OF QUILTS, APRIL BREEZES, AND FLYING SQUIRRELS

It may not look like fun to you, but quilt shows are lots of fun and quite affirming. Joan and I spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in the Tri-Cities going to a crafts show, quilt show and meeting a high school friend for lunch. We took no pictures, did nothing earth-shattering nor shocking just talked, dined, and sewed together. This is an annual, sometimes semi-annual event, in which we participate--time together without anyone else--to renew our "twinness." Some may wonder if we're venting, dumping, bashing on family and friends to renew ourselves, but there is none of that--truly. It's so difficult to explain to non-twins the need for such regeneration, but it's a part of us, and we're blessed that we have supportive husbands and the financial means to retreat to be together.
On another note, Spring has come to the Gorge, and we're grateful. The mornings are still frosty and cool, but the afternoons are gorgeous. I snapped these lovelies on my walk this morning. The Hood River Museum was full of such containers.

Spring brought an amazing spectacle. As I've mentioned in several posts, our yard is full of squirrels and birds. I had seen a squirrel at the feeder and knew that he would flee once I opened the door. Sure enough, he scurried up the tree and kept going up and up and up. I watched, mouth open, as he lept across the space between the trees of the driveway. He was followed by his mate, whose leaps were even more daring and spectacular!! The baby chose a safer route and scurried across the driveway!! What a spectacular Spring beginning. A promise--and hope--of more to come. In awe of artistic creations and natural ones. Love, Mom

EASTER MEMORIES

The wind was a slashing cold gust across my face as I strolled through the Wal-mart parking lot. Shivering, I noted a knot of parents and children clustered in a small group near the garden center. Little ones were dressed in their Easter finery and clutched Easter baskets were shivering and whining. It was the Wal-mart Annual Easter Egg Hunt. That scene brought countless memories of Easters in my past. Easter has come very early this year, according to Martha Stewart, because of the early spring equinox and full moon and won't be so early again until 2285. I can't remember that it was ever so early of course, but I do remember cold, cold Easters!! My mother loved Easter, although it wasn't really a religious celebration in our home. There was usually a requisite Easter Sunday picnic complete with potato salad and ham and cold spring breezes. Mother always made us new dresses and faithfully played the Easter bunny. (If you're asking which one is me in these pictures, I haven't a clue!!)

It wasn't until I became a Christian that Easter took on the aspects of a religious celebration, and the Easter bunny, eggs, ham, etc. took a back seat. As I lay in bed thinking about my feelings concerning Christ and His atonement and the resurrection, I find that they have mellowed over the years. March is never an easy month for me; two significant people in my life died during this month--my brother, Joe, and my daughter, Annie. In each case, I had profound experiences, whispered good-byes from each of them after their souls had left this earth, that testify to me that there is, indeed, a life after this one. I've thought about my own relationship with Christ and wonder what words I could use to explain my very personal bonding to Him to another human being, and I find that I cannot. My vocabulary isn't sufficient to describe it. Suffice it to say, that in my inner life, my soul's depth, I am at peace because I've turned my life to Him. I've finally, at 65, given to Him the only true gift that I have to give--my own will. That is not to say that life is always easy, and I am not still an unworthy servant; it is to say that I am at peace.

I am so grateful that, as a family, we chose to celebrate Easter as both a religious holiday and a celebration of Spring and eggs, etc. The memories are sweet and comforting. Happy Easter from Mom who's celebrating her only salute to Easter traditions--a Cadbury egg.

MARCH MADNESS.....

I call this blog March Madness because we've started our projects for the year!! We seem to begin to think of home improvement when the snow begins to melt and "daffy down dillies," as Steve called them, begin to poke out their heads. We're doing a re-decorating of our upstairs bathroom; we don't have the money to do the remodel that the bathroom needs, but we can redecorate!! We're going for a cottage look--hence the white boards. The paint color is a moss green, and the pictures are still in question--they're actually pictures of birdhouses. We're ready to take down the "naked" pictures and the bathtub parphenalia. I put them away with reluctance, but they've served their time!!

In the midst of the re-decorating preparations, Dad discovered that the chimney in the living room had jarred loose, so here he is ready to crawl into the attic to check out the problem. We were both reminded of the time when Susan was about eight and decided she wanted a bedroom of her own, and she discovered the crawl space above the coat closet. One evening when we were at the temple, she went into the crawl space and began moving the insulation around to make room for her bed. It's truly a miracle that she didn't inhale the insulation fumes!!

Once he found the problem, Dad set to work fixing the chimney. A difficult, dirty job. So, Dad worked on his chimney upstairs, and I worked on my quilt downstairs. I told him to holler if he needed me, and he said he hollered and hollered for me the other day and couldn't get my attention! However, he was able to get my attention, and I helped him for a while. We were an amazing team.

Grandma tells us that she hopes to be able to attend church on Sunday, so she's doing better. Not better enough to suggest that she doesn't need us to come each week but better. She expressed the desire to have a "granny rocker" in her bedroom, so we've bought one for her which Dad is going to finish, and we'll take it to her on Wednesday. She is still quite weak, but she's moved from the walker to her cane once again. She especially loves all the telephone calls she getting, so take the time to call her when you can. Dad said he watched an hour long tv show with her, and she received five calls. She was thrilled. She also loves her cards and pictures as well. Take a minute to send her some. Her "gang," as she calls them, the "girls," all in their late 80's, came to her on Monday afternoon with linens, silver, crystal, and dinner and they dined together. Remember, her 93rd birthday is May 8.

All is well with us. Our mission assignment is slowed down this week because it's Spring vacation, but we'll be teaching again next week. When our class in Portland ends on April 24, we'll be reassigned to The Dalles Oregon stake, which means no more trips to Portland. We'll be teaching a class in Hood River for the summer, and then one or two classes in the Fall. Plus, the stake president would like us to do some firesides/workshops to encourage other retirees in the stake to get off their couches and do volunteer work, service or full-time missions. Should be an interesting challenging.

Love to you all from your mom, the chimney sweep.

WE'LL TALK OF MANY THINGS....

"The time has come," the Walrus said,"To talk of many things:Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--Of cabbages--and kings--And why the sea is boiling hot--And whether pigs have wings."

Tonight there are "many things" on my mind. One is to answer the challenge given by my daughter, Marie, on her blog to list 5 things concerning food. I doubt that I can come up with 5, but here goes:

1. I grew up on the cooking of an Idaho farm girl. My mother was always a good cook, and our meals were down-home meat and potatoes type meals. My mother always served bread with every meal. She explained to me one time that in her youth, most farmers worried about the curing of their meat. Occasionally, meat would not be cured properly, and people would die from food poisoning. It was thought that a slice of bread eaten with meat, particularly pork, would cut the effects of poorly cured meat.

2. My mother cooked most of our meals, and she taught us girls some cooking skills. For some reason, though, I could never master the art of gravy making. My father often complained of the lumpy gravy and would try hard to teach me how to make proper gravy, which only made me more nervous and more of a failure. My dear husband, who saw me struggling as a young bride to unlump my gravy, went out and bought cans of gravy and packages of gravy, which saved my bacon. Today, I can make unlumpy gravy, but why?? My shelves are full of canned gravy!

3. Because of the fare at our house, I was quite pleasantly surprised when I was introduced to new foods by college roommates. One of my roommates was Jane Messenger from Foxboro, Mass. Jane came to BYU complete with her "pawk the caw" accent and a peaches and cream complexion that was to die for. She was a home ec major, and she could cook. She insisted that all proper Bostonians had to eat Boston baked beans and Boston cream pie on Friday night. So, when it was Jane's week to cook, we were treated to baked beans, root beer, and cream pie and regaled with stories of the Boston strangler who was then still at large and roaming the streets of Boston!!

4. Another roommate was Anna Laura Hightower who came from California in the middle of the year. Her bedroom roommate was never home because she was doing a nursing internship, so, every third week, Anna Laura had to cook all by herself. No problem. She loved to cook. When it was Anna Laura's turn to cook, she came home with grocery bags filled with hamburger. My snooty Salt Lake roommates were outraged!! After all,the 6 of us were paying $10 a week for three solid meals, and there should be some better cuts of meat than hamburger all week. They were outraged until Anna Laura worked her magic. The first night was homemade pizza; the next, tacos; the next, enchiladas; the next tamales....you get the drift.

5. When Tom and I married, he wanted to know if I knew how to make "pasties," which are a type of small pie filled with meat, potatoes, and onions. Tom especially loved his mom's pasties, but I've never been a good pie maker and pasties eluded me. Betty, my sister-in-law who is an outstanding cook, told me that when she was a young bride, her husband told her there were two things he really missed about his mama's cooking--her homemade biscuits and arsh potatoes. Betty tried and tried to make biscuits like his mama did, but she couldn't seem to satisfy him, and she asked everyone about arsh potatoes, and they were as mystified as she. After a few years of marriage, she went to Tennessee to meet Dewey's family, and Mama's cooking secrets were revealed. The biscuits were straight out of the tin from the supermarket, and the potatoes were Irish potatoes found at any store!! Dewey never again mentioned Mom's biscuits.

The Grandkid Quilt Project is well underway. DeAnne's Christmas quilt (on the left) is in Ohio being quilted by my niece. Dad says he had to dip into his savings to send Vale's quilt(the jeans quilt on the right) winging its way to California. TJ's quilt top (a chess quilt) is about 3/4 finished. Harmony, Heather, Ethan, and Connor's quilts are in the planning stages. It's a labor of love---

On a more serious note, Grandma is slowly regaining strength after her flu. She is still weak, she tells us but feels better each day. We will be spending three days a week with her for the time being. Running errands for her and keeping her company. We're down to one class for our mission right now, so we'll still be busy, but with other things. Grandma now has telephones beside her bed and her armchair, and she welcomes phone calls. She's not up to long visits yet, but a phone call would really brighten her day.

Spring is here. It's so welcome after the long winter. Dad has been sprucing up the yard, and we're getting ready to begin re-decorating the upstairs bathroom. Saturday, we went slumming to antique stores, looking for pictures. After we'd roamed around for a while, Dad said, "I don't see what so many people see in antiques. This just looks like old furniture to me." We think we found our pictures but plan to look around some more. It was nice to roam around in sweatshirts. It's Spring vacation for us, so we're going to go Grandma's and enjoy a wonderful gift that Mark and Jennifer gave us of membership in a place on Bainbridge Island called the Bloedel Reserve--a wonderful garden reserve. We plan to take lots of pictures and buy plants to put into those empty planters. SPRING HAS SPRUNG. Enjoy. Mom