Weekend

Friday:

We had such a good time having the Carlsons over.  Like parents do, we talked about our children.  We talked a lot about Mark and Owen; we talked a lot about Braeden and Anna.  We talked about Eleanor and can all agree that she is the best baby ever born.  We barely mentioned Emma and Natalie and I guess that is just what it is like to be the middle child....

I love getting to be better friends with them.  They are our kind of people.  We sat around the dinner table and then we went outside and sat around the fire pit, but we never did fire it up.  It was just nice to sit in the dusky light and visit.

Saturday:

Mark stayed home, but Adam and I made a quick trip to Nevada.  The foreman at our house was there, so it was good to talk to him and ask questions and give opinions.  We delivered some fixtures we had picked out.  We had lunch with my parents, then they went back over with us and surveyed the progress.  We needed to clear out the store room and there was a mismatch of random stuff there of an indeterminate background.  We saved a bit of it and got rid of the rest.  (I did save a bag full of rubber duckies labeled For Dahl Reunions.)

Someday Eleanor can chase them down the little stream that runs through the yard.

Marianne was sick so we didn't see her, but we went to Olivia and Edgar's.  I kicked off my shoes and got comfortable on their couch in a way you can only do when you're visiting family.  We talked about all the things and I am ready to just move there if it weren't for the small detail of us both having jobs in Utah.

On the way home, we saw the first wildfire of the season (at least around here).  I hate wildfire season.

This is as we were at the Point of the Mountain, looking west

It made for a spectacular sunset, but for all the wrong reasons.

Sunday:

We had our regularly scheduled round of meetings.  We did a FaceTime call with Braeden and Anna and Eleanor.  She is growing and changing and splendid.

Emma came for dinner and we had an OK dinner (all the vegetarian gluten free recipes I find are not necessarily winners) but a pleasant time together.  Later, we had some banana splits.  We had some bananas and strawberries that both needed to be eaten.  Such a delightful way to eat the fruit! Much like Amelia Bedelia, I can salvage things with dessert.

This morning as I'm typing, a bluebird has been on the window sill, looking in the screen at me.  I was too slow with my camera, but it's always nice to have visitors.

Grateful Friday

Yesterday was my Grandma and Grandpa Dahl's birthday.  They share a birthday, just like Adam and I do. (Theirs are five years apart, but Adam and I are the same year too.)

I always think of my grandparents on July 7 because more often than not, it seemed like a holiday when we were growing up.  We'd always have a family party sometime around July 4-July 7.  Often there would be two birthday cakes, one for each grandparent.

I thought about my grandparents yesterday.  I think about them a lot since we bought their house and are renovating it.

Yesterday I was cleaning the laundry room and eyeing a vase that is in the basement.  I wondered how it would look in the house in Starr Valley.  (I seem to mentally parse our belongings into which I want to keep here and which I want to take there.) 

I had the thought, which I often do, wondering what they would think of it all.  Do they approve of us buying the house?  Making it our own?

It could not have been any clearer to me if someone stood next to me and spoke the words:  They don't care.  They just want you to be good.

I felt like crying from the joy of that statement.  Because I knew it was true.

  

It's true about my children and grandchild.  I don't care about much else.  I'm grateful to remember that some things matter more than others.

Book talk

Yesterday I talked to my mom on the phone.  She is working on writing her life story.  We talked about how being an adult is hard.  Also being a parent. You think your parents know everything and feel safe that they are at the helm and at the same time, your parents don't think they know anything and they are making it up as they go along.

My mom said a particular year of her life story, "read like a trashy novel."

I think that is a lot more hyperbole than reality, but if my mom wants her children and grandchildren to read her life story, I think she should stick with that description!

***

I was at the library and a young woman who I didn't recognize at all practically fell out of her chair leaning over to wave enthusiastically at me.  I often recognize people who don't recognize me, not the other way around, so it was strange.

She was too old to be a former student and too young to be a former classmate, or even a former classmate of my children.

No idea.

Adam said, since it was at the library, that maybe "book game knows book game."

***

I feel like I'm living in a dystopian novel where the totalitarian thermostat is trying to control me.  Our Nest thermostats, in an effort to promote "energy savings" keep edging up the temperature.  

I would like the Nest thermostat people to know that in July, I'm more interested in not being miserable than in energy savings.  If that is wrong, I don't want to be right.

***

Finally, Anna told me Persuasion is coming to Netflix.  I marked my calendar.

Get yourself a daughter-in-law who knows Persuasion is coming to Netflix!

Thelma's moment of high anxiety

Yesterday I went to find my charger because my computer was dying.  I plugged it in, but it didn't start charging.  

I fiddled with it.

I tried a different outlet.

And a different one.

I took off the extension part and tried the shorter cord.

It wasn't charging and my battery on this well loved nine year old computer was falling fast.

Imagine every TV medical drama you've ever seen, except I wasn't the hero doctor.  I was the orderly they grabbed out of the hall because no one else was available.

I hurried and grabbed the external hard drive that Adam bought for me with instructions to back it up often.  I plugged it into the computer.  It told me the last time I'd backed up was January (!) and it also told me it couldn't find the external hard drive.  I wanted to yell, "It's right here!" like the inexperienced orderly I am, but I just helplessly watched the computer die.

I decided to make a terrarium instead with my air plant.

It was a good distraction from my dead computer.

When Adam got home, he asked, "Did you back it up?"

I explained that I'd tried.

He asked, "When is the last time you backed it up?"

"January."

"Because it wouldn't work?"

"Because I forgot."

Adam seemed concerned.  Don't we just need a new charger?  Maybe, he said.  With Braeden's old computer, it wasn't the charging cord that failed but the part of the computer that received the charge.  Not fixable.

By then Simply Mac and Bad Apple were closing.  We went to Best Buy and bought a new charging cord.

And it worked!

And I backed up my computer!  This time that worked too.  I won't forget!  (I said that in January too.)

P.S.  I finished Gone with the Wind.  It was depressing and maddening because the characters are so misguided at times, but it also felt nostalgic because Olivia and I used to watch the movie.  A lot.

Independence weekend

I watched the enormous flag in the canyon unfurl.  I sat on our front porch.

I took a picture from my office window--through the screen.  (I am not really a good photographer.  Oh, you noticed?)

The flag makes me happy.

So do pictures of Eleanor:

 

On Friday, when I was stressed about Emma making it to her hotel in San Francisco, I painted my nails, so Eleanor wasn't the only one looking festive:

Emma went to San Francisco to visit Freja, and Braeden and Anna and Eleanor went to see them too.  I got pictures from the Golden Gate Bridge (and fingernails I stress painted).

I thought they were cute and everything, but where was Eleanor?

She's the main event.

Adam and Mark and I went to Top Gun Maverick.  It was just as good the second time.

We had burgers (found gluten free buns at Trader Joe's) and pavlova (gluten free strawberry shortcake!) and strawberry lemonade.  

I think it's what the Founding Fathers would have wanted.

We got situated on the deck for firework viewing.  Marek came over briefly and watched fireworks, then he went to watch more fireworks with his parents.  (I guess we have to share Marek with his parents.)

It looked like the valley was a roiling boiling pot with fireworks popping on the surface.  Pictures can't capture it (at least pictures taken by me).  Adam took this picture which I liked.

I'm still reading Gone with the Wind.  The messy state of our country back then is depressing but also gives me hope.  Even though we're still struggling with some of the fallout of slavery, things are better.  The country was able to get past the worst polarization we've ever had and everyone gets to vote, so that's something!

Despite the troubling headlines I scroll through, things are going pretty well.  I can live, worship, vote, drive, be educated, participate in educating children, disagree, write my senator and feel pretty safe.  

Also, I can watch an entire valley explode beautiful fireworks I didn't have to pay for.  How's that for freedom? 

Legacy

Yesterday at church a man in our ward, Kevin, bore his testimony.  In it, he talked about a time he had met Stephen Covey.  Stephen Covey asked Kevin what his legacy would be.  Then Kevin talked about a recent fishing trip he'd taken with his grandson.  He'd taken the opportunity to bear his testimony to the grandson.  He asked the grandson to repeat back what he had said.  After the grandson repeated it back, Kevin said, "Good.  Now you can speak at my funeral."

I love Kevin by association because he is my dear friend Marie-Louise's husband.

Also yesterday, I went on Family Search which is my usual Sunday custom.  I started reading my grandma Dahl's life story.  It is in actual book form on my bookshelf, but I read it online anyway.  I love that I can hear her voice when I read it.

My whole life, I have been like the army of Helaman.  I doubt not that my mother (and grandmothers) knew it.  What a blessing that is to me!

This is a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture, but I love it despite the graininess! That's me in the front, between cousins, at my grandma's feet, probably feeling so lucky to be surrounded by all these people where I belonged.  My grandparents lived in Florida then and whenever they came (this time for my aunt Jennifer's wedding reception), it was an exciting time.  

I've been thinking about legacies.  I'm grateful for the legacy of my grandparents who taught my mom and dad to have faith and be good.  I'm grateful for my parents who shared their faith with me.

I think about my own children and our darling Eleanor.

I want them to know, like I know about my mother, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, that their mother knew it.

If anyone doubts that there are prophets, they'd better talk to us.

Grateful Friday

It's July and I don't really like summer.

It's July and Adam was gone last week and this week and he will be gone an indeterminate time in July.

I think it would be easier if I was busy with school while Adam was traveling so much, because I feel adrift.  If I had school, I would be nose to the grindstone and then thanking my lucky stars for evenings to stare into nothing.

There are things I'm grateful about though.

Mark is being very sweet to me.  He realizes I'm in a ratty mood (and both my sisters have been at girls' camp) and I miss Adam.  He texted Adam that he should call me because it "seems like she misses you."

Also, Mark went to Emma's last night to swim and there was a thunderstorm here and I hate thunderstorms (but not rain!).

I think I equate lightning with fires and it isn't a winning combination.

I'm grateful Adam will be home sometime in the next two days (he's not sure).  That man is living a vagabond life.  He is cut out for that sort of thing though.  He can be spontaneous.

I'm grateful that I have finished some of my LETRS training.  We are supposed to do it during the next school year and I'm pre-crastinating because it makes me happy to pre-crastinate.  I like to not procrastinate like I like to not camp.

I'm grateful this is the lock screen of my work computer:

It's brings me more joy than a lock screen probably usually does.

Eleanor is dreamy and I'm her biggest fan (maybe--I have a lot of competition for biggest fan).

Braeden called her their "librarian baby" when he sent this.

I'm grateful that I can get pictures (and videos!) of her daily.  What a great time to be alive!

I'm grateful for good books and Netflix and that the gluten free pasta-pesto-grape tomato-garlic-spinach-chicken-parmesan cheese situation I made for dinner last night was well received.  I told Mark I'd kind of made it up.  He proceeded to tell me how I could have improved it.

I should have left well enough alone.

I'm grateful for air conditioning and ice and diet coke and cold water.  I'm grateful for grapes (and grape tomatoes) and a few rain storms in the past few days.  I'm grateful for grapefruit body butter from Trader Joe's.  I love that stuff!  

I'm grateful for text messages from Emma.  She sent this this morning:

Getting texts from Emma always make me happy.

I'm grateful that my flowers on the deck are living their best life and the ferns on the front porch are happy.  The chrysanthemums are thriving.  Felicia (the fiddle leaf fig) has never been happier.  

My plants love summer.

And I'm grateful.