Still darling but not so little...

My baby graduated from college today. It's been such a busy two days here in Provo that I haven't had a lot of time to think about how it makes me feel to see my youngest in her cap and gown, standing by the side of her terrific husband who is also wearing a BYU cap and gown. They will be leaving in a few weeks to go to Virginia Commonwealth for his graduate school work. I think I am working hard to just be so happy for them and all their accomplishments and sharing in the excitement of the adventures that lie ahead. I dare not consider what it is doing to my heart to see my darling little girl step with her husband out into the world where there is so much uncertainty and such instability. What I can be sure of though is that Eric loves Cindy and is so good for her, and she loves and adores him and would follow him to Russia if he wanted to go there. And they stand on a firm foundation built on faith in the Lord. I know they will be alright. But I may still shed a tear or two...or three....

Spring Fever

Tom was generous and shared his cold with me. Last night I tried doing a new blog post and it disappeared. I was too tired to try to do it over again. I'm too tired tonight, too, but I thought I'd at least tell what was up with the untitled post.

Wednesday is the next time I will have some time to post. I'll update then. Now I'm going to lie down again. Why do colds go around just as spring is finally getting the best of winter?

Ramblin' Rose

Today just call me Rose, because I feel like ramblin'. On and on about everything and nothing. I should be doing other things but Amy has driven me to this. She takes advantage of the little moments and lets me know about them so I can feel that I am with her and watching her chase her sons around and listen to her finally get things off her chest and the distance closes between us every time I read her blog. Now I'm fighting tears. I shouldn't be, because she always makes me laugh! So I'll just ramble on now....

We moved from Utah to Nevada last month. If anyone had told me at any time in my life I'd end up living in Elko, Nevada, I would have questioned their sanity. And, actually, I'm not living in Elko. I'm living in Spring Creek which is a bedroom community ten miles south of Elko. There aren't many businesses out here, just two gas stations, one grocery store, a dentist, a hair salon, a store similar to Sprouse Reitz (in case any of you remember them) which sells a little of everything, an Ace Hardware store, a couple of restaurants, a post office, a credit union, etc. There are two elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school. There are five LDS Wards and two chapels. And it's so beautiful and peaceful in this valley! It is very arid. We look out our back window at sagebrush which in its natural setting is lovely to me. And I love the smell! And at night I can look out the arch of the bedroom window and see the Big Dipper's handle. The sky is clear and clean and I am enjoying life here.

I am going to be accompanying the middle school and high school choirs. I just can't say no. I could have gone this morning to start rehearsing with them but I need a day of practice on two of the songs so I feel better prepared. So when I am finished writing I will head for the piano.

I LOVE this house! But, no, I don't love it more than my third child or more than any of my other children or grandchildren. But since I can't live with any of them I'm glad I've got a lovely home that suits me. I feel it is compensation for once again packing up and following my husband to his new work opportunity. Besides, this opportunity, the home, the new people in our lives, the chance to serve the Lord in this area, etc.--all of this was provided by the Lord who knows us and opens doors to things that He knows will make us happy. And I truly am happy. I could have been happy still in Grantsville, and the Lord would not have stopped loving me if I had protested and told Tom not to take that job but to look for something that would have allowed us to remain in Utah and close to our children and grandchildren. But the way things happened I had no doubt that better things were in store if we followed the promptings and trusted in what the Lord was preparing for us.

My dad is staying with us right now. He's been here for about ten days. I'll take him back to Salt Lake on Wednesday. We are lucky to have him with us still. He is so wise, so witty, so loving, so giving. He has a new pacemaker now which will extend his life for years. Without it the doctor said he may not have lasted three months. Thank God for modern technology and health advances!

I am still suffering from the bad fall I had two months ago. I can't sit for long, especially on piano benches and car seats! Even lying down doesn't give me much relief. I hope the pain goes away soon.

Back to this house. I have been having so much fun organizing it, buying things for it, planning for it. I have bookcases on their way here and when they are put together and I can empty the boxes of books, photo albums, etc., then I will finally have the rooms looking like they are complete except for the bare walls. I haven't yet decided how or what to hang. Tom doesn't want to put nail holes in the walls which really makes it a challenge to figure how I'm going to put up anything at all.

We have put Cindy's ceramics on the plant shelf. It's up really high and pots won't have to be watered. No one should even notice the dust on them.

I'm going to write a book for my family. It's going to be called "Stories I Like to Tell." Included will be the stories of our moves, how some of my children met and married their spouses, dreams I've had, cute things my kids said when they were young, Tom's conversations in his sleep, etc. It will be a book they will be so excited to see!

Speaking of books, I think Amy should write one. Everyone who agrees with me tell her so. She is so clever, so witty, so good with words, and she can even do her own proof-reading! I would love to see a book about being the mother of a child like Michael. And there is so much else she could write about. I also have an idea of a book I want her to co-author with me, but I'm not going to mention it here because there are thousands of people who read my blog and they might steal the idea.

Tom loves his job. It is so nice to see him enjoying getting up and going to work. Sometimes that means going to a mine early in the morning and sometimes it means going to down the hallway to the home office. Today he worked in the office, made phone calls and set up appointments, and now he is on his way to a mine. I don't know where all the mines are except on a map I bought for him and he labeled. I've also had fun helping set up his office.

Well, I have taken enough time away from all that I need to do today, so I'd better stop ramblin' and start working. I hope that this post has helped some of you feel a little bit closer to me. I've felt closer to you as I've thought about what to say to you.

Have a good day!

Love,
Rose

Nothing to Say?

Sometimes I think I don't have anything worth telling about, but here are some suggestions for things I think I could possibly blog about but haven't because I'm too busy thinking about how I have nothing to blog about:

• Closing on the new house (which house I love more than I love my 3rd child)
• Welcoming 2 more grandkids this year (guess who & you'll get a prize)
• Enjoying a general conference weekend visit with some of my favorite people
• Posting pictures of my lovely new home (which my 3rd child refuses to do for me as it is time for her to be in bed)
• Posting pictures of my family (maybe even embarrassing ones)
• Praising my 3rd child (who I love only slightly less than I love my house)
• Praising my other children (who I love only slightly less than I love my 3rd child)
• Complaining about how someone keeps logging into my blogger account & messin' with my background & posting stuff that leaves my readers confused & maybe even offended.

Still gullible after all these years....

I was sitting comfortably crocheting Morgan's afghan last night while enjoying an episode of "Law and Order." Tom was on the computer doing some work. The room phone rang; he answered it and what I heard was interesting: "both mattresses? Now? Outside the door? Okay." He left the receiver sitting on the desk, apparently having been instructed to do so until he had done what he had been asked to do. Then he told me that the man in the office said both of our mattresses had tested positive for bed bugs and we needed to strip them of their bedding and put them outside the door. They were going to be replaced with new mattresses. I commented that this made our hotel stay more of an adventure, and I helped him strip the beds. As we took the first mattress out the door I said we should see if anyone was out there with a video camera. Tom said that things just didn't seem right. I told him that before he did anything else he should go down to the office to make certain we were really supposed to be doing this. First he went back to the phone and told the waiting man that he had the first mattress out the door. The man asked him to take it down the stairs himself because the maintenance man had hurt his back. I again told Tom to go downstairs and confirm this before he did another thing. He came back up and said, "Someone must be having a good laugh right now." Yep, it was a prank. A pretty funny one, don't you think? We put the beds back together again and I sat there crocheting again, watching "Law and Order" and "The Closer" and wondering if when I left the hotel room in the morning there would be some young man watching me and grinning. "That lady and her husband are sure gullible!" I've got to be more on my toes!

New Adventure; Good-bye, Grantsville, Hello, Elko!

Well, today we are embarking on our new adventure. Elko calls. Michael and Laura came over with the boys last night and helped us with the last of the cleaning. This morning the guys need to load the bed, freezer, and refrigerator--oh, yes, and the desk and computer, too--while I take care of some other matters such as banking, running things over to Lisa's house, etc. Then our caravan will take off: Edna in the red Ford, Laura in the ...(whatever they drive), Michael in Tom's pick-up, and Tom in the twenty-six-foot U-Haul. Brother Matthews will pull the red trailer with the remaining boxes over when we are actually moving into our house. This weekend we will just hang out over there. We've already said our good-byes to family and friends and not wanting to prolong the agony we're going to go ahead even though neither house has closed yet. Perhaps it's risky, perhaps it's dumb, but we're doing it anyway. The houses ARE going to close. It was just a matter of how long we want to have our things sitting on a U-Haul and how much we want in hotel bills. Michael had taken Friday and Monday off so we decided to take advantage of his thoughtfulness and spend the weekend with them. For my birthday, which was yesterday, Laura is taking me to a Kenny Chesney concert tomorrow night in Wendover, which is halfway between where we are now and where we'll be by this afternoon.



So today we officially say good-bye to Grantsville. It's been a nice place to call home for three-and-a-half years. We'll keep our friends and hope to see them occasionally when we come to visit Brandon and Lisa and family. We have had some wonderful experiences here which we will cherish forever. Thanks, Grantsville, for what you have contributed to our growth!

CinderAmy

While we were at Lisa's yesterday she was talking about her kids' attitudes. I reflected on my years as a young mother and couldn't remember an attitude problem with my kids, although I'm certain they existed because kids do have attitudes. I think it is important for moms to remember the words from the scriptures "and it came to pass." It doesn't say "and it came to stay." These problems go away and then you learn how to deal with new problems. Don't despair because it seems that all you do is manage whining, messy, cranky, disobedient little souls so often. Hold on to the special moments when they say something that gets your heart. You'll have a lot of those. They are the tender mercies that help to keep you sane and remind you that these spirits do have a divine nature.

Now, having said that, I move on to talk about Amy. I told Lisa yesterday that the only "attitude" I could think of regarding my young children was Amy's. When I asked her to do something she would protest or complain nearly every time. It was frustrating to me but I was set on conquering that by focusing on the positive. One day I asked her to take the laundry basket outside and take the towels off the clothesline. She straightaway did it. No complaints at all. I was so pleased and commented on it when she had completed the task. Her response has always stayed with me: "I just pretended I was Cinderella." Of course, that meant that I was the wicked stepmother.

But now it doesn't matter to me what it was that drove Amy to do the things I asked her to do. Look at where she is now. She loves to clean, and I love to visit her home because it is so comfortably clean ALL the time! She is going to be my model in my new home. I have let go of so much stuff and I hope that I can keep my home clutter-free and clean. But she may have to come and visit occasionally and let me play the role of wicked stepmother again. CinderAmy can make my home spotless for me.

Oh, by the way, have you ever read the book called "CinderEdna?"