Getting Creative

When I was a girl, we lived, for a time, in a small tract house in San Leandro, California.  It had one bathroom, shared by all 4 of us.  Maryanne and I each had our own room; mine was powder blue.  I picked the color.  I can't imagine what I was thinking in picking blue; it is now one of my least favorite colors!  But I digress.  Daddy bought nude furniture for my room and painted it to match the walls.  I thought it was wonderful.  He made other improvements too.  He built shelves in the hall and made an odd shaped table top for the kitchen eating space.  I loved that especially.  He and Mom made a couch and Mother made drapes for the living room windows.  The house, as you can tell, was uniquely ours. It was a green house and, one day, Daddy painted the front door red.  I thought it looked fabulous!  Ever since then, red has seemed like the most desirable color for a front door.  I see our green house on Grace Street in San Leandro with its red door in my mind so clearly.  And it set a precedent.

So this week I painted our front doors red.  In honor of our San Leandro house.  In honor of Daddy. To celebrate the wonder of the color red.  And I love it.  I love it enough to paint the back door red too.  I'm going to do that tomorrow.

The red front doors, seen under the newly pruned tree.

Scott is a temple worker in the Oakland Temple until he leaves for his mission in November.  He and I went temple shopping on Monday to get him the temple items he still needed then took him to the temple on Tuesday.  It was a lovely time.  

Scott and Layne have just about finished their fall work in the yard.  Scott loves to work and he has been a great help to Layne.  As it happens, one of his best friends, a lovely girl named Taylor, happened to come to Idaho to visit her sister, in nearby Meridian this very week.  She and Scott have recorded some music they made together and have become close.  Just how close is Scott's secret, but as he talked about her I could tell that she is important to him.  They made plans for her to come here on Saturday.  Since her birthday is next week, Scott wanted to celebrate it.  So he asked me to help him make up a CD of their music for her, complete with originally designed label and storage case.  We worked on all sorts of designs until he was satisfied.

"Grandma," Scott said, "Taylor loves the beach.  Can you draw her a picture of the beach with a sunset?  You can do that pretty quickly, right?"  And so we picked out some pictures of the beach and sunsets that he liked and I set to work.  I combined the ocean from one picture with a sunset from another one and made the effort.  As usual when I attempt an art project, I got lost in it.  But I finished it in a couple of hours, matted and framed it and presented it to Scott for approval.  He did, and so all was prepared for the birthday celebration.

The beach scene I did in pastel for Taylor's birthday.

Except for the food.  "Enchilidas and apple pie, Grandma," suggested Scott.  And so, yesterday Taylor arrived and partook of all our preparations.  She is a lovely, pure-hearted girl by all appearances.  She and Scott get along very well and both are into such things as good music and scripture study, which they spent their time together pursuing.  How can you wish for more than that?

Scott and Taylor, about to eat Taylor's birthday apple pie.

Our time with Scott has been fun and bonding.  He has become more talkative as the days have
passed and I am beginning to feel that I know much more of his heart.  This time with him has been fun and such a blessing.