This and that

Re-reading Everyday Sacred by Sue Bender. Read it five or six years ago, and when I saw it as an audio book at the library Friday I grabbed it. So really I'm not reading it, listening to it. Just in the car when I drive, since it's a cassette tape and, gee, I'm about done. I've fiddled around this summer with the Miss Julia series, for heaven's sake light reading. You just belly laugh at some of the insane stuff in Ann Ross's writing, so I've yo-yoed forth and back this weekend between silly antics and thoughtful almost prose. Each makes me want to share, which makes me lonesome for you.

Pureed a flat of peaches this morning for the freezer. Ate lunch with Kent. Swam a little this afternoon. Mark Rhoden, Linda's husband, got home while I was in the pool with Linda - we were basking, actually. Floating. He's a swimmer and suggested we tread water while we talked. "Good for you," he said. "Better for you than floating." I tell you what, he's right, but I stayed relaxed on my floatie. Then I flopped off and tread water half an hour or so under the diving board until it was time for six year-old Mason Essig to arrive for swimming lessons. Doggie paddled a few laps and got out. I'm cooked and wrinkled as I write, home in my own house, and happy to have a little sun this afternoon and a friend's house to play at.

A favorite picture of Abbie

Size matters

All my life I thought these were new potatoes. Baby potatoes, right?



(Sorry for all the crop pictures lately. It's been ninety days since we planted.)

These kids have sure grown up.

A regular Thursday

Ack! It's June 26th. We got home from vacation three weeks ago and I'm reeling. Is June going by fast, or what? Not for Jen.



I roasted garlic from the garden. First time I've done it, and I ate some of the cloves right out of the skin. Way good, kind of mushy in your mouth. 30 minutes at 400 degrees. (Drench with olive oil first.)



Here is where a picture of cut up blanched potatoes would be on a wet towel on the cupboard ready for Zip-lock bags and the freezer. Don't want to totally bore you.

Our ever-present Thursday laundry.



I'm singing with Marty Cain Sunday, humming while I work. Guess which one. . .



If I don't study, I can't play when I come to Utah, which is July 10th at 10:00 with my traveling companion, Synthia! Grandma will be 95 that day. My three year-old grandson will be at the door of his apartment waiting for me to "come in July" and "sleep on the bed couch."



This needs cleaning this very afternoon. It's a total mess. On the extreme left (where I put the empty box) is where I sit EVERY time I talk on the phone if Kent is home, as far from him as possible so he can read or eat or work on the computer or watch television or whatever without hearing my impossibly loud telephone voice. Why do I have to hyperventilate on the phone? I'm practicing my calm voice this week, uh, still in this part of the house though.



Got up this morning about 4:30 because I was wide awake, and scrapped. Holy cow Landon's cute!




If I don't take a nap, and after I clean the sewing room, I'm going to:

Make peanut butter cookies
Clean the kitchen and finish vacuuming (boring)
Make meatloaf, and clean the kitchen
Read from "Jesus the Christ" and finish "The Giver"
Put the laundry away

Two good looking Hales catchin' zzzz's.

Summer fare

Eating dinner tonight Kent said, you should take a picture of that and put it on the blog. "That" is grilled mashed potatoes. It's wow with ketchup on it! It was our side dish to buttered corn on the cob.



Kent bought melon off a truck on the side of the road on his way home from work. I like it warm, with salt. We cut big slices for after dinner - Kent eats it with a paring knife, cut a little, flick the seeds away. I tell you it's not summer until you spit!

He went out to mow and has been back in the house twice now for a potty break.

Picked blueberries Friday morning, actually three times this many. We've eaten them hand over fist since then. Made lemony-blueberry bread yesterday. They're so good it's hard to not snitch every time I'm in the kitchen.



These'll be coated with almond bark in a few minutes. I bought Kroger brand and Rold Gold, both, and Kent taste-tested before dinner; for white-chocolate-covered pretzels , these are it.



Here's how you make meatloaf with cooked soybeans and oatmeal and pecans and basil from the garden. Oh, and canned mushrooms. Crazy! Looks good, huh.



Well Kent finished mowing, Blogger just came back online after a frustrating half hour OFFline, the sun is setting and I've got dishes and the pretzels calling my name. And soybeans to soak.

First day of the downhill slide

This day every year marks time. Or maybe the 22nd, yesterday. That day because it's mom and dad's anniversary (yesterday their 53rd). But either this day or that for another reason - it's the first day of the downhill slide. From now til December 21st every day's shorter, shorte, short, shor, sho, sh, s. Ya basta.

Big sigh. I like the long days.



Laura doesn't, and I always remember and am glad for her.

Father's Day thought

Isn’t it sad that my pictures of dad
Are stuck on a backup which I had to pack up
And hand off to Steve the day we did leave
To drive to Nauvoo, right? What could we do
With never a warning when, early the morning
Of May 23rd, with never a word,
My laptop dissembled. I saw it, and trembled
And totally worried while Kent, all unhurried,
Took it (with my pics) to Stephen to fix -
The I.T. guy, Steve - who said, “Folks, I believe
Your hard drive’s a mess.” Well, duh. I confess
I knew early on the hard drive was gone.
And with it (so sad) my pictures of dad.

I very much most wanted simply to post
A Father’s Day thought, and some DAD pictures.

Not.

Dad, this year, this time you get only a rhyme -
When my ‘puter’s alive, with a brand new hard drive,
Sometime just for kicks I’ll upload the pics.

Dear Dad, you’re the best!
Okay, so now rest.

All week you’re a hero;
Today, just do zero.

If I could be there
I’d point to your chair

And say, “Please get in it,
I’ll be just be a minute.”

I’d bring you some water
And like a good daughter,

Your socks, and a book.
And watch for a look
As long as you’re reading
For what else you’re needing.

You’d hopefully close
Your eyes and just doze.

Hugs, and all that!
And kisses. Love, Nat.

These days

Kent cut hydrangeas a few days ago, brought them in and arranged them in a water pitcher on the kitchen table. Never had hydrangeas before Georgia! One was pink and the other two were blue.



Crapemyrtle blooms over our fence, framed by pecan trees. Hello!



We had corn for lunch for the first time.



In the corn row, eye level. Feel like a little girl



hiding in the garden. Heard the wind and some thunder.



I love these days.

I might have poison ivy. I probably have poison ivy. Yesterday I wrote about goose bumps, and this is not that. I thought my seven bumps four pictured here might be mosquito bites yesterday, but an indicator that they weren't came when Kathryn Wood, my friend who lives in the woods - and in whose woods I worked Tuesday - called before breakfast all breathless. Kathryn's about a minute and a half older than me and I ask her all the time if I can come play in her mansion in the next life! We do "breathless" pretty well together. When Erin last year called me "Magoo" and I told Kathryn, she said, yeah, more like I'm Magoo! So without guile she is - that's likely not where Erin was headed when she made the comment to me. Beside the point. . .

So without guile is Kathryn - except as you will note perhaps in the matter of the spots on my ankles and leg which are not goose bumps; or her woods. "I've got poison ivy," she said breathlessly over the phone. I'm coming right over with exfoliant for you," and in under nineteen minutes she was at the door with Technu Extreme Medicated Poison Ivy Scrub and anti-itch creme (please) and showed me how to squeeze a little into my palm and add a little water and wash for thirty seconds and my poison ivy . . .

WHOA! "Kathryn, I have no poison ivy." She showed me her spot. One knuckle. Her knuckles were sore, were my knuckles sore? I flexed - no, happy knuckles. I commiserated and observed I was good. She left the stuff on the counter and said she'd be back after errands, tops an hour and half, to get the scrub back. Bye.

She called from her cell phone in fifteen minutes -"Did you scrub?" Can I lie to this woman with no guile? Nope and nope. I promised I'd wash. You get the picture. I scrubbed my hands silly for at least a minute, per instructions, with a generous dollop of Extreme Medicated Poison Ivy Scrub that relieves itching, soothes burning and removes poison oils. My knuckles felt great. Hands tremendous. Never felt so good. Kathryn got her first aid items from me later and went home. "Kathryn," I said before she left, "If I did get poison ivy it was probably stopped by the chlorine in Linda's pool." (Where I lounged on a noodle a solid hour from 3:00 to 4:00.)

Just the word poison ivy got me itching. Poison ivy's two words, actually. My neck itched and my upper lip and my nose; all afternoon my temple and the top of my head and now my ribcage and ankles. Top of my foot. After supper Kent said, didn't you wear shoes? No, Crocs. I went after a mosquito bite on the back of my leg by bedtime, right, with sense enough not to scratch it open - just in case - maybe poison ivy? Does it spread? What are the symptoms? (Extreme itching.) I called Kathryn at bedtime: I might have poison ivy - I have five spots (scratching my neck and flexing my knuckles). What do you recommend?

"Draw happy faces on them and sign my name," said Kathryn.

Firm

It's regular that I can get goose bumps under very ordinary circumstances. This morning, cutting celery, listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing How Firm a Foundation. I'm thinking (while I cut) about safety; yeah, no, not kitchen knives, safety from emergencies that happen to families or persons or the world. A hundred little "thought-rivulets" have poured for about twenty-four hours into a kind of heart-hammering stream of anxiety while I try to notice again the signs of our times. I remember what I've taught in Old Testament during the last 10 months about the children of Israel not paying attention and ultimately having to have the Lord preach his own sermons with destruction and scattering. In fact, this morning in the Book of Mormon Nephi declared to his family, generations of them, after quoting a lot of chapters from Isaiah, that they were a stiff-necked people and he hoped they would "hearken" to the plainness he was preaching with. I would laugh (I knew it was coming, I've read this so many times) except that his declaration feels new to me because I have new information in me from teaching this year, and so, new insights. Profound ones that are changing and shaping me. I've been thinking about the Hebrews in their day (while I cut), knowing I'm (absolutely) just as they were if I don't pay attention to and follow basic prophetic commands. Our prophet leads us today as prophets of God have led in Old Testament times, and by his words and counsel, we do know exactly what to do to be safe. How am I doing?

I've looked over my food storage and Kent and I looked last night again at what we'll need in an emergency, like fuel, light, warmth, water purification, grinder, you name it. We have to do more and better to follow what the prophet has counseled. It's no accident that President Eyring's First Presidency Message in the June Ensign is Safety in Counsel. You can understand my stream of anxiety - though we're not far off the mark of having things in order I hope. More anxiety is for the kids than any one other thing, and for their kids. Already our children's circumstances are scrunched; their energies go toward caring for their kids and getting educations and launching into careers, and the world's a nut house! What reserves do they have for keeping their balance in it? My heart hammers.

I shouldn't be anxious. I was thinking this as I cut. I shouldn't be. I'm not fully prepared to exist with grace, or at all, in a family or community or world disaster I think, but I DO hold with faith to righteousness and repentence and sacrifice as life preservers; and the scripture if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear. I have been trying to be prepared with these things, and again, am often off the mark but feeling more secure as time goes by with decisions I'm making. I love that what I've put into my psyche and spirit and brain the last few years is what's coming to mind and body, heart and soul to support me when I get weak-kneed. And that when I'm especially anxious, something like this, below, has power to give me goose bumps and remind me of what's so. You should have heard the Tab choir sing it!

How firm a foundation, ye Saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
What more can he say than to you ha hath said,
Who unto the Savior for refuge have fled?

In every condition - in sickness, in health,
In poverty's vale or abounding in wealth,
At home or abroad, on the land or the sea -
As thy days may demand, so thy succor shall be.

Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o'erflow,
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake.

I learned about the Mississippi River on our trip through Memphis. “What shapes the river,” I asked? Flooding is the answer, and that’s right. The river takes its course, then when it floods (and it does), water and silt cut where it can. Things settle and the river banks and borders may, will in fact, be altered. The river has a new course.

Our lives are like this. We’re on a course, then suddenly - overwhelm. Floods of emotion, for instance, and what was definite isn’t anymore. Anger maybe, grief. Tears, surely. A flood of conversation cuts where it can. “And yet that, surely,” says Alexander McCall Smith in the novel The Miracle at Speedy Motors, “was what life was like. There would inevitably be certain days when things changed dramatically - days when we received bad news or good, which could dictate the shape of the rest of our lives.”

It does. When things settle we may take our course, and it may, will, be a new one.

Better place

I read Heather Bristow's blog posts today. Jenny's roommate is a riot, a fab writer and thinker. Heather, you're astute and witty and wonderful, and I love playing on your playground! (I keep telling Kent by the way I can't wait for him in the next life to play on my playground; that means, get into my head, right?, and he grunts and says he hopes to never.) I read word for word her post (link) about music, and read it again. Don't you love something compelling! Except for where I may not know precisely the acronyms/idioms she relishes, or (oh boy) the main plot and cast of characters always, I'm drawn in by her life and expressions.

On this post she quoted Bono of U2; won't put it here, but it alludes to Isaiah 58:9-10: If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: a nod to the context Heather has for Bono's quote and the Isaiah verses - wishing and wanting to make the world altogether a better place. Thank you Heather for keeping it in that light.

A preceding verse declares, then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward. (vs. 8) I'm in my scriptures . . . markings in the margins: Righteousness = breastplate = I can fend off what's ahead. The Lord will defend what's behind me. A cool thought. And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not. (vs. 11). Can a better thing be? Hardly.

Slowly in all my living I'm recognizing how parched I always, always am - and it's waters that relieve longings and revitalize us. You can draw analogies - I've posted about this before, living waters, such as are promised by Christ who is, Himself, our living water. These scriptures make me so happy! I wouldn't have turned exactly here this morning and taken a drink if I hadn't read Heather's posts.

Last couple of days

From my writing prompt: You have to give up one of your senses. Which one will it be? I guess smell. Sad. Love the smells at the botanical gardens we saw in Memphis and Birmingham. Heaven! Absolutely! Anyway, food wouldn't taste like anything, and I'd not want it. Happ-ee! I'd mind missing, though, how Kent smells when I hug his neck.

Pics of the last couple of days on the road:

I've shown some flower pictures this trip; Erin, no laughing. Here's almost the last, one of hundreds of I took at the botanical gardens. This one in Memphis. We both loved the gardens, and it's with deep sadness (Erin is chuckling here) I cannot - will not - post many pictures I took.



Afternoon in Memphis at the Riverwalk on Mud Island. You walk on a covered pedestrian bridge from Front Street on the river across an inlet of the Mississippi over to Mud Island where a 5-block area has been sculpted in concrete and flagstone of the Mississipi River, from it's source in Minnesota to Louisiana into the Gulf of Mexico. Five blocks of meandering river is a long way in 96-degree heat with shoes and socks on . Wanted to wade! This picture is from four stories up, on the walking bridge.



Gray areas along the route denotes cities. This is the site of Memphis on the river.



Had to have this, yeah.



Kent near the Gulf of Mexico end, which from a meandering stream becomes a huge pool for paddle boats, though no swimming or wading. Just to the left out of sight in the picture is a huge splash pad where hundreds of kids in swimsuits cooled off and were shouting at the top of their lungs; picnic tables for families. A great park. Downtown Memphis in the background.



Next day woke up in Birmingham - this is one pic from the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, far and away the best kept secret in the state. This is a picture I'm posting because it's unusual; it's not hydrangeas; not irises or roses and the emphasis here is NOT on the water lily itself, but on the dragonfly. Double click for a close up. Hope you like. You're spared the dogwood trees, meandering streams, sycamores, ferns, blooming azaleas, etc.



Drove home on the backroads; wanted to see Lake Martin Kent remembers from 30 + years ago when he lived in Montgomery, and the little cities around it. Beautiful! We traipsed right onto the shore at one point and I would have walked into the lake except Kent saw ABSOLUTELY NO TRESPASSING, at which point of course we were criminals. Drove an hour out of our way to Kowaliga (Ka-li-jah), little spot on the lake, a marina really, where an Indian statue named Kowaliga around whom there is a legend stands at the entrance to a gift shop, now a restaurant these years later. As we peered at the statue, this moved. I got him before he turned brown.



A few miles further, led along the windiest and narrowest of country roads by Tom Tom, the intersection called Kent, AL.



Pooped. Tuckered. Miles and miles of driving. Last stop before home, Auburn, AL. Kent's never actually been here other than to the stadium for ball games and once at night, so he was very happy. Me too! He most of all wanted to be on famous Toomers Corner.



See the Tiger paw print?



Yup. We bought it.



Finally, three hours later, the green green grass of...



. . . home. Silly me, lopsided. Last picture from the car.



Approximately an hour and a half later, dinner of green beans and Yukon Golds from our garden. Now we're home!

Check it out.

We're home! Happy to be here, sad it's over. We had a swell time. A few pictures tomorrow.

Erin's birthday today! Love you, Bear! Happy Birthday.

Chris my brother has started a blog. A link to it (titled CHRIS has started a blog) is on my sidebar under blogs. Now he just needs to post something and change out that faux picture. Yeah.

Saturday morning

We stuffed ourselves on French Toast from the continental breakfast at the Angel Inn, all of us. Kent and I went to hear Twelve Irish Tenors at the Branson Variety theater at 10 o'clock and Brad and Dana buckled Brady in for shopping at the outlet malls. Dana got a red checkered swim suit she says makes her look like a tablecloth. I didn't see it so I can't say, but I'd say not. Brad hooked up with three shirts, one from Banana Republic and two from the Gap. Brady got summer clothes at The Children's Place and Dana even bought jammies for Garrett. Kent bought a Junior Tool Set for Brady at the Black and Decker store. We ate a picnic lunch at the outdoor tables at the mall, then hit TCBY on our way out of Branson. One scoop of chocolate mint in a cone. Perfect!

At The Children's Place.



Two tired kids.



Winding our way out of Branson in a downpour.



Overlook in the Ozarks out of Branson.



Almost getting you caught up here . . .

Laying around Sunday morning before church.



Dinner with Fields, Allreds, Huffords, McKassons and Holbrooks after church. Barbecue and salad and pecan pie with ice cream. Brady loves hats. Look close!



No pics of the whole crowd - here's my two.



So I'm posting at 8:30 p.m. Monday from Memphis. Just got to the hotel room from walking along the river with Kent after eating Cajun food at the King's Palace on Beale street, famous for it's jazz and ribs. Course you know that was good. Yes, I did arrange this food on my plate and take the picture - what else? Crab cake, voodoo potatoes, pulled pork shoulder, spare ribs, French loaf, gumbo and slaw. And lota watta!



Here's how the day started and some other pics . . . good morning sunshine!



Reading Brady's scrapbook from when he and Dana visited us in February.



Goodbye to Brad at his work . John gave us a guided tour, then snapped the shot.



Getting out of town.



Crossing into Memphis.



Beale Street.



After dinner passing by a blooming magnolia tree.



Hanging around an outdoor concert.



Elvis rockin and rollin'.



Sunset on the Mississippi.



That's a wrap.