Autumn has Fled

The trees are empty and the air is past cool and into cold.  The garage heater is turning on regularly.  The loveliest spot in the house is the seat in front of the fire.  I'm enjoying the dark and the cold, so far.  Change is good; it calls attention to itself and I like that.  When it is dark, I turn on the candles and twinkle lights, and the fireplace.  It's cozy.  There is a tendency towards hibernation in winter that I've come to like.  There is no snow on the ground and the grass is still green so we've a way to go this winter.  We had snow flurries this past week.  Here's our first peek at snow.

Three of the kids and families are coming here for Thanksgiving!  I'm so excited to have family here.  Holidays are the hardest part of being in Idaho.  Jessica, Ben and Reed and families will all be here by Wednesday.  Reed and Dorothy will arrive tomorrow night! So I'll use the day to clean and bake.  I'm excited to spend some flesh time with them.  There are some fun holiday
things going on here and am hoping that the kids can enjoy some of them.

We've been giving lots of talks on pornography lately.  I think we finally have our message organized properly. We are getting some good responses to what we have to say.  I'm also enrolled in a course designed for kids who are into porn.  We meet very week to go through their program.  I'm hoping to learn more about what helps there are.  Since we will be involved with addiction for some time to come, it makes sense to keep learning about it.  Layne would like to be through with it all, but I think he is seeing that we can do some good.  Hopefully.

Our main floor furnace broke down today.  We are hoping that it can be easily fixed tomorrow.  It has been interesting to see how hard it is to keep warm in the house without the furnace.  We have kept the fireplace going and have stayed quite warm.  That is pretty good considering that it is in the 30s outside.  I'm so grateful for our comforts and luxuries.  We have an extraordinary way of life in this country.  I never want to take it for granted.

Seattle

We had a lovely weekend with Dean and Margo Layton.  How I love having friends.  Idaho is a great place for making them, but our California friends will always be treasures.  Actually, Dean Layton is related to Layne; she share the same great great grandfather William Wilkie Galbraith, who had 4 wives.  So Dean and Margo are family.  We parted company with the Laytons on Monday morning, when we began our drive to Seattle, to visit Jessica and the kids.  We drove through rain, snow and sunshine, arriving in Normandy Park in the afternoon.  Miles was there to greet us and chatted away as he showed us all the changes made to the house since we were last there.  He is handsome, bright and friendly.

Dean and Margo Layton, in our kitchen.

Our time with the Gendreaus was quite lovely.  We had time to bond with each of the kids and time to visit with Jessica.  She takes such joy in her bookstore and, indeed, it is the nicest bookstore I've been in. Really.  It is charming, with lots of room to move around, places to sit, a fireplace to warm the space and lovely sights in all directions.  The restaurant across the street provides us with delicious lunches.  Who could ask for a better set-up than to be surrounded by good books and good food?

Jessica loves puzzles.  We put this one together on her dining room table.  She covers it up with a table cloth when dinner time comes up.

While there I managed to get my most worrisome tasks done.  Layne ran the kids to their various activities while I spent time with Jes and the kids at home.  Jes is something of a gourmet cook.  I tried my best to get her to use up the leftovers in her stuffed refrigerator, but she took pleasure in creating new dinner dishes while we were there.  And they were yummy.  I tend to look inside the fridge and plan my dinner meals around whatever is in there.  Jes does much more exciting things.  I felt inspired to think about using recipes more often.

My Jes is a wonderful woman.  She is pure hearted and works hard to keep her family happy and progressing while running her bookstore.  I believe that Chris gives it his all as well.  The kids really missed him last week.  His touches were all over the house as he turns his hand to many home improvement projects.  The three kids all feel good to me.  They are bright, healthy, happy and doing well in school.  I would love to give them the gospel as well.  That would magnify every good thing for them.  I love my Gendreau family.

Here's Jessica and her girls, Gemma and Peyton.

Layne with our Gendreaus:  Miles, Peyton and Jessica.

Our drive home was sweet and seemed to me to pass quickly.  Maybe that's because I didn't do the driving!  We are home again and it feels good to be here.

Things are changing in the Church and the country.  Now that homosexual marriage is legal, the Church has established some policies to address it.  One of them is that the children of homosexual households cannot be baptized until they reach the age of 18.  Homosexual couple's children now join the children of polygamous and Muslim families.  I believe it will be a blessing to the few children that fit in that category as they will not have to choose between Church doctrine and family life.  It allows families to lead their children as they see fit.  I think it is a protection that will prove itself to be right and good more and more as time goes by.  There is plenty of societal criticism of this policy.  Perhaps this adds more fuel to the coming struggles for religious tolerance and freedom that the Brethren keep reminding us is coming.  How I hope we can all hang in and brace for the rough ride ahead.

Stressing Out

I've made up my mind to visit my sister at least every other month.  October was a month for visiting.  This time I talked Layne into going with me.  He doesn't like to leave home, as I've mentioned before.  He likes to be busy and visits don't usually provide much of that.  But I reminded him of things he could do during our 4 or 5 days in Utah and he finally succumbed to my prodding.  So off we went Monday of last week.  He is good company.  He and Bob did lots of gabbing while Maryanne and I happily bonded over family history.  As usual, we found new things to copy and save.  I've got to find the time to organize it all.  And I will.  Sometime soon.  As soon as I get all the other stuff done that demands my attention.

Here's a picture of my sister, Maryanne, sitting in her study; the location for our family history sessions.

Bob loves Christmas lights.  He put lots of them up in the surrounding trees and turned them on for us while we were there.  He isn't ready to leave them on though.  Even he agrees it might be a bit early.  But, when the time comes, he will be ready!

Hence I've been feeling a bit stressed lately.  For the first time in awhile, there seems to be more to do than I feel capable of doing. At least on the time frame that seems to be demanded of me.  There's Christmas coming right up.  There's porn presentations, which have accumulated over the next few months.  There's family history to do, stories to write, art to compose, music to practice.  Oh the list goes on.

Halloween did show up at our house.  We bought a bunch of candy to accommodate the crowd we expected, based on last year when we almost ran out of treats.  But this year proved to be different as we received much fewer goblins.  So we have tons of left over candy.  Wouldn't you know, Layne is on a diet.  So I gave it all to my neighbor, Carol, who teaches piano.  It seems to me that it is just the thing to offer students after a well prepared lesson.  So I talked her into it.

This weekend Dean and Margo Layton are staying with us while they explore homes in Idaho.  They are from our California home but are dreaming of making a change.  Each of them has found a home to love.  Unfortunately they are two different homes.  Funny how that happens.  It'll be fun to see if they really decide to make the move here.  It would be fun to have some kids from home.  In the meantime its fun to get reacquainted.

Its getting pretty cool around here.  The leaves are beautiful as you can see from this view of our yard.  The seasons here put on such a show.  I love it.

Monday we are headed to Seattle, to help Jessica while Chris goes on a business trip.   I'm hoping to get a few of my own projects addressed while we are there.  We will see how that goes.