Beneath the Wraps

     I’ve always been an advocate of journal writing – but especially now that mom has passed.        After we put my mom into assisted living and were cleaning out her house in order to sell it, my brother, Corey, took mom’s journals with him to Las Vegas and has been transcribing them ever since.   He also took a couple of boxes of photographs. There have been several parts of her journal which have corresponded with unlabeled photos or have provided memories that have had us thinking, “Oh, yea.”      Other passages have given us more insight to our overly quiet dad.   And lately – mom’s emotions about caring for dad mirroring our own with caring for her.   It’s been a rather interesting journey.        Some journal entries often seem boring and it feels pointless to even write about.   Journal entries written by teens can often sound funny or dishea...

We had scheduled a dentist appointment for Jenna on Friday afternoon.    Fortunately I had contacted the school the day before.    Jenna noticed the bus go by and I took my cell phone out to see what time it was.    It went off in my hands.   That was weird. I saw that it was the school calling.    I was told that Jenna’s class would be going on a filed trip and wouldn’t be back at designated time and that I might as well keep her home.    When I repeated the words “field trip” into the phone, Jenna started crying.   She wanted to go. I called the dentist to reschedule and Jenna and I got on the next bus and she went to her field trip and not to the dentist. She explained a little bit about her day – not with great detail as she does sometimes.    There was a piece on the news about “Dreamathon” – where she had gone on her field trip....

          I’m not good at taking notes at conferences or Spiritual meetings.   I get so caught up in trying to get the exact quote or comment or whatever that I end up missing on so much more. Last night there was a Relief Society stake activity called “Women of Righteousness” featuring artist Megan Rieker.   I didn’t think the event well advertised   - at least in our ward.   I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Turned out to be a truly eventful night.   And I learned things – not just about the artist paintings but discoveries within the past as well as my own self. I’d taken an art appreciation class several years ago in order to appreciate fine art more than I do.   It backfired.   I often rolled my eyes when learning about contrast and balance and was more unappreciative about the entire fine art world long before the class was over. I started looking at paintings and wore less-than-flatteri...

Jenna told Roland that I wanted an umbrella for Mothers’ Day. It is a Beautiful Umbrella and big enough for both me and Jenna. I could have used it two days before Mothers’ Day but have not had a need for it since. The sun has been beating down on the earth.   But there has been a cool breeze that   makes it all bearable. The sun is playing hide-and-go-seek as the clouds pass over when I look out my back window the sky tells me that I will need an umbrella when I leave the house to go get Jenna. When I look out the front window, the sun laughs at me and tells me it will pound down and make my palms sweat as I hold my umbrella and that it will be a burden to carry. I end up putting my purple umbrella in my back pack – just in case.   I never needed it.    Not for rain anyway. I did attempt using it as a shield  to block out the sun - only a short time though  as I was afraid the wind would...

            Most mornings seem to be routine for me.   I make sure that Jenna is dressed and has breakfast before we leave the house to catch the bus.   I take the bus with her because she doesn’t have the confidence in herself to ride it alone – and truthfully I think I would feel neurotic not knowing if she actually got off the bus or made it to school, etc.             I walk her to the grounds behind the school and turn around to head back to the bus stop on the other side of the main road.   Occasionally I will take the train somewhere – like the post office or the library.   Usually I just return home except for the one day I went out to see Kayla – which I need to do again. Jenna always wants to play verbal games as we’re riding the bus.   This morning she asked if I would come up with sentences in English that she could trans...

I was planning on hanging laundry today – two loads at least.   I looked outside to discover I have only two lines – and certainly more than two lines worth of clothes.   If it was mid –summer, two lines might be enough.   As I have mentioned in at least one other post, by the time I finish hanging the laundry in the blazing heat, they are ready to take back down. But today there is a cool breeze which is nice against the blazing heat.   Blazing?   Summer hasn’t officially started.   Do I dare say the sun is blazing when I know the heat from the sun right now is nothing compared to what it will become. Our washing machine needs to be cleaned.   I can smell it.   If I can smell it, it must be pretty bad.   I couldn’t smell the dog when everybody else was commenting on his stink.   I didn’t know.   I took him into the front yard and hosed him down and used a dog shampoo.   I remember when I could smell, t...

From my childhood, I remember seeing and hearing trains.   I remember being excited whenever a train would pass on the road and we would have to stop and wait for it.   My brother, Patrick, and I would often count how many cars were on each train.   My parents didn’t seem to be as excited whenever the arms of the railroad came down. A child’s perspective is so much different than that of an adult.   Mostly what we saw were cargo trains.   There were few encounters with passenger trains.    My grandma who lived in San Francisco would sometimes take the train.   We would go to pick her up downtown at the train station.        Patrick and I had also ridden on a train from Utah to Colorado.    We’d gone with my mom and my other grandma. I thought that it was exciting!   Especially going through tunnels.   And there were some LOOONNNGGG tunnels.   As I got older, I don’t recall...