Beneath the Wraps

  The other night I had asked Alexa to set an alarm for yesterday morning as we would be picking pears . . . or so we believed.   I had glanced at the calendar and realized that yesterday was mine and Richard’s wedding anniversary.   I started toward the back room to ask him if he wanted to do anything special to celebrate.   I don’t know if I even made it back to the room where he was working on watches.   I am so losing it.   We both are.           Both of us forgot about it being our anniversary.   We went down to Medford to pick pears which we normally do at the end of August.   No smoke filled the air!   It was great!   But we wondered: Do the pears prefer smoky weather?   I have never seen so many puny pears EVER.   The majority were not even pickable.   What?   It was rather disappointing.   Two people climbed ladders and dropped them down to those who would c...

               In 2019 I made a goal to write at least one dash a week and fulfilled that challenge.  I was quite pleased with how much got recorded – or at least what I thought I had posted.  Recently I looked at all the questions and realized I probably have not answered even half of them.  So I decided that maybe I would continue with that starting with Dash LF#6 How does your significant other let you know that you are loved?        There are several things that Richard does to express his love.   He always tells me.   But he also provides for me.   He doesn ’ t make excuses about the weather, or his health or what have you.   If something needs to be done, he does it.   He will do it regardless of the weather, or if he is not feeling well – he ’ ll paint the house or the shed, move heavy items, plant and weed.   He always makes sure there is gas in the car.   T...

             After Roland and I were married, I remember having cleaned the church at least once a month.  Families were supposed to sign up to clean on Saturday – hopefully at least two families per Saturday.  But I remember many a times being the only family.             Jenna doesn’t remember cleaning the church in Kearns but remembers in West Valley when we did it by organization.   We’d gone from cleaning the church once a month to often two or three times a month.   We would all be there whether it was the primary’s turn, Relief Society or Bishopric.   And that particular building was a huge building housing three wards that could overlap – which meant one ward could hold Sunday School, Primary and so forth meetings while another ward was in sacrament meeting.               The building in Myrtle Creek is...

            A couple of weeks ago we had the missionaries come over for dinner.   As we were talking, one of elders made the comment that several people don't see us a family oriented church.   I took the opportunity to explain to him why that might be.   Though there is a strong emphasis placed upon the family - even the definition according to the proclamation (see here ) seems discriminatory.   We're not all like that.   The average family doesn't fit the mold. The proclamation gives us an ideal that we are supposed to strive for.             When I wrote this post , I referred to a couple named Juleen and Al Jackson.   I mentioned how I'd been under the impression that Juleen had believed that the show should have focused more on their story (or families of similar living) rather than explore those that didn't quite fit into the mold of "Mormon living"   - she DID NOT say it that wa...

When I was in primary, our classes were made up of those in the same grade at school.   We went to a class from September to September (or whenever the school year started.)   Primary was on Thursdays – just right after school. Each class had it's own name: Sunbeams, Stars, CTR, Targeteers, Merrie Miss and Blazers. We were given paper crowns in Sunbeams and Stars and a CTR ring in CTRs.   We were given a flag in the Targeteer class.       I don’t know if it was every other lesson, or once a month or exactly when the ribbons were passed out.   Each ribbon was a different color as I recall (I don’t know if the color was symbolic) – and I think they came with printed verse or scripture as a reminder of that lesson.   We were supposed to tie each ribbon on the “pole”, I guess just under the flag.   I can’t remember if we “earned” our ribbons or if they just came automatically.   I don’t even know what became of my f...