Beneath the Wraps

             I had first considered her mom’s friend before I had considered her my own.   I knew her from the ward and neighborhood.   She is the first one I remember having such a passion for genealogy (now more commonly known as family history).   She had grown up in foster care and had the desire to be connected.   She found a sister and her mother I believe.   I loved hearing her stories.   She taught family history classes and make arrangements to go to the genealogy library located downtown.   I was twelve at the time.   Definitely the youngest in the class.           Yesterday Peggy had posted:           “ Another dear friend passed away this afternoon.” Peggy’s mom had lived to be 106 and could still carry on a conversation.   In a way, it is hard to be that age when so many of your friends have passed o...

            Where do I start on this post?  At the beginning?  I don’t remember when the beginning was.  Sometimes I will see an ambulance parked (but still running) in front of one of my neighbors’ houses.  At least once I have seen a paramedic truck.  I have always wondered why they aren’t sent in clusters.             In Utah it seemed no matter what emergency vehicle we would specify, they would all show up.   I hadn’t seen that in Oregon since this post almost a year ago.   Jenna calls it cruel irony.   But let me back up again.           Roland had an appointment to go to the dentist yesterday.   My appointment is not until July 29 but there was a cancellation for yesterday at 3:00.   How cool is that?   I charged both of my kindles expecting we’d fulfill this outlandish date.   Then they had a...

 It's been hard having done without our second fridge - walking around or over piles of stuff - not being able to use the back door.  Oh, but it will be so worth it.  So here is the progress thus far: Oh, blessed those who can work in this heat.  Levi must be part camel.  I am so excited for this new addition.

                 Our nation has issued a warning for extreme heat in the western states.   The sun had not fully risen this morning when I took Bonnie out for the shortest walk ever.   Alexa informed me that the temperature was 75 degrees fahrenheit – Google said 73.   It felt lke 80 – at least.     I wonder if those people who were so skeptical to believe the seriousness of the cornonavirus believe that the weather is a hoax.   I wonder if they will allow themselves to dehydrate because “nobody can tell me to drink water.   I should be able to choose”   I wonder if they think the elements are a conspiracy started by another country.   I wonder if they believe how much nicer the weather would be if Trump was still in office.   75 degrees and climbing!   It’s not even 7:00 a.m. yet!

                 Filling out online applications is insane.   You think you are filling out the application for the site and suddenly realize that you have moved to some other site – perhaps job related as well or for a school or heaven forbid, a scam.   That’s right.   I have three different email accounts.   One I had to open in order to create this blog account.   One I keep as a personal account.   The oldest of the three accounts I keep as a junk mail account.   I used to check it maybe once a month.   Since I’ve been job hunting I will check either daily or at least every other day.   It’s still a lot of email to go through.   I checked it only one time during the week we had family here.   After Roland had taken them to the airport I had over 200 emails to wade through. Any site I have ever ordered from, any site connected with the schools in Utah, any job site I have ever...

           The “Come Follow Me” lesson for last week was sections 64 – 66.   The theme for section 66 is on forgiveness.   It made me reflect back to the talk given in sacrament on the day my family arrived.   I believe he said he had based it on Elder Bednar’s talk from the October 2006 General Conference here .             The message of the talk was to not take offense.   There are many of us who take offence due to the actions or words used by others – or so we suspect.   But perhaps the “offender” is not even aware that we were offended. It’s not likely that the “offender” had gone out of his or her way to offend us but more likely that we misinterpreted.           I have shared these two examples here and here in which I was the offender.   It reminded me of this skit         ...

            I don’t know where I might have been when the turkeys came into our yard for the first time. I must have been picking the girls up from the farm or dropping them off.   I remember Roland saying the neighbor from behind us stood on our door step with a net and asked permission to go and recapture her turkeys. The chickens and pigs had made their way to our yard in mid-August but we did not see another turkey until just before Thanksgiving.   Jenna named him Mr. Gobbles.   He had made it through the Thanksgiving holiday but was gone before Christmas.   They have since added a couple of turkeys to their menagerie. A different Mr. Gobbles is currently pacing back and forth on our side of the hill.   He has been there all day trying to figure out how to return from whence he came. As I mentioned in an earlier post Roland will no longer feed or water the chickens.   Well, he does use the hose on them whereas be...