Beneath the Wraps

I recall a time when Grandma Helen had taken Michelle and I to a downtown department store.   She had given us each a dollar to spend on whatever we like.   I fell in love with a plastic bank that resembled a Martian caught in a bag of Money.   It was 2.00.   Michelle wanted a Skipper doll which she said she’d be getting from her other grandmother and she would lend me her dollar in which to purchase my beloved bank (whom I named Michael). I don’t know where my grandma had gone as we were ready to make our purchase.   The issue of leaving children alone in the department store did not seem to be a huge safety concern as it is today.   I took the bank up to the counter.   The cashier rang me up.   The total came to $2.06.   I was eight or nine and had not considered a tax fee.   Why would I?   I didn’t have six cents to spare!   A kindly man took a nickel out of his pocket and placed it on the counter.   One cent m...

She became aware of boy/girl relationships during middle school.   She thought they were stupid.   All the emotions.   All of the game playing.   All of the drama.   The entire idea of relationships was stupid.   They did not appeal to her and she was fine and secure on her own.   She remained that way throughout middle school and her freshman year. Then came summer. They were friends.   There were generally four of them who hung around one another during lunch.   Not necessarily to eat, but to play games and enjoy one another’s company. He really liked her.   First as a friend.   Then maybe something more.   Not too much more.   He had been in a relationship before.   He did not need another.   And yet he found her to be adorable.   He liked holding her hand and leaning on her.   What’s more, he enjoyed it when she leaned on him. He told her that he would not date her.   Or at le...

                Today is the 4 th annual city-wide yard sale.   It’s cooler than it has been in prior years but hotter than it has been all week.   A lot of baby stuff up and down the city drive.   I didn’t realize there were so many babies in the city as this seems to be more of a senior populated town.           Roland and I ended up leaving our own city and making an excursion between Winston and Roseburg.   We ended up with an entire dinette set (though we had initially only wanted a table) and he spotted these adorable dishes that was a reminder of the first dishes that we had ever purchased together – but a more complete and bigger set.   That would mean getting rid of ALL the dishes that are currently in our house to make room for more dishes that we really don’t need, but it was a beautiful thought.    ...

          Several years ago my friend Peggy had gone to several doctors with odd symptoms that no one could seem to figure out.   Out of frustration, she did her own research.   She checked out books from the library (because this took place long before Google existed) and spent countless hours at the library until she thought she had figured it out and reported back to her doctor and said, “This is what I have.”           Fibromyalgia wasn’t a word associated with the 20 th century as it is today. Commercials now are exploding with drugs and advice to “ask your doctor” – not that the pills will cure you.   They will assist with whatever ails you while we sit back and collect cash.   Hey, and if it doesn’t work out to all expectations, there are also ads inviting us to join whatever bandwagon the attorneys may have set up so that we can sue whatever company for making us sick.      ...

Currently, the temperature is 56 degrees.   Alexa says the high will be 73.   This is why we moved to Oregon.   This is how the temperature should be EVERY day.

       I don’t recall where the email was sent from or why I accepted it.   I registered both Roland and me for a seminar on social security.   He had been asking me questions when I had taken my Sociology of Ageism class.   I thought we could attend this together, have questions answered, and have a free lunch.   I enjoyed the lunch part but had found my Ageism class much more informative than the seminar. Except for a few facts that apply specifically to Oregon, there isn't really much that I learned.        During my school course, I had completed four assignments.   The subjects were as follows:   “Websites for the Aged”, “Financial Options for Elderly Care”, “Age of Retirement” and “Life After Retirement”. I started off my first paper by defining “Baby Boomers” which is/was an unusually high amount of births that took place between 1946 and 1965.        I used a quote...

            There are definitely many values that our parents instilled in us, but the three I would pick to answer this question would be prayer, family and service. Prayer           From an early age, we learned that we could communicate to our Heavenly Father through prayer.   We were taught not only to ask for things but to thank God as well for the many blessings that we had.   And there truly were many.   Mom and dad were able to help us understand what the blessings were.   Especially dad.   He had tremendous faith and find the blessings where we could not such as in car failure or his swelled foot ( here )and in his final years could see the blessings with his deteriorating health.                     I remember on several occasions seeing my dad kneeling in front of the gre...

          I remember going to a resort when I was a leader of the young women in my first ward.   There was a thirteen-year-old who enthusiastically asked, “Could we take all the mattresses downstairs and put them in a pile and jump over the balcony into them?   Wouldn’t that be fun?”              At thirteen years old I would have agreed with her. But I had become a rational fun-sucking adult.            “No.   That does not sound fun.   It sounds dangerous.   If you land the incorrectly, you could break your neck.   No.”              I am through with school.   I no longer have to sign in each day or take care of assignments, assessments, and discussions.   My last class was called “Biological Psychology” where we were introduced to the brain and functions.   We’re told that the ...

What causes stress?             Moving causes stress – especially when the moving date has changed and you are not prepared as you believe you have more time to pack everything.              It is stressful looking for a house to move into.             A job can be stressful – especially one that lays on the pressure for an academic advisor to reach the unreasonable goal of ten starts each month.   How can an academic advisor seriously be accountable for a student changing his or her mind?   Especially when the referrals given come from people who were searching for jobs and filled out a school interest on accident as they believed it was a part of the job application?             Stress is trying to fill out a job application online or take a test for school when the Wi-Fi seems to have troubles staying connecte...

There is not a large amount of time from the time cherries ripen to when they need to be picked.   The race between getting them picked before the birds eat them creates an even smaller window of opportunity.   I don’t like being in the yard when the sun is blazing nor do I have the confidence in myself to climb the hill.   But I have made a conscious effort to do my part this year. Wednesday was my last day for subbing. Before I left the house, I took a bucket to the top of the hill to pick some cherries.   When the bucket was a third to half full, I made my way back down the hill and left the cherries on the kitchen table.             Yesterday I retrieved the cherry pitter from its storage spot and punched cherries for about an hour or so.   Perhaps the cherries weren’t ready after all as many of the pits remained attached to the cherries.   I would have preferred an assembly line but as Jenna was...

                I don’t know that dad really had a motto he lived by.   The quote I remember him saying most were: “If wishes were fishes, we’d all have a fry” which is quite a mouthful for my dad.   I believe his favorite word was “ditto” as it provided him a way to mimic someone else’s complete sentence.   My dad was not a big talker

Field Day is a way for the elementary schools to transit from the last week of school to beginning the summer vacation.   The idea is for children to have fun playing games and friendly competition. I remember volunteering for Field Day at South Kearns Elementary.   I believe I had signed up three different years.   I know we got rained out at least two years, but there may have been one room in which we were able to complete the competitions. There were a parachute and relays, water games, racing with a spoon and keeping contents from spilling over.   I don’t remember being involved in another field day until yesterday as I had agreed to sub this week.   It felt weird going back after having been off for a month.   I felt awake when I left the house but somehow grew tired after having entered the building.   I don’t know why.   Every time I entered a classroom I seemed to go deaf. I was constantly asking students to repeat themselves...