In the Deep Dark Winter

Snow on snow. . .

It started snowing when we were in St Louis over Christmas and we haven't seen dirt since. We have 2 1/2 feet of snow in the back yard. It has been a cold and snowy 2 months. Poor Joey has a snow path that is up to her shoulders when she needs to go outside.

I love a good snowy winter: waking up to a new, undisturbed covering of white, watching snow fall on the hillside behind the house, reading by the burning fire, making soup and bread for dinner, and snuggling with John at night.



. . on snow on snow



But this winter has has been long even for us die hard winter fans. Temperatures have plummeted below zero with inversions that have held kept fog, smog, and cold air in the valley and warm air above it in the mountains. We even had an ice storm!  Who knew it could rain in the warm air above the inversion, then freeze when it hit the frigid air below and turn into ice on the roads sidewalks and driveways? People were slipping and sliding everywhere. Annie's car ended up sideways at the foot of her driveway and she had to practically crawl up it to get into her garage.

But it is still beautiful. The view of the creek and my neighbors bridge from my living room after one storm was amazing!  It almost makes the minor disasters of life seem insignificant (headaches, replacing the hot water heater, refrigerator and battery and oil pan on the Honda within two weeks of each other, and more headaches.)



. . .snow on snow. . .

And if I get too tired of winter I read my seed catalogues and order seeds. Or I enjoy the hyacinths than my sister Ann forced for me. They really do feed the soul.



. . .snow on snow on snow.



Just Leave Us in the West Desert

It seems like everyone I talk to who is my age is dealing with aging parents. When a group of us got together we used to talk about our kids, our home improvement projects, our travels, our sex lives, pretty random stuff. Now all we talk about is our aging bodies and our aging parents.

One friend said and I quote: "I have seen more of a naked 90 year old man's private parts that I ever wanted to see." Another told me she changed her toddler's diaper and then turned around and cleaned up her father with tears streaming down her face. When a friend of my mother's was asked what she did when  her aging husband yelled and swore at her( he would have never done this when he was younger), she said she just yelled right back. Just this morning my visiting teacher said that her parents had to move into an assisted living center when her father fell and lay there for 6 hours before someone came. Her  mother wasn't cognizant enough to call 911 or even bring him the phone. 

My dad, who is 82, and John's mom, who will be 88 next month , are central to my part of these conversations. My dad, who was a wonderful, energetic, intelligent, man has melanoma and dementia, probably brought on by a head injury from a bicycle accident 20 years ago. John's mom is a proud, stoic, independent southern woman, whom age is catching up with.

I have seen my mother in law in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of both arms and an oxygen mask over her face tell me that she is "just fine" when  I asked her how she was doing. She was trying to convince us that she could go to her home when she left the hospital instead of to her daughter Rachel's. My dad, when asked last week by the hospice evaluators, didn't know his name and who mom was. Last week when I was fixing him some breakfast he asked me how long I have been helping him. I think he thought I was one of his caregivers, but I wouldn't dream of asking him if he knows who I am. I can't do that to him.  . . or me. I just walk in kiss him on the cheek and say "Hi dad, it's Jeanne, your favorite daughter!" He does laugh though and seems to know it is a joke.

 

Taken in 1988 at Carlos and LaDawn wedding.



I have learned that old age treats every one differently. Some lucky few keep on going into their late 80s hardly slowing down at all. Others like John's dad die drop dead of a heart attack in their early 70s. At times I wonder if they are the fortunate ones. They and their family don't have to go through the slow decline and  endure (and witness) the indignities of old age.

  I was scanning some old negatives into my computer the other day and came across an old picture of John and me with his parents. It was such a pleasant surprise to see an unexpected picture of Dad Lingard. He has been gone 15 years now and it was like seeing an old friend. I actually touched the computer screen in greeting. I feel the same way when I see pictures of my dad come up on my computer screen saver. There are pictures of him when we were growing up, of him skiing, or sailing or fishing, and of him with my children. He has intelligence, light and joy in his eyes and I reach out my hand to the screen in greeting, missing him . 

 



Dad and Annie, camping at Strawberry Reservoir



   As John and I watch our parents age, we, like generations before us, bemoan, "I don't want to get old." He is convinced he will die of an early heart attack like his father. "If I don't" he says, "just leave me out in the west desert and drive away." And I say "just leave us both."

Over the River and Through the Woods

This year Grandma and Grandpa went over the river (the Missouri) and through the woods (Rocky Mountains) to visit their grand children instead of them visiting us.

What a view outside the cabin.  Ezra is sick and wrapped in Maggie's
new quilt

Chris and Meg were going to her family cabin 10 miles east of Heber for Christmas and invited us, Annie and Thomas and Monica to come up the weekend before Christmas. What a gift it was to get our Christmas shopping, wrapping, candy making and cleaning done 4 days before Christmas and relax in the mountains for a couple of days.

. . .so Maggie had to as well.

Travis making a funny face. . . 

Although I am not sure being with 3 children under the age of 7, 3 days before Christmas could be called relaxing, even if they were out numbered 2 to 1 by adults. And they all had to be with Grandpa. I don't know if it was his iphone, his beard, or  just because he was grandpa        


It was fun to spend time with Ezra, Travis and Maggie. They change every time we see them. Maggie (3) is potty trained, but she won't wear little girl panties.  She insisted on wearing Travis's and it drove him crazy, so Meg bought Maggie her own boy underwear. She does every thing her brothers do from climbing on Ezra top bunk, over the safety rail, to riding a bike.

Travis wouldn't leave Thomas alone, so Thomas started
tickling every time he said something. It was payback time!

Travis is a little instigator, just like his father. He and Ezra had coughs that would not go away. I told them that my daddy, their Grandpa Great, who was a doctor, had a great idea for cough medicine. Every time we would cough he would slug us and sure enough our coughs went away because we didn't want to get hit. (It really wasn't as bad as it sounds, we laughed and ran as we tried to get away from the "cough medicine".) Of course Travis took it to heart and started slugging Ezra every time he coughed. I had to tell him that only Grandpa Great could slug someone who coughed because he was a doctor.

Annie in her vest instead of her quilt.

Ezra will be 8 in March and has already mastered the art of eye rolling. Poor thing, he started running a temperature on Saturday and really didn't feel very well the rest of the weekend. Annie  brought up her Christmas quilt so she would have our own comfy cozy to snuggle in. As soon as Ezra started feeling sick he wrapped himself up in Annie's quilt and she had to pry it off his back when we left. It is a good thing I gave Maggie her quilt so he could use it when we left.                                              
                                                                           
We played Christmas bingo, pinochle, and Monica had us all playing what we called Spit, though I can't remember what she called it.

On the road to Heber, that's Mt Timp in the background

Cousins, Annie, Hannah and Anikka.

John has now joined the ranks of Neville men and
their in-laws who have beards.

We got home and had Christmas Eve at our house with Annie, Mom, Dad, Shelley, Ann, Thomas and Monica and then went to Shelley and Ann's home for Christmas Day

Loaded with kids instead of shelves.

We left the next day loaded with the two tiered chest that John made for Matt and Erin's Christmas and birthday presents and survival supplies (in case we were stranded on 1-80) to visit Matt, Erin, Ian, Lily and Molly in St Louis.

It was the best trip ever because we just stayed home and visited (only leaving once to see "The Hobbit")  because Molly had a low grade fever and cough. Ian, Lily and Molly are growing as fast as their cousins. Grandpa still seems to be the grandkid magnet, every time he sat down the kids were glued to his side.


  


Ian is 6 years old. He favorite thing to do is play with his legos and he can probably tell you about every single one he owns. I can still hear him say, "Can I tell you just one more thing?" before he had to go to bed. He has his daddy's curly hair and doesn't think he is too big to give me a good night kiss. This picture says it all.

I think Lily was under-whelmed with her quilt
until she got used to the idea that she didn't get a toy and
then she slept with it every night.

Lily is a cutie with her own sense of style. She has a temper that she is working on controlling. We were playing a game in the living room and something happened that Lily didn't like. Instead of having a hissy fit, she held everything by closing her mouth, holding her breath and turning an alarming shade of red. As we all looked at her in amazement, she let out her breath and started laughing with us. It was a red (literally) letter day.

Helping daddy and Grandpa paint.

 And oh little Molly! There is nothing better than a snuggly 2 year old who runs to you and wants to be picked up. All that face timing paid off. She actually is quite rough and tumble as the youngest are sometimes want to be. (See Maggie.)

We came home surprisingly rested for spending 10 days driving, visiting, driving and visiting again. It was even worth the cough I seemed to bring home with me. Not a bad price to pay.

Christmas Projects

I gathered all the projects I made this Christmas together to take a picture before I wrapped them and my first thought was "Is that all?" It seemed like such a little pile when I thought of all the work I did. But it wasn't such a small stack: 4 quilts, 2 sets of pillow cases, 4 hand quilted ornaments, a cape and 6 little girl bracelets.





Jayne came up the first week of December to visit mom and dad and await the birth of Leslie and Clay's baby boy. Lucky me, little Sam was a week late and Jayne and I got to play. It was like an early Christmas present. She was making dress up things for Chase and Caitlin's girls and asked if I wanted to make anything for my grand daughters. Since she had all the supplies and I am not stupid, I said yes. So I made a cape for Maggie and bracelets for Maggie, Lily and Molly.

                 
Of course I made quilts for Christmas presents. Maggie got her big bed quilt, a wonky log cabin made with wonderful pink, aqua, orange and green fabrics. I titled it "Duck, Duck, Maggie" because of the ducks (my sister Ann said they were avocets because of their up turned beaks) printed on the fabric. I played around with the back and pieced in leftover blocks to jazz it up a bit. It is one of my favorite quilts so far.

When I was in St. Louis last summer Lily asked me if I would make her a "cool" quilt. She had worn out the tied quilt I made Matt when he was 15, but it was a light weight quilt that she could use in the summer and still keep cool and didn't want to give it up. I used a poly down batting that I quite liked because it was so much lighter than the cotton batts I usually use.  I named the quilt "Lily in My Garden." It is made with fabrics I had on hand, thanks to the infusion of mom's fabrics to my stash. It is a bittersweet thing for mom to see me use her fabrics, she is glad they are being used, but hates to seem them used at the same time. The blue in the quilt reminds me of mom, she loves blue fabric with tiny white flowers.

I had  a Madame Alexander Huggable doll to give to Molly but the poor dolly seemed so cold in her hard blue box that I just had to make a quilt for her. Her dress was yellow with red cherry accents so I made a baby doll quilt to match. It was so much fun to make a little 18 x 24 inch quilt. I finished it in 24 hours, all but hand sewing the binding. Again I used fabrics from mine and mom's stash. How could I not name it "Molly's Dolly Quilt?"

I didn't realize how well planned the quilt was until it was finished and
spread out.  It was hard to appreciate the overall design when
 I was looking at each individual strip as I was mending and quilting.

A couple of years ago I was with mom at an antique show when she bought a vintage log cabin quilt top. It was pretty hammered and I thought she was crazy to buy it. This fall she pulled it out and asked me what I thought we could do with it. The seams had pulled out in places and on closer inspection it looked like there were nylon fabrics (shudder) in it as well as cotton and some seersucker and other really ugly fabrics. I told her I didn't know if it was worth spending a lot of time on, but she left it with me and I added it to my unfinished project shelf. She mentioned the quilt a few times in the next few weeks, but I ignored her. I was trying to think of something to give her for Christmas, but she really doesn't need anymore stuff. So I took another look at her log cabin quilt. I decided I probably could mend the seams and quilt it for Christmas. I used the poly down batting I used for Lily's quilt to make it light weight and easy for mom to pull over her legs and fabric from her stash for the back. The original quilt size was 84 x 72 inches, way to big for a throw quilt, so I unpicked a row and pieced it into the back.  In her stash was a piece of vintage red fabric with large white flowers that I used for the binding. All in all it turned out great, despite a few tucks and pleats due to the original quilter's quirks and my own.

I know that in the future I will not be able to do Christmas projects like I can do now. I see the sadness and frustration in my mother and mother-in-law eyes as they wish they could work and create as they used to. But for now I will plan and sew and enjoy the process each project takes. And then I will pass my stash on to their grandchildren when I cannot.

The Lord Doesn't Care What You Wear

There are a group of women who are wearing pants to sacrament meeting this Sunday as sort of a "civil obedience" form of protest that they want to be treated the same as men and given equal opportunities to serve in in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. I was asked how I felt about this. These are strictly my opinions and I will not be pulling in any quotes from others to support my opinions.

First off let me say that I think we are talking about two completely different issues here. What anyone wears to church is completely different from everyone holding the priesthood, male or female.

What we wear is to church is a cultural manner. By dressing up we are showing our Heavenly Father respect and adoration. Just as we wear our best to a job interview, fancy party, or to impress someone, we do the same for the Lord. But the definition of "our best" has changed over the years, Many churches no longer require best dress to worship in their churches. It is come as you are.

The LDS church has encouraged its members to dress to show their respect to the Lord. However we are becoming a world wide church and it seems to me that members across the world dress in their cultural best when they go to church so we can't say that dresses and suits are always the norm.

However, many new converts and members without sufficient means to buy dress clothes cannot always wear "Sunday best" to church. Does the Lord (or should we) think differently about these brothers and sisters? Absolutely not.

A few years ago I was in Saint George, Utah after the marathon there. John had had a serious heart attack at the end of the race and was in intensive care at the local hospital. I was staying with my sweet niece Dianna in her collage apartment because she didn't want me to be alone after everyone left when we knew John was going to make it. I woke early Monday morning, but couldn't get in to see John until 10:00 am. I didn't want to sit around with a bunch of collage girls, no matter how good their intentions were, so I left their apartment and started driving around St George. They lived just a few blocks away from the temple, so I pulled over and started walking around and having my own little pity party. I noticed people entering the temple with their little suitcases like they were going to do a session, but it was Monday and I didn't think the temple was open on Mondays. I followed thinking if I could do a session it might help my wounded heart. As I walked up the steps and realized I had jeans on I and almost turned around. But I girded my proverbial loins (jeans) and entered. As always there were cute senior couples working the front desk,  I walked up to the desk feeling very conspicuous in my jeans, told my story and asked if I could enter the temple even though I wasn't dressed appropriately. The elderly brother looked me in the eye, put his hand on mine and said some people might mind but the Lord doesn't care what you wear, please enter and find peace. I started to cry, and felt wrapped in the comforting arms of my Savior.

I tell this story because although I know He will love me no matter what I wear, I always want to show my love and honor to Him through what I wear when I am in His house. So when I go to church to partake of His holy sacrament and ordinances, I will wear the best I can: be it jeans or Sunday best.

Seventy Times Seven

This past week I had an experience with forgiveness that I also hope will always stay with me.

In the past I have usually associated forgiveness with wrongs done to me. I need to to forgive when some one hurts me, or those I love. To be honest, I have lived such a blessed life that all the hurts done to me have been very minor and easy to forgive and forget.

My mother (she just told me it was my dad's concept, but she was the one that taught us) always taught us that most things that are said or done to hurt us are not done intentionally or maliciously. They maybe be said unthinkingly or because someone has had a bad day, (or is an idiot) but are rarely said to actually hurt or be mean. She told us if we considered the source we wouldn't be hurt. I have tried to live my life giving people the benefit of the doubt and thus don't get my feelings hurt very easily.

However when it comes down to me that needed to be forgiven I don't think I have always been so honest with myself. Our family has been blessed (or cursed) with a good self confidence. We were taught to always know the reason why we acted the way we did, "I don't know" was never a good answer when accounting for our actions. We have accused Thomas with being "blissfully overconfident" because he always thinks he is right, usually is and life hasn't had time to give him a few knocks. My brother Roark is famous for the non apology apology, ie: "I am sorry you don't think I am right, but I still am." So admitting we are wrong and asking for forgiveness does not come naturally

Anyway this past week I said something about someone I shouldn't have; I didn't have all the information to say what I said and made some assumptions that just were not true. I was over heard and my comments spread and got back to the offended party and that person was very hurt to the point of not wanting anything to do with us for a while.

After analyzing what happened I realized it was my comment that started the whole chain of events that ended up in such hurt feelings. I was heart sick, truly overcome with remorse.

We just had had a lesson in Relief Society lesson last Sunday from the Teachings of President George Albert Smith on forgiveness. The the sister taught it from the point of view that if we have unity and charity in our hearts forgiving and asking for forgiveness could come easier for us. As I thought back on that lesson I realized that I wanted the unity and love back we had always felt and I would do anything to make it right.

So I called and begged for forgiveness and hopefully was forgiven. And I realized that asking for forgiveness is just as important as forgiving someone. That the seventy times seven commandment to forgive also applies to asking for forgiveness, no matter what. I did not mean to hurt anyone with a thoughtless comment, but I did and I had to ask for forgiveness to start the healing process.

What Do You Call A Flower That Grows Where You Don't Want It?

This year's garden actually started with the big
windstorm we had last December. We lost two spruces that were getting large enough give us some serious shade in our yard. All of a sudden I had two new sunny spots, that while technically were in my flower beds I used for zucchini, watermelon and peppers. After years of trying, I finally joined the ranks of gardeners everywhere who were trying to figure out what to do with all their excess squash.

But the biggest surprise of the summer was the delicious watermelons we were able to grow. John has always wanted to grow watermelons, but we just didn't have a long enough growing season in the hollow. A customer, who is a master gardener, recommended a variety called Sugar Baby, it is smaller and more suited to the northern Utah climate. He suggested we start the seeds in the green house in May to lengthen the growing season. The flavor and texture were like the old fashioned watermelon we used to eat, seeds and all. Funny story: I gave Ezra and Travis a slice to eat outside and they didn't know what to do with the seeds. I guess seeded watermelon are becoming a thing of the past.

I ordered some mini stripped pumpkin seeds from Park's Seed called Lil Pumpkemon and they grew like crazy. I probably harvested 100 or so, and gave most of them away. I loved being able to share with anyone who came over, and I even left a few on neighbors door steps. Though next year people want plants in the spring so they can grow their own. I might have to order 2 packages.

Aren't they cute?

And of course the flower garden was fabulous as always. Best new plant: Black Eyed Susan Vines that I planted in the pots on the side porch and the patio and they took over any support they were close to with just a little coaxing. I was afraid they were going to take over the world, or attack people as they came in the side door!  This is just one plant.












     It seemed like every time I turned around I found
new volunteer flowers growing willy nilly where ever they pleased. Petunias, Alyssum, Marigolds, 4 O'clocks, Portulaca, and Pansies grew with wild abandon. I finally understood the saying: "What do you call a flower that grows where you don't want it? A weed." But most I welcomed with open arms.