our dumpsters already, I watched it from my window here just now, and the house is quiet. Kent is downstairs working on the computer and Kaylee is sleeping still. Kent and I had our French toast. Sarah left early walking to mom's so she could be with everybody when they woke there and help mom with breakfast.

"Be brave" is her mantra she says to me this morning, slipping on her shoes and looking me in the eye. Smiling. She's wearing her earrings and looked darn cute in a plaid shirt and skinny jeans. She's gotten thin biking around her island the past year. She borrowed my hoodie to slip out for the walk over to mom's - it's chilly. "Be brave" as, after the month she's been here with us and mom and dad, she goes home. Wednesday. She'll be glad to get back to her husband; her routine; the green jungle, the soft mountains and beaches; Cocoa, her dog and Mushu, her cat whose nose will be out of joint now that Sarah's been gone too long; to the book-selling business she runs from home, and her bike path. Kaylee and Danny will be at home with her this summer so temporarily she'll NOT be (as she's grown accustomed to) an empty-nester. She'll love being there again.

And then again it will be hard. Much she loves and is super-familiar with is here on the mainland.

"Be brave" will be my mantra too. Please,
Sarah came in with



and where will they both be in just a few days?

A beautiful time.

What will I do when I look up
and they've each
moved on?

What a week!

Monday I woke to rain - rained all day. Such a strange thing for my normally springy-bright birthday. Immediately after I woke the power went out in the house. Rain and more rain . . . I drove in it with Sarah and Mom to IHOP (where the power wasn't out) for breakfast with Laura and Sandra. Way girl fun! Home in it, and there still was no power; then it came on; then it went off. Several times . . . through that all Kent and I watched and unwatched Tangled and it's a weird show but I think I like it.

We were whisked off to lunch by Scott, supposedly just the three of us but really there was a HUGE surprise waiting for me that Scott was being the decoy-man for: Erin and Mike and kids had flown into town barely and were waiting (with Sandra again) at the restaurant. Shockeroo! Loved seeing them and they got a good laugh out of surprising me and I had a good cry! Everyone (including Kent) was in on it. There's so much to tell I can't even start, but you know how a good surprise party goes, eh!

Sandra has pics on her camera but I don't have 'em to post.

The week has been different than I thought it would be when Kent and I calendered it. My birthday celebration had started three days before when Dan and Amy and the boys and Scott came over and we had a cake and ice cream and birthday presents from "free to three." My idea. I invited all to my party requesting their presence, well "presents" at anywhere from absolutely free up to $3 only. NOT wrapped in anything that cost anything - and I got one wrapped in toilet paper! Three wrapped in newspaper and two in decorated paper bags . . . I hated to tear them. A mini-marshmallow blaster was my present from Joseph, with a bag of colored mini marshmallows to follow and a box of yellow Peeps I think from Dan. Seeing as how I'd made an angel food cake, which is just baked up homemade marshmallow with a little flour, sugar and salt mixed in, right (?) it was becoming a marshmallow party.



I unwrapped a Winnie the Pooh watch from Andrew. It was almost to be a Cinderella, but his mom reminded him how much I love Winnie.



Amy gave me a plastic pot with sunflower seeds in it and a cellophane-wrapped growing medium (where's the dirt? That IS the dirt. LOL.) and Kent offered free labor to install a shelf in my food pantry. Scott gifted me with a Jason Robert Brown CD, and Brad in Arkansas heard about "free to three" and later told me he would have brought three hundred pennies to hide all over my house for me to find for a year!

Such an unexpected week has followed . . . my daughter and son-in-law and grandkids in town, and my husband out - he drove to Idaho to visit his mother and dad for two days. I was home alone those two days except I saw an awful lot of a lot of people, so it was a busy alone! I actually drove around several places looking in stores for a circular end table about 22 inches high and only that much round and a clock about that round too for one big empty wall. Two days. North and south, high and low. No luck. The day before Kent left he hung a mirror and two or three pictures and a shelf, the kind of stuff that impresses me so about him and makes me think he thinks what I want (at long last) is  very important, so I just got on a bent to have the table a.s.a.p. and the clock to kind of complete things. Knew I could get out early any day or stay out late with no one at home to cook for, etc., and boy I did. Got around! But nothing to show for it, and now I know where not to go to buy and what not to expect. I did all the things I had on my go-do list. Housework even. Today when Kent got home I must have been vacuuming. Vacuuming and singing, and only knew he was home when I looked down the hall behind me and saw his overnight bag sitting on the carpet. A way to let me know he was in the house without scaring me to death by touching me or something. In the old days when he's come home from work and I've been vacuuming he's pulled the plug. Another good way, right?

I've seen so much of Erin and Mike and the kids this week. They spent the night with me last night and this morning and then we tended the kids tonight four hours. Kent played monster so long I finally had to call the kids off him. He was pooped!



The kids are comfortable here and Kent made that happen. Well, and me with dinner and snacks and a bath in the big tub

 and cuddling.

I went to Joseph's soccer game a couple of afternoons ago; Dan, Erin, Mike, all their kids and I were there. He got a lot of playing time until it rained; please, poured, and up til the game was called . . . at that point I was sitting in the car, teeth chattering, entertaining two of my other grandkiddos. Wet little bear cubs mauling each other good-naturedly in the back seat under a blanket, Andrew and Landon. Their mother and dad each came for them then and I made my way home driving in rush-hour rain-soaked heavy-duty traffic wondering at how it is I'm doing this again, sitting on the sidelines in weather cheering for a soccer boy. Joseph reminds me exactly of Daniel on the field in about 1988 in his over-size jersey, baggy shorts, black socks and cleats and expectant expression.

Near the coach with his hand up!


Left, side facing, number 11


There's more to go this week still. To the temple tomorrow, don't know which; a bedroom to clean out - our huge Christmas wreath for instance that has been sitting three months in there needs to be hung on a nail in a stud on the garage wall. Possibly. Kent'll look the garage over (I know this) and consider where in relation to where everything else that will be permanently stored it should forever hang. The bedroom WILL be emptied but no nail will be struck without forethought; a big dinner at 5:00 with 15 people including the babies for Easter. It's when we can get together - Sunday, Easter, is our Stake Conference, meetings 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. I don't do Sunday morning Easter egg hunts, that went away when my kids were little. We just have ham and scalloped potatoes, green beans and jello salad for Sunday dinner. 'Twill be Saturday this year and this year I'm putting purple Peeps on the dinner plate.

Sunday is the beginning of a new week. Yes.



A relaxing day for me AT, it feels like, the end of a week I had assumed would be nothing at all like it's turned out!

Last night

It's early in the morning, I'll just dash in and out here.

Had Laura and Sharm and Sarah and mom and dad over for enchiladas last night. The ones I posted about a while ago here (link) and have been ooohing-and-aaaahing over in my mind and mouth since then. With Spanish rice, mom's recipe from when I was a girl, and guacamole dad made on the spot. I invited my sisters to come over early and help me assemble dinner which they did, and boy did the house smell good and boy did dinner taste good. Dad looked up after the first bite and said these are sweet . . . well yeah because they're honey lime enchiladas. He was surprised in a good way - I'd been giving the whole family a disclaimer the hour before that we might not love them and there was leftover spaghetti in the fridge in case, but not to be. They're a HIT!

I made double chocolate brownies besides which I cut into small squares (cause we were all so stuffed) and served with chocolate ice cream. When dinner was over Kent was walking around holding the shape of a square with his fingers on his shirt at his belly saying there's room for one more little something, hm, the shape and size . . . (we laughed) . . . of a . . . (wait) . . . 'nother brownie!

Have you been watching Human Planet on Discovery Channel? Sunday nights, two one-hour segments back to back to run a couple more weeks.

• Sunday, April 10, 2011
• 8pm ET/PT, Rivers and Oceans
• 9pm ET/PT, Mountains
• Sunday, April 17 2011
• 8pm ET/PT, Arctic
• 9pm ET/PT, Grasslands and Jungles
• Sunday, April 24, 2011
• 8pm ET/PT, Deserts
• 9pm ET/PT, Life at the Extremes

We recorded last weeks' Rivers and Oceans and also Mountains and have watched them, so Kent re-ran the first one and we all lounged a long while after dinner in front of the television being



absolutely



amazed

 

and amazed!

Bring on the Sun!

Blessedly, a sunny day today! 

Not warm, 

but not 

overcast. 

Oh yeah, my visiting teaching companion assured me last week, 

nodding vigorously, we get snow through April, even May. 

Nope, don't want to hear that. 

----------

I'm banking on sunshine to go walking in. 

Sunshine to bask on my deck in. 

Sun shining on my rosemary and basil,
yet unplanted for fear of  . . .

  . . . still and yet in pots on my 

kitchen counter. 

Sun to raise the temps so I can raise the windows. 

And sun to go down in a blaze of at the end of the day.

(Starting now.)

---------

Not asking a lot.
Just,

if I'm going to

I need me some SUNSHINE!

New carpet smells

We knew when we had new carpet put into the house that Kent would get sick from the smell. When we were living with the old carpet we said well, that 'll be better than this, but I had the foreboding I carry once in a while but keep to myself that says we're not out of the woods by a long shot. It is better for me. But for Kent not so much.

You know him and artificial smells. Headaches happen instantly if he's near someone wearing strong perfume or aftershave; in a newly painted room (should have seen him at church Sunday where apparently something in the chapel was recently varnished . . . he flushed pink clear to his hairline as Sacrament meeting progressed and kept his eyes closed, and left after with a headache that put him in bed); around Goo-gone or Chlorox or Lysol. On March 28th came 250 yards of polyester carpet and the glue to hold the carpet pad to the floors. It was cold that day and threatened snow. We watched the Weather Channel for

sunshine - oh please - for the days after, which would mean temps would rise; we could throw open windows for a longish time to vent the house, let carpet smell right out and spring-bright freshness in.

Alas.

That day it rained, and the next several. And blew. And snowed. And have been waaaay cold. Our windows've stayed shut tight mostly. One day last week I came home from somewhere and Kent had thrown the house open wide and it was roughly the same temperature as inside our refrigerator. We were cold as carrots in a crisper for awhile, and you couldn't smell the carpet! Windows came open again late yesterday until wind and rain blew and then drummed steadily on the house.

Kent's been silent and sober blowing his nose and taking headache pills and not all energetic. He may be getting better though, he's been out of the house the past two weeks away from the smell. Or maybe it's going away. Or maybe his smeller is morphing, who knows.

We were gone all yesterday afternoon and by dinnertime his "happy" was back. Now truly, homemade spaghetti made by Sarah my sister and served at mom and dad's table, with salad and rolls and Oreo cookies may account for that, but he was more himself into the evening. No pain in his face or nose-blowing or carpet-nay-saying. We settled in for American Idol back at our house later and - the whole place cold and fresh from its airing this afternoon - I feel hopeful he'll soon be himself.
-----

p.s. Just looked out the kitchen window and it's snowing.

April

April opens up diverse memories and feelings in me each year.

It's my birthday month. The year I turned nineteen I went to the temple for the first time (a sacred event for active church members) on my birthday. Four days later I married. Nineteen years later on April 11th my husband and I had a long talk about our marriage; for him it was over. He left the city traveling on business . . . my 38th birthday came and went and our nineteenth anniversary . . . and returned two and a half weeks later, when we told the children. That day we separated. Nineteen months later our divorce was final.




Eight years later I married Kent (but not in April).



His first wife's birthday is in April. Kent and I talked about his first wife's birth date, two days ago. She'd be 64, he says. Their marriage date was in April, in fact the day after mine and my first husband's (though two years later). His parents were married that same day of the month and (silly that I can remember) that's the birthday of one of my nieces!

Today is the birthday of my college roommate from years and years and years ago. I've lost track of her.



Oh she was beautiful! I think of her every April 12th and hope she's happy. And tomorrow one of my lunch ladies in Georgia has a birthday! We'd probably be getting together for lunch, she and I and the others if I were there! I miss my dear friends. Two more ladies I served with and love in Georgia have birthdays on the 27th and 29th. I wonder how they're getting along.

Last year near my birthday Kent and I wandered, strolled arm in arm, through Massee Lane Gardens. Have I said already that garden is exquisite?


Five years ago this same time mom and dad visited us and we went to Callaway Gardens for two days and a night. Mom and I were in the gift shop browsing after dinner and she found a birthday card, bought it and plopped it into my hands along with a kiss. She signed it later and I still have it. Favorite exhibits were the Butterfly Center and Horticultural Center - for sheer joy! - and we loved walking in the acreage planted in crops with its garden boasting annuals and perennials, foxglove and larkspur above a white picket fence; a bench-lined gazebo covered with grapevine; and replica of a wooden house from the 1800s. Little House on the Prairie-like, all. The guys dug the crops and we ladies wooed the old-fashioned flowers and bowries.



Last year on the 12th I helped my neighbor weed her yard. It was a Monday. By afternoon I couldn't walk because of a pinched nerve in my hip and leg. Coincidental? Yeah maybe, but bending over could've aggravated my low back - anyway, I was paralyzed. Two days sitting on the couch grimacing,



Kent doing everything for me, then the third day I hobbled into Ron who worked with a vengeance on my trigger points in my back and hip and got me on my feet again. Walking. Barely. I wrote this in my journal on April 16th, the day after I saw Ron: I feel sooo much better this morning. I feel like I've been beaten about the body (he he) with a big stick,


but gratefully the nerve endings in my hip have stopped jangling and I'm daring to put one foot ahead of the other. I walk side to side as much as I go forward! It's pretty hysterical. Oh thank goodness, and thank Ron, and thank Heavenly Father most of all, I'm doing better.

What a happy thing to stroll with Kent through the gardens by week's end.



April, April everywhere. A brother-in-law's birthday in three days... a best friend's on the very last day of the month (love her so)... flowers up braving the snow... buds on the trees... General Conference to stir my emotions and quicken my resolve... a little party with my family... lunch birthday breakfast with my two sisters and an amazing friend... a trip to botanical gardens soon and art exhibit with my husband... warmer, sunnier, longer days...

And it will be Easter in a couple of Sundays. Our ward choir is practicing a song for Sacrament meeting that has the phrase "because He lives!" in it, and for awhile now I've been humming that. The words really touch me:

Because he lives,
Because He rose in mighty triumph from the grave
I put my trust in Him, and seek to follow Him in faith
Because He lives,
I shall find strength to stand against the tempter's power
He is my refuge and defense in every troubled hour
Because he lives

(Chorus)
Because He lives, I can bear whatever burden may be mine,
I am encircled in the arms of love divine,
Because He lives, He will banish every shadow of my pain,
Every sorrow will be swallowed up in Him,
For in His hand is healing for the weary soul
This I know because He lives

Because He lives, I will fear no darkness
Because He live, I will walk in light
Because He lives, I will praise His kindness
Because He lives, hope shines ever bright
Because He lives, I will seek His righteousness
Because He lives, I'll follow where He leads
Because He lives, I shall conquer even death
And I shall live because He lives!

Because He lives
I will rejoice in Christ and glorify His name
And with the willing voice of gratitude proclaim:
My Savior lives!

April. A perpetual astonishment!

"Dog Tired" Quote

When you feel dog tired at night, 

it may be because you've 
growled all day long. 

Unknown

See this on "Happy Life Quotes" here (link)

The Creation

I've been reading in this book

about the creation of the earth. It was recommended by a few ladies in the scripture study class mom and I go to where we've been studying the Book of Abraham. Abraham Chapter 4 teaches the Creation. One whole chapter here expounds on it verse by verse. 

Literally like taking a magnifying glass to, say, a ladybug on a hollyhock 

in my former smallish garden

or well NOT a hollyhock

the remote

and drawing up close its spots and high color, the book brings up close aspects of the creation I think are curious and am in awe of.

I put it down a while ago after reading and closed my eyes.
It's like I see better now.

(This might be helpful!)

About the Authors

Richard D. Draper is a professor of ancient scripture at BYU and the associate dean of Religious Education there. He is the author of several books, including Opening the Seven Seals.

S. Kent Brown is a professor of ancient scripture and director of Ancient Studies at BYU. The editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, he has also served as director of the BYU Jerusalem Center.

Michael D. Rhodes, an associate research professor of ancient scripture at BYU, pursued graduate studies at Oxford University and was an assistant professor of physics at the United States Air Force Academy. 

All three authors have published numerous articles in professional journals as well as Church magazines.

From a review of the book on Amazon.com: This resource fills the need for an up-to-date commentary on the Pearl of Great Price that draws on both ancient and modern sources. Employing the latest research on the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, the editors have assembled an excellent resource for scholars and students. . . . a separate chapter compares the creation events described in Genesis, Moses, and Abraham and frankly addresses the age of the earth, evolution, death before the fall, and the varying sequences of events in the creation literature. Biblical textual development is discussed, and varying theories are weighed. This is an important and timely contribution to understanding the Pearl of Great Price.

Spring thing

Kent walks over to me tonight where I sit at the computer typing a list in Excel of things we need to DO still - stuff to finish putting up because it's hanging around here lost, last and lonely and/or taking up space on the floor, yup, in every room . . .
... and stuff to buy on down the road.

WAY down the road!
Except for a couple of things that are high on the list.
Basil, and glass for one broken mirror.
Well.

With this in his hand from the mailbox.



I wish!

And WHAT are we
DOING here? he's saying to me,
shaking his head,
and I just look at these beauties
in awe.
Stricken



Sad.
Very sad we are to be missing this.