Beneath the Wraps

                It has rained the last three days which is a good thing.               Put that water back into the beds and cover the earth until             it's green again and the rivers are flowing and             not just puddles.   I am usually hot on             the inside when it is raining outside, though             I don't know why.   But the last three days have been cold.   Salt Lake's November cold.               I think it should be warmer. It is nice to have the rain.

            I have mentioned before that both my mom used to   use her children as her sounding board before giving a talk or presenting a lesson.   For my mom, it was a lack of confidence in herself.   She needed the feedback, the practice, the input to build up her confidence.   She yearned for ideas on how to improve.   She would go over it again and again until we knew it better than she did - or at least in the case of Corey and me.             Roland does the same thing - only he does not lack confidence.   I thought he did it for validation - but he says it is because he values my opinion.   Talks and lessons are one thing, but lately his ideas and thoughts have had to do with his participation at the theatre.   I am not in the theatre.   I am not part owner in the theatre.   I don't manage, perform  or have a...

            At no time of the year do I believe in Disney's Toy Story than between Thanksgiving and Christmas - although it isn't so much the toys that move and form personalities, but rather the Christmas decorations that I am certain I had packed and carefully labeled each box.   I know exactly where they were located in January - the beginning of the year.   But by the end of the year, I notice that the decorations have moved around.   They have managed to move from box to box, shelf to shelf and all figure that it's been so long that I won't remember where I had put them in the first place.             As I mentioned in an earlier post, Jenna had retrieved four boxes of decorations - yet I knew that a whole slew of ornaments were missing, and Christmas socks and . . .   lights.   Where are the lights?   And how is it that ...

             My head seems to be disconnected from my body.   Pretty much the entire week I didn't remember what I was supposed to be doing. Jenna was off from school, Roland took off work, but I still had school.             It rained on Wednesday. It was great as we have needed (and continue to need) the moisture. My class instructor was late getting started on the live lecture. When he finally did get to the topic of conversation, I had to leave before he got into the meat of the assignment.             Jenna and I had hair appointments.   I normally appreciate the feel and look of my new fresh cut hair, but am having problems with not hating it this time around.             On Thanksgiving day we went to the Grand Victorian for a potluck combination Thanksgivin...

Peace offers silence, comfort, stillness, and even tranquility. Peace is positive. Piece, on the other hand, can be positive or negative. Broken or shattered pieces are negative. Stepping on a piece of glass for instance           would offer no peace at all - quite the opposite really. Some pieces are clues.   We may find a piece of history. We may discover a missing piece that may connect us to another. Those kind of pieces may sometimes invite peace. Then there are some pieces that have no positive or negative effect.   They're just there. Finding the missing piece to the puzzle, the broken earring, the exact fit for replacing the broken part           in the car. Those may bring satisfaction -           which is different from peace. Emotions may be described using both words. ...

For those of you who might have come over from "gayldsactor" who hasn't posted to his blog for quite a while, here is a thought he posted to facebook: "There's a wonderful line in a book by J.M. Barrie...called The Little White Bird. He writes... 'Shall we make a new rule of life always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?' 'Kinder than is necessary'...What a marvelous line, isn't it? 'Kinder than is necessary.' Because it's not enough to be kind. One should be kinder than needed. "Why I love that line, that concept, is that it reminds me that we carry with us as human beings not just the capacity to be kind but the very choice of kindness. And what does that mean? How is that measured? You can't use a yardstick...it's not like measuring how much you've grown in a year. It's not exactly quantifiable, is it? How do we know we've been kind? What is being kind anyway? "...Th...

                Roland has been wanting to move closer to the city - preferably Eugene.   I would like something closer to the Ocean - preferably not in Lane County.   So we went on a grand car trip up to Veneta (outside of Eugene) and stopped off at Dairy Queen as each of us were hungry.   Jenna and I were puzzled by the charter high school located at the shopping center.   Jenna thinks it would be great to go to an even smaller populated high school than she already does.                 From Veneta we drove toward Florence and continued on down highway 101 until after Reedsport and decided to head back home before we lost daylight completerly.   We did see a small town that we both liked and Jenna was especially pleased to learn the student body was less than 100.   But we won't move there. ...

            So this month's theme seems to be focusing on mergers and takeovers and combinations and blah, blah, blah . . .   There are some aspects of accounting that I don't mind, but I am quite annoyed with the topic of takeovers and stocks and bonds and goodwill and   . . . what the heck?   The reading is boring and hard to translate into English.   I feel like I'm looking at blueprints of trying to run a business patterned after Hitler's dictatorship.   I don't like it at all.             I have watched part of one video in which a former instructor goes through the assignment using a different example than the one assigned (makes sense) and I am trying to write down how she explains it and I'm just not in the mood (as though I ever will be) partly because I feel so worn out right now.       ...

           I don't recall ever having attended a leadership meeting on a stake level, but it seemed as though I had been invited - although I don't know who had told me.   I asked Roland if we were going.   He said that he would but not the adult session as he says he never gets much out of it.   I on the other hand, have always preferred the adult stake meeting as I rarely have ever gotten anything out of the Sunday meeting - especially since we have moved to Oregon.           I had volunteered to work a shift at the Annex, but wore my dress so that Roland and I could just leave as soon as I returned home.   I returned home before he did and guessed that he probably wouldn't want to return to Roseburg.   I was right.   I should have just called around to see who else was going and if I would be able to catch a ride.   Instead I finished my homework for the week.   On...

          When Roland's ex was a part of our lives, I remember her sending a "friend" of hers with the girls so that she could keep an "eye on us".   I don't believe she and Karen were good friends.   In fact, I now believe that Karen didn't actually know Roland's ex all that well and was not aware that she was mentally disturbed and has a history of using people.   Karen was with us for only two visitations before she told Roland's ex that she wasn't happy about spying on us.   I don't know the conversation except that she had realized that she must have liked us better than Maleficent.             Karen had a daughter named Alexis.   I believe she went to the same school as Pamprin and Francis, and that is how they knew one another.   Alexis took a shine to Roland.   She loved him.   She played with him along with his girls and he treated her j...

           I dragged my family to the high school last night.  I understood the meeting to start at 5:30, but it must have started at 5:00 as we walked into a mass production that had already obviously started.  It seems that the focus was mainly on just one school, though the elementary next to it had been mentioned.  There were parents there for both group.  I saw several youth but not a huge number.  The meeting was at the high school library and it was filled and overflowing.           Three separate events had taken place.  The first was a threat made by a person that was being bullied.  The threat made was toward the bullies and not the entire school.  On October 23 a "prank" phonecall had been made to 911 about a shooting.  Two youth were arrested.  Last week there a note had been left in one of the bathrooms lea...

           October is normally my favorite month, all the fall leaves and crisp air.   Facebook memories indicate that there has often been a sickness within the family.   It doesn't last as long as what I've seemed to experience this year.   It was bad enough before we set our clocks to standard.   Setting the clocks back seemed to say to the sun, "you have permission to take a long nap.   Perhaps you can make an appearance every now and then - just so we know you're up there."           The air has been so dry.   It's horrible.   I came to Oregon for moisture.   The fog hasn't seemed to carry much moisture to it this year nor has it rained often.   We're not currently hooked up to natural gas, and thus the only source of heating we have had has been electrical and feels drier than the gas somehow.   At least my lungs and throat believe they are.   ...

            Every once in a while I will search for a particular blog post using a single key word or phrase that I think are mentioned in the post.   Yesterday I typed in the word " pieces "   just to see what would come up.   I was surprised that I had used that word in over 50 posts in reference to several topics.   That does not include the 20 plus posts where piece was used singularly.   The top   " pieces "  post  references referred to candy, other foods, luggage, lessons, toys and games.    Other posts included actual breakage or used in a metaphorical way.             I have used the word " pieces "   in about ten or so December entries posted on different years. One post mentions a four-piece measuring cup set that we had purchased as a white elephant gift.    ...