double nickels

Happy Birthday dear Husband!

48 facts tag

My blogger friend, Rae, posted the 48 facts tag                                                               which I decided to do this evening:

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
My mother says that I was named after a character in a movie. Apparently a lot of women that were pregnant saw the movie and thought the same thing as I have one of the most common names of my generation.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
Monday.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
No.

4. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Boars Head low salt turkey.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Yes...four girls.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Yes.
7. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
Yes, but I try not to use it too much.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yes.
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
No way!
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Kelloggs Corn Flakes.
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Not usually.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Vanilla.
14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Their posture.

15. RED OR PINK?
Red.
16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
That I look mad if I am not smiling.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?

My married girls.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST?
Yes.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Jean shorts and beige nap slippers.
21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
The dishwasher.
22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Purple.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Oranges and orange blossoms, dinner ready in the crockpot when I come home, watering my herb garden,  my husband.
24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
Britta Doerfler
25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Yes :)

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Basketball.
27. HAIR COLOR?
Brownish.
28. EYE COLOR
Brown.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Seldom because of my dry eye syndrome.
30. FAVORITE FOOD?
Italian.
31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings.
32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Marley and Me.
33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Mostly blue (flowers).

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Summer.

35. HUGS OR KISSES?
Hugs.
37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
N/A.
38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
N/A.

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
The Measure of a Lady by Deeanne Gist and The Art of Happiness by The Dalai Lama.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
No mouse pad.
41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
The Biggest Loser.

42. FAVORITE SOUND(S).
My grandkids.

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Beatles.

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
I guess that depends where home is. The farthest south I have been is Buenos Aires, Argentina. The farthest north I have been is Alaska. The farthest west I have been is Hawaii. The farthest east I have been is Vienna, Austria.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
Brainstorming.

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Salt Lake City, Utah.

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
Everyone's!
48. WHERE DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER?
At the lunch tables when I was in 3 rd grade.

half day

Today I decided to use the gift certificate that my fellow second grade teachers gave me when I retired. It was  $75.00 to spend at the Yard Stop--one of the local nurseries. First though, I was getting my hair cut this morning, but I had to drive right by the nursery. What should I see? A sign. It said

"50% off on all plants today."

Could it be for real? I hate those scams where you think that you are going to get 50% off and then later see in teeny tiny letters

up to.

 Then when you  get inside you find out that there is only one item that is actually 50% off and everything else is 5% off. I hardly dared to hope the whole time I was getting my hair cut. Afterwards,  I went right back to the Yard Stop. IT WAS TRUE! 50% off every plant today only. So I bought $150 worth of plants with my wonderful gift certificate.

After I got them all unloaded, I went to WalMart and they were having a 50% off sale on some of their plants and so, I bought some more plants, at $1.00 each.

I love half days!

learning by doing

Today I painted my kitchen. I haven't done indoor painting before. I called my sister-in-law, Jennifer and asked her for some tips about getting a straight line between the wall and the ceiling. (I do not have a steady hand.) She gave  me some advice and also recommended hgtv. I went on to their website and read what a lot of others had to say about being successful and then I bought a great little sureline tool.  I was really pleased with how my project turned out. It only took a half gallon of paint, what with all the cupboards and windows and door slots. (I have three exit doors in my kitchen!) The difficulty in painting the kitchen lies in the fact that the ceilings are 12 feet tall and the part that needs to be painted are the upper 9-12 feet...lots of ladder work. In addition, I have numerous plants and "things" atop the cupboards which all had to be removed. And since they were being removed they should be cleaned, right? And then replaced. Lots more ladder work.

But you know what hurt? My ARMS!

I picked Debbie Clayton up from school this afternoon and we went to the Temple together. Seriously, I could hardly hang on to the steering wheel.

When we got back, she came in and ooohed and ahhhhed  satisfying my need for approval.

I love my new paint. I think I will paint again!

 

 

The can is a mess because I couldn't quite figure out how to get the paint out of the can. I should have asked Jen. I finally used a ladle. It worked great.

new valance

  The fabric that I ordered on Saturday arrived yesterday!

I am very pleased with my purchase.

I was up, had breakfast and was sewing before anyone else in the house was even stirring.

With a little help from an  antique lace tablecloth, the result:

Here is a closer look.

Unfortunately it is hard to see the cute birds that inhabit the fabric in the pictures.

Simple as it is, I had such a great time putting it all together!

baby it's cold outside

We are in the middle of three freezing nights. I harvested the last of my peas. I moved a dozen or so plants from my garden to hang out in the garage for the duration. The immovable fragiles are blanketed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tonight at the YM /YW activity, we all kept warm learning line dances. It was really fun! And on the off chance that I should need to dance to  Thriller, or the Stomp Cha Cha Slide, or the Macarena or Cupid's Shuffle, I'll be okay

because the girls were really good teachers!

watching tv in the middle of the day

When Doug came home around lunchtime today, he ended up in front of the tv. After a while he called to me and told me that I really ought to come and watch it with him. He likes to watch political commentary. I do not. So I told him that I do not have time to watch tv in the middle of the day and carried on with my tasks. Not too long after that, I was swooping through the room, on a task errand, of course. Suddenly, I noticed the ticker at the bottom of the screen said Inauguration 2009. Oh my goodness! Is that on already, I thought?  I sat down next to my husband. And a few minutes later, I apologized. And a few minutes after that, I thanked him.

Together, we watched tv in the middle of the day.  

These are my favorite words from President Obama's speech. 

"...those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

I don't know if he will be true to his words. I don't know if our country will accept the inherent challenge. I do know that I am happy to hear words like these from our President.

Like many other Americans, I will be praying for him and wishing him well as he leads our country. And I will also try to do my part.

spending the night with gramma karla & gg

This afternoon, I drove Brianna to meet her Gramma Karla at our designated spot in the Ocala National Forest. The trip to Ocala also included a trip to the barn for Brianna to visit with the horses as well.

dress it and keep it

I was amazed and I'll admit, delighted when I heard Elder Uchtdorf say these words at the LDS General Relief Society Meeting in October:

The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul....we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before...Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty...One of the ways we find [joy] is by creating things.

Then in the Saturday afternoon session of the general conference Elder Bednar talked about spiritual creation preceding temporal creation. He said:

...meaningful morning prayer is an important element in the spiritual creation of each day--and precedes the temporal creation or the actual execution of the day.

I know in Alma that we are taught to pray about EVERYTHING but in the past and I am still striving to get over it, I have felt a little bit frivolous praying for help organizing and/or beautifying my home when world peace and world health would be so much more beneficial to mankind.

Not to say that I haven't prayed for help with personal projects in the past, but I have usually couched them in terms like, help me to be productive in the things that I do.  I am trying to walk forward with faith. So, with that six paragraph introduction, I will get to the point.

My husband expects that I will be able to match a piece of tile that was made in the late 1800's and purchased in the UK. He thinks that I will find this perfect match so that we can tile a part of the wall in the kitchen next to the trash bin that gets a lot of abuse making it easier to clean and better looking.

I prayed. I asked my friend where she would go to find tile. I went where she suggested. I found the perfect tile, complete with crackles to make it look aged. I ordered it. I was amazed.

I am grateful...so grateful that I have the same Help available to me that Adam and Eve had when they were told to dress the garden and keep it. I also found some interesting fabric at fabricguru.com to make some new kitchen curtains. I am looking forward to the arrival of both in the mail in the next few weeks.

Elder Uchtdorf:

The more you trust and rely upon the spirit, the greater your capacity to create...As you take the normal opportunities of your daily life and create something of beauty and helpfulness, you improve not only the world around you but also the world within you.

I am thankful for my husband who believes in me, encourages me and who is ultimately willing to do the work that "my creating" will devolve upon him.

cleaning and organizing

I have been a crazed woman going through my kitchen, deciding if everything deserves it's bit of real estate. I hate overhauling the kitchen because then it is annoying when I keep looking in the wrong drawers for my things. So I made minor adjustments and lots of crack and crevice cleaning and stove and appliance polishing. I am not quite done. I love my kitchen. It feels good to be getting it back into shipshape. I have a few little updating projects in mind. I read on the internet that you don't really need a junk drawer, so I am going to see if that is true.  The birdies have been keeping me company out my kitchen window, coming to visit in groups by the dozens. 

It has been a drizzly and cold week. I have been grateful for that because otherwise, the garden might have been too tempting. I did capture this photograph one afternoon when the light was particularly interesting. I am looking forward to spending time

outside later next week though, when the weather reports are predicting warmer and sunnier days.

coral honeysuckle

This is the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning from my second story windows.

 

This is the view across the lake.

This is one of the views around town.

But my very favorite of all is this one framing my garden. This garden bloggers bloom day is totally dedicated to the beautiful woody vine that has such amazing flowers.

the end of mrs. carter

I sent a note home on Monday that informed the students and their parents that I would be retiring the end of term and that this would be my last week with the students and that Mrs. Cubbage would be working full time for the rest of the school year. The kids were smart enough to act decently sad and I received several nice notes from parents the following day.

I stayed busy with my class this week. They were a little hyped-up after the holidays and getting back into the school routine, but in addition, was I now the substitute teacher? Sometimes, I felt like they were trying me just to see what they could get away with, now that I was leaving and all. The antidote was work. I had to have a little laugh to myself one day when I passed out the homework and they were actually thrilled that it was homework rather than something else they had to do.

Throughout the week after school, instead of planning for the future, I looked through the files and boxes in my closet and packed up the personal things that I had been using in my classroom. I was fine until Thursday afternoon when I got to my stamp collection.  I started collecting rubber stamps when I began teaching just fresh out of college.

As I was packing them up, I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of the years between then and now... a little dazed how the time goes by.  Finally, I just sat down and experienced a sort of mental panorama of my public teaching career. I am grateful for an education that allowed me to be an educator.

Brianna asked me this week if I always knew that I was going to be a teacher. I told her that I had wanted to be a teacher ever since I fell in love with my own second grade teacher, Mrs. Pestolaci.

I am not sure what I expected the last day of school to be like. I didn't really expect all the kids to be perfect, even for one day. It started out with an emotional twist when I unexpectedly ran into our principal, Dr. Moxley at the office when I was picking up the message/attendance folder and lunch money envelope. He said some extraordinary and thoughtful things to me. 

Then it was off to class. On Fridays the students get freeplay on the playground for their physical activity. It was the usual experience, like herding a snake (as my friend says), getting them there. We even walk on a line to try and keep them in one, but without success.

I love watching the kids play. But I think it is kind of awkward just standing there. Luckily for me, one of my students always wants to be my "chair carrier". This year it was Adam. Sooner or later, they all beg for the privilege, even knowing that they won't be getting stickers, stars, or a treat. But Adam was first to volunteer and he rarely gives it up to someone else.

Today, I asked them all to pose for a picture.

 

I should have known that it was all going to go downhill after that when two little girls came running and asked me to come a see a picture they had made in the sand for me.

 

I did TRY to smile and be gracious looking at their proud announcement  of my demise.

The rest of the day was a series of frustrations.  I literally had to hang on to the validation I felt when my class scored outstandingly on their midyear star reading test. I am sure that they have learned other things and improved other skills this year, it just wasn't that obvious today, exactly what that might have been...lol.

Soooo, I came home a little melancholy to be sure.

Sitting on the kitchen table were these:

and a card from my husband that sang:

I'm free

to do what I want

any old time...

ala Mick Jagger. It was also accompanied by the sweetest note of appreciation from him. Then he took me to dinner at Hemingways at the Grand Cypress Hyatt in Orlando and we sat right in the corner overlooking the pool and I had a great view of the fireworks show at Disneyland and dinner was beautiful and delicious.

We had a lovely evening together and

I'm free

to do what I want

any old time!

2009 pictures of the new stake center

 

January 4, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 16, 2009

I went with Doug and the Ingalls over to the stake center site to give an opinion about bricks.

January 27, 2009

tonight i am missing

The kids who like to go for  rides in the Infinium...

 

Bella grabbing my computer and insisting on pictures of Fwosty and Ho Man (this was her favorite on the google images search, after which she would demand, Play! Play! while I tried to explain that it wasn't a video just a picture--Numerous times a day-- PLAY!) and I haven't even cleaned the screen of her fingerprints simply because they are hers...

The little voice that requests  mammonaise...

 

 

Astronauts invading my kitchen, family room, bathroom, bedrooms...

But I am also grateful for these wonderful memories and many, many more!

shopping with the shopper

Tricia and I did have some fun days out shopping. I have learned from past experience that she can shop even in a physically weakened condition...which is, sadly, how she felt the whole week. But that didn't stop us from finding some seriously good deals! three days in a row!

new year possibilities

The probability that our family will play card games when we are together is very high. I learned one from the Doerflers called the High Low Jack game at Christmas.

 

I then taught it to Tricia, Dan and Doug. We played it most evenings. One night when the three of them were talking about  probabilities, I responded that I never think of probabilities, just the 

and inadvertently discovered something about myself.

As for the game...either way, if you are a probability kind of person or a possibility kind of person...it's pretty fun!

As for the new year...I want to consider the possibilities and then do all that I can to increase the probability!

So far, my goals include house and garden updates, developing a "first serve" in tennis, service in the church and community and spending more time enjoying blessings.