Just love this

70th Celebration

Kent and I spent the weekend in Idaho where his parents were


There was an anniversary party (at Al's Pizza in Burley, in the back - so cool!) and what a blast!

Aunt Beth, mom's younger sister, doing her hair.



Homemade and decorated anniversary cake.



The pizza parlor, decorated with balloons and tulle and soda glasses full of nuts and candy, as it started to fill with family and friends. Kudos to Rozan, Kent's sister, for the finery and fun.



LaRae, another of Kent's sisters, visits with Kent and Pa.



Nana and Pa are seated in the gazebo to receive their friends and family.



Rozan chatting it up with ??? It's Old Home week for the whole family; and see the wedding pic of mom and dad, 1943?



Kent and I had punch duty through the evening. I hunkered down at one point with pizza and a bunch of Kent's cousins and left him to do the honors.



The celebration was scheduled from 4:00 to 6:00 but we didn't get out of there til almost 8:00! Long spring days in Burley, Idaho thank heavens.

Nana and Pa were thrilled. And tired. They're 89 and 97 this year, whew!

28 ways

... to be your best self!

Some days I come up like a periscope from under water and feel really-truly my best self! I kind of look around to see what's making the difference... is it the date, or month? Day of the week? Sunshine, or not? Maybe I got an extraordinary night's sleep, I dunno. I'm just invigorated and feel a ton of goodwill toward everyone and really feel like trying harder to do everything I say I do: what I'm bold enough to blog about most days, like I can live like that... yeah. It's like my senses are clear - like after you take an allergy pill and your sinuses work - you can breathe! You breathe in life at your best self, not just air. And out joy, not only Co2. Breathe in thankfulness and out goodwill like I said, and it's not in you and out you, it is you!

Some days I come up like a periscope from under water and see amazing possibility out alongside of me. It's visual! 360 degrees. Even inside me - imagine a periscope trying to see down its own self! Silly.  For today, the 28th... here's possibilities! Have a great day.

1. Be authentic.  Be true to yourself. – Ask yourself this:  If you don’t like who you really are, why should I like you?
2. Care about people. 
3. Make others feel good. – People will rarely remember what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
4. Be honest and take ownership of your actions. 
5. Smile often. 
6. Respect elders.  Respect minors.  Respect everyone. – People will notice your kindness.
7. Address people by their name. 
8. Say “Please” and “Thank you.” 
9. Excel at what you do. 
10. Help others when you’re able. – Do something that’s greater than you – something that helps someone else to be happy or to suffer less.  
11. Put a small personal touch on everything you do.
12. Over-deliver on all of your promises. 
13. Get organized. 
14. Do your research and ask clarifying questions. 
15. Share knowledge and information with others.
16. Be positive and focus on what’s right. – Everything that happens in life is neither good nor bad.  It just depends on your perspective.  
17. Listen intently to what others have to say. – Eyes focused, ears tuned, mobile phone off.  In a world that can’t move fast enough, someone who can find time to listen to others is always appreciated.
18. Be faithful to your spouse.
19. Learn to appreciate and love Mother Nature. 
20. Invest time, energy and money in yourself every day. 
21. Perform random acts of kindness on a regular basis. – There’s nothing more rewarding than putting smiles on the faces around you.
22. Compliment people who deserve it. – Everybody likes to hear that their efforts are appreciated.
23. Speak clearly and make eye contact. 
24. Make yourself available and approachable. 
25. Be self-sufficient. 
26. Exploit the resources you do have access to. – The average person is usually astonished when they see a physically handicap person show intense signs of emotional happiness.  How could someone in such a restricted physical state be so happy?  The answer rests in how they use the resources they do have.  
27. Be a part of something you believe in. 
28. Stand up for your beliefs without flaunting them. – Stand firm by your values.

Just me

How you live when you're by yourself is rarely as "on alert" as how you live in a Group. Or with just one other person, hey. What you do at random or as a knee-jerk reaction or just because...'cause you choose it, you want to or you like it that way - that's just me - gets checked at the door when you enter the party. The party of MORE.

Parents.

Marriage.

Children.

In-laws. Neighborhood. Ward. Employment, PTA, book club... you get it.

Like freckles popping on a sunburned nose, things stare you in the face You Hadn't Noticed Before about yourself, say, snugged up next to someone you love who's retired, your grown kids and grand kids visiting, or living with your parents. Or mind, if you did! Look, you don't care about about half the stuff others are OCD about, a thousand and one things... I can't begin to name them but you know what I mean... you're care-less and OCD too just like me, so keep reading. Oh-so-righteous thoughts shoot off like fireworks in the northern hemisphere of my Bear-of-very-little-brain that I practice keeping in check in check in check.

Well, er, I can name one thing. This's what got me thinking about this blog post today - whoa, I'm thinking-slash-typing faster than a speeding bullet here, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound... what got me thinking like a runaway train about stuff Folks Is Fussy About is remembering Vacuuming The Stairs. Or not, I say.

I do vacuum the stairs on Wednesdays after I vacuum the whole downstairs, and last Wednesday... well, I didn't. I'll do it tomorrow or Friday I brain-stormed, winding the vacuum cleaner cord up and setting the vacuum cleaner in the closet. I was pooped, but rather - and better - I chose. Riding phantom on my shoulder, his voice in my ear, was my husband. Simultaneously sparklers of bright-cold logic, good old common sense, fired about in my head.

And fizzled when I shut the closet door. I'll be fussy about it later. I Chose.

Tomorrow came and went, and the next day. Saturday after breakfast a half hour before Kent and I left for Idaho I remembered the stairs. Hmm, I wouldn't not do them this week; here's a promise I've made to please my family, stay "on alert" with Housekeeping. I live in a group:

Stairs Every Week.

I just had a minute. Not so much an auspicious start to this travel day, right, hauling out the vacuum cleaner, sweating it out on the stairs - but doable. (Just!) Result, good! You guys, I actually love "doable" At Times, this choice that's not ever altogether according to plan. How you live by yourself (some of us) (I've noticed) is rarely as true to form as when you're in a Family. You forget relax a bit - be just me! "Just me" vacuumed the stairs Saturday at 8:30 a.m. all Joyfully. Kept my promise, perfect stairs - and did it my way.

Potential

When we see our potential, it helps us reach beyond our weaknesses and selfish tendencies and live up to Heavenly Father's expectations.

Love languages

Encourage me, and I may not forget you. I wrote this line from a quote several posts ago Sticking my Oar in (linky) and it's on my mind. It's always on my mind. I believe it. But that's just me.

Encourage me. Encourage me. Encourage me!

My love language (of the 5 Love Languages) is ↓.

I feel most loved when I am heard and encouraged.

Yours might be....

Actions speak "love" way louder than words.

What makes you feel most loved is to receive a gift.

You feel most loved when you're given undivided attention.

Nothing speaks more deeply than appropriate touch.

Oh well, I'm not on a soapbox; to me it's just interesting stuff. And I really believe in affirming, encouraging words - as opposed to speaking disparagingly. Disparaging, oops, the opposite of encouragement. Criticism.

Think about it, being "not disparaging" then has its own merits. It's a place to start; though it's not the same as being awfully encouraging! I guess I'm susceptible to the nuance. Think about, too, a sad lack, a dearth, of encouraging words. Nothing disparaging, just nothing at all! Cluelessness or aloofness toward complimentary speech.

I was going to say, that's not nuance, that's just a big old problem! (Ya' jerk!) But that's just me - I said that already, forget about that... if there be little affirmation but reliable service, thoughtful gifts, undivided attention, or warming touch, well... here we are talking different love languages.
-----

"Where dwellest thou?

I wrote notes on Elder Neil L. Andersen's talk "It's a Miracle" as he spoke in General Conference. I scribbled come and see... and now, because I found my notes today and remember what I was liking so much as Elder Andersen taught, I went online for his exact words.

"I like the story of Andrew, who asked, 'Master, where dwellest thou?' (John 1:38) Jesus could have responded with the location of where He lived. But instead He said to Andrew,



I like to think that the Savior was saying, 'Come and see not only where I live...

... but how I live.

Come and see who I am.'"

(Nat:) I love the Savior! I do draw him into my every day, and draw myself toward his invitations and promises as often as I can remember. I love his outstretched hand.

"We don’t know everything about that day," Elder Anderson says,"but we do know that when Andrew found his brother Simon, he declared, 'We have found the Christ!'"

(Nat:) The Divine Son of the Living God, the Only Begotten in the flesh. He is a miracle!

Bee keeping

Kent said the bee population is declining across the United States and farmers worry about pollination. Could be they've been doing this for decades and this isn't a recent story. Dad picked up on that and said how in the fields in Texas and Mexico where as a farmer he grew watermelon summer after summer he had to pay beekeepers to truck in bees for pollinating the vines. Whole beehives of bees.

Clearly this is not a pictures of that, but look how pretty! Wherever there are blossoms we do need bees. Don't go away! (From our hike last August near Pineview Reservoir.)



Which led to dad telling us how watermelons grow. Erm, male and female flowers are produced separately on one watermelon vine, six male blossoms starting up several weeks before one female. These then need the bees to bring pollen from so many to the one, and on that one flower a watermelon starts. He told also about how seedless watermelon

Yeah, this one's ↑got seeds, I know...

got "invented." It's not a variety, he said, it's a growing technique. The Japanese happened on it, studying the flowers, six and one to a vine, six and one as far as the vine grows... but Mexicans figured it out too and boy are Mexican seedless watermelons delish! You chop the vine off from the mother plant and succeeding blooms, cover that with dirt - and roots go down. The bees do their thing and the female flower produces a melon with no seeds.

There ya' go. You needed (like we did at breakfast) an add-on to the first story.

Bring the bees this spring! I sure like me some watermelon!

Approved of God

"Character, approved of God is worth securing, even at the expense of a life-time of constant self-denial. While thus living we may look forward…, with full assurance that… we shall be crowned with the sons and daughters of God, and possess the wealth and glory of a Celestial kingdom."
-----

President Lorenzo Snow is unequivocal in his teachings: "I am under the strongest impression," says he "that the most valuable consideration, and that which will be of the most service when we return to the spirit world, will be that of having established a proper and well defined character as faithful and consistent Latter-day Saints in this state of probation."

"I have reason to believe that many of the Latter-day Saints, during a great portion of their lives, could approach the Lord in all confidence and make this... prayer—'Search me, O God, and know my heart, and see if there be any wicked way in me;' (Psalm 139:23–24). I would recommend that [every person] adopt this prayer of David, and see how near he can live according to the light that he has, so as to make it in all sincerity part of his devotions to God."



"Many fail in coming up to this standard of excellence because they do things in secret where mortal eye cannot penetrate, that have a direct tendency to alienate them from the Almighty and to grieve away the Spirit of God."

Such persons cannot in their private closet use this prayer; they could not unless they had repented of their sins and repaired the wrong they may have committed, and determined to do better in the future than they had done in the past, and to establish a character before God that could be relied upon in the hour of trial, and that would fit them to associate with holy beings and with the Father himself when they shall have passed into the spirit world."

Sticking my oar in

Isn't this ↑ great!

And this ↓ seems quite appropriate here...

Flatter me, and I may not believe you,
Criticize me, and I may not like you,
Ignore me, and I may not forgive you,
Encourage me, and I may not forget you.
- William Arthur Ward

A good heart

Yesterday was Sharm's birthday; he's my brother-in-law, Laura's husband. It was the day appointed for him to be in the hospital for a procedure prior to being admitted in a couple of days for surgery.

Yeah, on his birthday. This day dawned rainy and misty, as dull and boring and frumpy as the day before was sunny and bright. Oh. The daffodils all over this valley likely didn't even bother opening yesterday, it was so dismal! Nothing to look forward to, nothing to shine for.

Sharm entered the hospital early in the morning for a heart catheter for doctors to ensure that an infection around his aortic valve after these three weeks on strong antibiotics through a picc line has cleared. And for them to see if, indeed, he still has the leak in that valve discovered over a month ago when he was in the hospital for pneumonia, and if he still needs to have it replaced Monday. Open heart surgery.

He does. It's leaky.

I got a voice text from Sharm which he sent to all his family after he came to saying the procedure showed good things. His arteries are not clogged - they look great! Heck, he's (like me) 57 now and who of us this age are not on our way to arteriosclerosis? Well you're not if you've dieted and stayed away from what causes fatty plaque build up. Sharm has, and has. No by-pass needed.

Also instead of a bicuspid valve, a congenital anomaly which some time ago he was told he has, he does have a normal tricuspid, or three-leaved, aortic valve. Hooray, he's normal! (Well, on that count.) But maybe this is, by now, a Smoot moot point?

Sharm also was chipper about the fact that (as he doctors are reminding him) open heart surgery is a frequently done procedure these years which leaves the patient who's suffered low, low energy and even depression because of the poorly pumping heart much energized, revitalized, after the operation. He's optimistic for his recovery - a wonderful attitude after long hoping for a miracle that he wouldn't even need the surgery. That this procedure here on his birthday would show not only the infection gone away but the valve wondrously repaired and working well...

It isn't. There's been no intervention here.

But God is with us! I know that. He works with positive attitudes like Sharm's. And with our gratitude. He loves gratitude! God looks for hopefulness from us. He works alongside skilled practitioners with their assistants. He works through others to bless us often, doesn't Himself always or automatically repair us.

Sharm knows this and is hopeful. I'm hopeful today - also a cold, rainy misty morning, sigh - that Sharman's good heart will be healed on Monday and made magnificent in the days ahead. We love him and pray for him!

Back to Red Butte

I got to Red Butte Gardens with Kent and Amy and Ellie yesterday. Heavens, the day was beautiful!



Just so you know that sunshine was a true gift, today is overcast and misty. You'd think it was February again... it's like this about every other day in April. Gee we lucked out!



Not much is in bloom yet. This high on the mountain the plants must come on a little later than even in my own yard. One bush, only, in this whole Rose Garden was announcing herself.



I have to tell you I loved meandering. It was cold, we needed our coats but you almost can't tell with the high sunshine. Kent keeps his hands in his pockets and Ellie's in blankets to her chin. The wind was brisk, which made my nose red! (What I love on my birthday - something I'm not expecting. A red nose.)  



See how pretty the light? Here we go again with the "green cellophane" look.



In actuality, lots of trees haven't leaved. But they're trying.



Or blossomed quite yet.



The gardeners've potted a few things...



Here's my girls!



Goodbye to the garden for a few weeks. I'll be back.

Triumph

I saw it, I saw Les Miserables last night! And cried like a child when it was done.



Happy birthday to me... last week with Erin here she took me out for my birthday (actually today). The sun shining over us like it was summer, it was a great day! Thank you dear girl! Jenny's birthday gift among other good things has been bringing Les Mis for us to watch together, and I've wakened today with it still in my brain. Oh so good! The acting and singing and passion... wow!

The wretched of the earth... a triumph of a story!



I did cry at the end. And then as Jenny and I do and have always done at the end of any movie we sat together and talked all about it. It's like it's still alive in you for a while.

This part is almost always the best. I love you, Jen. Thank you.