Beneath the Wraps

  The other night I had a dream that I had been living in my old house in Kearns.   I was serving as a Relief Society counselor (my current role) with the presidency from the ward I am in.   Roland and I had moved to another house during the pandemic but had not told anyone.    from google maps Church was not back in session and I continued to meet with the sisters in our ward.   I wasn’t trying to do it secretively – I really just didn’t think about it.   However, the new area we had just moved to was about to start up with returning to church and I wondered if I should call the RS pres in the ward I’d been serving to let her know I had moved and that my records would need to be transferred to another ward.   I dreamed that the RS president had stopped by my old Kearns house to learn that I hadn’t even lived there for a couple of months.  She called me and I told her that I was just about to call her.  I woke up realizing that I ...

            The first time I remember meeting Ben (not his actual name) was at one of the schools.   There was concern about safety with gang violence and other criminal activity.   After the presentation there was a QA session and Ben provided three phone numbers to call.   One was the local police department, one was for the Sheriff’s office and the last one he gave he said was his personal number.   I had programmed all three into my phone but had only used one and never the other two. Ben had run for office as the Sheriff head cheese – which was not the official title but he had worked under the Sheriff head cheese not as a deputy but an acting sheriff and had run against the head cheese I don’t know how many times.   He was running the year I dragged my husband to an adjoining neighborhood to support his campaign.   I remember liking his facebook page which I guess at the time qualified me as an automatic member of ...

  I would like to be more humble as I have always had a problem with pride. Whenever I think that I have overcome so much of my pride – wham!   I find myself fighting all over again.  And here are just two examples:   1)    When I was in the young women ’ s presidency the YW president had asked me to write a skit for camp – which I did but it took some time to incorporate my ideas.   When I tried to present my idea the YW pres. said it was no longer needed.   The girls had decided that they wanted to do something else – which really didn ’ t even relate to the topic.  At least at the time I didn ’ t think it did.   I felt a bit put out that I had worked on this skit and they didn ’ t even want to listen to my ideas.   And I knew it was wrong to feel resentment.   After all it is the girls who should be involved and they were.   I should have expressed praise or some kind of encouragement.   I tried to shru...

            We fed the missionaries on Friday though the air quality was not that great.   They did not seem to mind as we built and ate Hawaiian haystacks out on our porch and visited for a bit.   I’d given them containers to take home some food which they said they would give me on Sunday.   Sadly that was my main objective for going as I knew we haven’t returned to normal and I thought it would be depressing.   Only the speaker was allowed to remove his mask.   We were told we could sing but had to leave our masks on.   I chose not to sing as the smoke has been enticing me to cough. Several announcements were made before the bishop talked about how many of us are opinionated and often our opinions will put us into a box. There are a wide variety of boxes that exist – in our jobs, in our community, the way we serve (he didn’t say politics – but that is one I had thought of) . . . some people, such as the Pharisees, will...

  The air is thick and white where I live.    *abc - Portland Other parts of Oregon are yellow and orange – like San Francisco.    share from facebook I doubt there is any blue sky that can be seen on the entire west coast.    *abc news *abc - California Forget COVID.   Forget politics and presidential candidates.   People have lost their homes in more way than one. They’ve either been burnt to the ground or criminals have come to ransack and destroy their houses in other ways.   Aside from material possessions which can be replaced are sentiments that are lost. # AP Photo/Paula Bronstein I was watching abc news that provided the following:   I remember the air quality in 2017 not being so great – and according to this chart 2018 was even worse and 2020 is the worst year yet.   I had heard about how bad it was but did not share in bad air quality until after Labor Day.   I feel blessed that this is the worse it has...

            Just six and a half months before the pandemic Roland, Jenna and I had gone to Bandon.   And yet it feels like decades ago since we made that trip on Labor Day weekend last year. I did not think about that Labor Day until yesterday when I was looking for a picture of the fog.             We chose not to go anywhere this year due to COVID.   When Labor Day had turned into night I was lying in bed and looking up at the stars.   What a beautiful sight to see stars all summer.   I didn’t realize that Labor Day would be my last opportunity even though I spent several minutes admiring the twinkles (which appeared to be twinkling as the fan had been lightly moving the blinds). The next day the RS pres. had picked up to attend a mini-RS meeting.   We’ve had four now beginning in Canyonville, Riddle, Working sisters, and Tri-City.   Will have one more in Myrtle Creek.   I enjoye...

                  The worst sound, for me, is to hear my daughter cry and not being able to do anything about it.   Fortunately for us she does bounce back quickly.   It’s been a tremendously hard year for everybody.   This week has come with new personal challenges as well.             Jenna started school yesterday.   Her Utah friends are in their second or third week but her local friends won’t be starting school until next week.   Everything online as of now.   Jenna has run into a few snags but has been able to figure them out on her own.   I don’t think returning to school online has been the most stressful thing for her.             I haven’t gone into much detail about her friends as I know there was a time when she had friends reading different posts fr...

                                                  this photo shows the opposite.  Sky is white and sun is blood red Evacuations are taking place all around the state Douglas County has had some fires Douglas County is large and so we aren’t always directly infected at Myrtle Creek and have not seen smoke all summer and so I can’t complain about it only today did the smoke swallow the mountains It almost feels overcast outside and yet there's a yellow/orange/white reflection from the sky. The smoke has left the sun with an awesome glow that has an eerie feel to it when it peers through my windows like in science fiction movies when the aliens are about to invade.   But it is 2020 after all.   The last six months have seemed like a work of science fiction.   I think it...

            Before we moved into the house we noticed that the floor squeaked.   Whenever we walked on a certain spot over the floor it sounded as though the boards were so loose that we would easily fall through the floor.   I suspect the carpet was laid down to cover a variety of flaws that should have been repaired and are still in need and will be repaired in time.   Just not now.           Before COVID  Roland did have someone come out to level the house.   He got rid of the squeak in the front room but managed to move it to our bedroom – which is worse.   At least in the front room we could walk around it but I do not have a choice in the bedroom.   It is right next to my side of the bed.           Even before I was married I had a weak bladder – meaning I could not make it through the entire night without at least one bathroom trip.   I...

  Roland has ordered many things for home improvement.   We hung up the blinds that were delivered.   Jenna spray painted a pineapple topper (it had been ordered in black but arrived in silver and bent).   Hung that over the porch   (picture to be added).   Hung spiders and a spiderweb (also to be added) and Roland noticed that the flag on the mailbox had been turned down.     I retrieved a little square box and asked him what he was expecting from Henderson Nevada.   He had ordered a Swee’ Pea bank as he has given me the nickname Sweet Pea.   He had made this card for me on my birthday at the end of May.

Roland accepted another opportunity to feed the elders.   This time we will be feeding four of them. Roland wants to provide them with a steak dinner.   That means we will have to use real plates instead of paper.   Hey, wait a minute . . . last time we had the Elders over we put all the food on the table so that they could load up their plates with whatever they wanted.     Each of us held our plates over our laps.   That isn’t going to work with steak.   The missionaries are not allowed to come inside or even knock on the door.   It’s not like we have extra tables hanging around that we can take outside.   Roland had suggested a barbeque with hamburgers and hotdogs. Jenna and I were hoping for Hawaiian haystacks.   They’ve been to other barbeques. For the most part when we’ve had haystacks it Has been a new idea to at least one elder. I think Jenna and I may have won out. Roland is now purcha...

There is evidently enough people who spell label incorrectly (me being one of them) that this site was created.   I apologize to my readers of foreign tongue who may have struggled through my posts or given up on them.   Often I wonder what the draw is to keep some readers signing in.   Perhaps they enjoy a challenge and can find that through several of my posts.   I guess it’s quite obvious that I don’t always use a spell check or use grammarly. When I was at the MTC we were often divided into groups and were asked to solve problems.   One specific example that comes to mind   was discouraging the use of labels.   Each group was told that we’d be going on a mission to outer space and were given a list of items that we should bring.    To add to the challenge each of us was given a label which was placed over our foreheads so that each member of the group could read what they were except for his/her own. Each label I saw was negative. ...