Musings

We seem to be entering an early spring.  One of the ladies in my yoga class is quite the gardener.  She said that she expands the short Idaho growing season by placing clear plastic on the garden ground to warm it up and planting now.  Layne is quite excited about the possibilities, so he has spent the past week or so getting the garden dirt all ready, installing plastic sheets stretched over arched pipes and planting tomatoes.  We are excited to see if they will grow this early.  In the meantime, the trees are budding out and the bulbs springing forth with spring flowers.  I hope they won't be disappointed as the locals say that we are no doubt due for some spring frosts.  Such dramatic changes in season make such a show!  I think I like it better than the more subtle changes of California.

Spring flowers making their show early.

The new housing developments around us are filling up, with new move-ins joining our ward at the rate of two families every week.  I feel overwhelmed by all the people that I don't know.  But there are many in our age bracket and that is a fun prospect.  Perhaps for that reason there seems to be many developing friendships here.  We find ourselves acquiring quite the social life.  Of course with people our age comes problems as well.  I have found myself in the service of a number of people in temporary need.  So much so that there has been very little time at home these past few weeks.  Since we are not among those who are struggling, I feel a very strong obligation to reach out and assist those who are

where I can.  I am finding it quite pleasurable.

One of the quirks of my personality is the need to be always productive.  I seem to measure my very worth by how productive I am.  I know.  I know...that is a silly thing but I can't seem to shake it.  Every day I decide what productive thing I'm going to do and then never quite get it done.  Or sometimes never even get to it.  It's a personal bummer.  Layne reminds me to "just relax" but I have great difficulty doing that.  I wonder how to reasonably create a bit more balance in my life.

Layne and I are taking singing lessons from a pretty well known opera singer in our ward, Susan Patcel Hamilton, and her coach husband.  Wow is it interesting.  I never imagined there was so much to using a voice the right way.  There's breathing from the diaphragm, letting the air escape from the mouth just right, holding the mouth right, etc, etc.  It is a world I never knew before.  This coming week we are actually going to attend a video showing of an opera, complete with interviews of the singers.  I never thought I'd ever be doing something like that.  I don't even like opera.  So it will be interesting to see how that experience turns out.

Here is granddaughter Abigail holding her newest little sister, Olivia.
They are the daughters of son Ben and his Jessica.

I've still not seen my newest little granddaughter.  I can only take that for so long before arranging some sort of trip to California to hold that little one.  This may be our last grandchild.  But then again, you never know!