A Day with the Cutie-Patooties

We had Sarah and Allison for a few hours a couple of weeks ago, and got these cute pictures.
Sarah picked a daffodil on her way out the door, and said, "Grandma, take a picture of me." So I did. We kept walking down the road to the park and she says, "Take a picture of me by this pretty flower."
They were both so darn sweet. When I was playing with Allison in the tubes I said, "Allison, smile." and that pucker face is what I got. Priceless.
Sarah was swinging on the big kid swings and doing quite well. Grandpa asked her if she wanted a push, and she nodded yes. Gad-zooks. He gave her a swing that made her head snap. Up she went, higher and higher. I ran that direction, fearing the worst, and unfortunately I called it. The inertia from the upward swing was more than her little fingers could overcome. To the very top of the arc she went, and only the swing came back down. Sarah continued to fly... and then another physical law kicked in, this one's called gravity. Poor baby did a face-plant as she biffed the dirt. Thank goodness for 'soft and shock-absorbing playground chips'. She was flabbergasted, and just plain insulted. Who could blame her? Grandpa has only loved and protected her all her life, playing Legos with her, eating her pretend food, and drumming with Lincoln Logs on the trunk "drum set". This was NOT supposed to happen! She let me rock her on the swing while she got her wind back, and he got a full-on, furrowed brow, hairy-eyeball dirty look. It only took about three minutes and he was forgiven, but the next time he asked her if she wanted a push she said, "no thank-you".

It'll Be Fun.

Hey! Forget the fact that it has rained for 8 months straight! Forget that it's been gray for 9 months, forget that we have two weeks of summer, and we're probably out of town, forget that we don't know the first thing about sailing, forget ALL that, and let's buy A SAILBOAT!!!
"It'll be fun!" Those are the immortal words Danny has said to me at every important juncture of our marriage. When he proposed (if you want to call it that, he actually said, "When are you coming home?) he said, "It'll be fun!" (He was right). When he said, "Let's be a ma and pa on the trek". (He wasn't so right on that one, but that's another story, for sure.) When he said, "Let's move to Lacey". (Another good call.) and on and on. Well, it's only been 24 hours, and it hasn't stopped raining, nor has the tide been up long enough to bring the boat into the marina, but he is still grinning ear to ear, so I guess we're having fun. Here she is, presently the Mistique, but going to become,... something better.

Chapter 3

I'm getting a little bored with my saga, so I am going to skip the stories, anecdotes, and just tell you that it was a long road, with many a winding turn, that leads us to who, knows where, who knows where...wait, that's been done.
We had a funeral right off the bat, and I had no idea how to pull that off. I tried to think, but it happened so fast--and at the last minute I realized that I had nothing for centerpieces for the table. Plenty of good food, but, how embarrassing. Then a family member arrived and said, "I hope you don't mind, but we'd like to put lilacs in antique blue canning jars on the tables, they were mom's favorite." (MIND?!) Oh, how lovely, that would be just beautiful, sure, you go ahead. And it really, really was. If I die in lilac season, I'd like the same thing at my party. (Yes, a big, fun, laughter filled party, with volleyball after the short life-celebration part.)
We put on dinners, events, taught loads of lessons, and practical life skills, and over saw a few relationship traumas, and I made out food orders, helped people move in, and clean, and move out, and clean, and drove people around, and went to tons of meetings, and still we laughed, and cried, but never, never fought. I loved to just watch as we worked ideas around, and finally teased the final product from the jumble of discussion that proceeded the final decisions. We'd all sigh and feel like we had arrived at just the right place.
I will always remember how Terry did everything so beautifully. I would have copied recipes onto notebook paper and stapled them in the corner. She made a cookbook that was magnificent. Everything was artistic and worthy of framing. I made a lesson around the virtues of the poppyseed, and she made a seed packet to match my lesson idea, with a beautiful red poppy on the cover.
O kay, just one story, but then I'm done. We started a tradition of a gourmet burger night over at Sharon's house each summer, and Wally was our grill master. We talked about S'mores, and if we could build a fire and sit around and make them. We got into how many sticks we'd need, how many people could crowd around a fire, if it was safe or feasible...and Sharon (who thinks camping means a 40 foot RV) said, in all seriousness, (she was trusting us to be kind and understanding of her confusion, remember that it takes a lot to admit to someone that you don't know.) her brows knit together, she earnestly says, "I've always wondered, how do you get the graham cracker to stay on the stick?" There was a dead silence as we let the question sink in, and a few more beats of shock, then we simultaneously busted up. Tears were streaming down our faces, and all the while Sharon's saying, "What!?" What's funny!? You guys!?" I don't remember who was first able to compose themselves enough to answer her. Ah, Sharon, gotta love her. She is without guile, that one.
I knew at the 3 year mark that we had been in a long time, and at 3 and a half I felt we were on borrowed time. The Lord prepared my heart, and though it took some time, I was ready when the bishop and I sat down to discuss Relief Society. I had done the job that was before me, Relief Society was on solid footing, with all programs in place. Teachers had come and gone, specialists had come and gone, Super Saturdays had come and gone, workshops, classes, line-dancing, all manner of good things had happened. It was time to step back, and give the reins to strong hands, fresh eyes, and a different way of seeing.
The void was instantaneous. It was a large, gaping hole. There was silence where the phone ringing used to be. There were hours that were no longer filled with questions. There was a blank spot every Thursday afternoon on my calendar. I really felt invisible at church. I cherish those notes and cards that came in the mail that week. Several people took the time to express appreciation. Every time I read one I cried all over again. If you have sent a child off to college, it's kind of like that. You just don't know what to do with your hands for a minute. I loved that calling, but it was time to let it go. I enjoyed the ride, but I was all right getting off, too. There are other things to see and do at this great big adventure-land called life!

Chapter 2

For the next year Penny Rasmussen, my first counselor, and Sharon Blake, our secretary, and I, worked hard to get our little Relief Society off the ground. We met every week, and while we always promised ourselves we'd stick to business and be focused, we really never did. It didn't take us very long to get interested in the goings on of each other's lives, and it seemed we each had a story to tell before we even tried to take care of business. Perhaps it was the enormity of it all that we were reluctant to face, or maybe it was just that it was so fun to have girl friends to share life with. Whatever it was, I enjoyed it immensely.
We decided our first job was Sundays, and getting teachers to instruct each week. We took great care when putting those important pieces in place. Calling teachers was huge, as so much of the tone of Relief Society is set in those Sunday meetings, and the amount of love and honesty they show encourages what is reflected back from the sisters in the room. When that was done we were ready to move on. I loved our teachers!
The next of our first big tasks was to try to set up visiting teaching routes. Wow. It was Penny's idea to get a huge board and put every sisters name on it twice; once in white, "to be visited", and once in yellow, "to go visit". We had grand ideas of putting people together by neighborhoods, to be efficient, but wait---- there's working/not working to deal with. Oh, yeah, car/no car, drive/no drive, kids/no kids, young/old, old ward/new ward, too. As we found out, there's also motivated and less so, personality conflicts, health, time restrictions, and a myriad of other factors to take into account. In our ward, we also have a high percentage of military, so there is a lot of coming/going to work on. Just as we thought we might have it, we'd see that people were visiting each other, somebody would move in or out, or that we made another of a dozen mistakes. We were prayerful, and we spent many hours in front of that board! One of the things I loved about our sisters in 4th ward is their willingness to accept whatever conglomeration of routes we handed them. I had a few, but very few, who thought we must have been out of our minds when we came up with those ideas! I asked them to pray about their routes, because we had, and come and see me if they still felt the need. I asked them to think of themselves as flowers, all different, but all beautiful, and creating a lovely bouquet of different kinds and colors. We saw unlikely pairings bring about new friendships, and watched a few miracles take place as we saw the hand of the Lord working through our inept, but willing hands.
The three of us did a good job, but knew we needed our other counselor to be whole. Though I pondered and prayed, I never could figure out who it was supposed to be, so we limped along on 3 wheels for the first year. Then finally! The lord took me to her door. Sharon and I went to visit a new sister by the name of Terry Shupe, and what a fun visit it was! We left that house after laughing and getting to know each other, and as we got in our car I turned to Sharon and said rhetorically, "We found her, didn't we."