Thoughts for my Journal

          I cannot believe tomorrow is Mother’s Day.  The weather isn’t speaking volumes of how Mother’s Day has looked in years past.  Yesterday we had sun showers all day.  The rain has been pouring all night and this morning.  Not to mention the hens have been cackling.  I can’t sleep with that!  Nobody rescued them from whatever they were cackling about nor did the rain drown them out as they seemed to be louder than the pounding rain.

https://funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/1577805/Chicken/

         I must have slept at some point – and hard as I had another weird detailed dream.  I don’t know where Richard and I were or why.  The neighborhood was not one that I remember.  Somehow we got separated and I went to a house in which I know the woman but chose instead to go to the house next door to wait for Richard when I heard his voice inside of the first house.

         I went to the door and was greeted by one of the woman’s relatives.  I had remembered meeting her before  and apologized for my interruption.  I was led to another room that somehow continued to get larger as I looked around and saw many people – some eating food and visiting while others sat with dark expressions giving off vibes that they really didn’t want to be there.

         I sat down and observed and spotted a couple from my mom’s ward who I have not seen for almost twenty years.  I went up to them to ask how they were doing.  They didn’t seem to recognize me.  I said that we had lived on the same street when I was living in Midvale.  Some facts were distorted in my dream, but I somehow woke myself up remembering more details – and what I could have said.  Like I had served in Young Women’s with their niece and how we had dressed Tom and the bishop up as Ladybugs.  I also thought about the time when I was pregnant with Jaime and Pam and Elena had offered to throw me a baby shower (which Jaime attended when she was almost two months old).

         I have no idea why I would have dreamed about them. 

 

Jaime has her prom tonight. We are going to the salon to have her hair done.  I hope the rain doesn’t damage.  I really hope she will enjoy herself and have positive memories of the night.

Tomorrow will bring some interesting meetings.  More on that later.

My Day Thus Far

This morning I dreamed I was in an institute class.  I was about 30 years younger and single.  Many of the students in my class were elderly women.  We were challenged to display something that would remind of us the lesson. I had five posters and selfishly planned on hanging all five and would not share them. (I think I probably missed the point of the lesson)

When the class ended I had gone into the hall and toward the door that would lead me out to the parking lot.  I was digging through my purse in order to find my keys.  As I was not coming up with them, I decided to sit down and rummage through my purse believing it would be easier to go through.  Rather than a college or equivalent building, the seat I had chosen next to entrance/exit doors looked more like a lobby you would find in a hospital.

As I was looking through my purse a number of guys appeared to ask me why I hadn’t been to class.  Evidently I had signed myself up for two classes that overlapped in time.  Both were on Thursdays though I thought the class with the young guys in it was taught on Tuesday.  I can’t even remember what course it was but felt more challenged somehow and so decided to drop the institute class.  It was a really weird dream.

I continued to sleep until Alexa woke me up and then I got up and got dressed.  I am usually still in my pajamas when I take Jenna and her friend out to the farm. I took the Saturn this morning as it appears the fan belt has broken in the Impala.  I’m not a mechanic or anything.  I just know it has stopped working and it is far too hot to drive with just having windows down.

        I don’t normally stay with Jenna and her friends to help them pick berries – though I have on occasion stayed an hour to help pick before I wear myself out and return home.  Evelyn (the boss) asked if I would pick berries in the evening to help fill an order due on Wednesday.  It is too hot to do evenings this week and so I will work 5 hours for the next three mornings.  Or so was the plan.

There were the three girls who were picking circles around me.  I would donate my pathetic contribution to their buckets.  They said they had picked 65 pounds.  Normally they pick 60 among them so perhaps I had picked at least four pounds myself.     Since I have always left before other people come, I did not know the amount of pickers in the field was unusually high.  We were all picking in the same patch which must mean Evelyn had recruited several others to help fill the order.

        My back, of course, was bothering me.  I just can’t bend or squat like I used to.  Jenna sits on the ground, but I refuse to do that in fear I will never be able to get back up.         Initially I had planned on staying until 11 but the girls were getting restless and asked if they could go home with me and asked if I could leave at 10:00. 

As I was driving home I felt so sleepy.  It had been overcast all morning – not a cooling overcast either.  It has been hot and humid.  I was in great need of a shower and was also hungry.  When we pulled up, Jenna noticed the front porch had been removed and sitting on the front yard in pieces.  Roland had hired a man named Levi to build us a new porch complete with awning as our old porch seems rickety and unstable.

Jenna told me to shower while she ate and then she would shower.  Thus I took my shower first.  Ate some leftovers and started this entry.  My plan was to take my nap once I had posted this to my blog. Only Roland came in before I had finished.  I was needed in the kitchen apparently, but after a while he told me to go to bed. 

Even with all the noise Levi has made with the buzzsaw and hammer I was able to sleep for just over two hours.  I feel better than I had when we had left the farm.  The sun has made an appearance and the humidity has gone down.  I had to go outside to retrieve my camera so that all of the memory doesn’t get lost in the heat. It feels pretty gross out there.  I am so grateful to have central air again.

Sleep Disturbed

        I have never had the best sleeping habits.  2020 seems to have changed the sleeping habits of many of my friends.  I seem to have more erratic dreams somehow.  I usually don’t remember them.  Sometimes I remember pieces but never any detail.  Take last night for instance.

        I could hear the sounds of an injured animal.  At first it sounded like a dog – whose dog? We don’t see many dogs in our neighborhood.  We see a lot of cats.  Oh, wait.  Perhaps it isn’t a dog after all.  It must be the chickens.  They’re scared.  Why are they scared?  There is a mountain lion after them.  I hear a gun shot.  Oh, no.  The police are going to come around and ask what time we heard the gunshot.  I don’t want to look at the clock.  I am sooooo tired.  I’m guessing it is 2:30.

        I feel the presence of another wild cat.  He is scratching on the window.  I have to walk into the living room to get my phone.  I dismiss the dream.  I had another one.  Jenna discovered three baseball mitts in her room.  (I don’t remember why she has them) and she has decided to give one to a friend who lives in Canyonville.  I had suggested that we take them and leave all three on their doorstep.  So we’re driving towards Canyonville and the smoke from the fires thickens and makes it hard to see.  I have to turn around before we arrive to our destination.

        My bladder wakes me up and I head toward the restroom.  I happen to glance at the clock.  It isn’t even 12:30 yet.  Holy cow!  How could I already have two detailed dreams in such a short amount of time?  My stomach hurt and I had to turn on the light so I can see to pour the medicine out.  I hate the bright light waking me up even more. I get back in bed and I can hear Jenna’s electronic devices making noises.  Her friends are texting.  Give me a break. 

Roland sleeps restlessly and I reach out my hand.  He sleeps flat and I sleep upright and so we don’t cuddle.  He misses that.  I think I sleep better not being cuddled.  I don’t mind cuddling when I’m awake, but when I am asleep I want my own room.

He stops snoring when I’m touching him, but when I remove my arm, his body seems upset.  I finally get out of bed to ask Jenna if she can turn off the sound to her electronic devices.  Hey, as long as I was up anyway, I wrote all of this down – in notes.  Not in detail.  I was too tired.  I wanted to return to slumber land.

Meanwhile Jenna has a friend with a birthday coming up.  She wants to go bowling and have a sleepover with her friends.  I have told her “No” too many times this year.  I hate seeing her looking so forlorn. Stupid year 2020!

Switching Bodies

I thought I would share some thoughts on the bizarre dream that I had this morning – though many of the details were already gone before Roland requested that I make pancakes – and then chop up some vegetables for the meatball stew . . .

“I’m not even dressed yet!” I thought.  After all I had mentioned that I had two hours before I would leave for work and that I needed to take a shower.  Thus this post has been put on the back burner.  So do I start with the dream or the cake? 

          I took pictures of the cake that we made on Saturday.  Jenna had done the entire cake part by herself and I frosted it and poured over coconut.  The intention was not for the purpose of giving the appearance of a giant snowball, but that is what I thought it looked like:

          So moving on to the dream which took place sometime between 3 and 6 this morning.  I remember it involved multiple documents – I don’t know if they were from bill collectors or court documents or what they were – but I didn’t want them.  They were wrongly given to me and I was trying to dodge them.  Granted, I am reading a mystery novel in real life and so I suppose some of my reading could have made their way into my dream but the weird part was trying to hide from it and driving to someone’s house to discuss it. 

I don’t even know whose house I had driven to except for my cousin was there and in the dream she had gone into nursing and knew the secret of body switching – which I had heard of, but was really nervous about it – yet I was willing to take the gamble in order to dodge whomever was behind the paperwork.

Now in real life I used to see my cousins often which gradually turned into perhaps twice a month and less than that after grandma died. And that was just my dad’s side.  I don’t even know my cousins on my mom’s side.  Ironically the oldest one lives in Salem just three hours away.

          So probably out of all my cousins I have spent the most time with Michelle – but Michelle was not even in this dream, but rather her sister Rose.  She is the one that suggested we switch out bodies and she taught me what I needed to do in order to make that switch.  It seemed to make sense in the dream, but doesn’t even remotely make sense as I write this.

          So I returned to Myrtle Creek and she returned to Logan (or is it Layton?  I don’t know . . . some city north of Salt Lake that starts with an L.  See how close we are?) and I am me on  the inside, but my outward appearance is Rose.  The documents stop coming and I am no longer harassed.  I am skinny.  I can wear eight layers of clothes sopping wet and still not weigh as much as Rose does in my body.  Why is it she was willing to make the switch with a heavy blob?  Is she in trouble with the law or creditors, too?

          I am able to eat several pieces of the snowball cake and my allergies haven’t bothered me.  

with banana ice cream made on MLK day

But the chin ring that Rose wears is killing me (I highly doubt that Rose has ever had a ring in her chin) and at the end of the dream I ask her when she wants to make the switch back.  She doesn’t seem anxious and I tell her I’m going to have the chin ring removed.

          I don’t know why my eyes fluttered, but I asked Roland what time it was.  He groaned as he turned to look at the clock and reported that it was six o’clock.  Jenna had forgotten to wake us again!  I woke up before Rose reacted or know if the chin ring was removed or not.  Weird

I'd rather go to Disneyland

            We have tried saving up for a Disneyland vacation for the last three years - asking each of our children and my siblings to please save for October this year.  Each year we have dipped into our funds - not that we ever had enough to get us there.  Last year we had gone back to Utah for Jeanie's funeral.  Next year will be returning for a wedding between Biff and Clair.  I really would like to meet her and support Biff again.  But truth be known, I HATE weddings.  I'd much rather go to Disneyland.

            We used this year's tax refund to pay off bills, replenish our food storage and an excursion to Enchanted Forrest - though the latter was not necessary.  After struggling from paycheck to paycheck every month, sometimes you just feel that you need to do something so as not to go insane.  So after Jeanie's funeral, I changed the Disneyland excursion to next year.  I suppose if we were to save our tax refund and not touch it until September, we could do both . .. but we'll still have bills.  Still in need of new furniture.  I realize that Disneyland should not even be placed on the list of priorities - Disneyland is not a need whereas food and electricity are.

            I don't know when in September, but I would like to ask Kayla if our family can crash with her family for the length of time that we are there.  Maybe we can drive to Disneyland together (should we happen to be in that position)  I guess it's good to have a goal to shoot for - because even if we never obtain that goal, we have used the money for a more important purpose.  What dilemma.

There ARE MANY Perks to Eloping

A few of my posts have included dreams that I’ve had. Each of those posts concludes with how I don’t put much faith in dreams.  But there is one dream that I definitely interpreted to be quite meaningful.  I made a life changing decision as a result.

                  I met Roland for the first time on December 31, 2000.  He asked me out that night.  We would go downtown to celebrate the coming of the New Year.  I missed playing games with my family – a ritual I have enjoyed about New Years.

                  Roland was quite forward.  I had dismissed guys for being too forward – and none had ever been as forward as Roland had.  I didn’t understand why I felt so comfortable around him. By the end of our date we had set up a second. I don’t know if I knew then that we would be seeing the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks.

                  So during our second date, I cried and cried – not for Tom Hanks’ character, but because I thought of my dad.  Though he was never stranded on an island with a ball-turned-companion, I just remembered the frustration that dad must have felt in trying to communicate with anybody outside of his hospital bed. 

                  Roland was so gentle with me and seemed to understand.  He passed no judgment.  I was grateful for that. 

                  That night I had a dream that it was summer and my mom was trying to get all my sibs together for a family portrait.  In the dream Roland and I had been dating for six months.  He had not yet proposed, but I knew that he would be proposing.  I was wondering how to ask mom to allow Roland and the boys to be in our family picture, as I knew that we would be together by the end of the year.

                  In real life I shot out of bed.  I had met Roland only two days before.  We had only had our second date – a movie, at that. Why would I be dreaming that we would become an item?  I didn’t even know him!  I was less than thrilled about having this dream. 

                  The next day I went to work but returned home in less than four hours as I really didn’t feel well.  I told my brother that I’d be going back to bed and under any circumstances I was NOT to be disturbed.  But less than an hour later he knocked at my door to tell me that Roland was waiting for me.

                  For reals?  Or was I having another odd dream?  Roland was there to propose!  We had met just three days ago and he wanted to marry me!  Get real!  So of course my first thought was: “No, no, no, no, no . . . .”           actually the reaction was pretty much as it had been when I awoke from the dream.

               Was there a connection?  Had my dream been a personal revelation?  Was this a test?  “No – no – I can’t accept a proposal of marriage.  I don’t even know this guy.  This goes against EVERYTHING I had planned for myself.  I wasn’t even going to date a guy I had known less than a year.  And now I was getting this message to marry this complete stranger?”

                  Of course I prayed about my decision – realizing that just because I accepted his proposal did not mean I couldn’t break it off at some point.  Three days?? That’s outrageous!!

                  Since I was knee high my dad had tried to brainwash me into believing that I wanted to elope when I had the opportunity.  To be honest, I really had no idea what he meant. It wasn’t until I got much older than I realized the elopement thing was not a bad idea.  Only by the time Roland came along, dad was gone and mom didn’t want me to elope.  I think my mom saw Roland as the Big Bad Wolf and was afraid for me.

                  Roland and I had changed our wedding date several times.  As I had mentioned in this post, we had wanted to do the right thing and start our life together with a temple marriage.

                    We had the marriage certificate to present to our bishop for the following week, but he realized that he’d be out of town. And I was tired of it.  Tired of changing the date.  Tired of trying to appease everyone.  In fact, I had said to mom and brother, Corey, “why don’t you arrange a date that fits into both of your schedules and get back to us; You two make the arrangements and tell us when to show up.”

                 

                   After several tears and a talk with mom, I went into the bishop and asked if he could marry us that night or the next. Our civil marriage took place September 9, 2001. Everybody (including the groom) who came to the wedding received an eight hour notice or less.  So it wasn’t an elopement exactly, but it wasn’t planned in the way that you would think a wedding should be.

                  On September 11, terrorists attacked our nation.  If Roland and I hadn’t already been married, I would have had him drive me to Vegas upon my return home from work.  For I fully believed that the world had come to an end.  I suppose in many aspects it symbolically did.

                A month later we did an open house – mostly for the benefit of those who attended mom’s ward and made desires known that they wished I would have had a reception or something.  I purchased balloons, baskets and teddy bears for the decor and we’d gone to Sam’s Club for the hors-d'œuvre.  I think we spent 100 bucks tops.

So it wasn’t elaborate.  It worked.  I don’t ever look back on that day and say, “Oh, I wish I would have spent more money on more frivolous things.”

Okay, I’ll admit, I’ve never been overly enthusiastic about weddings.  If I have to be involved in a wedding, I have always enjoyed the simpler ones so much better than all that elaborate hoopla.  When I finally understood my dad’s wisdom, I had hoped that each of my boys would find girls who would want to elope. 

Actually, my first daughter-in-law and I have much in common as far as hoopla goes.  Her attitude pretty much matched my own.  Her family made the arrangements and she and Tony showed up.  Well, not entirely.  But I am under the impression that is how she felt.  It was important to her mom, and that is why she allowed it.  Rochelle’s mom passed away only two months after she and Tony were married.

I don’t know how much Carrie and I have in common.  She likes to visit, but Randy somehow always manages to steal her thunder.  His behavior resembles that of Captain Kirk or William Shatner where “I am important and therefore all attention should be on me”   

It was actually that behavior that Carrie found to be a turn off.  She could see right away that Randy is full of himself (which really most people don’t get because they are always awed by his charisma) I don’t recall why she agreed to go out with him, or why she allowed a second date (her description of their first date is less than flattering) but evidently had enough premonition to make a life with him.

Their wedding was expensive.  We did not contribute financially as we were on welfare when  both Randy and Tony were married to their wives. Perhaps that is part of why I have such a hang-up with the tremendous amount of money spent on weddings.  I have enough trouble  just staying afloat or trying to put food on the table.  Spending two paychecks for one-day event is OUTRAGEOUS.

Jeanie seemed all in favor of elopement initially.  But I think Biff wanted the hoopla – and what they had in mind initially seemed tasteful.  They would get married in the temple and have a luncheon with the family.  They wouldn’t send out announcements to friends until several weeks later to invite them to some kind of reception to pay a congratulations to the couple. At least that was my understanding.

But then it changed.  And changed again.  They couldn’t marry in the temple as they had planned and so they decided just to marry civilly.  They would include family members and have a luncheon afterward.  Later when they were granted temple marriage, they would have a reception to include all family and friends.

We received the announcement of their civil marriage and have been planning for that for over a month.  Two weeks ago Roland received a text from Biff to please escort him in the temple.  They are having their temple marriage on Friday and have changed their civil marriage to something else to accommodate those that are coming on Saturday. 

Two weeks is quite a healthy notice.  It’s not like Biff rushed into a proposal only three days after having met Jeanie.  And they have given us a lot more than just eight hours notice.  I can’t help but wonder what kind of example we set for them though. 

Still no scheduled reception – at least   that I know of.  I wonder if they are still planning on having more.  I think elopement would have been so much easier.  Definitely less expensive.  I can still plant the seeds for Jenna.  Let her know the pros and the cons.  I mean, it would be nice if we could afford something elaborate for her.  But gads, all that money for just one day?  Why not put the money towards a house or tuition or something that you will have with you with more than just a memory?

Interpretation of Dreams . . . but not always

This post is different from  average - at least in this blog.  Perhaps you have an opinion?  And then we could have a discussion

I dreamt that I was at some kind of convention – a BYU education week perhaps.  I believe I was in Provo with a mass amount of people.  For some odd reason I had been toting around some bedding (at least two pillows and one afghan) something I would NEVER do in real life.  For some reason there was a group of us ended up waiting for one of the instructors at his home.  And while we were waiting several dressed like hell’s angels decided to do some kind of aerobic activity on the instructor’s lawn.

As the skies grew dark I found myself on the front porch wrapped in my afghan and sitting on my pillows until I decided (as odd as their particular moves seemed to be) I would join them.  I was a lot thinner in my dream and therefore it seemed more reasonable than if I were to try it now in real life.  I would probably end up lying on the grass unable to move.

 

Somewhere along the way we had instantaneously moved from the lawn to a room in the house receiving instruction.  I don’t know what the topic was. I can’t imagine that it would have held my interest judging by the group of people that were present – I just don’t think I would have been interested in the same subjects – though it all seemed to make sense in my dream.

I recall walking to the next class with a female association of the instructor’s.  It was no longer dark, but the sun shone brightly as we walked onto the campus for our next class. The class was on physics or psychological disorders or something that starts with “p” although the “p” itself is not pronounced.  Whatever the topic, I am certain that I would have found another class to attend in real life.  

 

As different students were filing in, I was separated with the woman whom I had walked in with.  She was near one door and I found myself standing by the other on the opposite side of the room. Just before the class started I realized that I had left the bedding behind.  I was a bit panicked at loosing my treasures (the afghan is one my mom had made for me in real life) and wondered how I would recover them. How would I ever get to the Wilkinson Center (a building at BYU) from where I was and be able to find my contents undisturbed? (duh, I was standing by a door – I didn’t have to stay for the lecture, did I?) I then remembered that I hadn’t been at the Wilkinson Center at all.  My belongings remained at an instructor’s house.  I hadn’t paid attention to how I had arrived there and did not know how to go back.  Surely his female associate would know his address.  But I never saw her again.

For the remainder of the dream I searched for someone who could tell me how to get back so that I may reclaim my bedding.  When I awoke both pillows were on my bed along with the afghan that my mom had made many years ago.  Had I shared this dream with Roland he would have asked, “What do you think it means?”

I think it means I was extraordinarily tired.  End of story.

 

Do your dreams seem to send messages for you?  What's your opinion about this one?

We Didn’t Win the Lottery

The owner of a convenient store in Preston, Idaho was interviewed about his selling the Mega Million tickets for last night’s lottery.  Still a chance to purchase.

They don’t have the lottery in Utah, and so one has to go across the border to make purchases.  Over half a billion dollars.  It is mind boggling really.  I think 20,000 would be mind boggling.  Our account has never seen more than 4,000 at a time (and it went quickly.  Always does)

So Roland comes home yesterday and recaps the news story and asks what I would do with that much money.

“Well, first I would pay off all our bills.  I would buy new cars (or drivable cars rather) for ourselves and for Bill and Kayla (as they are also experiencing the sluggish dying car thing) and move.  Definitely move.  We could purchase a duplex near Jenna’s school.  Bill and Kayla could live on one side and we could live on the other.”

“You’ve got half a billion dollars.  Half a billion.”

Roland always has been a dreamer.  I can’t fathom that much.  Wouldn’t want to. 

“Why don’t we just give a huge chunk of it to the church – let them figure it out.”

“They won’t take it”

“Oh, yeah.  Hmmm . . .”

The reason he had asked me was because there was a guy from his office who had decided to drive up to Preston yesterday.  He had asked his co-workers who would like a ticket.  Roland contributed a whole dollar.  He showed me the ticket.  Impressive.

There are actually a lot of sick babies in my sister’s ward (a geographical boundary for the LDS church) that are in hospitals, and you know that comes with an expensive price tag – even with insurance – though I don’t imagine anyone living in that area really has that great of insurance.

Bill has a nephew who’s been in and out of hospitals since birth – not to mention all the medical expenses of Bill’s late wife.

Now the possibilities become endless for us.  We’ll hire an attorney and pay bills anonymously.  We can move out of state and Roland could become a shark and make decisions about investing in unique products. We can make even more money which we could give to the Church and we can still assist and support charities.

We could . . .

But alas, we did not win.  We didn’t have enough to collect a consolation.  Well, cool.  I didn’t want all that responsibility anyway.