Repentance and Redemption

So we sent to church in Cecily's ward yesterday because Cecily and Jason were Mary and Joseph in the sharing time nativity scene and Cecily sang a Christmas lullaby. She, Arinda, and Saylem were also in the ward choir that performed in Sacrament Meeting.

Tressa was kind of wild until Jason took her out, but after that she was very good and even WHISPERED. She and Treyjen actually shared a little pocket comb/mirror and said "please" and "thank you" (AFTER they grabbed it away from the other person, made them angry, and were instructed to "give it back." They were then prompted to ask nicely and prompted to share.) They actually did it! Hooray for them for being so good!

The Destroying Angel

Today Tressa came over! Whew, I'm exhausted already. We went over to Muriel's so the Cecily's girls could help her arrange her Christmas Village.

"Oh, don't you look just like princess," Muriel said.

"Well, she may look like a princess," I said, "but she is a destroyer on two legs."

She runs around creating messes, disassembling , and scattering things. And she is especially quick at doing these things if it is something she knows she shouldn't touch or has been told, "no-no". Cecily told me that last night after she had been put to bed and Cecily had gone to bed too, she got up, took of all her clothes, climbed out of bed, took a blue marker and wrote all over the floor, doors, and walls in the hall and then jumped on Saylem and Treyjen who were in their beds and asleep and woke them up because she wanted to play with them.

Doesn't that picture of her at the top of the page look like she is extremely gratified because she got away with doing something she was told not to?
Most of the time she looks angelic. Looks can be deceiving.

Cecily has been asked to play Mary, the mother of Jesus for church this Sunday and sing "Mary's Lullaby." She needs to have a "Mary" costume. So we were trying to make that costume when she came over today. Cecily laid down on the floor so I could draw on the fabric where I needed to cut it to make the costume. Cecily and I thought it was extremely silly and we were laughing so hard I could barely take the picture. We took these pictures for you Anna. We knew you would appreciate it. (Can you tell Ces is laughing?)

Merry Christmas!!

I just want to recognize that this holiday season is about, for, and in reverence to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for His love and sacrifice for us and for God’s love for us. I spent the past week preparing a talk for sacrament meeting about God’s Love and crying tears of gratitude that I am getting quite dehydrated. I am glad that I am past the public delivery part, but I am so grateful and never want to get past the gratitude.

I know that very few people ever look at my blog (probably because I haven’t been good at keeping it updated and most people don’t know I even have one or much care to read my random ramblings) so I decided to write a Christmas Letter.

David and I are just glad to be alive. We both had surgery recently and have had a much harder time trying to recover than either one of us expected. It has changed our lives considerably and we both hope that the changes aren’t permanent. And yes, we still love each other very much, in spite of the fact that our “discussions” sometimes get very impassioned and loud. But I think that most of our family is used to that. We’ve been doing that for about forty years (last June we celebrated our 40^th Wedding Anniversary). David’s mother Eilene died last month. It is hard to see the passing of those we love, but she was ready to go and rejoin her husband Victor, whom she missed terribly. Funerals aren’t quite so sad when the person being honored had a life well lived. That was very true of Eilene.

Christian and Leslie are doing well. They sometimes bemoan the fact that when you’re capable and responsible, you don’t get a lot of sympathy or help. I’m sure that’s true, but I want them to know that they have a lot of appreciation and respect coming from us. Christian often feels that the “church work” is endlessly long. I told him once that I expected he would be dragged to the Celestial Kingdom kicking and screaming. Their girls are doing well. Britt is 15 now and a sophomore at Mesa High, excelling academically and an absolutely lovely person to be around. The same can be said about Annika (except for the sophomore and 15 part since she is in Junior High and 13). She loves performing and always has her nose in a book. Kaisa (age 10 and also lovely) is being homeschooled this year so she spends most of her time with Mom and Sofia. Sofia is 4 and a cutie. She constantly comes up with interesting observations and totally unique ways of expressing them. They are all wonderful and I could write volumes on each person – which time and space prohibit.

Greg and Jen are living in Florence, Arizona. And No, they aren’t in prison. There are things in Florence other than the state prison, and it has been growing so fast, they keep dividing the wards every other month (well, almost). Their ward was just divided and Jen now constitutes the whole remaining Primary Presidency. Greg has been working on his Master’s Degree and has had to give up sleeping in order to fit everything in. Danny and Hunter are getting bigger (and Hunter especially taller) and along with Jilly (2) keep their parents hopping. The girls (Kendall, Madison and Hana) live with their mom during the week and come to Florence on weekends. I often wish they lived closer, but I’m sure they are where they ought to be.

Cecily and Jason live in Gilbert (Only about 10 miles from Mesa) and just got back from a vacation to Disneyland. Cecily is pretty much “Superwoman” but cannot see how that could possibly be, because she has no actual “ super powers” and has to do things the old fashioned way of mere mortals. Arinda, Saylem, Treyjen, and Tressa are wonderful, unique and interesting people and lots of fun. Our whole family enjoys the extra effort Jason has made this past year to spend more time with us and we really enjoy his company.

Joel is still alive. His house caught fire on Easter morning, but no one was hurt. He now has a new house (the inside, at least) that he is enjoying much more than he did the old one. I hope that is not too much information for me to give out. I made a serious mistake several years ago in writing a Christmas letter (that I never sent) when I said some things I shouldn’t have about Joel . He never forgave me and still distrusts me to this day.

Anna and Nate are still living in Manhattan. Anna is living the dream, living and dancing in NEW YORK CITY (and wherever else they travel to). She is a member of the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company and enjoys it very much. Nate is an excellent trumpet player and works a lot, but Anna doesn’t seem to know much about what he is doing. My best source of information about Nate is his dad. Steve Botts usually knows the details about his son’s career and is very willing to talk about him. Hmmm. I guess I should have called him before I wrote this. Then I would have something to write.

I love my family, but often miss the old days when all my children were under one roof. I really enjoy all the additions to our family since then and wouldn’t want to give them up. Wouldn’t it be great to have EVERYBODY living in my house? (I’m afraid we’d all go crazy!)

Christmas letters make me very nervous anymore. I’m afraid I’ll say the wrong thing. I love you and hope you have had a good year and wish you the best in the coming year (Oh yeah, and David does too!).

Take a deep breath and sit down. Ready? Yes, I have finally come out of the deep, dark cave and re-entered blog society.

Well, I've been busy! I have been

• NOT using my right upper appendage (and when you're right-handed, that's pretty hard),
• trying to steam clean my carpets (half- done and I was too exhausted to continue),
  
• carrying hundreds of ice packs to the recliner and back,
  
• recording So You Think You Can Dance onto DVD,
• trying to reconstruct a whole year of business records in anticipation of taxes (because I did such a sloppy job of keeping records this year),
  
• worrying about a talk I have to give in sacrament THIS SUNDAY! about God's love (that I haven't prepared yet),
  
• berating myself for not having my Visiting Teaching done,
  
• trying to remember to take my aminos six times a day (in the past 6 weeks there was ONE day that I managed to take all of them),
• locking myself out of houses and trying to find someone who could crawl through a small bathroom window,
  
• supporting a ward member who had a leading role in Remembering White Christmas,
• going to physical therapy and doctor appointments,
  
• going to Las Vegas for Grandma Woolf's funeral,
• hours and hours of talking to loved ones on the telephone so I can stay connected with them and try to understand and encourage them in their very busy and stressful lives,
• running down to Mesa Frozen Yogurt for a quick impromptu reunion with kids and grandkids (thank goodness it's close),
  
• collecting mountains of doctor and hospital bills,
  
• feeling sad because we have no outside Christmas Lights,
  
• enjoying watching Joel get excited about Christmas for the first time in over 20 years and seeing him ecstatically happy,
  
• fish sitting,
  
• and trying to collect as many hugs, kisses, and "I love you Grandma"-'s as I can.
  

And that's only part of my list, but it's getting too long.


I missed posting anything for Thanksgiving and I have many, many things to be grateful for:

• that David was able to come and have Thanksgiving dinner with the family
• that Joel came for the first time in many years instead of traipsing around distant lands, and brought Camie, Jacob, and Emma too.
• that Cecily and Jason graciously open their home and host Thanksgiving for us
• a wonderful, loving, thoughtful, considerate family
• the Gospel, the temple
  
• homes, food, safety, health, etc., etc.,

Joel is so excited for Christmas! He knows what toys and entertainments are most desirable for 4 and 6-year olds, having researched all this, and calls me as he is driving home from work to tell me about the great bargains he has found. (I worry about him talking and driving though.) But his excitement grows every day.

As you can read, lack of sanity and normalcy reigns in my life.

Fresh little faces

Tressa comes up with some of the funniest faces AND some of the cutest.














Here are the results of one photo session.

What faces. Maybe we should try labeling the expressions. Wait 'til you see the others!

I love photographs. I'm sure that I love them more than your average person. In my next life, I want to be a dancer and a photographer.
Mostly I love photographs of people I love. Then maybe of places that I love.

I have two of the most wonderful, beautiful daughters in the whole world. They are so much more beautiful than I could ever think of being. I love to look at them.

And even though they are beautiful to look at, they are even more beautiful inside. My girls are strong, determined, kind, gentle and in tune with their Heavenly Father.

The Flora

All the beautiful flowers I had in my yard are all gone! Kaput! Dried up and blown away. All those colorful photos I posted -- here's what's left.


Oh, there are some green leaves left, but a lot of them are brown. A lot of the green you see in the background is the grass or weeds that have grown up around the roses. Weeds grow very well in Arizona.
These photos are my hydrangea and my geranium. (If the photos end up where I think I am inserting them. Okay, so that didn't work. How in the heck do you get the photos placed where you want them or at least get the text near the photos you are commenting on????) I need blogging lessons. All the pictures I try to add go up by the other pictures. What am I doing wrong?
So the two photos of the pots with dried up, brown sticks are my hydrangea and my geranium (and for some reason the hydrangea is turned sideways). I am not sure what happened to my hydrangea. I was able to keep it alive all through last summer but I guess some kind of bug got to it. It just died. I have never been able to keep a geranium alive through a summer. I even buy the "Zonal" geraniums which are supposed to make it through the hot Arizona summers. NOT! At least for me. Goodbye green thumb, hello brown thumb.
Report Card:
Blogging grade . . . F

Deep Thoughts (By Jack Handy????)

Actually, my thoughts aren't all that deep. I just tend to think more in the early morning hours that I do during the rest of the day. Maybe that is why morning prayers are so important. Growing up, I was taught to say bedtime prayers. It wasn't until I was quite a bit older that I started saying evening prayers.

• Thought: I went out to water my few remaining (brown, scraggly, sick-looking) plants this morning while I was still barefoot, and I noticed that there were patches of my lawn that were very warm. I don't know why. At first, I thought that maybe a cat had been lying in that spot and warmed it up. . . but there were three or four spots (1 to 2 feet in diameter) that were warm and there aren't that many cats roaming the neighborhood right now, nor would four of them come lie on the same lawn at the same time and all run away when I came out. That is strange.

• Thought: I'm going to give up sugar. Well, sort of. I know I am addicted to sugar. I also feel that part of the reason that so many of the joints in my body are sore and ache all the time is because I eat too much sugar. Besides, even if that is not the reason I ache, overcoming my addiction to sugar is a good idea anyway. I think that after I have gone month or more without sugar, that maybe I can introduce it again into my diet in small, controlled amounts. (I just can't imagine a life totally devoid of ANY frozen yogurt.) I guess we'll see how that goes. We had a lesson in R.S. last Sunday on Self Discipline and how to put it into practice in our lives. I asked Edonna for a copy so I could bring it home and study it more.
• Thought: I am grateful for my son-in-laws who have been very good to me lately. It adds tremendously to my general well-being and enjoyment of life. I appreciate that Jason is willing to look at me and see who I am instead of who he thought I would be or expected me to be.
• Thought: I have had an "empty nest" for about seven years now and it is still hard for me. I miss family. I miss having children around. I miss the bustle and the noise. I am glad that Christian and Leslie and Cecily and Jason live close enough and will let me just "drop in" sometimes to partake of family life. I'm glad that Jen is willing to make the long drive. On the other hand, it is a good thing that I don't have children 24/7 because my body is just getting worn out. Mentally and emotionally I want that. Physically sometimes, I just can't do it.
  

The flowers are all DEAD!

They really are. The rose bushes are probably still alive, but everything else is dead except for my asparagus fern and the lantana. Even the hybrid, heat-resistant plants died. It just got too hot this summer.

So it's been three months since I last posted anything. But I've been gone. In May Jennie and Ken invited David and I to come stay with them in Las Vegas where they were taking Ryan and Britni for an extra wedding gift trip. We had fun being with Jennie and family and they weather was nice, but I really dislike Las Vegas. It just seems so sleazy and degenerate to me.

In June I went to New York. I bought a ticket to be there for Anna's jaw surgery and then the surgery got postponed. I missed Anna so much and was so stressed out about other unsettling things that I just decided to go anyway. Joel went too and we had a great time, but I was gone for 10 whole days!

Three days after returning from NYC, I left for Utah, driving up with the duPonts (all but Jason). We were gone the 7th of July through the 17th. David flew up the evening of the 10th and drove back to Arizona with us.

Anna came out to Arizona on July 21st and stayed until August 5th.
On August 6th we had planned to go to Las Vegas again for David's 46th year high school class reunion. David's mom, Eilene, had gone to stay in a private home where she could have companionship and nursing care (as needed) and no one was living in her house. Vicki said that we could come stay in her home. We asked her if it was okay if Jennie and Ken came and stayed with us while we were there and she said it was fine. So Jennie and Ken met us in Las Vegas for a quick four-day vacation without kids. (The first time Jennie left without Kasia since she was diagnosed with diabetes.)

Hey! This one never got posted. I guess because I never finished it. Oh well. I'll just post this much and tell you about the rest of my summer later. Let's see how these photos diplay.

Just Photos (mostly flowers)

So here are my photos of my flowers. I have no idea why this text is underlined. The older I get the less I know.

De-junking! Clean it out! Toss it!

The garage is about half-way done here. The dirt and junk doesn't really show up too well.

I still have a lot to do. I guess we are going to have a garage sale next Saturday. We are getting rid of lots of stuff. Stuff that has been sitting around gathering dust for 30 years or so. I appreciate the help received by Cecily, Leslie, Christian, Joel, Arinda, Britt, Annika, Kaisa and of course Sofia and Tressa who supplied the diversion and entertainment.

More pictures will follow.

Sunday Dinners

I love the monthly Sunday dinner tradition and I don't think we would be doing it without Leslie really pushing it. Actually, she started talking about doing it ten or more years ago but we never really did anything about it. She got a little more aggressive about doing it and we finally got it going. I think the first one was at Joel's last labor day, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it is really good. It makes me more grateful for my family every time we get together. Let's see if I have any photos from past get-togethers.

Some of these photos look like they kind of need some explanation. But I'm not explaining. We just had a lot of fun. Some Sunday dinners it is just the Woolf extended family and sometimes it includes the Russells or some of the Parkers or some of Joel's roommates or other people. Our family never was quite big enough so we just kept adding to it. Sometimes permanently and sometimes temporarily - mostly depending on the inclinations of the "additions."

Oh, and we have to include the photos of Jennie and Chica's wardrobe. They were kind of interesting too.