Point of view

You've heard this one.

A young couple moved into a new neighborhood. One morning while they were eating breakfast the young woman noticed her neighbor hanging wash outside.

“That laundry isn't clean,” she said. ”Doesn’t she know how to wash clothes? Maybe she needs better laundry soap.”

The husband looked on and remained silent.

Every time her neighbor would hang her wash on the clothes line the young woman would make the same comment.

A month later the woman was surprised to see clean wash on the line and said to her husband, “Look, she's finally washed the clothes right. Wonder who taught her how.”

The husband said, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”

What we see when watching others will depend on the window through which we look.

The girls

Sarah surfaced from Mom's basement recently with this for me to see.


Clockwise, Sarah, Marcia, Mom, Laura and me.

Can you believe it? "Big hair," we both say at the same time, laughing, but we're over it and we just stare at ourselves and each other. I'm wondering when this was taken exactly and where we were. And why. Sarah says at the house . . . hm, just say the one mom loved best. (Not giving the address, right, and we do call it by the street name.) You know.

And isn't mom amazing? Just one of the girls!

To the point

"This paper toy is a tribute to all great pencils who proudly sacrifice their graphite soul in service to the higher calling." (Says this toy's creator.)

               See the 

                symbolism?

That's why the pic;

no better reason. 
It's how I feel at 
the end of this 
reallllly long
 month - to 
the point,

used up

in a

good

wa
y.

Tending

I said to Andrew at lunch, when's your new baby coming?

(Probably this isn't great boy conversation but he humored me.)

Hmm, I dunno, he said around a mouthful of peanut butter sandwich,



Maybe after Christmas, I offered.

Maybe, said he.  Ask what kind of baby it is.

What kind of baby is it? I asked.

I shink it's a boy . . . or maybe . . . hmm . . . a sister.  We haven't got one of those.

----

I tended Andrew this afternoon a few hours. Quite the bored little guy is Drew



until Joseph and the kids in the neighborhood get home from school. Disgruntled really - no one to play with.



Then Joseph arrives, backpack unzipped on his back. He reaches into that for his book bag and sits beside me on the grass. Drew is off with friends at last. Joseph's really eying the iPad, and we negotiate (like his mother wanted me to with him) 20 minutes reading "The Castaway Pines" for an hour on the iPad.



You gotta love this beautiful fall afternoon. One happy grandchild on the lawn beside you, shade turning 80 degrees to a cool almost 70 degrees, the sun glancing off the still green grass, and the garden turning.

Goodbye

Sarah goes home tomorrow. There are hardly words.

Beautiful words

In a German legend God named all the plants, when a tiny unnamed one cried out forget me not, O Lord! God replied, "That shall be your name."



It is apt that President Uchtdorf last night used the Forget-Me-Not, this tiny flower, to symbolize with its five petals five things we should forget not. Highlights of his talk are online already - here's what I wrote down in my notes.

1. Forget not to be patient with myself. Don't compare. Celebrate my good efforts.

2. Forget not the difference between an acceptable sacrifice and a foolish one. Am I committing my time and energies to that which matters most?

3. Forget not to be happy NOW. Don't put my happiness on hold while I wait for my perfect future to appear.

4. Forget not the "why" of the gospel. In our diligence we sometimes see the gospel as a list of tasks to fit into our busy schedule - we focus on the "what" and "how" and fail to notice the "why." While the "what" and "how" of Christ's gospel do keep us in the strait and narrow, the eternal fire and majesty of the gospel springs from the "why!" It transforms the mundane to the majestic.

5. Forget not that the Lord loves me. I am not forgotten. If I will allow his divine love into my life it can

＊dress any wound
＊ heal any hurt
＊ soften any sorrow

"My dear Relief Society sisters," spoke President Uchtdorf,



"you are closer to heaven than you suppose. You are destined for more than you can possibly imagine. Continue to increase in faith and personal righteousness. Accept the restored gospel of Jesus Christ as your way of life. "

I will. I do. May I forget not these precious things.

Favorite banana cake

Made this today.

Banana Cake with Banana Frosting

Hariella Wright

1 2 cups sugar

1/3 cup margarine

2 eggs

1 2 cups sour milk

2 cups flour

1 tsp. soda

2 tsps. baking powder

2 tsp. salt

1 cup nuts

3 bananas, mashed

Frosting

1/4 cup shortening

1 tsp. vanilla

2 tsp. salt

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup mashed banana

Cream together sugar, margarine, eggs.  Add milk, then bananas.  Add dry ingredients and blend til well mixed.  Place in 9- x 13-inch baking pan, greased and floured.  Bake 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Frosting: Blend all ingredients til smooth.  Pour or spread over warm cake.  Serve warm.

And the wedding . . .

... which of course can not include the ceremony.

The entrance to the Salt Lake temple, in September the trees in the courtyard bearing small fruits



and flowers in dappled shade.



Looking almost straight up, the temple facade.



Sets of steps and doors such as this surround the building. It is to one of these as Synthia and Matt emerge from the temple that the photographer will bring the wedding party for photos.



That's later. We ourselves have just come out of the temple. I spend  time walking around photographing and enjoying the weather. An experiment with the zoom lens here captures Kent sitting with Brent and Sandra and Annie in virtually a congregation of wedding folk on the temple grounds today.



Shana got this of me and Marcia and Sarah.



Sarah turns when I called her name.



I'm happy to have this photo of the kids leaving the temple. The picture doesn't do their beauty good, though you can see how happy they are.



We wait (and wait) as the bride and groom go off with the photographer.



At last they come.



Truly beautiful.

The best of the reception

Yesterday morning I went to Laura's to help the family get ready for Synthia and Matt's wedding reception. Laura's yard has this beautiful gazebo at the back and lawn crazy big enough (combined with Sandra's and Brent's next door) for the several hundred guests invited. I've posted about helping get this lawn and garden ready - this day's been about getting up the finery.





I guess in no particular order here's how the evening looked.

From the top of the driveway looking down to the gazebo . . . Synthia and Matt are still being photographed before the evening starts - see them, little specks at the back - and don't you love these plant stands holding portraits and ribboned lanterns? Matt's mother's contribution to the decorations, amazing . . . 



 . . . and across the two back yards.



Scott arrived early actually. Love this face!



Grandmother and Grandfather Smoot.



Refreshments are ice cream and toppings and they're getting set up. From behind the food tables into the late sun . . . picture-taking for the wedding families now over



and Synthia attends one of her very best friends. Click to see what I saw.



In the gazebo a vignette and my beautiful sister in the middle on the lawn.



Raspberries and fresh mint!



The garden dressed with portraits and potted plants.



And Synthia.



Grandma and Grandpa Bradford.



6:30, and the couple alone make up the reception "line." Here are the first to greet them . . .



Hi mom!



Clockwise from left my cousin Richard standing behind his sister Gaby; mom and dad; Uncle Bill; Lucile Nielson, far right; and Chris Nielson.



Good to sit across from these cute kids. We each had good toppings in our ice cream. Mine was vanilla with M&M's and the boys' were a duke's mixture - and we all had gooey eclairs on napkins. So so good! I took this picture to Photoshop Elements and brushed all the evidence off Andrew's shirt front.



Shana in a thoughtful spot. Beautiful.



Will you pardon me if I put other pictures here in a day or two? I may. Sarah's camera (as usual) will have angles on the party I didn't get. And today is the wedding. We'll be in the temple and at a luncheon after. More to go.