A Fun Tale

Once upon a time (actually it was Tuesday, April 7), Dale and I saw a UPS truck pull up to our house.

"Are you expecting something?" "No, are you?" "No." "Well, we're getting something."

Outside, Cheyenne said, "Thanks!" then came running in the house screaming, "It's my pickles from Grandpa! It's my pickles from Grandpa!" (Picture confused and confounded looks on Dale and Cheryl's faces.)

Cheyenne ran to the kitchen and grabbed some scissors where she began attacking the box with zeal.

Before long, a bundle of bubble wrap emerged. More scissors.

Sure enough, it's pickles!!

Mom: "Cheyenne, why did Grandpa send you pickles?"
Exasperated Cheyenne: "Because I wanted some! They're the cute little ones!" (Cute little dill pickles)

Cheyenne ate a pickle then put the lid on.

Cheyenne: "I need to run and tell Noreen (the next door neighbor) that Grandpa sent me pickles."
Voice trailing off...."Noreen! Grandpa sent me pickles!"
This scene was repeated at the next neighbor's house.

Wednesday, April 8. "Can I have a pickle for a snack?"
Thursday, April 9. Cheyenne just finished a yummy breakfast of eggs and pancakes. "Now can I have a pickle?"

Cheryl's Conclusions from the last couple of days:
Jar of pickles: $2.50
Cost of postage: $7.00
Smile on Cheyenne's face and thrill in her voice: PRICELESS

Thanks, Grandpa, for a very fun treat.

Another Funeral

I attended a funeral today following a tragic suicide death in our neighborhood last week. A 46 year old father of 3 teenagers took his own life a week ago. The event itself, the aftermath, and the effects on many, many other lives are all tragic and overwhelmingly sad in nature. There has been a bit of a pall over our neighborhood as a result. However, in the midst of the gloom, I have seen miracles and a tremendous outpouring of love and kindness.

The funeral was simple. There was a life sketch given by his brother-in-law followed by two talks given by our current bishop and our previous bishop. I had a number of thoughts as I sat and processed it all. The casket was followed into the chapel by his family. It wasn't a small family. Many people kept walking in to fill in the first several rows of pews. All I could think was, "Wow, look at all these family members who loved him. Why didn't he see or recognize that before he chose to take his own life?" From there I looked around at the large congregation gathered. It was like a reunion of ward members from the last several years. There were people from all over gathered together to mourn with those that mourn. As I looked at each of them, my mind's eye was flooded with memories. I could make a long list of the amazing things I've seen done by those people over the years. There is so much good being done in the world.

I saw people from lots of different social circles in the community. His wife works at the elementary school, so there were several teachers and staff members there. Again, I was struck by this thing that brought us all together to talk about Christ. No one was separated by the social context that might have brought them there. It was abundantly clear to me that as fellow beings, we have so much more in common than we'll ever have different. We just want to be happy.

Each of the talks emphasized the hope, peace, and comfort that come from the atonement of Jesus Christ. It was worded in different ways, but the message was clearly one that Jesus Christ can do the impossible. He can fix the broken pieces, even when so many things are broken. One of the speakers referred to a story a woman once wrote about how she dealt with suicide and its after effects. It's called "The Broken Bowl" and I thought it was beautiful. You may read it here yourselves.

The funeral capped an emotional and pensive week for so many. I'm sure it marks only the beginning of a very long road for his wife and daughters. I've heard a number of people questioning a lot of things this week. As I ponder it now, I can only remind myself that we have absolutely zero control over what has already happened. Those things are in the books. What we have control over is what we do today. We can impact the present and the future. Maybe we can make a choice today that will be a bright spot in someone else's day. And we can certainly move forward with a hope of a brighter day.

More Random Musings

My niece Jessica is pregnant! Her brother Andy called everyone in the family to let us know. That's the happiest news I have heard in a long time! She's going to be an adorable pregnant woman, but mostly she's going to be an awesome mom. Congratulations, Jessica!

I recently attended a baby shower for my niece Meagan. She has a little over a month before her due date and she's as cute as ever. It's gonna be a big year for Cheyenne to have two new little babies in the family!

It's amazing what a teenage boy can do with a little freedom in the kitchen. About a month ago, Daniel decided he wanted to make a fruit pizza that looked like a real pizza. This is what he came up with.


Then last week, he came home from school and thumbed through some recipes. When I asked what he was doing, he said he was thinking of making chocolate chip cookies, but then he saw the recipe for eclairs and thought that sounded good. He proceeded to make a batch of delicious eclairs from scratch without any help from me. I was so proud.


This last week was beautiful!! We had some serious spring weather. I even got some yard work done as I cleaned up some of the ugly dead stuff in the yard. Sadly, it's raining and snowing outside tonight. I knew it was too good to be true. The positive thing is that it won't last for long. Spring will come.

I wish I could say the same for my nephew Adam in Siberia. His recent letter mentioned that it's finally warmed up to normal winter weather. That means that now it's warm like a cold Utah winter. He says it's warm enough that it can snow now. Clearly, there is a good reason that God did not send me there on a mission!

Goodbye, shingles, hello, cold sore! I feel like one of those stress balls with water in it that you can squeeze and cause a bubble to pop out the side. Just as one bubble goes back into the ball, another one pops out somewhere else. After three weeks, the shingles have gone down leaving just some red marks. But as soon as that happened, a giant blister popped out on my lip. It's really attractive. I can hardly wait to see what is to come when this dies down. I'll keep you posted!

Random Musings

It's time. I've neglected my electronic life for far too long. I wish you all could have read the amazing blog entries that were scripted in my mind that never made it out to cyberspace. They were good! But, alas, you will have to settle for a few random musings about life as I pull them out of my head and drop them in here.

I'll start by saying that the past 4-6 weeks have qualified overall as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month. (For anyone who hasn't read the book, I'd like to recommend Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.) I won't bore you with the details, but it's been less than stellar. Like Alexander in the book, I considered moving to Australia, but then I remembered that some months are like that -- even in Australia. Plan foiled. Since I won't be moving, I guess I'd better pull myself up by the bootstraps and keep going. And though there will still be lots of unfortunate and fortunate moments, I hope I end up with more fortunate ones.

Unfortunately, I learned that excessive stress (see item above) really does cause shingles. Fortunately, I only broke out in a small area, but it's been annoying enough that I can imagine how awful a large breakout would be. If there are any of my 3-4 readers who have had them in the past, I now have some serious empathy for you.

Sundance ski resort's cross-country trails are awesome! A sunny day makes them incredible. Fun friends to ski with make it even better.

I bought a coffee maker recently. This is not a job that should be left to an ignorant mormon girl. I can only hope I chose the right features for my future houseguests.

The American Fork Junior High Wind Ensemble does not play like any junior high band I've ever heard. Apparently they really were practicing on all those days when Daniel had to be there for hours. I'm still not sure I agree with that kind of pressure at this age, but the end results are pretty unbelievable. We expect to get a DVD of their performance soon. It may make an appearance on this page.

Spring is in the air. Woo hoo!!!

It is possible for more than 1,000 people to crowd into Noah's. It happened last Friday for some national broadcast by Glenn Beck. I've never heard him speak, but it was cool to see pictures of that many people gathered.

Cheyenne learned to do a figure 8 on her bike in our cul-de-sac. It was impressive, but then I asked who taught her how to do it. It was none other than our former Bishop who brought her home the other day and did donuts and figure 8s with his van in our cul-de-sac. Gotta love her skills of observation.

I recently compiled pictures of all the cakes I've decorated since I started at age 8. I'm a couple short of 100. Fortunately, they've gotten better since I was 8.

We had our second annual (sort of) Harvest Open House at the end of February. It's a very fortunate thing that Dale makes such good bread. He's the best.

That's about enough musing for now. I'll muse some more soon.

I've Been Tagged

My sister tagged me to write about a picture. The poor girl did it days ago and has probably wondered why I'm such a loser! I'm just a very busy loser. So, her instructions were as follows:

1. Go to your My Documents/My Pictures
2. Go to your sixth file
3. Go to your sixth picture
4. Blog about it
5. Tag 6 people

I got a little confused with the "sixth file" part, but I had that many folders so I selected the sixth folder and the sixth picture. Here it is! I promise this is the sixth picture she asked for, and it is poetic justice that it happens to be an early morning picture that includes her! (Didn't someone once say to be careful what you ask for????)



This is an early morning shot of Cheryl, Cathy, and Colleen before we ran in the Marathon relay at Thanksgiving Point. We had a five-person team that also included Colleen's daughter Jessica and my neighbor Noreen. As a team, we covered a full marathon distance of 26.2 miles, but that meant that each of us had to run 5.2 miles. The shirts we got said, "A full marathon, 1/5 the pain."

We did really well. We didn't win or anything like that, but each of us ran our segment faster than we'd ever run that distance before. I was really proud of us and what we accomplished. I was 40 (two weeks shy of 41, actually) when we did it. Now that I'm 43, I appreciate even more what Cathy and Colleen did to do it with me. I think it would be harder now. Anyway, it was fun, Thanksgiving Point was a beautiful place to run (although a bit hilly at times), and we accomplished a goal we'd set.

Thanks for the fun trip down memory lane, Cathy. And now, as per her instructions, I guess I must tag a few of my blogging friends. Hmm, I'm gonna call out Kim E. (when you get a break from school), Laura A. (ditto), Patti H., Noreen, Heather W., and Karen M. I know you guys all check this occasionally, so I'm going to be looking for your pictures on your blogs as well. I can't wait!

Go out and do good

The big news in Salt Lake City tonight was the death of Larry H. Miller. He is a very well known businessman in the area as he owned car dealerships, the Utah Jazz basketball team (and some other sports teams), several movie theaters, restaurants, and stores, and a motor sports raceway. As the news stations were all memorializing him, they talked a lot about his philanthropic work. They kept showing him with one of his frequent quotes in which he said, "Go out and do good until there is too much good in the world." How cool would that be if we all did that?

In other interviews he said a couple of other cool things. In one he said, "I’ve learned that net worth, good health, and happiness are not necessarily connected to one another. " I have no doubt that having lots of money makes life more comfortable, but I've sure heard a lot of rich people talk about what it doesn't provide. And it certainly didn't keep him from dying at a young age. It makes me think about priorities, for sure.

In one other one, he was asked what advice he would give to other businessmen or to his children. I thought his response was interesting. "It took me until I was 50 to realize that my family needed me to be more than a breadwinner. My wife needed me as a companion to help with things with the kids or the house. Once I figured that out and started doing it, I found it was easy, and I wondered why I hadn’t been doing it all along."

I'm pretty sure he wasn't a perfect man. But overall, people's views of him seem to be pretty positive. Perfect or not, I thought he said some pretty good things that we could all take to heart.

Likewise, I am nowhere near perfect, but I can only hope that someday when I die, there will be at least a few people who will speak of me as someone who went about trying to do good in the world. Until then, I'll just keep trying.

Things I've Done

My friend had this list on her blog and was encouraging others to copy it and then bold the things you've done. It's a fun way to remind yourself of all the things you have done and of fun things that still lie ahead. I'd love to see the list copied by any of you who read my blog as well. Until then, take a look at things I've done.... so far!

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii (not yet, but I'll make it someday!)
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity (I've given, but I've never been left wanting, so maybe that doesn't count!)
7. Been to Disneyland (see the two previous blogs!)
8. Climbed a mountain (Like Mt. Timpanogos with my two awesome sisters just last year)
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a Solo (at my kids' bedtime)
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (I'm gonna go with cake decorating for this one)
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning (not exactly, but I've eaten some nearly toxic things - sea urchin, for example)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill (I'm so soakin' honest)(For details on the use of the word "soakin' " as an adverb, you'll have to consult my great nephew Isaac.)
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon (Ok, it was a marathon relay - a full marathon distance with 1/5 the pain, but did it - again with my awesome sisters.)
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run (maybe once on the Wii)
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors (We took a great trip to England, Scotland, and Wales)
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language (Didn't teach myself, but at one point, I used to be able to speak both Spanish and Korean)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing (only far enough up a tower to ring the bell)
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke (in a tiny little room with Dale and my friend Heather in Pusan, Korea -- oh, and with Andy in Colleen's living room!)
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant (I've gotta find a time to do this!)
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been on television
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie (I was an extra in a church movie, but I landed on the cutting room floor)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class (Karate in college! Oh, those were the days!)
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (I've given, I've received, and I've advertised for the Red Cross. Even now, mine and Daniel's picture is hanging in the donor center in Salt Lake.)
65. Gone sky diving (There's not enough money, but paragliding was fun!)
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone (I guess it counts that I broke my finger fighting with Angie over lunch money)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book (I wrote a lot of training manuals, does that count?)
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper (Lots of spelling bee memories!)
85. Read the entire Bible (If I did, I didn't understand a lot of it!)
86. Visited the White House (I even chatted with the first President Bush at the fence while he was out with his dogs. He was great!)
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (fish)
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake (Mostly I just competed for space with the nasty flies that live there.)
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Totally copied a post from someone's blog to your own (I just did!)