A Short Fifty

We are home! We left Mom on Thursday, very early in the morning. We had a prayer in our hearts that the early hour would improve our chances of getting on the consistently full flights that plague stand-by fliers like ourselves. I'm trying to make my prayers more specific so I specifically asked the Lord to bless us with a speedy trip home. It usually takes us all day to get home because of so many full flights. But Thursday was different. We caught that early flight out of Grand Junction into Denver. Then we spotted an open flight into Phoenix that also provided an open flight into San Francisco. We went for it. As soon as we arrived in Phoenix we were boarded onto a flight for SF. Wow! We arrived at the San Francisco Airport by noon. That is a record for us! We were home by 1:30. Was it serendipity or the Lord's blessing? I'm giving the Lord all the credit for answering my specific prayer.

A friend, D'Ann Downey, has been staying at our house during our absence. She greeted us with her velvety conversation and we have been engaged in bonding with her ever since. It looks like she will be with us until we leave to bring Mom home next month. D'Ann is now living in Europe and will return as soon as she has the funds. That is the tricky part. But she will be gone from here by the 9th, when we leave to get Mom. She is bright, good hearted and a great walking partner.

Sometimes I am amazed at how old I am now. Saturday night was my 50th High School reunion! I've been planning on attending for months now but when it was time to go I felt a bit hesitant. I wasn't the best known girl in school. I looked through my yearbook and must admit to not knowing most of my class. I was afraid of not recognizing or knowing anyone there. But Layne agreed to go with me and encouraged me, so, with some butterflies in my stomach, we went. Wow, I met up with friends right from the start. 50 years melted away as I saw and recognized lots of my school mates. It was such fun! I was especially happy to be able to spend lots of time with my childhood best friend (Carolyn McLaughlin). 200 of our 500+ class showed up. I felt embraced by so many, and I recognized far more classmates that I imagined I would. I guess it just goes to show that pushing through fear and nerves is often a very good thing.

Thoughts from a Quiet Week

I've been doing more reading lately. My girls would be proud of me. They read many books a month. I'm lucky if I get through one. I hope you don't think I'm a slug for that. It's just that when I sit down to read I always fall asleep. Since arriving at Cedaredge, reading comes easier as there is less to do. And so does napping. That makes sleeping through the night harder. But enough of that. My point is that I've come up with some good ideas from my Colorado reading. For one thing, I see more clearly that we live in a country that is indeed God-inspired. I'm grateful for the effort that our Founding Fathers went to to come up with a system that works better than anything has before. I see us losing much of what they have accomplished and it worries me. Mom's book shelf is full of patriotic readings. I'm enjoying some of them.

I love the people here. They live close to the earth and I think that does good things for the soul. They are intelligent, humble, friendly and loving. I feel embraced here, even by strangers. Layne and I spent some time Saturday walking through a little town called Hotchkiss. We took Mom to a Daughters of the Utah Pioneers meeting there. While she enjoyed her meeting, we walked. Lots of the shops were closed and abandoned. But there were some great ones open. One of them was an art store which I talked Layne into entering. The owner of the shop was an artist and she was in the middle of giving an art lesson. We had quite a lovely conversation and she invited me to come to lessons there. I got to thinking what a good thing it might be to take lessons from several different people. It could certainly give me a bigger variety of ideas and styles. We walked on and visited an art gallery very nicely put together and a rather dumpy used bookstore. Friendly people greeted us on our way. All in all it was a fun adventure.

Mother's eyelashes are growing! That is quite an unimportant thing to include here, but I am fascinated that, at 93, she has more eyelashes than she ever has before. Her eyes have been bothering her so I took her to the eye doc. He explained that her glaucoma medication makes eyelashes grow. In fact, that medication is what led to the goo you can get commercially now to grow lashes. Isn't that an interesting tidbit? Now we know that it really works.

We took Mom to Grand Junction yesterday. We ended our visit with friends by going to dinner. Our waiter had one of those voices that felt smooth going down. It was deep and rich. I determined to find a way to tell him. My chance came and I passed on my high opinion of his voice. One of my goals is to make a point of noticing gifts in people and telling them. I have a theory about that. I think we came to earth full of purpose and encouragement. Life on earth is often very discouraging for many people. One of the gifts we can give to them is encouragement; a sort of return to what we came here with. So I am trying to be a source of encouragement for other people in my life. I'm starting to find it natural to look for something to admire. I think I am getting better at it.

I've been working on my dad's life story quite a bit since arriving here. I've thought about him so much that he seems to be on my mind even when I'm not trying. Last night he came to me in a dream. He was dressed in his dark navy uniform and looked very young, as he did then. He looked at me with his soft gray eyes and I threw my arms around him and wept. The dream ended then. I felt that it was a little gift from God, meant to encourage me in my efforts to create a book about him.

We've had our usual summer storms here. As usual, I love them. Included here is a picture of a hail storm that hit several days ago. Fall is in the air here. I'm wearing mom's sweat shirts on some days now. We seem to have missed most of summer. For the first time in memory I don't feel quite ready for the coolness that is coming.

Pictures: top is of the girl's bathroom at the art gallery in Hotchkiss. Note the design of the mirror is a sort of mosaic. I loved it! The middle picture is of my father just a few years after he left the Navy. He is pictured here with my sister on the left and me hidden on the right. The picture was taken in Hawaii, when we lived there in the late 1940s. The bottom picture is of our recent hail storm, taken on Mom's deck.

A Sandwich Girl

"Mom, I could really use your help," my daughter Jessica kept telling me. She is in the process of opening a used bookstore in the general Seattle area and trying to keep up with the needs of her family. So, this past week, I flew up to spend three days with her and her family, with plans to go to Colorado for our turn with Mom the end of the week.

Once again we sacrificed sleep to get me to the airport very early Monday morning to see if I could possibly get a seat on an oversold flight. Once again it paid off. I got to Seattle early in the morning. My poor Jessica was over the edge stressed. I'm glad I made it there in time to help her. Her bookstore looks great and seems ready for business to me. But there are scores of details that I know little of that still need to be done. So I spent most of my time there with the three kids. We cleaned house, played games, cooked and generally tried to have fun catching up with things. Jes and hub Chris have spent tons of time on the store so the kids and home have suffered a bit. But hopefully things will level out as soon as things are up and running. Jes and I spent my last day, on Wednesday, reupholstering a chair (one that once belonged to my grandparents). It is a wild print, to go with the store's color theme. It turned out so well that Jes was thoroughly pleased. Hence, so was I. You can see it here. See also a picture of Gemma and Miles around a Monopoly board. The three kids and I were all in jail at the same time. We thought that was a kodak moment, so here it is! Peyton is the youngest. You can see her here posing to show off her missing front tooth. Only you can't see it; you'll just have to take it on faith that it is indeed missing.

"Mom, please try and visit here with us more often," Jessica asked of me. Since her family will be pretty tied to home with the store, that is our only option for seeing one another. I wonder how to manage both bonding with my far-away children and caring for my mom. I don't want to miss either opportunity but I need to figure out how to do both things. It is a worry to work on.

Very early Thursday morning I stood by for another over-sold flight to Denver. I made that one also! Perhaps this is the way to do standby; just get up at 3 am and head to the airport. There are apparently enough paying passengers who chicken out at the last minute to provide some space for us standbys. Hooray. Layne also got on his very early flight from home so we met up in Denver. Our luck changed there as we missed flight after flight into Grand Junction. We finally separated and arrived on two different flights, much later than we were hoping for. But we did arrive! From there our friend Elaine Conlon drove us to Cedaredge. Wow, what a trip.

On Friday Mom turned 93! My sister Maryanne and her hub Bob stayed for her birthday celebration, then headed for their home that night, late. Mom seemed pleased with the friends who stopped by, and the dinner we served, especially to her tastes. She is a lovely woman. She looks different now. Something is going on with her eyes, which you may notice in this photo of her. She frowns from eye strain. I'm going to try and get the problem figured out over the next three weeks that we are here. Otherwise, she seems to be holding as far as her physical condition goes. As usual, it is a joy to be here. The place and the people warm my heart. For the next few weeks, my world is here.

I am indeed a sandwich girl: a slice of children on one side and a slice of mom on the other. My filling is being squished!