Lazy Woman Musings

At this moment, I am completely void of any resemblance of ambition.  Not that I don't have my plans...but today they will not be done.  Or thought about.  I wish to escape to a beach, sit in the sun watch the sunset and listen to the calming sound of the waves beating up the sand.  But instead, here I am looking at the blue sky outside my window and writing about my lazy ways.

Our pornography talks went fine, I think.  Our singing series is over, with our last performance presented on Friday night.  Here is the singing gang, except for me.  I took the picture!

We have enjoyed a week's visit from our Cedaredge, Colorado friends, Steve and Sharon Palmer.  They are a sweet-spirited, country couple, formally embraced by my parents when they lived in Cedaredge. That is where our friendship began.  We showed them some of the Boise sights, including the Shoshone Falls, located in Twin Falls.  With all the surplus water Idaho has this year, the falls were rumored to be quite amazing.  So we made the two plus hour drive to see them.  As we entered Twin Falls, there seemed to be no possible location for a water fall.  The land was flat as far as eye could see, except in the far distance.  The Google Girl directions took us through Twin Falls and to a road that led us into a deep ravine.  At the bottom, the Snake River wound its way through the land and, as it tripped over various mounds of rocks it offered us...waterfalls.  Beautiful, multiple, falls.  It was a beautiful cascade of falls that ran over and around cliffs of rocks and, as enormous amounts of water fell to the river below, a mist filled the air that reached up to us as we stood at an observation point.  The mist held a bright rainbow perpetually within it.  Birds swooped through the mist.  It was a wonder to see.

I've never tried this before, but here is an effort to insert a short video of the Falls.

Here I am at the lookout, followed by Layne and Steve, on a path along the Snake River, just down from the Falls.

Shoshone Falls was pretty impressive but we went to other fun other places too, including our favorite Huckleberry ice cream place by the Payette River.  The time with Steve and Sharon passed quickly and they were gone by Monday morning, after a week of good times together.

I suppose part of the reason why I'm feeling like doing absolutely nothing at the moment is that...I'm tired!  It has been an activity-filled few weeks for us.  This week promised to be much more relaxing, but so far it too has been busy.  I found myself seeking out a Humanitarian experience with a local friend, teaching English to some of the many refugees that have settled here.  We haven't actually done that yet, but the commitment has now been made.  Tomorrow is another pornography talk, this time to a Relief Society.  The list of things to do seems to go on and on.  But for now I'm not listening.  Much.  I think I'll just concentrate on rainbows.  This one showed up in our back yard a couple of days ago.  Check out that empty square of flagstone by the swings.  Wouldn't that be a good place for a gazebo?

Singing in Spring

This is our crazy busy time.  My singing group, the Treble Clef Singers, are busy singing, just about every day.  Last week, this week and next we will be making joyful sounds.  We sing to convalescent homes, assisted living centers and sometimes we sing at community events.  We give the money we make (yes we get paid!) to a doctor who does cleft palate surgeries in developing countries.  Its a pretty good cause and singing with this group is so much fun.  I never thought my average voice would ever find a place in an actual singing group but here I am.  Maybe they take me because I bring Layne along with me.  His bass voice sounds pretty fine when he sings the various solos that our leader assigns him.  He's not into solos he keeps saying.  But I guess he is now.

Here he is, crooning and charming all who hear him.  The men in our audiences especially seem to like him; maybe they tire of so many women!  One of the ladies who heard him asked if he was married.  "If you weren't married, I'd go after you," she said with a wry smile.

For this concert series I talked the ladies into using hats as part of our choreography.  There was some resistance to the suggestion.  Hats are not good for hairdos you know.  Personally that's why I don't like them.  But I could see how cute it would be to use them so I put forth the inspiration I had.  Since they put me in charge of choreography, they have to put up with my ideas.  Once they got used to using the hats as I directed, they changed their minds and decided to like the idea!

Since singing, and especially since getting a new piano, I think I'm beginning to figure out music a lot better.  I wish I had taken lessons when I was young since, being old now, I can see how much work it is really going to be to be musically capable in any significant way.  But I'm going to continue my small effort, at least to learn a little more than I do now.  Here's a picture of Layne and me just before one of our performances.  

On a different note, the whistle pigs which fill our empty fields are also filling our lawn this spring.  Our neighbor, Jim, says the cold winter gave them more time in their holes to reproduce.  Maybe so because they are everywhere.  Our cat, Cherry, has caught a couple but must be on the job a whole lot more than she has been to make a dent.  There are times when she and her chubby sister just sit and watch them play and dig into the lawn.  But here you can see her on the prowl.  The whistle pigs are hidden in the wood pile, as she knows very well.

I know I probably bring pornography up way too much, but our porn assignment is picking up!  We are speaking at a stake conference tonight and again tomorrow.  And then again next week. Wow.  After feeling a little let down that we haven't been reaching our members, things are starting to move.  At least that is how it feels right now. These things seem to come in bunches.  Who knew that the day would ever come when we would specialize in the problem of pornography.  Every stage of life has its surprises.  

Easter

I've been feeling a little discouraged about our addiction calling.  We just aren't making much progress in getting the word out to our members, which is the most important part of the job, in my opinion.  But this month has brought something of a change in that area.  Our Stake President has called an "addiction committee" to discuss what to do about addiction, especially pornography addiction, in our stake.  We are on the committee.  I'm excited about that!  To add to that, we are speaking at another stake's conference on pornography.  Later in the month we travel to California to present yet another talk in Rayne's singles ward.

Speaking of Rayne, she is engaged!  It sounds like her man of choice is a good one.  Other good news; Chase got a job, after looking for 9 months.  He and his little family will be moving to Provo to begin working for Visa next month.  Such blessings!

I don't like holidays away from family.  So I was excited when Audrey told me that she and Dorothy were coming on Easter weekend, with Scott and Allegra, on their way to Rexburg and BYUI.  I had visions of a bit of family for Easter.  But they decided to rush their trip so that they could drive back to their homes for Easter.  Well, that is the decent thing to do when you have family at home.  That is the thing when your children have families.  They are the first priority.  Which is only right.  But I still miss them.

Here is our visiting family:  Allegra, (Layne), Audrey, Dorothy, Scott.

They arrived for a quick visit Thursday afternoon.  They drove through lots of snow, especially over the Sierras.  The shocker was that the snow accompanied them all the way to Star!  Yes, it snowed here!  All over our daffodils and tulips.  And all over the tree blossoms.  For awhile it was winter again.  In fact, their whole visit was accompanied by storms.  It was snowing as they left Friday morning and only cleared up when they were well down the road to Rexburg.  The storms seemed to covet their company!  But I'm happy to say that they traveled to Rexburg and on back to California with no weather issues.  I'm imaging that they are finishing up a lovely Easter.

Snow on the daffodils!

The kids depart in a spring snowstorm!  By afternoon it was all gone.  You can see their red van in the center of the picture.

With no family at hand, we invited our friends, Carol and Larry Wintersteen over for Easter dinner.  We combined dishes and had a wonderful Easter feast.  This year, throughout the weekend, I marked Christ's activities as they occurred 2000+ years ago.  It was a sweet way to honor Him as I imagined Gethsemane, His trial and crucifixion on Friday; His burial and visit to the Spirit World on Saturday and His resurrection on Sunday.  That, combined with an inspired Church service, brought the meaning of Easter closer to my heart.

Here's Carol, with a delicious cake she contributed to our Easter feast.

Larry and Layne bonding after dinner.

 

And...spring is back, with all the snow gone and sunshine again at work bringing out the hidden life outside.  Good times!

Looks Like Spring

We have had a nice normal week.  No big events but I still feel busy and unenthused about doing anything.  It seems to be an extended cycle.  I suppose if I pushed myself a little, I'd come out of it.  But, so far, I haven't pushed myself to push myself.  So there.

The drama of nature is picking up outside.  Darkness doesn't come until 8 PM now.  It's so nice to have more light!  The yard is exploding with life.  It is amazing to see what appears to be dead coming back to life.  Sort of like the Lord's resurrection, don't you think?  Walking among the emerging life fills the soul with happiness.  It can't be helped.

Daffodils are the first sign of life and our yard is exploding with them.

The trees are full of blossoms. 

Here are our future apricots!

I've been practicing songs for our singing group and using my small keyboard to find some of the notes.  I can do that now...I'm so proud!  Anyhow, Layne offered to buy me a better keyboard.  We went looking and he bought me an electric piano.  So exciting!  I am having such fun playing it.  Or trying to.  I have a book of piano lessons and am trying to get though it.  But I'm having trouble making my fingers play scales using flat keys and minor chords.  I hope my brain can eventually wrap itself around it.  I'll keep trying.

It looks like the owners of our open spaces are going to begin building.  Oh how some of our neighbors are howling!  With promises that the land in our actual Hillsdale Development will not be developed, but only the land beyond us, I see little to complain about.  It'll be interesting to see how the dust settles on this.

After a weekend of General Conference, we are feeling pretty relaxed and inspired.  Conference weekend is one of the joys of the year.  I came out of it with some new goals in mind.  Now if I can just rally myself to actually do them!

Babysitting to the Max

We committed to son Ben and his wife, Jessica, long ago that we would babysit their children for a week while they took a trip to New York, to celebrate Ben's 40th birthday.  That job came up this past week.  Layne and I flew to California a week and a half ago to begin our babysitting assignment.  The BJ household consists of eight children beginning at 2 years and moving up to 14 years.  Our energy-filled daughter-in-law, Jessica, has all of the children involved in various lessons and activities that would make a normal person's head swim.  Jessica handles it all.  But we needed help to keep up her pace.  Layne did the running around and I maintained the household.  Grandson Scott (son of our son Reed and his wife Dorothy) spent most of the week with us and helped a ton.  Working together we managed to keep up Jessica's pace, plus keep the house in good order and prepare endless meals for the masses.

You may think it is crazy to take on such a demanding job.  Admittedly, it is exhausting.  But it is also rewarding.  We got close to each child and became acquainted with their interests and some of their thoughts and dreams.  For this, I would do the job again, and more.  Relationships are so very precious!

There were fun times.  Here is a selfie with the youngest two, Victoria (Tia), and Olivia.

Tia is a high energy little gal who loves attention and affection.  Here she is getting her share from Grandpa Layne.

Feeding this gang is perhaps the greatest of challenges.  They are in the habit of grazing continually.  I foolishly thought that if I prepared a good breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner I could make a dent in the grazing.  Silly of me.  They simply turned the snack into a lengthy process...finishing it off as the afternoons wore off and then, surprise!  They weren't hungry for dinner.  Hum.  Try as I might I could not change this pattern without locking up all food everywhere.  That being impossible, I made smaller and smaller dinners with low expectations for consumption.  That seemed to work best.

Here is part of the eating gang.

"Oh mom and dad let us play on the computer and watch TV when we got home from school," I was assured.  So when Zach's buddy Ivan showed up EVERY DAY after school, minecraft marathons ensued.  And a little TV too.  But when I told their Dad, it all changed.  He shut down the computers and the TV remotely!  Wow, the power of technology!  The days that followed were a bit quieter.

Here is some of the gang watching the forbidden TV before their Dad interfered.  Note Ivan on the right end of the couch.  Here's William, Zachary, Tia, Jonathan, and....Ivan.  They look pretty innocent, don't they?  No idea here that there is a family rule against watching TV on a school day!

Jessica has season tickets to musicals in San Francisco and one of them came up on the Tuesday we were there.  So she suggested that Alexis and I go.  "Just Uber there," she told me.  Easy as pie.  I've never "Ubered" so I was a little nervous, but I downloaded the app and made the arrangements.  Alexis and I Ubered to San Francisco's Golden Gate Theater to see "Into the Woods."  "It's a tragedy Grandma," Alexis said.  Hum.  I don't like tragedies.  When I seek entertainment, I like to be cheered up; to see happy endings.  But we went.  I liked the whole Uber thing.  Our drivers to and from were very nice men; both immigrants with interesting stories.  

Once there, Alexis, who loves all things theatrical, began reviewing some of her favorite musicals and singing the songs, while we waited to be let into the theater section.  With great enthusiasm she sang and talked and I listened.  Until the theater attendant approached us.  "You have a beautiful voice," he said.  "And lots of people are listening to you sing, so, please stop."  Hum.  What a very nice way to tell her that she was too loud, I thought.  Alexis does have a very nice singing voice, this is true.  

The play was very good; we both enjoyed it.  And although it can be seen as a tragedy (everyone on the story loses someone in death) the ending was a bit uplifting.  Or so I thought.  I worked to explain this more positive spin to Alexis on the way home, but it was a hard sell.

Here is Alexis, the day after out night out.

With the help of Scott, and house cleaners, we got through our week in good shape.  The week Ben and Jessica planned in New York took a rather different turn.  Google called Ben back to work on Monday, in spite of their careful plans to be gone.  He returned to work until Thursday and Jessica stayed in New York, in their accommodations there.  Since they could not get a refund, they flew daughter Jacqueline out to spend a couple days with her mother.  They did in the town and returned Thursday night.  Then Ben and Jessica finished up the week in a local hotel.  So they did have some time together, though not as originally planned.  It pays to be light on your feet!

We are home now.  I took a very long nap on this Sabbath day and am feeling pretty normal.

Ponderings

There are times when things feel muddled.  I'm going through a muddled frame of mind at the moment.  As a result, I've had an unproductive week.  I hate being unproductive!  Perhaps it is due to the diet that Layne and I are on.  We have our last meal of the day between 2 and 3 o'clock, then don't eat again until the next day.  It's great for losing weight.  But maybe it is a mind muddler.  I'm not sure.

I have recently discovered, while at the doctor's office, that I have lost 1 and 1/2 inches in height.  I'm shocked and a little sad not to be 5' 6" anymore.  Somehow it just isn't right!  As a result I've decided that I need to lose a little weight to be right for my new, shorter self.  Another old lady thing.  Slowly, we are called upon to surrender pieces of our youth.  Off it trots, without our permission.

Happily, my muddled self is losing some weight.  I'm even getting used to less food.

Growing older does bring some blessings.  There is time now to do things that I didn't have before.  But it is also a time for losses, it seems.  One of our dear Fremont friends, Benjapon Mellblom, just died of cancer.  I feel so sad to see her go.  She was one of those especially soft, kind and loving people that you so enjoy having in your life.  Even though I haven't seen her for awhile, the world feels less somehow without her.  Here she is with her daughter, Sarah.

On a brighter note, spring is upon us and Layne is getting yard fever.  He finds himself outside these days, planning the garden and repairing winter damages.  The bulbs are sending out shoots.  That is our only sign of spring as the rest of the yard still looks quite dead.  It is magical to see what appears lifeless come back to life with buds turning to a warm, soft green.  It is the joy of spring.  Here is a shot of our coming spring and our only green patch, so far.

Layne is on our HOA board now and so is privy to the latest news for our development.  We have enjoyed lots of open space here.  Part of it is Land Management property but part is privately owned by a company that hopes to develop it.  They are once again offering a development plan to the city of Star in hopes that they can build more homes on some of the open land.  One of the spots they own and want to develop is located behind our place.  Right now it is an open field, behind quite a few other homes as well as ours.  It's lovely to look out beyond it to the hills and the sunset.  It's a little sad to think of homes being there instead.  But the company has the right to develop their property so we will adjust, if it comes about.  My form of adjustment is to plant trees in the back of our property to create some privacy.  I've suggested it to Layne from the time we moved here, but he wasn't interested in doing it.  Until now.  I'm getting my hopes up for trees!

Here is our open field.  Open for now...

A Gendreau Project

Awhile ago, my daughter Jessica asked if we would come and work on a painting project for her.  Since she is a working girl, she has little time to do much in the way of home improvements but she has an artistic eye and visions in her mind for changes.  I love doing home projects, so we agreed to visit her and family and work on some of her room plans.  Layne and I thus flew to Seattle this past week for that purpose.

We worked for three days, pretty much non-stop, painting the dining room and kitchen, and all the cleaning that goes along with that.  We transformed the red dining room into a warm, golden white.  It made quite a difference in the brightness of the room.  Even though I hated to cover up the red (you know I have a passion for that color!), I have to admit that it looked very nice when we finished.  Seattle has lots of cloudy skies and rainy days, so it makes sense to lighten and brighten inside the house, to make the best use of the duller light that cloudy days provide.

It was fun to spend time with our Gendreau family.  They are all good to be around.  The kids are doing well in school and spend their time doing school work and home projects.  We visited a lot and even spent a little time in their hot tub one night.  I remember, once again, how fun that is.  Being in a warm tub on a cool night, sharing that warm, wet space, brings out sweet conversation and relaxes every part of the body.  When we finished tubbing, I fell asleep in minutes, warm and relaxed.  I'd love to have a hot tub of our own.  But that is unlikely, it seems.  I'm having difficulty talking Layne into my greater priority of a gazebo, or a pergola.  I'd settle for either one.  But, so far, he will not be moved.  But I have hopes of wearing him down.

I'm sad to say that we were so busy with our painting that I totally forgot to take any pictures!  That is unlike me as I always like to have a visual record of our adventures.  So instead, I'm inserting the kids' school pictures.  It will have to do for a Gendreau visual.

Gemma is now 17 and driving.  She is an exceptional artist and is generally made of amazing creativity.  Her imagination seems to be unending.

Miles is 15 and has a passion for science.  He belongs to a science club, loves to learn how things work and is very inventive.  

Peyton is an energetic, social girl, very observant of people and interested in them.  She is on a winning soccer team and is a very good student.

We returned home yesterday.  I realize my age most when physical demands are high for a few days.  We are tired.  But naps and time will cure that.  I love spending time with family.  I still miss being physically close to them.  But we aim to make the best of our time with family when we get it.  I'm thankful for that!