I love growing things

I love to plant flowers in my yard. I didn't for many years when my kids were small because I didn't think we could afford bedding plants. But then I started to think about my mom and how she always planted pansies, mums, violets, bleeding hearts, honeysuckle, bachelor buttons, gladiolas, etc., etc. I decided that I wanted my kids to remember me for flowers too. But it took me a long time to figure out what would grow in Arizona and when. The ones my mom planted in Utah that will grow here - grow in an entirely different season.
Here are some from my front yard. Oh yeah! And roses. We both love roses.
The Gerber Daisies are for Anna. They are some of her favorites. I haven't figured out how to arrange the pictures on my blog the way I want them to appear and put the notes about my photos next to them. Oh, I'm SO computer illiterate!


I like my
petunias and snapdragons too. They are much prettier this year than they were last year. I guess I'd better quit with the photos. It is going to take forever to load.

I'll show you more flowers later.

My terriffic husband - David!

David has been having a lot of very "unglamorous" medical problems lately. It's been very scary too. A lot of these things that he has to deal with could eventually be fatal. Well, life is actually fatal. What I mean is that some of these things are indicators that David could be moving on a little sooner that the rest of us. But then look at Marcia and Jim. Who would have thought he would ever outlive her!
Just to let everyone I know that I really love David. Here are some of the things I really love about him:

1. He loves the Gospel of Jesus Christ and always tries to fullfill his callings and be a good example to others. Well except for two weeks the summer of 1977. Muriel and West took the older boys to Wyoming with them and while they were gone, David took a vacation from going to church. He stayed home and slept and watched TV andeven washed his car on Sunday. When we got to the end of the second week, David asked me if they were going to be home the next Sunday. When I told him they would, he sighed and said, "Well, I guess I'd better get my butt in gear and get back to being a good example and a Father." I suppose he repented because we haven't noticed any serious lapses since. He's been a pretty darn good example.
2. David loves me. I know that David is not perfect (although I was young enough and foolish enough to think so at first). He makes mistakes and has his faults, but he is almost perfect at loving me. There have been many times when I have been mean and grouchy and absolutely awful! And he loved me. I have weighed more than 200 lbs and was embarrassed to show my face outside the front door. And David loved me anyway. I have been unreasonable, stubborn and critical. And David still loved me. I can trust him. I can depend on him. I believe he will always love me. My Dad loved my mom --"No matter what- - -" and I wanted someone who would love me like that. I think I found him.
3. David is sweet with his grandkids . He loves them and is delighted when they show love to him.
4. He is forgiving. He has been abused and maligned by a few people in his life and he forgives them.
5. He is clean and has good hygiene. He takes good care of his hair and his beard .
6. He listens to me and tries to please me.
   
7. He likes to give me gifts and I am very hard to give gifts to. He has made it a life-long study, trying to find gifts he can give me that I like. Mostly, I guess he just lets me do whatever I want to do and encourages me in it.
8. He is very smart and a fast learner.
9. He's nice to snuggle up next to at night and he makes me feel safe.
10. We can spend hours and hours together and enjoy ourselves the whole time.

I really like having David around. I hope he's here, with me, for many, many, more years!!!

I accept the challenge!

So I googled "Barbara needs --"

1. a good swift kick in the #@$%!!
2. your help. (I'm not sure what kind of help.)
   
3. to be thin again. (Boy, ain't it the truth!)
4. our prayers and thoughts. (There was also - "our prayers and juice" and I thought of Treyjen. He often plops himself down in Grandpa's recliner and tells me "I need Blue's Clues and juice.")
5. to raise her insurance.
6. to go!!!!!
7. to retire. (Don't I wish I could afford to.)
8. to finish the vest (apparently I don't finish all my craft and sewing projects. NO!)
9. to reconsider her definition of "value." (Not sure where this one came from or is going.)
10. people who need people. (If I hum, I get the feeling that I have heard this somewhere before.)

P.S. I am trying to figure out why I can't get my mini-movies off my camera. When I do, you will have something more interesting to look at.

My blogs are booorrring! I never write about anything interesting. But if you want to hear about a lot of blood and misery, just ask David what he has been doing lately. Actually, don't ask. Unless you go far, far away so I don't have to listen to how miserable he has been. Living through it once was enough.
I love him but when he gets scared he has a tendency to get carried away.

Trying to catch up.

Yeah, right! My last blog said, "I'm baaaack!" NOT. I really intended to write more consistently. But this time, instead of feeling too down to write anything, I got too busy. I was anxiously awaiting Jennie's visit and enjoyed it thoroughly. Mostly we visited. I can't think of anything special we did except for going to Quartzite to visit Abe and Marilyn (her biological dad and step-mom). I'm not sure we would have done it had we realized how far away it was. I thought it was about an hour's drive from Phoenix. How about THREE. Which makes it four hours from Mesa. And there is nothing in between. It is almost in Blythe, California. It was a long, miserable drive to make with five complaining kids and one neurotic dog in a car. Actually, the kids weren't really that bad most of the time. But when we were still about an hour from Quartzite, they got hungry and started begging Jennie to stop and get them something to eat. "Sure," said Jennie. "We'll stop anywhere you want." There was nothing but desert, as far as the eye could see. "You just pick out whichever cactus or palo verde tree you want to eat at, and we will stop."

OH, oh, oh! (This is one of Jennie's witicisms that popped out of her mouth one day in Sunday School class.) Why did Jesus love little children so much? (the teacher asked). "Because he never had to travel in a car with them."
Jennie actually said it under her breath to Phil Peterson, but Phil immediately said it loud enough for the whole class to hear.

After Jennie left (I sure miss her) David started working 24/7 on an $8,000,000 bid for some work in Bullhead City. (Yup, that's eight million.) David had to go to Bullhead City to submit the bid and they were going to put him up for the night in a hotel over there and he wanted me to go with him so I did.

I've been applying for jobs online ever since. It sure is a stupid, unproductive process. I wish I knew someone who could put in a good word for me and help me get a job. Networking is really what it is all about. Otherwise, you are just a name and some words on a piece of paper.

I went to Christian's Ward Conference 'cause David had to go (as a Stake Leader). It was a very good meeting. Bp. Singleton talked about learning to rely on God instead of yourself or other men. He talked about his first BIG lesson in doing that when he was sent to Viet Nam.
Then President Speakman told us that the Bishop's Storehouse was not adequate to take care of the needy in the church during these upcoming hard times. He said that the bishop is likely to come to us and ask us to give food (or something else) to others in the ward that we have worked hard to have and that we will very likely need ourselves. He said that he felt that there were a large number of members in our Stake who were "consecrated" members, who would do whatever was asked of them, with willing and cheerful hearts. I really love Pres. Speakman. I can really feel the spirit whenever he talks to us.

The first part of this post was written over a week ago. I'm finally getting back. A big part of the delay, however was the two days I spent reading Leslie's blog about "You know you're an Arizonan if . . . ." I've been having trouble with my eyes the past couple of days. Maybe they just got worn out reading that blog! (Just kidding. It was really long, but pretty funny. I'm just surprised that anyone in Arizona had enough patience to write all that. Surely no one I know.)

Well, I finally have a job working at Kohl's Department Store as a cashier. I start my training today at 6:15 p.m. I need to find out about the insurance plan they have. I hope I like this job. It isn't at the Kohls right by us but at Val Vista and ??? --I can't remember the street. Somewhere down by the 202 -- way south.

We just found out that David has something else wrong with his heart -- an atrial flutter. Somehow that is different from and atrial fibulation. (however you spell it) Anyway, he has to go in next week and they are going to try to fix it with something called an ablation (I think). If that doesn't work, they may have to do surgery. All this is pretty upsetting. I wish all these heart researchers would get busy and get more stuff out there that we can really use. A few years ago David and I heard about how they could inject stem cells into a heart and they would start growing functioning heart tissue in hearts that had been seriously damaged by heart attacks. That is what is wrong with David. A whole one-third of his heart is dead. Non-functioning. Where are those stem cells? Why aren't they injecting them into his heart?

I'm Baaaa - ack!

It's been a long time since I've written anything. My family has probably given up even looking anymore and so I guess I'll just be writing for myself. I'm sorry I've been so lax. I'll try to do better. I was just really frustrated and upset about something I could do nothing about and couldn't write positive things, so it was better not to write at all. I guess I've reconciled myself with trying to be patient.
But now I'm feeling grateful for some of the people in my life and will write about two of them now.

If you read Leslie's blog, you probably know about the purple Christmas tree. As I was taking it down yesterday, I was just feeling SO LOVED. To think about Leslie seeing that tree and buying it to give to me, and then their family -- during the busy, busy holidays -- making the time to take photos of everyone dressed in purple (and shades thereof) and making ornaments out of them! And then getting Joel to get me out of the house so they could bring it over and decorate it for me as a surprise -- well, I just feel really loved.

The whole purple thing is really funny. My mom liked purple and wore it sometimes. I guess pretty frequently, because when Cecily was a toddler, whenever she saw a woman wearing purple anywhere -- at church, in the store, at the mall -- she would run up and hug them around the knees and say, "Grandma!" Luckily, Cecily was so cute, that no one ever really seemed to mind. In fact, they were usually quite pleased. Then when Mom died and we were clearing out her home, I found a house dress that she had made out of polyester knit that was a length-wise striped multi-shade purple. It reminded me of Mom and made me feel closer to her and so I took it home and wore it for 15+ years. I liked it because of the sleeve length, and the fact that it had no buttons or zippers. You could just throw it over you when you got out of bed or out of the shower and you were instantly decently covered and able to walk out of the bedroom or answer the door.

After the first ten or twelve years of constantly seeing me in that housedress that never wore out, by husband started to complain. I don't think the kids ever noticed what I wore or didn't, but they picked up on his complaints and became occasionally vocal too. Finally, (since David was being paid better than he ever had before) I decided that I could afford to buy a new housedress. I couldn't throw that purple thing away. It had become a family joke. It was made and worn by my mom before me. It was more than thirty years old. IT WAS A FAMILY HEIRLOOM!!! So I tucked it away in the top of my closet and gave it to Anna for her bridal shower. I think she still has it -- probably hidden in some box under the bed in the room that used to be her bedroom. She'd better have it. It's supposed to handed down to her daughter, when she gets married. By then it will be more than 60 years old!!

Another thing that makes me feel SO LOVED is how thoughtful and considerate my son Christian is. Today he is installing a garage door opener on my garage door. He and Leslie had one that was so noisy that it bothered them. The decided to get a new one. Christian gave us his old one and said he would install it, if we didn't mind having a really noisy one. "That doesn't matter," David said, "we're both going deaf anyway." (We always argue about who is getting more hard of hearing.)

Christian and Leslie are both so thoughtful. Theyanticipate and think about problems we could be having and things that we worry about, without us even telling them. And I know that they are both so busy, and yet they still take time to think about us. I just love them so much that I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face, just writing about them.

OKAY, on to another subject before I get all wet. . . .

When we were getting our new garage door (the other one bent into a V right down the middle) the salesman said, "You'll want an automatic opener."
"No," said David, "we can't afford one now."
"But how will you open the garage?" he asked.
"Well," David said wearing his most serious face, "we have hired a little Mexican boy that we take everywhere with us, and when we get home, we just have him hop out of the care and open it for us."
"Oh," the salesman said with his face just as serious.

(Do you think he believed David?)

Sometimes it's cloudy

Well, the clouds were really only in my head. We actually had record heat yesterday (for the 17th of October). It was a lovely 85 degrees.
But Sunday I hadn't taken my 5htp so I was living with a thundercloud. I remember Cecily explaining to Jen how she had to take some aminos, wait twenty minutes, eat something, wait 2 hours, take some aminos, wait twenty minutes, eat something, wait two hours, etc., etc., all day long. And not only that, you have to eat protein or it doesn't count. And Cecily has the hardest time with it because she not only has to keep herself on schedule, she has four children with four different schedules that she has to deal with too. Not to mention a husband, church callings and large home to take care of. Cecily, you are AMAZING! You achieve miracles every day, even when you only manage to get a small portion of anything accomplished. I'm reminded of Roseanne Barr saying once in a comedy routine (wait, did I just admit to listening to a Roseanne Barr routine?) when she said, "I figure if the kids are still alive when my husband gets home, I've done my job." Some days are actually like that.

I've been reading a lot of Neal Maxwell lately. I guess I've been steeling myself for the trials ahead. I keep reminding myself that my job here on earth is to learn to accept God's will and make it my own. That the trials and struggles that I face are actually learning and growing experiences sent to me by a loving Heavenly Father and I need to be grateful for them. I need to learn to live the gospel well enough that I am not creating my own difficulties and struggles. I have to trust that when my trials and sorrows are brought about by the bad decisions, faults or sins of others, my Heavenly Father can turn them around for my benefit.
Whew! That's a lot sometimes. Remember, O remember!

Oh, the other colloquialism is "talk like a Dutch uncle." Apparently, a Dutch uncle spoke very persuasively or maybe so fast or was so verbose that you didn't have an opportunity to come up with an arguement. Something like that.