Father's Day

I got to talk in Church today.  Me, of all people, addressing a congregation on Father's Day and speaking about a father's role.  Me, the person who's pretty much all alone in life... both my parents have passed on, I have no siblings, no husband, no really tight ties to extended family (friendly ties, yes... but tight? Not so much.).  I think I'm an odd choice to talk about family relationships.

I had some reference materials suggested, with the disclaimer that I could use any other Church produced material I wanted, and I used the 2 suggested Ensign articles to prepare my talk early in the week.  Thinking "Whew!! That's done." I metaphorically wiped my brow and went about my week.  But something just felt off whenever I thought about the talk.  So I revised.  Then I rewrote.  And then revised some more.  It still didn't feel right.  Finally, late last night I tore up all my notes and jotted down the thoughts that are in my heart and that's the talk I gave...

If we pause and take a good long hard look at the world today, we can clearly see that Satan is working overtime creating havoc with the family and trying to enslave the souls of men.  His main target, more and more often, is the family.   Sadly sometimes it looks like he is winning this battle.  We see grim facts on the news and among many families around us as increased crime, behavior disorders, poverty, drug abuse and a long long list of other societal problems.

In April 2004, Elder L. Tom Perry remarked, “It appears to me that the crosshairs of Satan’s scope are centered on husbands and fathers.”

Why would that be so?  Why would Satan specifically target the men in our lives and our relationships with them?

I personally believe it is because our relationship with our earthly father is a mirror for our relationship with our Heavenly Father.  In a sense, we, as children, learn how to relate to Heavenly Father by how our fathers relate to us.  Think about it for a moment… if you are close to your father and have an open and attentive and loving relationship with him, then it is easy to recognize and feel an open, attentive and loving relationship with Heavenly Father.  If you didn’t have that relationship with your earthly father; if it was distant or tense, for example; you’ve never learned to receive that fatherly attention.  You may want it desperately but not recognize it or know quite how react to it.

My dad... from a wedding picture. October 1962.

I would say that is true in my own situation.  My parents married late and tried right away to start a family.  I ended up their one-shot wonder... an only child. My dad was disappointed that I was a girl… he wanted a boy to teach to hunt and fish and wrestle and play football and whatever other rough and tumble things you do with boys.  And then he got me.  I know that he loved me and I’m in no way saying that he didn’t or that he was a bad man.  Quite the contrary… he was a good man who worked very hard to see that we had the things we needed but he didn’t know how to relate to all the lace and ruffles and baby dolls and teddy-bear tea parties that go with having a little girl and so he held back and left raising me mostly to my mom.  Because he wasn’t a strong presence in my younger life, I feel like I don’t know how to have a close and tender fatherly relationship.  And that sometimes leaves me feeling like Heavenly Father is distant and unconcerned with me.

That’s a lot to overcome.  Satan manipulates circumstances to reinforce that that feeling of estrangement and whispers to dismiss the times when the relationship is good and healthy and working properly as fleeting.  I wish his lies weren't so easy to believe!!

Fortunately, there are other fathers we can look to for examples.  Grandparents, uncles, friends, teachers... There are many of you right here in this room that I observe on a weekly basis caring for and loving your children.  You give me joy when I see you so involved with your little ones.  You give me hope when I see you relating in a positive and loving way with your teens and them mirroring that back to you with respect and adoration.  And in all honesty, you make me more than a little bit jealous when I see you look at your wife with love and honor and respect in your eyes.  So many of you are doing so many things right.  And, sadly, you hear so much criticism and condemnation for your role as a father.  I think it’s time we recognize, encourage and support you!

Not just on Father’s Day but every day.

In this life there are things that matter and things that don’t.  Fathers… YOU matter.

One of the reference articles Brother Embry asked me to use was by A. Theodore Tuttle and was printed in the December 1971 Ensign.  At the beginning of it, he shares the following analogy: “Some years ago, I read an editorial in the Deseret News entitled “The Mechanical Rabbit.” I quote:

“Most of our readers must have smiled the other day when they read of the greyhounds in Britain who don’t know a rabbit when they see one. So long had they chased a mechanical rabbit around the racetrack, that when a real rabbit bounded across the track, the dogs didn’t give it a second look.

“Stupid, eh? But sad too, this perverting of the natural instincts...

“We chase mechanical rabbits, too.

“We chase paychecks, and don’t give a second look to the glint of the rising sun on a snow-topped peak.

“We chase our way through the appointments of a crowded desk calendar, and fail to take time to chat with the next-door neighbor or to drop in on a sick friend.

“We chase social pleasures on a glittering noisy treadmill—and ignore the privilege of a quiet hour telling bedtime stories to an innocent-eyed child.

“We chase prestige and wealth, and don’t recognize the real opportunities for joy that cross our paths...

Wordsworth said words appropriate to this condition: “The world is too much with us: late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”

“Race on, you poor, blind over-civilized hounds. You’ll never catch your rabbit until you learn to recognize a genuine one.

“But, you’ll have company in your race; the company of unnumbered men who’ll never catch the joy they chase until they, too, learn to recognize a genuine one.”

This points up our challenge: See “that the things that matter most … are not at the mercy of things that matter least.” (Ashley Montague.)

Fathers… YOU matter.  Your influence in the lives of your children, and even other children – like me, matters.  As does your loving presence.  A close relationship between father and child is high on the list of things that matter most!  Your example helps me to repair my relationship with Heavenly Father and that’s at the top of my list of things that matter most!

If you ever start to doubt that you matter, consider this quote from The First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles that's been used in articles, videos and pamphlets for at least 5 decades now:

“The title father is sacred and eternal. It is significant that of all the titles of respect and honor and admiration that are given to Deity, he has asked us to address him as Father.”

You, fathers, have big shoes to fill.  And I give you my respect, honor, admiration and support in building these most important eternal relationships and wish you a most happy and blessed Father’s Day!

Welcome Home Wreath

Awhile back I was thrilled to think that maybe I'd inherited my Great Grandpa Burton's poetry writing gene when I wrote a little poem called Welcome to My Home.  All along my intent was to frame it in a $1 store frame that was decorated with flowers and ribbons to make a wreath-type decoration for my future front door.

Except that I couldn't find flowers and ribbons that I like...

And so I ended up making the flowers from fabric and ribbon.  That was kind of an adventure!

Directions here.  Scroll down about 1/3
of the way to find the round pouf variation.

I made these round poufs, 2 from blue plaid fabrics and 1 from a golden yellow print.  For future reference, choose a fabric that is colored similarly on both sides.  The yellow has a definite front and back and since both show when you fold the circles you can see the pale and not so attractive back of the fabric on that flower.

Directions here.

I also made 3 of these 2-layered stars from a deep golden yellow satin ribbon that also makes up the middle layer of loops in my bow.  The website is in what I think might be Russian but I was able to follow the diagram successfully.  Because it's what I had, I used 5 iridescent large-sized seed beads in the center.

And finally, I made 5 flowers from the same sheer ivory ribbon as in the bow by cutting about a 9-inch length and running a gathering stitch along one edge.  Pulled tight, it looks like a pleated circle.  The same iridescent seed beads make up the centers.

I printed the poem in a pretty font on ivory cardstock using navy blue ink and slipped it into the frame after carefully cleaning the glass. Then the flowers were arranged and hot glued to the frame with some leaves cut from a spray of red berries I picked up after Christmas to finish another project.  The bow is a mix of the yellow and ivory ribbon with long tails tied in a half-knot at the end.  At some point, I may try to tuck in either some fine ribbon or flowers in a deep denim-y blue just to pick up that color a little more.

Now to pull me together and get that future front door/entryway...

A House of God

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing,

and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting,

a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory,

a house of order, a house of God;

D&C 109:8

This is the scripture I'm using as a guide in managing my home during my 2015 rebuilding year and beyond.  It was revelation given to commence building the Kirtland Temple in late 1832/early 1833.  And since home is the only place on earth that can be considered as sacred as the Temple, I think it's good pretty darned good advice for making home into sacred ground.

The Kirtland Temple, Kirtland Ohio USA
Photo courtesy of Russ' Photo Journal.  View more pictures here:
http://russ-photojournal.blogspot.com/2010/07/kirtland-temple.html

I've been thinking a lot about what the phrase "home as sacred ground" means.  Some days I will just read through this verse and see which words catch my attention and other times I'll follow those thoughts and see if they lead me to personal inspiration about how to apply the advice.  One thing that got my attention early on in that thought process was that all of keywords are verbs; they direct the reader to take an action.

Organize, Prepare, Establish, Pray,

Fast, Faith, Learn, Glory, Order

But how do you do this?

From the footnotes in my scriptures, study notes jotted in the margins from past religion classes and Sunday School, more study now, prayer, and lots of thought I've come up with the following list of specific actions I can take in my own home.

• Manage finances to meet current needs and plan for the future.  Work to free myself from being a slave to debt.
• Magnify my Church callings within the home.  Show respect for those called to authority positions, do my Visiting Teaching, welcome my Visiting and Home Teachers into my home as treasured guests, hold Family Home Evening, hold family prayer and scripture study.  (Those last 3 need some tweaking since it's just me... but you get the idea.)
• Keep a clean and orderly house.
• Come and go in the name of the Lord.  Pray for peace and safety for guests and family.
• Have uplifted hands always.  Go about doing good and looking for ways to help my fellow man.
• Cease lustful desires.  Learn to be happy with what I've got, because it's really quite a lot!
• Stock my home with good books and other media.  Refuse to let the bad stuff in.
• Have food storage on hand as we've been asked to do for decades now.
• Get to know my neighbors better and seek ways to serve them.  Let my actions teach them the gospel.
• Read from the scriptures daily.
• Display pictures of the Savior, Temples and scripture quotes in each room of my home as visual reminders of what I hold most important.
• Play uplifting music.
• Pay tithes and offerings.
• Pray over everything.
• Be a good citizen.  Be involved in the community.  Make my values known.  Make them count.
• Attend Church and Temple services.

In some ways that seems like a daunting "To Do" list doesn't it?  And, yet, in others it's just plain common sense for any Christian who is truly living what they believe... things we should all be doing already.

Maybe that's the problem.  These are all things that sound good and right and worthwhile.  But it is just so hard to fit everything in with jobs and family and everyone having a different schedule and there's never enough money to satisfy what everyone thinks they need.  And pretty soon all that stuff that sounded so good on Sunday isn't getting done in the hubbub of daily life.

Guilty, here.  2013 and 2014 saw my finances spiral out of control.  Yes, I had "help" digging that pit but it's still a deep hole that I allowed myself into by placing trust in the wrong person.  And I haven't done a real good job with those other things in any recent time frame, either.  It's way past time for me to get myself together and get it done.  And trust me... if I can do it, so can you!!

And I'm going to do it!  No more excuses here.

Join me in the challenge?

Welcome To My Home

I wrote a short poem today.  Well, actually bits and pieces of it have been floating around in my head for a couple of weeks, but today is the day I got all the parts down on paper and decided it said what I wanted it to say.  And actually I'm kind of proud of it!  One of my great grandfathers was a superb poet and I always wanted to have inherited a latent poetry gene...  Maybe I got lucky and that wish came true?

Welcome To My Home

Welcome to my humble little home!

It’s not fancy, just some sticks and stone.

It’s known poverty and a bit of wealth,

And sheltered me through sickness and in health.

I've filled it with thoughts and people and things I love

As I begged for God’s blessings from above.

I’ve tried to learn from the bad to simply enjoy the good

And found it’s not about could, or should, or would…

But taking whatsoever I do have and sharing,

That is the best way to show my caring.

So come on in - you're fine just as you are

Friends always welcome from both near and far!!

My plan is to print it in a pretty font and put it in a $1 store frame that I've decorated with flowers and ribbons and such to make a rectangular wreath for my front door.  I think it's the perfect accompaniment to my 2015 goals, don't you?

2015: The Year of ME

Does it seem a little early for the New Year's Resolution/goal setting blog posts to begin?  Yeah, probably.  Guess, I'm just a little out of sync...

I posted this a day or so ago on Facebook, both to my own page and the blog page, as my personal theme for 2015.  Then I started thinking about how it might be taken as a threat and added a little extra explanation.

Photo credit to  https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheMotivatedType

In the coming year, I am going to continue to tell my story.  There are people who may not like how they are portrayed.  I'm still going to tell my story... MY story.  And if anyone is worried about their part in it then maybe they should have treated me better when they had the chance.  I'm not going to lie just so they can feel good about themselves or skip over events that are very formative to who I want to become.  A lot of horrible things happened in 2013 and 2014 and I learned so much.  While some of it is completely unexpected, I feel like God is going to use it somehow.  Really curious about how... But if telling it can help even one other person, then my story needs to be told.

Photo credit to the blog at FreePeople.com

The explanation I added talked a little about the New Beginnings program held each year for the Young Women in my Church where girls turning 12 are introduced to the program and the goals and achievements of the teens already participating are showcased. Impressive goals achieved in addition to school, extracurricular activities and often a part-time job. (You can satisfy your curiosity and learn more HERE.)  And that's what I want to do. Use the idea of New Beginnings to set some big goals and focus on fixing what's broken in me... trusting that every ending is followed by a new beginning.

Epic endings deserve equally epic beginnings.  And with that said 2015 is going to be the year I rebuild me!

In order of importance, but not likely achievement, here's what I want next year to look like:

• I have a date set to get me back to the Temple.
• I have my own home that is clean, safe and comfortable.
• Food in the cupboard has replaced worry about the next meal.
• I have a way to support myself.
• I have a reliable vehicle.
• My debts are being appropriately addressed.
• I have access to quality medical and dental care.
• My dogs are healthy and happy and have food and adequate veterinary care.
• I'm able to pay back, pay forward and offer meaningful service as was offered me in my need.
• I'm gardening and crafting and collecting antique silver again.
• I'm drawing and writing and making cooking an adventure again.
• I'm entertaining in my home and going places to meet new people again.
• I'm involved in my community.

Photo credit: Rose Hill Design Studio on Etsy

It goes back to my deep need for stability and security.  I'm not a person that thrives on the edge... Adventures are wonderful as long as there is a safe haven to come home to afterward.  I've come to realize just how much I need that to feel like I can relax and be happy.  It's doing the simple things in life that I know to be right.  Right for me.

And who better to do that for me than ME?

Even the Laundry

Photo credit: Womanhood with Purpose Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/womanhoodwithpurpose/posts
/672428669502707

There's a Facebook group that I follow called A Farm Wife where the administrator posts each day something she calls "Celebrating the Daily Ordinary" where a little thing we may be taking for granted is called out with gratitude.  One day it might be indoor plumbing, or that we have vacuums (instead of having to tie straw to a stick to sweep out our kitchen) or readily available electricity coming into our homes to power lights, appliances and entertaining toys.  You know, the things it's easy to overlook because they are just part of the everyday ordinary stuff of life.

Laundry needs to be celebrated, too!  Did you know that taking care of the laundry is even something God asks of His people?  Take a look at Exodus 19:10-11.

"And the Lord said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes,

And be ready against the third day: for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai."

I think it's interesting that Moses was asked to tell the people to sanctify themselves (cleanse the inner man) AND to wash their clothes (cleanse the outer man as well) in preparation for meeting the Lord.  In Church, and sometimes just in life generally, we spend a lot of time talking about the status of the inner man and about how concerned God is with the condition of our heart... as in how well we loved and cared for our fellow man... but we shy away from discussions about taking care of ourselves feeling like that is being selfish and unGodly.

But... if you take a literal look at the Lord's words in Mark 12:29-30 when He was asked about the greatest of all the commandments, He says:

"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."

Love thy neighbour AS THYSELF.

Part of loving yourself is taking care of your body, your home, your clothing... whatever your physical surroundings may be.  And God just told us that it's important to Him.  Very very important!

As a child I was taught a song to remind me not only about when to do them but that they were important details to take care of each week:

Saturday is a special day.

It's the day we get ready for Sunday:

We clean the house, and we shop at the store

So we won't have to work until Monday.

We brush our clothes and we shine our shoes

And we call it our get the work done day.

Then we trim our nails and we shampoo our hair

So we can be ready for Sunday.

(words and music by Rita Robinson, 1920-2011)

We always sang it 'wash our clothes' instead of brush them but the point is, we got things done during the week, and especially on Saturday, to be ready to spend Sunday - our Sabbath - with the Lord.  Isn't it wonderful to think about all our mundane daily tasks this way?  Doesn't it help to elevate them and give the things we do in the home a more proper importance?  We are doing them to prepare for our time communing with the Lord and being refreshed and re-energized by Him.

Something to think about... celebrate the ordinary daily things in life.  And do them, even the laundry, with enthusiasm!

Do I Feel Welcome In My Own Home?

I love to entertain.  Normally, I really do love having dinner guests and movie nights and football watching parties and all kinds of stuff.

A couple of days ago I was bemoaning to Derek that we never have company.  Even his sister won't come to our house... we have to always go to her.  And it bugs me.  Immensely!  I mean, the road IS the same distance either direction.  He finally admitted that she doesn't like our dogs.  She's upset because sometimes they don't have the best of manners.  Okay, quite often their manners are kind of atrocious.  And that makes her feel like she can't bring her dog.  As if he has to go everywhere she does?  Don't get me wrong - I love her dog!  I think Boudreaux is darn near as awesome as my boys!!  But he's not perfect and making him a scapegoat still kind of sits wrong.  I guess this is just another one of those times when I have to breathe deep and remind myself to be a duck (as in water runs right off a duck's back) because my discomfiture at the situation isn't going to change... her.  It's a simple fact of life I can only change my side of things.

Photo from https://www.facebook.com/LindaCoffeeHouse?fref=ts

I share the above little hurt to my pride only to give you an insight into my frame of mind when I tripped over this blog post on Cottage in the Oaks on how you go about making people feel welcome in your home and one of her first questions, after voicing excitement about hosting a group of 8th grade girls for the coming weekend, was: "Do you feel comfortable in your home?"

I've admitted here before that I don't.  Our finances have been so tenuous the whole time that I've never allowed myself to relax and feel like this house is mine.  It's never been home because I've constantly felt on the edge of having it taken away from me and that's fostered an attitude of it's not worth the effort to even try to make it my own.  Rather than being less than comfortable because I've been trying to be someone other than me as folks writing for Cottage in the Oaks suggest may be a hinderance, I've made it less than comfortable because I've been no one.  Not even myself.  The sentence "It's hard to welcome others in... when you may feel that YOU don't even belong." just about jumped off the page and slapped me across the face!

The advice to walk up to the house approaching it as a potential guest was great!  I did that. And oh my... do we have some work to do!

Which is not to say that appearances are everything.  I've been in some very aesthetically pleasing houses that still didn't exude that comfort of being home and I've been in the homes of very poor people and been completely at ease.  I need to work on me as much as I need to work on the house inside and out.  And I am doing that!  And I probably need to just cut everyone some slack and realize that it's going to take time to get comfortable and feel like it's a real comfort.

I genuinely want a home that's both comfortable and a comfort.

Home: Heaven on Earth?

"We  have been trying to impress upon parents the need of paying more attention to their children, having a little more of the spirit of the gospel in their homes, a little more unity and a little more faith; a little more responsibility religiously, spiritually on the part of the fathers; also, of the mothers; more of the teaching of the gospel in the home.

"To parents in the Church we say: Love each other with all your hearts.  Keep the moral law and live the gospel.  Bring up your children in light and truth; teach them the saving truths of the gospel; and make your home a heaven on earth, a place where the Spirit of the Lord may dwell and where righteousness may be enthroned in the heart of each member."   (Joseph Fielding Smith)

This is a direct quote from last Sunday's Relief Society (the Women's Auxiliary in the LDS Church) lesson.  So much stands out in my quest to create HOME in a new place and I thought I'd share some of those thoughts.  The quote is from a talk given sometime prior to President Smith's death in 1972.  That it's still relevant and repeated in current counsel today speaks to the enduring nature of family as central to all we are and hope to be!  And besides I love a list as a way to both check up on myself and organize new ideas for how I can do better, so here are the key points as a bulleted list:

• Pay attention to your children (and your spouse!)
• Have more unity and faith
• Take more responsibility for the spiritual welfare of your family
• Love each other
• Keep the moral law
• Teach the gospel in the home
• Really live the gospel (every single day)
• Make your home into your own "Heaven on Earth"
• Create a home where God's Spirit will be comfortable
• Enthrone righteousness in the heart of every family member

Angel by Jim Shore

 Being a practical person I can appreciate the practicality of the gospel and know that many of the things that make a good spiritual home are the same as make it comfortable and comforting and beautiful and desirable in the worldly sense, too.  I want my home to be a haven from life's problems... a place where we want to spend our time... a place where others feel welcome and safe and wanted and cared for.

With that in mind, I'm drawn back to President Smith's list.

Pay attention.   Who doesn't love to be heard when they speak?  Is it not the epitome of feeling loved when someone takes the time to actually listen to you and pay attention to what you want and need?  Who better to spend that energy on than your family?  Get to know them.  Get to know what they like, what they are doing during their days, what their goals are.  Show your love by being involved!

Show unity and faith.  Things are so much easier when you're pulling in the same direction...  Sometimes when Derek and I have argued, more than once because I felt unheard and assumed he wanted something different because he was ignoring me, I've said that.  We really need to have a united front - to give the same message of love to the world and each other.  When everyone else sees you as rock solid it gives you more reasons to be rock solid and not disappoint their faith in you.

Take responsibility for the spiritual welfare of your family.  This is a tough one because you can only teach so much and then you have to realize the other person, be it a child or a spouse, has the agency to make their own choice about what they believe and how they express that belief.  But no matter what, you can lead by example and live what you believe!  And you can always provide opportunities for all members of your household to experience the spiritual.

Love each other.  To me this isn't so much about the big overt acts as the small simple things that make the other people in your household feel loved.  The random text or email or phone call just to say "I'm thinking about you" is a welcome demonstration of love.  And I feel very loved when Derek indulges my appetite for Mexican food even though he dislikes 99% of what a Mexican restaurant serves.

Keep the moral law.  Rules create boundaries meant to keep us safe.  And safe is a much happier place than when you are hanging over a precipice ready to take a death defying plunge into the unknown.  We all have an innate sense of right and wrong.  And sadly, a lust to test boundaries and see just how much we can get away with.  We need to recognize them, instead for what they are, and be happy to play by the rules.  Sustained joy is far superior to moments of adrenalin rush!!

Teach the gospel in the home.  If family is the central unit of Heaven, as I believe, then it makes sense that it is the central unit of our earthly societies.  And it makes sense that home is the best place to teach the gospel.  Take it, not just as a responsibility, but as a joyful right to teach your children, spouse, extended family and friends how to really live the gospel.

Really live the gospel every single day.  Maybe I'm just simple-minded... but it's too hard for me to be one person on Sunday and someone else during the week.  That's just too many details to keep straight and remember who knows what lie and what's the next one that will sound congruent to that storyline.  Because if you live as a religious person on Sunday and then go out to lie and cheat and steal during the week you are lying to yourself and everyone else you come in contact with.  I know what I believe.  And that's how I live, or at least I try my best to live up to that ideal, every day.

Make your home into "Heaven on Earth."  Imagine what Heaven is physically like.  Is it clean and orderly?  Are the "many rooms" in Heavenly Father's mansion comfortable, well arranged for conversation, and beautifully decorated?  How are they decorated?  Maybe I'm overly imaginative, but that's where I try to draw inspiration in pulling my home together.  I ask myself "Is this a room that invites a little bit of Heaven onto Earth?  Is it a haven from my worldly cares?"  When I lived in Utah, I knew a family who took that even a step farther and patterned their living room on the Celestial Room in the Salt Lake Temple.  They used similar furnishings, had custom millwork created to bring the moldings and wood details to scale for their home, lovingly kept it immaculately clean and they treated it as a most special and sacred place... one where they felt God would be comfortable joining them in a conversation.

Create a home where God's Spirit will be comfortable.  Along the same lines as imagining what our future Heavenly home might look like and trying to duplicate it, I think the art we choose to display can either enhance or detract.  In some way, I'm trying to display a scripture quote (and it might change from time to time) and an artwork piece depicting Jesus in every room.  Some of them might be small and visible only if you know to look for it, but I know it's there and it's a reminder to me.  I have portrait style pictures, figures like a carved olive wood piece a friend sent me from Jerusalem and even a pewter collector spoon with a nativity on the handle.  I also choose to play gospel-oriented music.  There are many Christian radio stations to choose from now, as well as playlists you create for your iPod or even just on youtube.com.  I think it's calming.  So much so that when I'm suddenly exposed to a Top 100 station I often feel assaulted and disoriented.

Enthrone righteousness in the heart of every family member.  When the rest of your family sees that you are happy, they wonder what you are doing and will ask and try to do the same things themselves.  They want to share in your happiness.  You have to lead by example, provide opportunities to learn about God's ways and always, no matter what, love people.  What you can't do is force them to live a set of rules you impose.  Remember each person is meant to be 'an agent unto himself' and he (or she) has the right to choose what they believe and how they act on it.  It's ok to hate the sin, but always love the sinner!


(Kind of as a side note, I wanted to share this tribute given by his wife, Ethel:  "You ask me to tell you of the nam I know.  I have often thought when he is gone people will say, 'He is a good man, sincere, orthodox, etc.'  They will speak of him as the public knows him; but the man they have in mind is very different from the man I know.  The man I know is a kind, loving husband and father whose greatest ambition in life is to make his family happy, entirely forgetful of self in his efforts to do this.  He is the man that lulls to sleep the fretful child, who tells bedtime stories to the little ones, who is never too tired or too busy to sit up late at night or to get up early in the morning to help the older children solve perplexing school problems.  When illness comes the man I know watches tenderly over the afflicted one and waits upon him.  It is their father for whom they cry, feeling his presence a panacea for their ills.  It is his hands that bind up the wounds, his arms that give courage to the sufferer, his voice that resonates with them gently when they err, until it becomes their happiness to do the thing that will make him happy...

"The man I know is unselfish, uncomplaining, considerate, thoughtful, sympathetic, doing everything within his power to make life a supreme joy for his loved ones.  That is the man I know."

Wow!  If you're looking for an example of someone to emulate (or searching for the greatest husband ever!) he sets the bar pretty darned high!!)

I Am Not A Vacuum Murderer!

Remember awhile back I said I'd killed our vacuum?  Derek, claiming "I told you I'm not very handy" ran right out and got us a new one.

Ok, so I went along and helped pick it out and I really, really, really like the new one.  I love that the canister lifts off so you don't have to fight the whole beast up and down the stairs to vacuum them. I actually like it a lot better than the old one.  But that's beside the point and I digress...

You see, I didn't really kill the old one.  Yay!  I am not a vacuum murderer!!

(In my my mind I say that in my best Richard Nixon impression.  Apparently I'm either really weird or easily amused because I imagine it to be quite hilarious!  I'm going with easily amused, ok?)

Before pushing the old one out to the curb I decided to give it one last shot and started cleaning up the filter and checking for a clog in the hose and stuff like that.  Thought I'd done all that at the time, but I guess in my frustration that night I missed some stuff.  Turns out, it wasn't broken so much as terribly dirty inside.  Cleaned up, it works just fine.  In fact, it sucks the dirt and hair right up.  It really sucks!

Wouldn't that be an awesome tagline for a vacuum commercial?  I always thought Dyson should use it when they have that hottie Aussie guy on there carrying on about the strength of their brand's suction power and he's lifting a bowling ball with it.  Wouldn't it just be fall-off-your-chair funny if at the end of that silly monologue he said, "Dyson... our vacuums really suck!"

Photo courtesy of hoover.com

No, my resurrected vacuum isn't a Dyson.

It's a Hoover.

A Wind Tunnel one made to handle pet hair.  Something we have abundance of...  I don't know if it would pick up a bowling ball or not.  And I don't have one to try that and find out so it's going to have to remain one of life's great mysteries.

This one might be a slightly newer model, but mine looks pretty much the same.  And it gets the job done.

I really hate having to admit this because now I'm going to get no help with the steam cleaner I've been begging him to unclog since... oh, October!  I've been holding out on principal.  But I guess I might as well give that up now, too, and just take care of it myself.

This vacuum does really suck!

Forgotten Skills

Photo credit:  Village Green Network

One of the Facebook/Blog pages I follow started this morning off with these words:  "Amazing how a decision to start growing your own food cascades into so many different things in your life. New friends (invaluable support), baking your own bread, making your own taco seasoning, making your own laundry soap. The list goes on and on..."  (Karen Taylor of Old Pa Farm) Not sure my list of mostly forgotten skills would look exactly like that but the words and sentiment got me thinking about how many old and [by many people] forgotten skills I use in my day.  Some things I do because it's how I learned to do it growing up and some is a conscious choice for either thrift or to leave an environmentally softer footprint on the Earth.

I garden.  Most years I do anyway.  And I will be when this coming Spring finally gets itself underway.  In the past I've used much the same methods I learned from my Dad - organic for the most part but willing to bring in a chemical for limited use if I found myself dealing with a pest I couldn't otherwise control.  In the past, I've hired someone to rototill the ground but this year I'm going to experiment with creating permaculture beds.  That's something I'm pretty excited about!

I preserve garden produce for later use.  This summer I want to make red and green salsa, dilly beans, apple pie filling, applesauce, spaghetti sauce, garlic preserved in vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, refrigerator dill pickles, strawberry freezer jam, frozen diced tomatoes, and several dried herb blends.

I cook from scratch.  Well, sometimes.  I admit a lot more boxed stuff has slipped in during the past 18 months.  It's been a time of big adjustments that affect all parts of my life and that's part of the reason that real cooking has fallen by the wayside.  It's something I laugh about now and then, but Derek loves the TGI Friday's(TM) Tater Skins from the freezer isle and would eat them 3-4 times a week... I about had a heart attack right there in the frozen food section when I saw the price and started making them at home.  Mine are so much better he tells everyone that they "are the bomb!" And I want to get back to even more real cooking over the coming months.  One of the first things I plan on doing is getting my sourdough starter going again and making our bread.

I make many of my own cleaning products.  Again, I've slipped a little in doing this but getting back to it more and more.  I've found that I can make my own product that is very effective for much less money. Some of my forays in cleaning products have been laundry soap, dryer sheets, and a concoction (I hope I can replicate) that did an awesome job getting puppy stains out of our carpets.

I create things.  For Christmas I made Derek an afghan in his favorite sports team colors and since we have serious lack of bedding (thanks, in part, to puppy chewing) it's been helpful in keeping him warm on some of those unusually cold nights we've had lately.  Over the last year and a half I also made some of the items we've gifted for birthdays and Christmas, cards, our potholders and some of the decor on our walls.  Several items have used recycled or re-purposed materials.  I love that it saves money, but even more I love that it is unique, kind of quirky and very personal.

I do my own home repairs and upgrades.  Inasmuch as it's safe and I have the skills to do a reasonably good job, I do my own repairs and upgrades.  A recent example was replacing a burned out breaker in our box.  Calling an electrician would have run around $100.  A few friends telling me it was an easy do-it-yourself job and a Youtube tutorial later, I did it myself.  The new breaker cost $11.84, including tax.  Money savings aside, it was a powerful feeling when I flipped that switch and everything worked!

I get to know my neighbors.  For me, a sense of community is important.  I am a naturally friendly person and I like finding people nearby who can share information and skills and, sometimes, garden tools.  Besides, being sociable is a good skill to have... so many of us suffer from nearly unbearable loneliness these days.  I also want to try and barter for things I can't do on my own like get our one neighbor who co-owns a dog grooming business with his daughter to cut the dog's toe nails.  I've talked to him a number of times about gardening and learned that he's diabetic and baked goods won't appeal as a trade off... so I'm hoping this summer to woo him into a barter arrangement with lots of fresh garden-ripe tomatoes!

Could I do more?  Sure.  Will I?  In time, probably.  I've already started a list of upgrades and additions for the 2015 garden...

That 70's Bathroom

I'm pretty sure I've whined about having bathrooms straight out of the 70's before...

But it's true!!

There's Harvest Gold fixtures and everything!  In the hall bathroom anyway (the master has the ever-lovely Avocado Green) which is one of the rooms I've been working on the past few days as I start to get stuff in shape for a visit from a wonderful friend I haven't seen since about the time we both graduated from high school 30 + years ago.  Sadly, for now we're stuck with the Harvest Gold so... I'm doing my best to rock that shade of awful!

Here's a couple of BEFORE photographs of this little bathroom I've all but ignored for the last 5 months.

I started with a good cleaning.  The bathtub, toilet, and sink are actually in pretty decent condition with all the muck scraped and scrubbed off... they're just uglier than sin.  Which is kind of funny since it's almost the same color as the bedspread in the bedroom that this bathroom services.  Once the tub and tile were clean, I hung an ivory shower curtain liner ($1 for the rings and $1 for the liner panel at Dollar Tree) and used some of the extra drapes from the bedroom (the windows at my old house were a LOT bigger!) around the bathtub.  It was tighter than tight getting the drapery panels on the shower curtain rod!!  But for a free fix, I can expend a little effort.

Better Homes and Gardens it's not, but I think we can live with the Harvest Gold a while longer now...

You can't see it in any of the pictures but we also traded out the wimpy little showerhead for a nice big rainfall style one.  And I spray painted a neon green mesh trash can (gotta love the stuff you can find at Dollar Tree!) white for this room.  Now to fresh up the towels, parcel out the wall decor between bed and bath, get some cute soaps and stuff and put down a fluffy rug to make this room ready for its AFTER shots!

Everything is pretty simple and basic still at this point... but I'm repurposing things we already own and the FREE part helps me appreciate what beauty there is.  The liner makes the shower functional and the curtains do add privacy and the beginning of some sense of the room being put together.  There's a fluffy rug on the floor that matches one of the shades of gold in the curtain that makes for a nice spot to step out of the shower.

Not too bad for just using the extra curtain panels from the bedroom?

Fresh clean towels are also out.  We're short on towel bars so... in both bathrooms the clean ones are just folded and kept on top of the toilet tank.  It works because we're also not flush on towels so all we own fits in that spot.

What's funny about these tan towels is that when we first looked at the house, the lighting in this bathroom was so bad we thought the tub, toilet, and sink were tan.  It wasn't until we'd moved and replaced the scary old light fixture that we realized everything was harvest gold...

I decorated the corner of the counter with shells from all over the world:  The conch and abalone were my Grandma Clarke's from a trip to the CA coast in the late 1940s.  The sand dollar posed on the lip of the conch and the smaller similar shell up front was collected by a cousin taking an adventure and travelling as an itinerant worker all around the country during the mid-1980s.  Most of the small tan and brown ones my dad gathered on the beaches of the Mariana Islands when he was there as a soldier during WWII.   And the really tiny shells and bits of coral on top are things I picked up relaxing on the beach in Antigua.

At some point we do want to re-do this bathroom with white fixtures and a smaller simpler vanity cabinet.  Not fancy even then, just brought into the current century.

Fence Install Day

After weeks of wanting this done so badly I felt like I was counting the minutes:  WE HAVE A FENCED YARD!!

Puppies may run at will with no lead to get tangled up and wrapped around their legs!  And yes, they love it!!  Their sloppy happy gushing wet kisses show me it's so...

First the installers and supplies arrive and they unload the truck.

The parts are laid out near where they'll be used.

Post holes are dug, posts are set and concreted into place.

Three rails are added to the structure.

The wire mesh backing is stapled into place and the gate is built.

The extra board is nailed in place so the wire
mesh is securely tied to each post.

The gate gets its hardware and the top is cut to shape.

Just like that we have a fenced yard!

(I say just like that... but it took two men working from about 8:30 this morning until close to 8:00 this evening to do all the work!)

The Dog Fight

Thunder has the stand up ears.  Lightning's stents broke skin and we
removed them so his ears flop.  The vet tells me this can be "fixed"
and so that's our plan as soon as money is available to do it!
This is their 6 month picture.

I've always thought that if you spent all the money to get papered dogs you should breed them.  And that's been our plan all along... when the boys mature, find someone with good quality females and let them make some babies.  But getting them through this teenage hormone rush to actually be mature dogs might just change my mind!  It's surely challenging my patience!!

Yesterday, from early afternoon until after midnight was a series of battles.  It ended with both dogs having bloody, though not serious, wounds and me sitting on the couch shaking from stress.

Rounds 1, 2 and 3 were the usual posturing for dominance, complete with bared teeth, snarls and gobs of slobber.  It's the part of their arguing that looks terrifying but rarely goes past the point of posturing.  I don't like that they do it, but I know what it is and how to deal with it.

Round 4 is where when it started going farther.  Thunder's nose got nicked and bled profusely.  There were blood spatters all over the basement floor and up the walls.  A little time, half a roll of paper towels and nearly a full bottle of peroxide later the crime scene motif was gone.

Rounds 5 and 6 were minor scuffles but Thunder's wound got reopened and bled more.  We have an old comforter tossed on the couch downstairs for times when the AC leaves us shivering.  It now looks like it might have once held a bloody corpse in its folds...

Round 7 was time for retribution, I guess.  Lightning ended up with a gash, probably a bite, on his lower front leg.  It looks to be just less than an inch long, fairly deep and ran a stream of blood for almost an hour.  He didn't want to put weight on it for awhile but seemed ok walking by the time we went to bed.

Round 8 found me spread eagled on my tummy over the ottoman with elbows locked and a dog collar in each hand to keep them separated.  That's where Derek found us when he got off work at 12:00 and rushed to answer my SOS call.

In between these fight rounds they are the best of friends.  They will sit and lick each other's wounds with the utmost of concern... the very wounds they just inflicted only moments before.  And run and play and eat from the same dish side by side.  Maybe they are perfectly normal boys?  I don't know.  But I find their behavior completely disconcerting.

While they're being playful and cute and lovey, I still think they'd make awfully cute babies.  And then in the next breath, while they're fighting, my mind screams... cut the nuts!  I don't know yet if we'll get them neutered right away or try to survive their unaltered adolescence awhile longer.

What I do know is that last night was difficult to endure!

Lizard in the House

Between trips up to shuffle dogs in and outside, I sat down and was looking at Facebook and Pinterest... you know, killing time.  Something caught my attention on the floor near our walkout basement door and when I got up to investigate it was a little lizard, maybe 2 1/2 to 3 inches long, with gray and tan stripes going the length of its body and a brilliant blue tail.

Decision point:  Do I freak out, climb back on the couch with my legs tucked under me screaming "Lizard!!" and hyperventilating or do I worry more about if it's poisonous or just a curiousity if the dogs get ahold of it?

It's already been a rough day with dogs making messes (and chewing up remotes and 'helping' me bring dirty clothes down to the laundry) and price gouging by a plumber.  Of all the service people I've ever needed to call in to help on a house project, it's the plumber that always leaves me feeling like my checkbook has been raped.  Seriously... It was almost $300 to replace a 7" piece of copper pipe and another $200 to flush the drain in our shower.  I shot him down when he wanted $215 each to put handles on the water spigots outside.  That's a $2 part at Home Depot and while I have no clue how to do it right now, I'm a smart girl and for that price I will figure it out.

Enough rant.  Obviously, the plumber has me a little disgruntled and upset...  So freaking out about the lizard would have been easy.  Oh, what a fit I could have pitched!

But I didn't.

I Googled it instead.  If the reports about the NSA keeping tabs on our computer activities is true at all, I bet someone finds my Google search record both fascinating and... disturbing.  Probably more disturbing than fascinating, really.

Oh well.  Back to the lizard...

It's a Brittle Blue Tailed Lizard that's seemingly taken up residence in our basement.  It's there along with a couple of cave crickets I've been ignoring since it's supposedly bad luck to kill the little beasties and I haven't been bothered by them quite enough to find a cup, dance around like a maniac and catch them for release outside.  My laziness has granted them a reprieve and probably will with the lizard, too.  I'm not too proud to admit that.  Ignoring it gets me out of doing a lot of stuff. Or I guess if I'm putting it in more flattering terms... Unless it poses a real threat I'm pretty much of the opinion 'live and let live.'  And this little lizard doesn't seem to be any threat at all.

Photo from http://www.georgiabackyardnature.com

This one isn't who's in my basement... he (or she?) moved too fast for me to get a picture.  I didn't even get a single bad shot so I'm borrowing one from someone else who's had a lizardly encounter.  These blue tails are non-poisonous, eat lots of insects in the garden and around the foundation of a house.  I understand they will bite if cornered and provoked, but it sounds like even the bite is no big deal to human or dog.  That bright blue tail is a decoy device and it breaks off if you grab it then the lizard grows a new one.  Going out on a limb here and saying that's the 'brittle' part of it's name?

All those advice memes urging you to do something you've never done before... yeah, I think I'm good on new things for awhile now.  Thank you very much!  Seems like almost every day lately has been throwing me into doing new things.  Willingly often; otherwise pretty frequently, too.

Corner of Park & Locust

Recently I was contacted by a sweet young mother regarding a post I'd made back in August 2011 about the history of my hometown, Shelley ID.

I'd posted a picture from the North Bingham County District Library of a home on the corner of Park and Locust Streets where I'd lived for a time as a child.  And though it's changed drastically since then, she recognized it as the home she and her husband had just purchased to begin raising their family.

Photo credit:  North Bingham County District Library

This is how the home looked when I lived there around 1969.  I've written a couple of times that it was divided into two apartments and that I lived with my parents on the main floor while my Grandma Clarke was upstairs.

Sometime after we moved, it was remodeled into a single family home and the outside entrance to upstairs was removed.  But otherwise, the house's appearance remained much the same.

Time marches on...

And so do ideas about remodeling a home and keeping it in good repair and current for today's lifestyles.  This is how the same home looks today!

Photo credit:  Chrissy Hill-Secrist

Isn't that an amazing transformation?

I hope her family has a wonderful experience living there!  I sure have good memories of adventures with many of the neighbor kids.  It seems that we were surrounded by families with kids my age so I always had a playmate.

So glad that I could share some of the history with its newest family!

Welcome home Secrists!!

Tree Sleuth

For awhile I've been, with varying degrees of effort, trying to find out what some of the trees in our yard are. I recognize the leaves of the oaks and maples and the needles of the pines and cypress but there are more that are a complete mystery to me.  It was made a bit more urgent today when I pried an immature fruit/nut from one of the unidentified trees out of Lightning's mouth.  Luckily I happened on a website called Native Plants for Georgia and found some quick answers!

They identify this as a Tulip Poplar, a member of the magnolia family, and is one of the leaves I've been curious about.  I've seen 3-4 of these in the edges of our woods.  All but one of ours are about 2 feet high, but the website says they can grow to 80-100 feet and have these orange-yellow tulip-like flowers in April and early May.

The green nut I took away from the dog appears to be from a Mockernut Hickory tree.  At least it's not something that will poison them!  Two of the three trees nearest the house have leaves like this (the other is an oak) and have been dropping green, though growing, nuts when the wind blows the last week or so.

I also learned we have one or more Sweetgums, most easily identified (to me, anyway) by these spiky seed husks that I think will make great additions to pine cone laden Christmas wreaths!

And our plentiful pines are Long Leaf Pines.  Their habit of only having needle bundles on high branches, an environmental adaptation from enduring fires on the coastal plains, makes them a good canopy tree in our woods.  Unlike the shallow root ball I'm accustomed to seeing on pine species, these have a deep tap root.  Learning that makes me feel better about a couple of them that are clinging to the edge of where a former inhabitant of this property graded for better drainage around the house.  Their large cones will also make welcome addition to the wreaths I'm dreaming about making for the coming holiday season.

This leaf was a contender when I was trying to identify the figs... which I'm beginning to doubt are in my yard.  It's a Sassafras tree.  Best collected in the fall, the dried and crushed leaves can be used to flavor gumbo.  I'll have to keep that in mind and gather some...

And it seems we have 2-3 different varieties of oak. Some produce acorns of a good size and others are so small that 3 will fit on the surface of a quarter... Another interesting addition to the holiday wreath building.

As you can see we have a pretty diverse woods.  And I'm excited to see that many of the trees have leaves that turn colors in the fall.  I bet the display of yellow, gold, amber, and red will be beautiful!

Adam's Skivvies

Adam might be right at home here. I got his favorite undies in the back yard... The first man wore the leaves to hide his nakedness once he realized his junk was out there but I don't recall that the Bible says he ate the figs.  He might have.  Lots of people do.

I don't.  At least I never have.  And I don't think I'd like them much.

Or maybe I'm judging them unfairly?

The only fig I've ever tasted, as far as I know, is one of those dried up brown chunks of yuckiness you find in the grocery store's produce section wrapped tightly in plastic on a little meat tray during the holidays.  I did not like it!  Not even a little bit.  I don't like raisins or dates, either, so not liking the figs could be anticipated.  But maybe there's still hope!  I'd venture a guess that it's all the extra sugar, but I don't mind a Fig Newton now and then.  Can't say those are ever my first choice in cookies, but they're not terrible by any means.

And I'm not really sure I've ever seen a fresh fig.  In pictures, yes, but not up close and personal. Figs were just not a fruit crop that grew in Idaho or Utah... but apparently they are in Georgia.

On several occasions, I've spent a little time talking to one of my neighbors.  He's quite the gardener and an awesome source of knowledge about the neighborhood, stuff that went on in this house before we bought it, what kinds of plants grow wild in the woods, Civil War history, and all sorts of other stuff.  A couple of days ago, he told me he was sure I'd find some wild fig trees somewhere out in the wooded section of our back yard because he has some.

Which, oddly, he keeps even though he says he doesn't care much for the fruit.

I say keeping them is odd because he told me he had more than 40 trees removed from his lot so you'd think a couple more that he doesn't really love would be no big thing.  He may keep them for his mom.  He did say that sometimes she comes and gets enough to make a batch of fig preserves.  She likes the stuff.  I'm sure (at least I hope) it's very much tastier than I'm imagining right now.

But I digress...

I've been wanting to go look for these fig trees so I can keep Derek from chopping them down before I get a chance to decide if I want one.  Or two.  Or maybe even three since more trees give more coverage from looking through to a neighboring house on the other side of the woods.

And them looking through at us... eek!!

Here are a couple of pictures I found to help me know what to look for:

Photo credit: http://allotmentheaven.blogspot.com/2011/01/fig-ficus.html
Lot's of good info on figs in that blog post!

Photo credit: http://allotmentheaven.
blogspot.com/2011/01/fig-ficus.html

There are a few trees with similar leaves out there.  Guess I'll just have to pay attention and keep looking for fruit.  I learned today that they don't flower first; the blossom is inside the fruit and never emerges into the daylight.

Adam might have found them to be his comfy clothes but I like a bit more coverage than these leaves would provide!  While the leaves of what I think might be fig trees out in our woods are somewhat bigger than on the surrounding trees, they're just not enough...  Guess I need to do my shopping at the plus-size fig tree!!

Any thoughts how I use figs? Favorite recipes?  Gotta decide if they earn a spot to stay!

Just Do It Myself...

You've seen the funny saying about asking a man to do something and not nagging because he'll get to it in 6 months?  More or less...  Yeah.  Well life with an infamous "putter offer of doing stuff in hopes the problem just goes away" breeds this attitude in me!

Some of the projects left on my "Get Shit Done" list for May:

• Break paint seals and have windows that open all over the house*
• A dishwasher that serves more of a purpose than being a cabinet ornament*
• Clean out the growing clog in the master bathroom's shower drain
• Get rid of the yellow jacket nest suddenly being built in the basement window frame**
• Spray the yard for ants - something like 14 different kinds of ants all building massive hills out there*
• Drag that concrete diverter thingy that was buried under crap in the backyard around front and under the last undiverted rain gutter downspout*
• Get all the unearthed bricks in one place and decide if they'll rim the firepit or one of the terraces in the front flower garden
• Put the last couple of shelves in the china cabinet so the last box of dishes can be unpacked and put away*
• Get the boxes we're keeping, the moving dolly, and the tools and garden implements in the storage room and out of the kitchen, living room and carport*

*  Help has either been requested or volunteered with this task.  I'm just sick of waiting for it!

** I'll give him a pass on this one since  he's so allergic to their stings that he'd swell up like a bloated corpse and have to spend the day in the ER.  Have to admit THAT is a pretty good excuse...