A change in Venue

OK, well, I’m getting terrible at blogging. It can only mean one of three things. Either I’m too busy to think, or I’m too lazy to take time, or I’m too engrossed in a good book. I’m afraid the latter is my excuse this time.

For those of you who haven’t been in the near vicinity, you probably still think I’m attending Cosmetology school. Wrong. I quit. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m a quitter, but I’m afraid any other explanation would make me a complainer. I think I’d rather take the blame for quitting. I did learn some wonderful things while I was there, however. I found out that I am a “rules” person. (I always thought I was a bit of a Maverick with a tendency to bend rules, but apparently I feel a great need to keep rules and avoid getting scolded.) That was a very interesting revelation at a time in my life when I thought I knew myself pretty well. The other wonderful thing I learned was how to do French braids of all different sorts. Unfortunately, it was a little late to use my knowledge on my daughters, and most of my granddaughters are out of state. Hallie is a little old and not very interested in braids, I’m afraid.

My beautician, who is my same age, asked me what on earth I was thinking when I went to school in the first place? She said, “I’m thinking of retiring in about three years. You would just have been finishing school, and then it takes about eight to ten years to build a clientele!” So although it would be fun to know all about hair, perhaps it isn’t the most usable information at this stage of my life. You know, it gets really discouraging when you realize that you really are over the hill and anything you accomplish at this point in your life brings diminishing returns. It’s really too bad I didn’t have this extreme thirst for knowledge when I was younger.

I have been filling my time in with several books since I left school. I had started a book club in our ward, and when I started school, the other sisters decided to discontinue it since nobody was in charge any more. I thought they could have easily taken over, but they seemed to think it was all my job. As soon as I withdrew from school, I attended the last book review they were going to have, and found that they still wanted to hold book club, but just didn’t want to take the lead in organizing it. All I did was ask who wanted to take the next book review, and now it’s going again. Is that all that difficult to do? I don’t get it. Anyway, we are continuing with book club, and the suggested book for our next meeting was Vanished by Lynn Gardner. It was a mystery, and I hadn’t read a good mystery for many years. I really like it, and as a result, I have read three other mysteries from the library since finishing Vanished. I am now thoroughly enjoying Aunt Helen’s life history, The Way of Happiness book one. It is such a joy to me to immerse myself into the early years of her life in Junction. Because I have associated Junction with the Anderson side of the family, it has been fun to recognize the many cross-over interactions between the two families. I have always known the background of the two families in Junction, but seeing pictures of both grandparents together in Aunt Helen’s book, just cements the relationship between Mom’s and Dad’s families. It has also been delightful to hear Aunt Helen tell her perspective of Dad. She brings back endearing memories of a man I grew to love very much.

As most of you know, Dave turned 50 years old last week. I pulled a sneaky on him. I secretly invited lots of neighbors and ward members to a surprise cake and ice cream open house roast. It turned out to be a delightful evening and Dave was truly surprised. There were a few surprises in it for me also. One of our previous neighbors from West Bountiful, Margaret Murphy, who has remained a good friend over the years, has moved several times to different States since we moved to Brigham City. It just so happened, that she was in Utah that day, and showed up at our house about fifteen minutes before the open house. Unfortunately, our visit was cut quite short when about ten people all arrived together at the beginning of the open house. I was so busy serving up cake and ice cream and answering the front door, that she finally recognized our visit as an effort in futility and said goodbye. It was good to see her nonetheless. Hopefully they will be moving back to Utah soon and then we can visit more frequently.

Leo came to Utah for two weeks. He stayed at Mindy and Clay’s most of the time. We were able to see him a few times during that time period. He seems to be doing well, and we love to hear about his romantic adventures with a girl from his ward that he is quite smitten with. He assures us it’s nothing serious, so we won’t mention it…

It was also great to have Nathan and Alicia here for a little while. We finally got to meet baby Rowan, and she is a doll. Nathan and Alicia stopped in to say “Hi” and “Goodbye” as they were heading back to Salt Lake City from Logan to fly home. As I sat and watched Nathan and Dave together, I couldn’t help but notice how much the two of them resembled each other. Just to prove my point, I took a picture of them. I doubt that anyone would question that the two of them are brothers! You be the judge.