THANK-FULL!!

Yes! I'm gonna have another cute grandbaby! Just got news today that Zadee is giving up "baby of the family" honors! And exactly according to Damian and Amy's plan... :) Having a July baby makes it ever so much more convenient for the piano-teaching-during-the-school-year grandmas to go help out. AND hopefully, the current family of four will be able to make a trip out west in April!

I am also THANKFUL to have just submitted my last paper for my Psychology class. I maybe should have held onto it, and reworked it a dozen more times (it may not show up as being submitted until Monday anyway, because of Thanksgiving), but it is time for a break!! I just couldn't resist to check it off my list. I may take the final on the 12th instead of the 5th. But the finish line IS in sight!

Keaton is also registered as a full-time student in January. We'll both be taking a biology course. Cute, annit? ("Annit!" Where did that come from?! Actually, it was a very common thing said by my Indian foster sister, Darlene Beartusk. Blast from the past...)

I am thankful for ALL of my family! 'Looking forward to those who will be here tomorrow and will be thinking of all the rest!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Half Time!

I've survived HALF of my Independent Study Course! Took my midterm exam on Friday. 'Still hangin' in there! :) I hope the 2nd half will go even better now that I know better what I need to be looking for as far as the exams go. Damian, "our" chapter on genetics was one of my best on the midterm! Thanks for your help...

There's more good news... I was late getting my application in, but BYU has granted me permission to register for the human biology class in January. (The one I thought I'd have to take from Dr. Shively at UVU). And better than that, "senior citizens" (indivijals that are 55 and older!) can audit one class a semester at BYU for just $10.00 a class!! How crazy is that? Since these other two classes I want to take are recommended and not required, I'm gonna save myself over $1800! To say nothing of the stress of actually performing well on exams!! Of course, if I don't get accepted into the Master's program, I won't worry about the second class next summer...

So.... I took Ava on a date last night. I called Devon and Alicia on Friday morning to offer having the little girls come over while they went on a date Friday night. I actually talked to Ava, too, about having a "date night" with Grandma. It never occurred to me that she would think WE would GO somewhere. But she was all excited about "going on a date" and even wondered what she would do for money...

Well, I ended up studying ALL day Friday for my midterm - didn't leave home until 4:30 and didn't get out of the testing center until 6:30 p.m. (Then I took Gregan to buy groceries and did some errands). So I felt bad that I stood up Ava.

So Saturday late afternoon we had a date. We went to McDonalds and had yummy food and she played in the slides and we played some "hoops." Finally we decided it was time to go home. Just as we reached the door to leave McDonalds, who did we see, but her dad! Devon had decided to either return or pick up a DVD from there. When Ava saw him, she had a most disgusted look on her face. "Dad! What are you doing here?" As we got in the van, she was still muttering... "Gosh..." Devon's going to have to be much more discreet than that if he wants to tail her on dates with guys in a few years!! hehehe

I am very favorable to your making your blogs private, Damian and Devon and wives. I think it would be a good idea for all of us. You know my e-mail so I hope I get an invite!

Gregan, I think you owe your fans a report of your GRE testing last week. Tuesday was a very good day for Obama AND for Gregan. He scored very, very well on his GRE test. (BTW, I learned in my psychology class that 60% of IQ is attributable to genetics). :) Of course, so are a lot of other things.... :(

'Sure wish Rudy and Jaron had been here for our family birthday dinner last week. I hope someone treats you both well next weekend. Maybe you outta get together! We look forward to your LONG visits in December!

I'm still impressed with the theme of optimism that seemed to pervade the last General Conference:

"Come what may, and love it."

"Hope in Jesus the Christ, in the goodness of God, in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit."

"Express...gratitude always and thus find joy in the journey."

Gregan's a blogger!!!

Check it out!! He's been lurking. I, for one, am going to try his CTR's!!! :)

Does anyone remember me?

I feel pretty out of the loop... I have kept my nose buried in my Abnormal Psychology books for the past 3 weeks. I have completed 7 out of 18 lessons. I hope to finish lessons 8 and 9 this week and then spend next week preparing for the midterm. I would like to FINISH this course by the first week of December! That would be a great Christmas gift to myself. (And my only hope that any of YOU will get a Christmas gift!!) :)

I am looking forward to our family birthday dinner on Sunday. Jaron and Rudy, what do you want to request?!? I really wish you could BOTH be here... Kindy has requested Cafe Rio burritos and Gregan has asked for the 4 layer dessert (with chocolate pudding). Kryn, we need a salad choice from YOU! I am READY for a party!

Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.

So! There you have it!

The next chapter...

Well, for better or worse, things are full speed ahead for my returning to college...!! I can't believe that it has only been WITHIN the last 2 weeks that the thought even occurred to me to look into going back to school. The last 10 days have been crazy full, trying to line up all my little ducks.

I have all the pre-requisite classes done (thanks to my undergraduate work at BYU), but there are 3 "recommended courses" that I feel like I really need to do, to be competitive for the Master's program. I have completed the first assignment in the "Abnormal Psychology" class that I am taking Independent Study. And have realized (with HORROR!) that my only option for completing the Anatomy and Physiology course is with the dreaded Dr. Shively at UVU!! Do any of you remember Kindy's nightmare? But that course is not offered Independent Study by either university, I've missed BYU's deadline for taking it on campus in January, it isn't offered in the summer months at BYU, and Dr. Shively is the ONLY instructor of that class on the Orem UVU campus... Eeeeek!

Anyway, thanks for all your voices of support. I realize this is a huge gamble, but I really feel like I need to give it my best shot. Otherwise, I'll always wonder, "what if..."

Keaton is in New York today. He just spent the last few days with his dad in Washington DC. I'll be glad to have him home on Tuesday! He has a job interview on Wednesday, so he might be working here, very presently...

So... Spiche was a sandwich... Naw! How did that pop up?

But speaking of Spiche... So! I thought, we are probably in her last weeks, right? How long would it take for her to develop urinary crystals again (the reason for her needing a $60/month meal ticket)? I decided I could probably feed her regular dog food and save a bundle of money, and she wouldn't suffer the more for it, right? So the food she's been getting the past 3 weeks is a Pedigree variety - especially for older dogs - with stuff that help their joints. She's still getting her arthritis meds, and... she has a whole lot more spunk than she has in a long while! Hmmmmm....

I am loving the Psychology class I'm taking. I'll share with you of the "headings" for some of the lessons:

It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts... (G.D. Burgin)

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher... (Ambrose Bierce)

If you are going through hell, keep going... (Sir Winston Churchill)

Life's a trip, isn't it? :)

'Can't wait for Thursday... I'm going to Florida!!

Settling in...

Well, the last month has been pretty tumultuous. :)

I had a very nice day in Burley on the day of my sister's funeral. Buzz, Betty, Dal, Jane, Edith, Al, Howard, Gloria, and I spent a couple of hours at the mortuary that morning. After the services at the cemetery, we enjoyed a long afternoon at the church where Peggie's ward provided a meal. A few nieces, nephews and others were there, as well. It was a sobering, but also a healing time for our family. However, Elaine's kids aren't doing so well...

The day before I went to Burley for Elaine's funeral, I got a call from Keaton. I expected that he would stay in the mission field while options were explored for helping him deal with some pretty serious issues of depression. On Saturday afternoon, the stake president called to let me know that Keaton would be in Salt Lake on Tuesday morning...

Funny story... that trip to the airport on Tuesday morning. I taught piano lessons that morning from 7:00 a.m. until 9:30 a.m. Then my visiting teacher came over around 9:40. I told her at 9:55, thanks for coming, and now I need to get the sheets on Keaton's bed, and head to the airport. We were still visiting at the door when Devon called to see why I hadn't gotten there yet. He said I told him I'd pick them up at 9:30. I said, no, I'll be there at 10:30. Keaton's plane doesn't get in until 11:00... AAAAAAHHHH - ELEVEN!! I jumped in the van at 10:05, picked up Devon, Alicia and the girls (Devon had to put their car seats in the van etc), stopped at Macey's for a balloon bouquet that Devon had called ahead to order, and we got to the airport at 11:10... (I asked Devon if he wanted to drive, but he has most of his points taken care of and could not afford to get a speeding ticket, so if we had to speed, nope, he wouldn't be driving. Yeah, I'd say we broke one or two speed limits...) I jumped out of the van curbside and I walked into the airport just as Keaton was walking toward the first baggage claim area... Poor Ava never did get out of the van. She had looked forward to seeing the planes etc. And Alicia was hidden in the back seat by that big bouquet of balloons all the way to Salt Lake and back... I don't want to ever have to hurry again - EVER!!

The next weekend, we girls had our much referred to (in other blogs) TOFW weekend. Jaron is obviously not too keen on the "you had to be there" reporting of that weekend. But you really did need to be. We were at IHOP for 2 hours late Friday night. ALL the food was late being served. And then the waitress admitted that Tressa's hadn't even been ordered - as well as part of Kindy's order. After another long wait, we learned they were actually out of crepes - the thing Tressa ordered. (How do you run out of crepes at a restaurant?) And it seems there were not the toppings or fillings etc. that others had ordered. All of us ordered breakfast foods. My poor pancakes looked like the first ones of the batch that I usually throw away - unless I give them to Spiche. Others had burnt tasting hash browns and other entrees that were way subpar. It was after midnight when we left. However, because of all the delays and errors, we did get ALL of our meals for "free." Understanding that most of the problems belonged to the cooks in the kitchen, we still left our waitress a tip. And we certainly paid a lot in the time we spent. (Ladies in the booth next to ours were also having trouble being serviced. The next morning they sat behind us at the Event, and reported that one of their group never got her order, either. They were also there almost 2 hours...) And then on the way out, a group of 8 guys were sitting in the middle section of the restaurant. I think it was Alicia that reported that they were goggling at Kindy and one of them told the others that she didn't have a ring on her finger! See... you kind of had to be there. But we laughed a LOT.

OH! And all of that was even "funnier" because we had hiked the entire campus to find a place to find food before the Friday evening event. We finally ended up at the Student Junction, where on-campus students eat. The cashier spoke little English. He sent us into the cafeteria first, leading us to understand we would pay later. That obviously wasn't right. (Although we realized later we could have gotten anything we wanted and walked out without paying - no one asked to see proof that we had paid). So we spent $7.00 for sandwiches that we barely had time to inhale before we had to hoof it back to the hall for the TOFW event. Oh! the cashier clapped his hands and thanked very much those who were able to give him exact change!! My friend, Pam, was especially done in by all our "trucking" - looking for food...

Fortunately, the actual TOFW event was wonderful... As reported by the girls in their blogs. (Even the meal served at noon on Saturday was wonderful. Catered by the Lion House pantry).

On the heels of these other events, I have been diving into the new school year. Our new principal has really pushed to get the Star Reading schedule set and running much earlier than was the case last year. So I have been kind of just hanging on for dear life to get to the end of this school week. 'Didn't even have any more wiggle room to reschedule my classes etc. (because of the other rearrangements I've already had to make in the past 3 weeks) to play the organ for Orlynn Sheen's funeral today. So Keaton did that for me! He said it went fine. But I forgot to clue him in to whether or not he should play while the casket and family entered the chapel etc. So he played it by ear, and evidently did okay!

So there you have it, Jaron, and anyone else who feels they missed out on something. Does anyone feel better now? :)

BTW, the past week or two have been much better for Spiche. Gregan reasons that she has had access to a computer, and has been following the ongoing debate concerning her imminent demise, and has perked herself up to delay the inevitable. And that's okay. I'll probably even refill her prescription in the next couple of days. I appreciate the dialogue and the point that we have reached. 'Just taking things a day at a time now.

Well, THIS has certainly turned into a very LONG blog... So until later... :)

My sister, Elaine

I got news last night that Elaine passed away. It certainly wasn't expected this soon, but the way it happened was more merciful than it might have been...

I'm satisfied that she is happier than she's been in at least 4 years. She's had a long-awaited reunion with her three sons. And she's never been okay with Mom's passing. She's missed her so much, and couldn't understand how any of us could be at peace with it. I suspect that things have even gotten sorted out with Dad. :)

Graveside services will be held on Friday in Burley, as per her wishes. The family is giving her son, Denny, time to get home from Iraq to attend...

Final Round - City Council

Well, I hope it was the final round... I came home last night feeling pretty beat up. I had 5 friends/supporters attend the work session with me. We thought we had hammered out a fair contract. Both sides had made compromises and they conceded on the 3 issues I still had concerns about.

Then as they got to our part of the agenda during the city council meeting that followed, Lynn Durrant (friend, neighbor, and city councilwoman) made it clear that the contract the council had in their hands, was not the same as the one she had forwarded to me, which I had forwarded to those who were there with me. Reid Nelson and Bob and Judy Walton didn't stay for the 7:00 meeting, so I was there with 2 other piano teachers to start from square one again in our negotiations. In the end, I guess I have to be happy with my "victory." The city council vote was 3-2 in favor of the $100 price tag for a 4 hour event - NO cookies. :(

I remain amazed that the process was so difficult and prolonged. The mayor promised that the city will "watch" and re-evaluate in another year. I believe that they are not planning to make it any easier to retain the agreement that they voted on last night. But for now I am very glad to have a period at the end of the sentence.

Salem Days weekend

It's been a great weekend, having Rudy and Jaron home, and also Tressa, Kindy, Gregan, and Devon's family spending so much time here. Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed very much her birthday party. And the Salem Days pageant and fireworks were pretty great. I don't remember EVER sitting through Salem Days fireworks in pouring rain! But the loud claps and lightning strikes seemed almost choreographed to the rest of the show.

Thanks to all of you for your efforts to be here... I'm excited that I was able to get a ticket to Florida for October.

Kryn gets home from France 2 weeks from today! Keaton, I'm loving your happy mission reports!

The Church is still true... :)

Kindy has a blog!! AND I have a "Thought" for you :)

Check out Kindy's blog! You can access it from this blog if she doesn't send you an e-mail with her address before you get this...

And I've been conducting a little survey. I told Gregan AND Kindy that I have written to all of you each week for the past 4 years, principally to share a very profound "thought of the week" that will likely change your lives. (wink....)

Well, since I've been blogging, Gregan and Kindy admit that they didn't even know I'd included a thought each week... (growl...) When they get the e-mail alert that there has been a new post, they may or may not actually open up the blog. And even when they have done, they have not noticed the little thought. Like Gregan said, he's taking the bait without the hook... (sigh...)

Is there any hope? Or are my efforts totally in vain? :)

I still love you all.
And the Church IS still true! (thumb up...)
(I seriously need some emoticons on this site!!!!)

A blog-post for Kindy

I was talking to Kindy last night. She had already spent over an hour trying to get home (there was an overturned semi, I remembered later). She was literally stuck on the road - not moving anywhere, so she called to let me help her pass away the time.

I told her that I thought she should start a blog. And that Tressa, Jaron, Kryn, and Gregan should, too!

For one thing, Folks, if you were to have a blog, the thing I ask you to do for Christmas would be DONE!! Since you can copy and paste whatever you write in a blog to Microsoft Word, it would be the easiest thing in the world to edit, add, delete and have it to me ON TIME. Which, this year will need to be a Thanksgiving deadline, on account of needing to have it done in time to mail to Brazil...

More discussion on that point later... But IF Kindy had a blog, this might be a story she would have shared...

You may know that she has a new boyfriend. We'll call him Jake, since that's really his name. She told me one day that she can't wait for the family to meet Jake (which for most of us will be at the Anderson Family reunion and for Salem Days. He actually volunteered to come, and he's even looking forward to it!) She's especially excited because she believes her brothers will be proud of her for finally having a boyfriend that's "normal." (She says his family is soooo much like ours. I ask you, IS that NORMAL?) :)

Well, aside from loving to laugh and play games and stuff and stuff, I've learned that Jake shares at least a couple of other qualities with some of her brothers. For one thing, he cuts his own hair, AND he has a propensity for damaging and/or losing cell phones.

Sunday afternoon I got a tearful phone call from Kindy saying that Jake was AWOL. She is so absolutely assured that he wouldn't go missing without a really serious reason, she started fearing the absolute worst on Saturday night when he didn't come to her place after work. Or at least call her - UNLESS there was a problem with his phone. He didn't know her phone number, OR her e-mail address - except for the one at work.

Evidently, the plans for Saturday were tentative enough that Jake didn't want to drive all the way to her place without knowing for sure that she would be there. Kindy checked her work e-mail address on Sunday morning at 10:30, just in case he would have thought about that. Well, he did -- at 10:40! So Kindy told her bishop, her visiting teacher, her home teacher, and her mom that she feared he'd been in a terrible accident. Of course, his family wouldn't know how to contact her. She had called the 2 major hospitals in Salt Lake to see if he were there...

I offered to drive to Orem (where his parents live) to see if they knew where Jake was. Kindy decided to give it one more day...

At 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, she was still beside herself. Had watched movies and puttered in her garden, trying not to think about it. By then she was resigned to waiting until Monday morning when she could learn something at the hospital where they both work. I don't remember how she finally discovered that he had left a message at her work e-mail address - maybe she just checked it again. But at 8:30 p.m. she finally called me. Ohhhh the relief! She was laughing and crying and saying that she "was going to kill him" now that she'd found out he wasn't dead! :)

(She says the worst of it all, is that she is BECOMING HER MOTHER! She has always vowed to NOT worry about someone's whereabouts like I did during her teen-age years. But she does, and ALL of you WILL, when one of YOURS goes missing...)

It turns out that this is not the first time Jake has lost his phone or that it got damaged in the 3 1/2 weeks that they have been dating. Does that remind any of the rest of you of someone in our family that we love?

I like Jake already... 'Can't wait to meet him and his little 2-year-old boy, Jackson, next weekend.

Florida day lilies

Amy, for the past couple of years, I wondered if the day lilies your dad gave to us would ever thrive. I thought maybe this Utah dessert just wasn't the right climate. Well, we had a little trouble getting our sprinkler system reset this summer. Devon and Gregan both worked on it. It was a few days after Gregan had "fixed" it, that I realized that the sprinklers were running every 12 hours every day! It was just the jump start the day lilies needed. They are beautiful! The pictures don't really do them justice.

Anyway, I think of Billy often when I look at them. 'Makes me feel like you guys are all just a little bit closer! :)

Taking On City Hall

When Devon and Alicia were here a couple of days ago, he read a little blurp in the Spanish Fork Press that he assumed I would put in my blog. I hadn't thought I would, but this issue HAS been heavy on my mind in the past few weeks as I wrote a letter to the mayor and prepared a presentation for our most recent Salem City Council. Says the reporter in her article:

"The council decided to add work session discussion for Community Center rates which they nearly had set. A citizen complained heatedly about the cost of putting on her piano recitals under the proposed rate system. Council members who heretofore had stood firm on the center rates, decided to discuss the rate structure again in a work session."

I take exception to the word "heatedly." I did say in summary that I thought it was "crazy" that the council couldn't (1) Clearly outline a policy for renting the Center (using the rates that our citizen task force recommended 15 months ago!), (2) State what the penalties are for violations of the contract agreement, and (3) Enforce the terms of the agreement. :)

The bottom line is that there will be "changes" to the increased fees decided upon a month ago, AND the mayor already assured me that they will lift the Thursday restriction for events like piano recitals... I (and whoever I can get to go with me) will meet with the council during their work session on August 20 to hammer out details that maybe we can all agree with...

THANKS for getting your tributes for the gramma in! They were all wonderful! I added photos to those who didn't have them. I'm sure Grandma will read and reread them many times.

Please let me know if you are keeping in the loop with this blog. 'Still trying to decide what to do with the "Thoughts of the Week" section. I'll probably start deleting the old ones now...

The Church is still true!

Sibling get-together

I enjoyed very much my visit with 4 of my siblings. Buzz and Betty's granddaughter had a baby last week. They knew ahead of time that the baby wasn't developing normally, and she was born very early and lived only 27 minutes. The funeral for this little great granddaughter was Friday, and Buzz had taken that day off work. Since the other driver was on vacation this week, Buzz couldn't get off work to spend the day with us.

So Dal, Jane and I got to Howard and Gloria's in Jerome around 9:00 p.m. on Sunday. We visited and laughed until late. The next morning we met Edith, Al, and Elaine at the Twin Falls temple for the open house. It's an interesting temple! The main floor is designated for the youth and baptisms. They go right beyond the recommend desk to go to the baptistry. The other dressing rooms and endowment rooms are all on the 2nd floor. It's a very small temple, but it has the largest sealing room of any other temple.

No one is sure what is happening with Elaine. There's a new dark shadow on her right lung. Not sure if it's cancer or not. She has a PET scan every 4 weeks to watch it. She's on oxygen all the time. But she's doing much better at the lower altitude (moved from Denver).

Edith is also on oxygen most of the time. And Howard had surgery on his foot (to remove a bone spur from his heel) 3 weeks ago. So the able-bodied pushed and helped along the non-abled bodies. It was quite a sight... :)

After we went to the temple open house, we ate at a Golden Corral restaurant, and visited there and at "home" for the rest of the afternoon. We hope to make this an annual event. Maybe Elaine will even still be here for the next one. (Howard told me that he wanted to challenge her to make a goal to receive her endowment when we meet again next summer, but didn't do it on Monday. I wouldn't be surprised if he does it at some point, though.)

Howard's the stake Young Men's president. They (and all of the 14 stakes in the region) have worked very hard for the past year to prepare for this temple open house and for the cultural program the youth will do for the dedication. However, President Monson has decided this will be the last of that kind of event. Too much money and time required for a very huge number of people. It was a President Hinckley kind of event... :)

End of Life Stuff...

What a depressing heading so early in this blog... But today I travel to Burley to have a get-together with my 5 siblings. My sister Elaine is dying of lung cancer. We haven't all been together since our mom died in October of 2004. So I think it possible that we won't be together again before this disease takes her...

I also had a very long night nursing the family pet. We've been careful not to let Spiche run around too much. She's confined to the house and the back yard. As Kryn observed, she's the "only animal on the planet that doesn't learn 'cause and effect.'" According to X-rays taken earlier this year, her hip sockets are no more - just bone on bone. In spite of costly medications, she is too lame some days to make it up just a step or two. I've started lifting her hind quarters to help her get her legs under her, but it's still hard for her to maneuver stairs, and even on level ground, she often drags herself to move even short distances. At other times of the day, she moves pretty normally.

Last night I told her it was time to go to bed. She seemed especially stiff and I couldn't bear to watch her struggle, so I got myself ready for bed and then came back to the family room to see what progress she'd made. Not much. I lifted her back end and finally she hobbled to the top of the stairs. She looked at me so mournfully...but I can't lift Spiche's whole body. So again I left her for a few minutes so she could figure things out the best she could. I knew from the thud, that the last 2-3 steps had not been pretty. I sat on the bottom step and had a conversation with her.

She's been having a LOT of accidents in the house. I told her we needed to go out to go potty. Let's go out the front door. I opened the door, and she just looked at me... I asked her if she could make it to the basement. I lifted her back end again... but she just flopped back down. We both had tears, I believe.

I brought her pillow up to the landing and told her it was okay to sleep there...really it was! When I've tried this before (in the upstairs family room), she heads to the basement as soon as I turn out the lights. So last night I left the light on in the basement hallway. And I barricaded the steps going UP with two folding chairs (again so we wouldn't have more accidents on the carpet upstairs during the night). By now it was nearly 1:00 a.m. I went to bed and heard her whimper. About 10 minutes later, the folding chairs crashed... I finally coaxed her outside to do "her business." And then she hobbled back inside. I took her pillow back down to "her room."

She finally made it downstairs and even got on her pillow. (A couple of weeks ago, after a pretty vigorous day, she took another agonizingly long time to get down the stairs. The next morning, I found that only her head had made it to her pillow. She was still there when I went down to open the door).

For all my tough talk about "The Dog," I can't imagine making the decision that "this is the day" that she'll be helped to go to sleep for the last time. But I really feel that that day is coming sooner than we might have guessed. And I hope we ALL can accept it and to let it happen without making this faithful friend hurt too much and too long...

Well, I'm going to go blow my nose and "fix" my face...

I need to pack and get ready to go to Dal and Jane's. They live in American Fork now. I'll ride with them to Burley.

Maybe I'll come back and leave a cheerier note before I leave.

Testing, 1,2,3..

Alicia is coming over with Devon in a few minutes to help me figure this out. I'm just curious if I've done anything right yet... :)

Maiden Voyage

I'm ready to give this the good ole' college try! I expect this will replace my weekly e-mail (boooring...) to my kiddies. Maybe they'll even read it!! (AND respond?!?!?) :)