Daily Gratitude - Day 13

I’ve tried to come up with a less personally intimate statement but none come to mind so I’ll just say it.  I love taking baths. They are restorative to my soul.  For the past three weeks, I have been missing the sanctuary of my tub. Like faucets tend to do over time, the tub faucet had developed an annoying drip.  Not being handy or very smart about these things, I just kept trying to turn it tighter so that the dripping would stop because it isn’t very relaxing to listen to “drip...drip...drip” for an hour which is the approximate normal length of my bath time.

Handles will only turn so far, however, and when I tried to push that boundary, I broke it right off.  Drat.

“It’s an easy fix,” said Jay. I hesitated. Jay is incredibly handy and I’ve been quite impressed with the  his ability to both fix and learn how to fix (he claims you can learn how to do anything with a Youtube video) but he’s also the kind of guy that doesn’t have a lot of spare time. The lawnmower doesn’t work and you can get it running again when you get around to it? That’s fine. I can wait. Let the lawn grow overlong. The bathtub might be out of commission for a few weeks.  WTH?!?

Actually, I’ve been very supportive and patient. On the outside. Inside, I’ve been dying. Every day off Jay has had, he’s worked on getting it running again. It was complicated, I guess.  He’d think he was almost done and something would go wrong...it would be too late to go to Home Depot...he’d get to it on his next day off.  I smiled, always offered to call a professional plumber and then pine for my hot soak when Jay assured me he was quite capable of finishing the job himself.

It may be ugly but it’s such a comfy tub! Oh, how I’ve missed this burgundy beast!

Today was the day he proved himself true! With almost the same amount of pride the astrophysicists must have felt landing their spacecraft on a moving comet after 10 years, Jay glowed with pride when the water came out of the faucet with no leaks anywhere.  Hallelujah.  Of course, with three weeks of Home Depot runs, it looked like a construction zone.  I didn’t care. I scrubbed down the inside of the tub, filled it up with really hot water and the soothing bubble bath sent by my sister, Sarah, and took a bath at 4:30 in the afternoon. It felt like heaven. Balance was restored.

So, I’m grateful for baths, obviously, but I’m also grateful for my smart, multi-talented hunk of a man who seems to be able to do anything he sets his mind to do.

Well...I Never

There are lots of things I never thought would happen in my life that have never happened.

I never thought I would ever be arrested for anything and I haven't been.

I never thought I would be a world famous trapeze artist and I'm not.

I never thought I would crave raw tomatoes and I don't.

But, there are a few things that I never thought would happen in my life that have, in fact, happened.

I never thought I would only have sons.

I never thought I would prefer a primary calling.

And, I never, ever, ever thought I would own a barn on our property.  Heck, I never thought I would own "property".  My vision for my future life ran more along the lines of having a nicely fenced yard.

When we moved here five years ago, we rented a house in the neighborhood I thought I wanted to live in. It was soon obvious to me that while it would be a fine place to live and there were certainly lots of reasons to be happy there, I really would rather live closer to town - preferably in town.

Travel with me from that moment in life to our current abode - 25 acres ten minutes from town and 20 minutes from the church (where we have to be at least 3 different days of the week) and you can see how, at times, I scratch my head and think, "Well...I never."

It's not that I'm unhappy. On the contrary, I quite enjoy the peace and tranquility not having any visible neighbors affords. I like our house. I like the childhood my boys are having even though it is so different from my own hop-on-my-bicycle-and-go-to-a-friends-house-youth.

It's more that I'm dumbfounded. I have a memory of sitting with Jay while we were dating and sharing information about our families. I can hear him telling me about his dad, who, back then, worked as a radiologist, was currently a stake president and had a 100 cow working ranch. Because Jay was also going into medicine, and was serving in a busy college elder's quorum, I asked right then if he wanted a ranch in his future as well. He laughed and assured me that, no, that was not the life for him. Because I thought that lifestyle was crazy! I still do!

Well, I think something happens to a young man who becomes a man and life's responsibilities are often weighty. Something also happens to a man who has a father nearby and he discovers that his former childhood chores are now great ways to spend time with him. Jay discovered that ranching is not only a great stress relief but that he really, really, really likes the study of cows.

It definitely began with our boys foray into 4-H a couple of years ago. Seth's second to last place finish was a bit of a hard blow to his dad. When neither boy fared much better last year, Jay, whose competitive nature has him think things like, "If you're not first, you're last," and, "Second place is the first loser," while running upped his 4-H game. Because, when all is said and done, it is, I have learned, a game.

A steer who looks a certain way will always win at a county or state fair. It wasn't this case when Jay was a youth participating, so he's had to learn through experience. These steers are almost always progeny of the same few champion bulls and they have straight backs and big butts and long hair. They have other numbers too but, like HD television, you can see the difference when comparing side by side. To get these steers, most go and buy these club calves from certain well-known dealers. They can cost anywhere from $4,000 to $9,000, as a calf, and that makes no economic sense to spend that kind of money up front, feed them grain for 10 months and then maybe get that much at the sale. You would lose money, which is not the point of this great beef endeavor. The point, at least at the start of this all, was to have the boys learn about animals, teach them about the responsibility of daily care, and have them earn money for their missions.

So, last year, Jay took an artificial insemination course over in Utah. For a few days, he learned the science behind it and then had lots of practice on some poor, poor heifers who were on their way to the slaughter house (PETA...look away). He studied and researched and studied some more and bought some straws of semen, which are only about $20 each from these same champion bulls, and then tried this technique on 10 heifers. He was thrilled when 8 of them birthed these genetically chosen calves, even though only 2 of them were bulls (phew). His defense for all this rigamarole is that the boys will be more interested in continuing to participate if they don't place so poorly but I know my husband and I know that he is positioning his team for a win. It might not be this year and it might not be next year but, by golly, he and his boys are going to compete!

Which brings me to the barn. Jay hated taking advantage of his dad's corral space and barn for the steers. He also hated that the boys were that much removed from being involved in their daily care as it required a ride over and, more times than not, it was easier and more efficient for him to just do it himself. He figured, and he is right, that with our own barn and the steers just a hop, skip and a jump away, the boys will really take on the responsibility and learn the economic lessons and gain the work habits that will make them better men. When the timing worked so that we could afford it and use a hard-working contractor friend who needed employment, Jay got to work designing his barn. It really is something, the things this man can do when he want something.

Like most construction, it took more time and money than was originally thought and although it still needs electricity (had to wait until spring for the ground to thaw) and gravel to make the road to it less treacherous, it is done. Jay moved the steers over here about a month ago and it took my mother visiting for me to finally meander over there and have a look at it. That's as into it as I am. Because, well...I never thought I'd have a barn. But, now I do.




The barn has an open side with easy, covered storage.



Right now, while it's cold outside, the steers live in this outdoor corral.  Jay plays a radio during the day so they get used to sound.  The electricity comes from a long extension cord from the house.




The inside of the main section of the barn. Basically, this is an indoor basketball court. Jay originally designed it to have a 20ft high ceiling but realized 18 ft was plenty tall enough. I envision hosting a few fun barn dances with lights strung along the top.  How fun, right?!




This side of the barn is more storage but that back room, the one that isn't full open, is what will be the cool room. This is where the cows will spend their days during the summer. It will have air conditioning to allow their hair to remain long and them to gain as much weight as possible.  Crazy, crazy, crazy!  But, this is the kind of set up the past champions have.




I like it. I mean, it's a barn and it doesn't really do much for me personally but it brings my husband much joy, makes my boys more active participants in their market beef projects and keeps all of them closer to home, which is very nice. I still hope and pray that having 2 steers nearby keeps him satisfied and go on record right here declaring that I still have no desire to be married to rancher who is also a radiologist but I do have a great desire for Jay to be happy and if helping his dad and creating a winning 4-H steer from frozen bull semen is what brings him happiness, then I really am for this. It's not the cozy guest cottage that was my once-upon-a-dream but if you're really adventurous and don't mind sleeping next to some furry neighbors, there's plenty of room in there to accommodate visitors:)

Wednesday Whiffs

*The other night, both Jay and I accidentally left our garage doors open and the next morning, we discovered our trashcan out in the driveway with trash spewed as far as 100 yards away.  Right next to the sticky mess were bear paw prints.  We had noticed some rather large prints down at the bottom of our driveway a week earlier and thought they were probably bear tracks but knowing a bear was IN MY GARAGE kind of freaks me out.  Every morning, I walk Henry and Sam down the lane to the road where the bus picks them up and I've noticed two other sets of bear tracks.  I've still never seen the bear but my guess is he lives somewhere in the trees nearby.

*In a previous post, I mentioned some trouble I've been having with my right front tooth.  I call it my Zombie tooth because I've had a root canal in it but every once in a while, I feel a dull, throbbing pain in it that seems to come and go with no explanation.  My dentist referred me to the local endodontist (we only have one) to make sure I don't need a new root canal and to put a post inside my tooth to stabilize it and I went and had a consult and exam with him yesterday.  He is quite the piece of work.  He seemed nice enough at first although I was a bit disturbed by some odd facial pulls he used in an apparent attempt to entertain me (He came in with his hands on his hips, eyebrows raised, lips in a pout and face tilted downward.  I asked what was wrong and he chuckled and said, "Oh, nothing!"  Ha.  Ha.  Ha.).  Then, as he examined my tooth, he told me that I have a lot of plaque along my gumline and began to scrape it off.  O.K.  Kind of embarrassing but I think all professionals have a tendency to let you know how badly you need their services.  Like the pedicurists who are always telling me about my horrible heel cracks.  Or the car detailer who said if I ever needed my year supply of food (he was LDS) then I could just go scout out the crevices in the back of my van.  I just smile and nod, people.   Anywho...this endodontist then proceeded to hold up the metal tool with the hook that now contains a tiny blob of tooth plaque and said, "Do you want to lick this off?"  What do you say to that?  Um...no?  Do I have to?  After a too long and uncomfortable 10 seconds, he chuckled again and said "Kidding!  But it's gross, right?  You need to brush better!" and proceeded to wipe it on my chest napkin.  Ha.  Ha.  Ha.

*Sam and Henry have been treated by a pediatric opthamologist in Salt Lake City for the past five years.  Jay and I both felt that the continuity of care in their cases was very important and as we travel there pretty frequently and they only needed to be seen once a year, it wasn't a big deal.  This spring, we got a letter from the eye center informing us that this doctor had left their practice to pursue a new opportunity and Iowa and gave us a list of other doctors to choose from.  Because we were starting with someone new anyway, we decided to switch care to an opthamologist closer to us up in Grand Junction (only a 3 1/2 hour drive versus 6 or 7).  The three of us headed up there after church on Sunday for their Monday morning appointments and I have to say that I had forgotten how easy it is to travel without a baby.  I kept thinking I had forgotten something because we only had one small suitcase.  No diaper bag.  No crib.  No stroller.  No crying baby wanting out of his carseat.  We made it up there in no time and had a good night's sleep in a hotel we got at half price on hotwire.com.   The doctor was very happy with Henry's progress and vision and isn't even changing his prescription.  Sam, on the other hand, she is worried about.  I have always noticed that he tends to cheat with his bifocals.  he sits really close to the television to see and reads his piano music with his neck bent backward so he can read the music with the more magnified lens.  I guess all that cheating hasn't helped his cause and during his vision testing, he showed crossing with his lenses at both long distance and close up.  She is changing him to a single lens but wants to see him again in a month and probably again in a month after that.  If she isn't seeing the eyes working with the lenses better, she mentioned a possible surgery in the future.  I guess it's a good thing that she is only 3 1/2 hours away instead of 6 or 7.  Sigh.  And poor Sam.  I just want the boy to be able to see!

We do get to drive over the scary but amazing Red Mountain Pass when we go.  The drive could not be more beautiful than it was this past weekend.




A beautiful tunnel.



Coming back down into Silverton on the way home.



Driving into Ouray




Gorgeous trees changing color



The 14ers. Uncompaghre, perhaps?

*I am a definite PSETDIer.  Oh...not familiar with that acronym?  It's main rival, DIY, is much better known, thanks to big stores like Home Depot and Lowes but I am still a firm believer in Paying Someone Else To Do It, if at all possible.  I developed the phrase when our basement flooded last summer and our neighbors, who happen to be plumbers and handy and have big trucks and equipment for all sorts of various activities, suggested we just....fix it ourselves.  Rip the carpet up and pad up, get some big fans and dry it out.  Get the young adults and youth to come and help.  That sort of thing.  I didn't want to.  We hired ServePro.  Not just because I don't want to be a burden on other people and I never know what the heck I'm doing (and I don't...ever) but because I believe that by using other's talents, and paying them for their expertise , I am helping this great world spin.  Economically and spiritually.  Service is great but people also need to work and earn money!  I also have no desire to figure out how to do most things.  Still, sometimes, this core belief of mine doesn't work out so well.  Take, for instance, the great hot tub debacle of 2012.  I have been working with a local repair shop since APRIL and it still isn't working.  What is more frustrating than the ridiculous amount of time that has lapse since I first hired them to fix it is their assumption that I have any idea, at all, what is wrong with it.  The questions they ask about relay circuits, filters and pumps all go right over my head.  I feel like yelling over the phone (I did say it sternly once but I'm not a public yeller), "I don't know anything about hot tubs.  That is why I hired you!"  The guy we pay to fix the well pump that regularly goes out is also frustrating.  He doesn't know exactly why it doesn't work as well as it should but still manages to fix it...over...and over again.  I just want it fixed!  The PSETDI philosophy isn't always frustrating, though.  I had a totally efficient and competent company come and fix a propane leak in less than 20 minutes.  That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about!  That's way better than the tire people who put on my new tires last week but inadvertently ripped the beading (all new words I'm learning!), causing a flat two days later.  Every once in a while, I even get a nice surprise by Jay who has the skills to be a DYIer but not the time.  After Seth noticed the ceiling dropping water in the basement, we figured something was wrong with the main floor toilet because the ceiling leaked every time the toilet was flushed.  After talking to our neighbor plumber, Jay changed the wax seal underneath and, voila, problem solved.  He saved us at least $80.  But, I'm still not in the mood to learn how to fix toilets.




He needs to show some more skin to be a real plumber:)


Daniel just cut 3 teeth at the same time.  Like, the same day.  He's been miserable since Friday and I felt bad leaving him with Jay when he was so down but Jay sent me pictures throughout the day to let me know how he was feeling.  Thankfully, he is back to his happy baby self and now has eight sharp little teeth.  He also happens to be weaned.  The two occurrences might have something to do with each other.

Miserable baby in the morning

Getting into trouble with the toilet paper.

He loves toilets and toilet paper!

So, Jay put him to work. He was in heaven.

Still crying for me yesterday but feeling better today!

Three on Tuesday

1.  My sister, Sarah, came to visit me this past weekend.  Have I ever mentioned on this blog how much I love my family?  A few times?  Well...let me just say it again.  I love my family.

This weekend was going to be so stressful.  Jay is in the stake young mens and the stake had a youth temple trip planned.  He had to be there all day and as the temple is two hours away, he had to leave at 5:45 am to get there and get set up by the time the first group of wards came.  I also had to be there.  I probably could have delegated but at a YW presidency meeting months ago, we each chose which scheduled temple trip throughout the year we would like to attend with the youth.  I chose the April trip as it would be the first time Seth went to the temple to do proxy baptisms.

Of course, that was all before I knew that Daniel would refuse a bottle and that Sam would have a double header soccer game and that Sam’s school sleepover would be that same weekend.  As I had to meet the youth at 7:15 am to head out, I didn’t know how to get Sam home and to his day of soccer, not to mention what I was going to do with Henry and Daniel.

I started working out a complicated he-goes-here-and-he-goes-there with lots of help from soccer moms and friends but then Sarah called and said Daniel’s 17 week pictures were telling her she needed to come visit.  She even took a day off of work so she could be here all day on Friday to help me paint the nursery (yes.  I am just now getting around to assembling Daniel’s room).

She arrived late Thursday night and Friday, she followed me into town as I dropped of my car that needed some work (surprise) and then we went to the paint store and got all of our supplies to paint.  I am not ashamed to admit that I am completely attempting to copy a room design I found online.  Of course, it is impossible to completely copy as I do not have cream wainscoting nor am willing to spend $1,000 on a metal crib, but I am trying to do the rest starting with the Benjamin More Gentle Grey paint color.  We got the entire room painted in just a few hours.  The next day, while I was at the temple, she had Henry and got Sam to both his soccer games, earning my love and a nasty sunburn as a bonus (it was 80 degrees on Saturday!)  I took Daniel with me and my mother-in-law, another saintly family member, watched him in the temple home next to the temple while I was inside.  He got a comfy and quiet nap and I got to watch my adorable 12 year-old attempting to help the priesthood holder baptizing him by really bending his knees.  Have you ever gotten the giggles in the temple?  Luckily, Seth didn’t see his mom’s eyes watering and shoulders shaking.

The whole weekend worked because Sarah came to visit.  Sisters rule.  Especially when they laugh at your hair color and cut because it is the worst cut and color you have ever had!!








2.  Speaking of the nursery, I have spent the entire day thus far online shopping for the rest of it.  I wish I could have online shopped for the room to be painted ( I do not love painting) but so far, I have found the sign, the wall decal, a chair (that one was too expensive and I went with a chocolate brown instead of beige because),  and bedding.  Still needed is a crib.  I have looked and looked at dark ones and it isn’t feeling right so I am going to go with a light crib.  Probably white as I don’t want to spend very much and will probably just get one at Wal-Mart or Target.  I don’t need it to be an heirloom crib as we aren’t planning on having any more children and some of those conversion cribs are ugly to me.  I just want a simple crib.  I have an old dresser that I am going to spray paint whatever color I end up getting.  Then...I think I’m done.  Pics will come when I’m done.  Hopefully in two weeks it will all be done and Daniel will finally get his own room.

Here is the room I am copying.  I just realized I still need drapes.

contemporary kids design by minneapolis interior designer Design By Lisa

3.  I don’t want to get too much into it because I’m still not sure where I’m at, but the most interesting thing happened on Sunday.  The talks in Sacrament meeting were about personal revelation.  Hmmm.  The Sunday school lesson was on having our tents face the temple.  The teacher also brought up Lot’s wife which is astonishing because her story has been on my mind for months.  Months!  The comments made in regard to Lot’s wife were a bit infuriating only because I think she gets a bum rap and all the comments were the typical ones always said about her but of course I didn’t say anything because that wasn’t the point of the lesson (which was on King Benjamin) and I’m still not sure what I think about certain things.  But the fact that she was mentioned felt...bizarre.  Like someone was playing tricks on me and I was on candid camera because everything so far was about things I had been thinking about.  Then, the lesson in YW was on the priesthood.  My 1st counselor did a great job with the lesson and just talked about the order of the church.  It was great and rather than seeing gender in the priesthood, I saw order.  After church, we had a meeting with the bishop that has led me to spend the past two days diligently working on my personal progress.  The scriptures that I have read and the things I’ve thought about and recorded in my journal have been immensely soothing.

I’m just saying that it’s either a HUGE coincidence that these very topics have all been brought to my attention within days of each other or the Lord is trying to tell me that he knows me.  I know, I know..many things in the scriptures and lessons can be generally applied to many adversities but everything felt so directed to some of my specific concerns.  My questions weren’t all simply answered and everything isn’t just hunky dory sail off into a Jack Weyland sunset but I do feel like the Lord was saying, “I know the troubles in your heart, Lucy,” and, for now, being acknowledged like that is the comfort I need.  

The Anatomy of My Memories

Do you ever walk down memory lane?  It’s an interesting phrase and one that happens to me almost literally.  While the small plane I was in flew over the city of Denver, I looked out of the window and could see exactly where Jay and I lived for four years.  I could see the streets and parks my friend, Libby, and I jogged through.  I could see the hospital where Jay and I both spent so much time (me as a virologist, he as a med student).  I could see the zoo where I actually bought a season pass to walk around with a very young Seth in a stroller before I realized that just because I was now a stay-at-home mom, I still wasn’t a lover of animals nor of their smells (we should have just bought the day pass).  So many memories came flooding into me merely by seeing the streets where I used to live.

For some reason, nostalgia transported me from Denver to my grandmother’s home in Cache Valley, Utah.  I haven’t been there since I was a very young girl and I found myself running from room to room in my mind.  In the living room, I remember the wide red arm chairs with their scratchy fabric and the L-shaped fireplace that faced both the living room and the family/dining room.  I see my grandmother’s desk with her felt shaped family tree hanging above it and the long couch with a colorful afghan throw on its back.  Straight ahead is the blond dining room table with chairs covered in pink fabric and a decorative needlepoint design, all atop a textured carpet with a variety of oval shaped braided rugs throughout the room I can not only see but feel with my toes perfectly.  The kitchen, in my memory, is wonderfully bright and clean, decorated with pink paint and on the table are colorful metallic cups that feel cold to touch when filled with ice water or cold milk.  The ironing room in a small annex off the kitchen is decorated with bright yellow curtains and a black rotary phone on the wall.  At the back of the kitchen are stairs down to the scary root cellar I always avoided.  My grandmother’s bedroom is off the living rooms near the front door and its contents are fuzzy in spite of me knowing exactly where it is located.  I walk up the stairs that curve ninety degrees at the bottom to the upstairs landing where two twin beds with green bedspreads fill the room.  In one large bedroom to the left, two huge beds with white chenille covers await their guests and another room holds only one bed as well as a mirrored vanity with a painted rock on top which I pretended held my blue eyeshadow and bright red lipstick.  It must be summer because the room is hot and the windowsill contains dead flies.

The house is so clear in my memories.  White, with a horseshoe driveway with tall, tall trees on either side of the pavement. The roof was dark green and so low to the ground back by the kitchen that you could walk up and down it.  Raspberries fill the yard.  An old car with a push start ignition stood in the rickety garage.  The grass is prickly and patchy.

I walk through this house but as hard as I try to remember, I cannot find the bathroom.  There must be a bathroom.  It must be on the main floor somewhere but where?  Off the kitchen?  In the master bedroom? I don’t remember one upstairs.

I ask my mother my first day of visiting and she describes it as off the dining room.  I can’t picture it.  She describes it in detail, the yellow color, the wallpaper, the half wall and none of it rings a bell.  It’s a complete non-memory.

Perhaps I would remember if I saw a picture of it.  I’m sure I used that bathroom.  When I was telling this experience to my younger sister, Sarah, she immediately told me, “If you walked straight ahead from the front door, it was next to the dining room table.  She was even younger than I was.  Of course, she also has a freaky memory, but still...it troubled me.

I decided that I never, ever wanted to walk through the halls of my childhood home and not remember where the bathrooms were.  There is something very powerful about photos in stirring up remembrance and although my parents have made changes and upgrades throughout the house and it is decorated with much fancier things than my  mother dared attempt while we six children bounded through the house, I still delight in mentally wandering from room to room.  So many, many memories in each one.

It’s only a structure but it holds the first half of my life.




Recently updated with new siding, garage doors and a fancy vinyl fence (we had the scary wobbly metal one that was probably scary wobbly because my brother and his friends liked to leap over it), I love the quaintness of this home.  This ugly March doesn’t capture it well at all as the front always has lovely flowers blooming in beds that run along the entire front.  There used to be a pretty crabtree in the middle of the yard and a tall weeping birch to the right whose dangling branches provided exotic doorways to a multi-roomed fort.




The west side.  This was the main play yard.  Here is where we played croquet, volleyball, and did cartwheels.  Jon and I used to practice our backspins on a piece of cardboard placed on the grass.  This little area separated by the small walk is the piece of lawn I used to go and sit on so it would get used.  I worried it would feel...lonely.  The brick fence was a gateway to the roof which we frequently accessed as teenagers to jump down onto the backyard trampoline.  My poor parents.  It’s hard to see but there is a garden along the fence and house and it always produces a lot of vegetables and strawberries each year.  It even looks pretty with yellow and orange marigolds running along its border.



The patio.  An excellent place for basketball (obviously) and sunbathing.  I can remember being oddly obsessed with making the sophomore high school basketball team and practicing my free throws over and over the summer before tryouts.  I distinctly remember my sister, Emily, telling me I was missing a lot of them.  On the grass was where the tent was set up when cousins came to visit and always my preferred sprinkler location if I was ever going to run through it.  I’m standing nearby the backyard raspberry patch that we called the briar patch.  Our cat is buried there.  I didn’t like the cat.




The living room wall.  I love this wall.  For me, it is my mother’s wall.  It’s decorated with her past.  English things for her time in England. Things from both China and Myanmar from her time there. Books from her studies as an English major.  Books from my adolescence.  Copies of scriptures and even an old french textbook so I can remember how to conjugate verbs in the subjunctive tense.    I’m not sure if I have a favorite thing up there.  Maybe the Shakespeare plate that has been up there for as long as I can remember or the girl on the top shelf wearing a blowing pink dress because I would have liked to have been that girl.  Maybe the nativity because it is one of many that she possesses and loves.  No, I see it now.  It is the bell that my grandmother used to call for help on the shelf underneath the mirror.

That mirror is iconic.  It was our audience when we performed.  Our last minute appearance check before heading out anywhere.  I laugh when I remember coming home and seeing dozens of my school pictures decorating it and the other shelves.  Over and over and over again.  My siblings always got a great laugh watching me take them all down in embarrassment when I’d come home.




The kitchen.  My favorite thing by far in this room is the wall oven.  I thought it was so fancy.  Everyone I knew had an oven underneath their range but we had this wall oven that you didn’t have to bend over to open and it was symbolic to me somehow of how my mother did things differently than my friends’ moms.  I wish I could say I have memories of helping my mom with meals and doing lots and lots of dishes but I was pretty spoiled.  Sure, I did the dishes sometimes but the memories of me snacking on homemade bread or frozen Keebler grasshopper cookies are stronger than pulling anything out of that glamorous oven.




The dining room.  Nine of us sat around this table (which is bigger with a few leaves in it) for a big chunk of my childhood.  I sat in the far corner furthest away from the kitchen next to my dad, who sat in the middle of the long side, and my sister, Emily, who had an arm chair next to the sliding glass doors.  Maureen sat next to her and I faced my mother, who sat nearest the kitchen for obvious reasons, and Sarah, who never got a hard chair.  She had a non-matching squishy brown thing that had to be pushed against the wall when we weren’t eating.  My grandmother sat in the chair on the right nearest the living room and my brother sat to her left.  Jennifer finished the nine between Jon and my dad.  My head is full of plastic tablecloths and fancy lace ones that came out for holiday meals and company.  It is illuminated by a glass chandelier that I’ve since learned is quite simple but seemed luxurious to a young girl.  I imagined its dangling shards (that have since been replaced by real waterford crystal) as my earrings (I was a bit big earring obsessed as a youth).  I still love it.




Looking at the living room from the dining room you can see the large windows that are almost always left uncovered.  Many have reported watching us dance or wrestle or just being as they drove past our house at night.  This is the room where we gather.  It holds no TV and the chairs are all different from the ones I remember but the touch lamps are the same and the crack in the ceiling that my mom always worried about when the frequent dancing would begin remains.   More than the things it holds, I cherish  the words, the music and the ideas that have been sung and shared here.  Sadly, no photo will ever be able to capture those.



The upstairs hallway.  Those cupboards contain all the fancy things my mother collected during her travels as a young adult and she waited years and years to bring them out.




In the hallway behind the door to the downstairs is a cork board that holds all kinds of out of date things.  It used to hold the picture buttons of me and my sister Sarah in our sport uniforms made for boosters to wear during our games.  The wall phone with the cord so long and stretched out it touched the floor was mounted next to it.  I love this old phone contact sheet still hanging.   I’m pretty sure that was my sophomore at BYU phone number.




The main bathroom.  I grew up with a pink tub so at some level, having one now is a comfort.  This is the best tub.  Even though none of us used my parents shower, I can’t remember it ever having a rod with a shower curtain to double as a shower.  It was just always...the tub.  Emily permed, colored, rag tied, braided and hot curled my hair in here.  I remember trying to sneak out the window once.  It wasn’t this window, it was one that opened at an angle from the top.  I think I may have been successful but my memory says there was pain involved....




What I consider my Grandma’s room.  Her white leather rocking chair was in the right corner and her bed pushed up against the left wall.  Her TV stood diagonally from her chair and her tall dresser right next to it.  Another chair stood nearby the door.  I loved having her live with us and loved seeing that same felt family tree on the wall above her chair.  It also made me sad because it showed the name of three aunts and an uncle who I had never met.  All had died.  I felt sad for her.

I loved these curtains.  I fancied that when I got married, my mom could make my veil out of one of them.  So funny.  I’m glad they are still on the walls and were never on my head.    I know this room was also Sarah’s room for awhile and a TV room for many years after we had all moved out.  Now, my mom sews and irons in here and my dad practices the accompaniments for the ward choir on the keyboard but it will always be Grandma’s room.




My parent’s room.  If you were lucky and got up early, you could snuggle with my mom in bed and read the paper (never my dad.  I have never once woken up for the day before my dad).  A comfortable chair fills it now but the space underneath the larger window always held a desk with my mom’s sewing machine on it.  I can see fabric on the bed and my mom working on a choir dress or a prom dress or a bridesmaid dress or an easter dress.  I loved those dresses.




The view from their bed.  I just wanted to remember how pretty the mountain looks from here.  And you could see their bathroom which always seemed very private to me.  I hardly ever used it.  I do remember going in there to look through their records which, for some reason, were in a box on the floor underneath the sink.




The stairs.  See that tiny strip of carpet on the left?  Can you picture a young girl using it as her balance beam?  And the walls were just narrow enough to climb up barefoot.  I walked down them several times while I was visiting and I noticed that my descent sounded like my mom’s descent.  I could always tell who was coming downstairs by how they walked down.  I was a little surprised when my own current sound was so familiar.




The closet at the top of the stairs.  The perfect place to hide in a game of hide-and-seek.  Also, the perfect place for a lazy teenage girl to put everything her mother told her to take downstairs thinking she would just “do it later.”  I wonder if I still have something of mine in there that never made it to my room.




The family room.  I wish I had a picture of the orange striped carpet of my young childhood.  This was wear the sleepovers were held and the movie nights and even where I got my first kiss (it was yucky and during the movie Christmas vacation even though it was in August).  Lots of wrestling.  It is completely black when the lights are off because there are no windows.  That’s made for some smoky rooms when a fire gets going.  We rarely had fires down here.




I love these collage frames.  I took pictures so I’d have these pictures too.








When there are five girls and a grandma, the sole boy needs some privacy.  Sadly, privacy came at a premium and the fruit room became Jon’s room.  After awhile, some carpet, wallpaper and ceiling helped make it less...storage like.  Still, my brother slept with the peaches and the pears and the washer and dryer.  He made it his own with posters of Van Halen and other glam rock bands on the wall.  He did have his own door that led directly to the garage.  I don’t know if he used it.  Well...I know he did when we used to sneak out to ride our bikes down to Green Meadow Market on Saturday night for a six pack of Cherry Coke to drink before Saturday Night Live.    I was in fourth grade when I did this.  Fourth grade!!!!!!!




The hallway to the downstairs bedrooms.  I think we all liked to climb up these walls and have people walk through our legs.  I don’t know how my mother kept the walls clean.




This room housed my Barbie mansion.  I loved barbies!  It stood where the bookshelf is now and it was pink and glorious.  I had the convertible too.  And that mirror was a teenage girl’s best friend.  It helped me with many an outfit ensemble.




Jen’s room or Sarah’s room or what I call the green room.  This was my room too for many, many years but I never think of it that way.  For a long time, Sarah and I shared bunk beds and my sister, Jen, had her own twin along the other wall.  This was the room I slept in when I had the worst nightmare of my life after my cousin was murdered and her killers were still on the loose and I was so scared I couldn’t move.  It is also where my final destination was when I had to sneak back to bed after trying to catch Santa on Christmas Eve.  As a young girl, my dad would tuck me us in and then, as he walked back upstairs, we would call out, “Goodnight!  I love you!  What’s for breakfast tomorrow?”  We said it so regularly and predictably I can still hear the rhythm of the chant and our intonations.




Emily and Maureen’s room.  Any girl with older sisters can attest to the tendency to worship them during their teenage years.  I loved their room.  I loved their pink and mint green reversible comforters.  I loved their boy posters on the wall.  It was also my room.  For my entire high school career, this was where I read books until the middle of the night and where wet towel after wet towel stayed on the floor until my mother came to either rehang them or wash them.  I would have slapped me!  FYI, this is the one and only quilt I have ever made.  I wanted it in my parents house so I could always see it.  I think it’s beautiful but it was so hard, I’ve never wanted to try another.



I wanted a view of the other wall.  It was my room after all.




The downstairs bathroom.  Picture five girls all getting ready at the same time.  Picture us all sharing a sink, spitting toothpaste over another’s head and trying to get that space between the toilet and the sink that got you up close to the mirror to put your mascara on.  I took the longest showers as a teen.  At least 20 minutes.  My dad hated it.  Not only did I use up all the hot water but I’m sure I upped the heating bill.




I love this house because it holds many of my favorite memories.  I hope these pictures help me to always remember them.

What You Missed

The Time Capsule experiment was informative and all but I missed real blogging.  Here’s what I would have posted on those days but in a more truncated format.

Day One.  I’ve lived in this house for nearly two years.  And for nearly two years, I have believed that the locks on all five of the window doors (does that make sense?  The doors that are glass instead of wood) don’t lock.  I figured it was a design flaw and that when we remodel in a year or ten, I’d replace them with doors that lock.  Call it naivety, call it cheap, call it irresponsible, but, yes, that means in the nearly two years that we have lived here, we have never been able to “lock up the house.”  Not at night.  Not on trips.  Never.  So far, so good.

Well, each of those locks are bolt locks underneath a lever handle and when you turn the bolt knob, nothing happens.  I’ve never claimed to be very handy or intuitive when it comes to how things work but I’m going to go out on a limb here and claim that if you see a knob for a lock underneath a handle, turning it should produce some sort of locking action.  Yes?  It doesn’t on these doors hence unlocked doors for two years.

Last Thursday, my son’s friend came over and while they were out on the trampoline, they left the door to the deck open and when I went to close it, it wouldn’t close.  The bolt lock was out and hitting on the jamb, preventing it from fully shutting.  The bolt was out!  How did it get out?  I turned the knob.  Nothing.  As any intuitively fix-it-challenged lady might do, I started simultaneously furiously turning the knob while pulling up and down the the lever handle.  It turned.

I played around with it while the door was closed.  It locked.  Apparently, all I needed to do these past two years to be safe was to raise the lever handle and THEN turn the bolt knob.  Because that is how these doors lock.  All of them.  So, if you were ever thinking of breaking into to my home to rob us, you’re too late.  Uh-oh!  Someone learned how to lock their doors! (said in the voice of Happy Gilmore learning how to putt.  It’s my husband’s fault that I know that movie at all).



Knob turned to the right to lock.  Doesn’t lock.




Door handle lifted up.  Door locks.  Obviously!

Day Two.   I rediscovered a CD in my car that I haven’t listened to in months.  Track five is Florence and the Machine’s Cosmic Love and I just can’t get enough of it.  The drums!  The harp!  The belting!  It made me miss singing so badly.  I don’t even really sing like her - in that style - but I couldn’t help repeating the song over and over and singing out as loud as I could in my car.  Of course, I don’t understand all of the lyrics but once I get a general vowel sound going, I'm good.  I’ve never been a lyric perfectionist.  You say tomato.  I say ah-ah-oh.  Moral of the story is:  I want to sing!  Loudly (or softly if the song called for it) and with emotion.  Wearing sequins would be a plus but it’s not necessary.  Preferably, loud (or soft) emotive singing would be done without the bad ward choir.  But,  I fear it’s not going to happen.



Disclaimer:  I had never seen this video before searching for it to add along with this blog post.  Love the song but ne’er fret, my wishing does not include wearing a pair of cut out leggings.


Day Three.  Second trimester report cards came home.  I am so pleased that each of my school-aged boys are blessed with the kind of intelligence that makes school less of an academic struggle.  Seth got all A’s and one B and the B was the direct result of missing assignments.  The middle school has a website for parents to log on and check grades and assignments and towards the end of the trimester, Seth was missing all kinds of assignments.  Some he had forgotten to turn in.  Some he just didn’t do.  I was emailing teachers and turning into the worst sort of nag but all of his grades came up once he turned in the work he is perfectly capable of understanding and doing.  But, some of the reading assignments were from newspaper articles he couldn’t find again and, thus, the B.  So, while I am pleased that Seth is intelligent, there is an exasperation that he is so disorganized.  We’re working on it.  I’m proud of him making the Honor Roll even though I’ll never, ever display those sentiments on the bumper of my car.




Seth gets his certificate and window decal from his group of core class teachers.



Immediately goes and acts cool with his buddies.  Totally ignoring the embarrassing lady with the camera nearby.

Sam had no problems.  He is bright and organized.  In fact, it annoyed me a bit to get his report card because his teacher almost universally marked his grades as “3”s which, translated, means, “achieves target” (2s are “approaching target" and 4s are “applies at a higher level”.  1s are “requires assistance”) even though he gets pulled out of her class every single day to do differentiated math, reading and language arts with the G/T teacher.  How can he be doing above grade level work outside of her class and still be “at grade level?”  He has completely different spelling words than the rest of the class.  He frequently comes home with some random math puzzler worksheet (like complicated sudoko or multiplying fractions) that is really hard and has nothing to do with what he’s currently learning but is her way of challenging him, I guess. I’m not trying to be obnoxious and I do like his teacher for making the effort to push Sam academically, but if he’s above grade level - give him the 4!  I know he’ll have them on his next report card and my guess is that by waiting to give him a 4, this teacher believes the raising of the grade will somehow reflect her awesome teaching abilities.  Perhaps a cynical and bloated opinion of a biased parent but my opinion nonetheless.

Henry’s report card makes me smile.  Henry, Henry, Henry.  For years, I was worried about Henry having a learning disability.  With his speech delay, it was hard to know what he knew.  Thankfully, I’ve learned that he is very bright.  He does have some other delays, like trouble with his fine motor skills, and the normal boys lengthy attention span delay, but he’s doing well.  Getting all 2s and 3s.  He did pull a couple of “N”s, however.  I remember a few Ns in my own elementary heyday.  Mine were in “avoids unnecessary talking.”  Apparently, I’ve always been wordy.  Henry gets his “N”eeds improvement in “does quality work” and “demonstrates consistent effort.”  His teacher has been on my case about Henry’s deficiencies in both these areas all year.  She is not a big Henry fan.  One of her main gripes is that he does not take the time or seem to care about coloring inside the lines.  He also does not use enough variation in his colors.  One purple or brown crayon will usually do!  I happen to think that pretty colorful pictures are not all that essential to one’s education but I am not a Kindergarten teacher so what do I know.  This comment on one of his take-home papers made me laugh.  Don’t overdo the high praise!  We wouldn’t want Henry to get a big head now!




I guess accolates like “Good Job!” and “Terrific!” are out of vogue in the Kindergarten world.

Day Four:  Did you read the news article about Tide laundry detergent being a target of thieves?  I guess there’s a black market for it.  Let me repeat that.  There is a black market for laundry detergent.  Having white whites and bright colors has joined the seedy underworld of drug trafficking, guns and prostitution.  I buy Tide.  I’ve also learned via Pinterest that blue Dawn dishwashing liquid solves just about all of the world’s problems.  I bet that’s the next at-risk item.  Good thing I have figured out how to lock my doors.

Day Five:   We had to do throw-downs in the body sculpting class I went to.  If you remember from back in my Biggest Loser posting days, this exercise is performed by lying on your back and holding onto the ankles of someone who is standing above your head.  That person “throws down” your legs and you try to keep them from touching the floor, bringing them back up for another throw down.

I had a baby 12 weeks ago.  I have no abdominal muscles.  Imagine my shame when I was the last of the 12 people in the class to complete the exercise.  The shame didn’t come from being last but from the eleven spectators thinking they were helping me by clapping and cheering, “Come on, Lucy!  You can do it!” while I struggled.  Sometimes, being supportive is overrated.  Sometimes, you just need to look away.