On Being Flexible

I've got lots of assignments right now. My days and nights are full of thoughts and ideas for fulfilling them. I plan my days carefully to make sure all my bases are covered. But plans are meant to be altered. I rarely get through a planned day uninterrupted. But I believe I am learning not to fret over this. I am proud to say that I think I am getting much better at flexibility. I was put to the test this week.

My daughter-in-law Dorothy has been babysitting Ben and Jessica's five children this past week while B & J were in Europe. Dorothy is amazing with children. She handled all those babes very well. Reed, who is looking for a job, stayed home with their four boys during this time. On Monday Dorothy called to see if she could bring the BJ kids over for a visit. It was a holiday, you see. "Of course" I told her, and meant it. She mentioned that Reed was also coming with the four boys. So I dropped my plans for the day and embraced our sweet invasion. Happily the children romped, played and ate until we needed to leave for a Monday night Family Home Evening at a friend's house. So family left for family night. That just doesn't seem right, does it? It was a full but happy day with none of my goals for the day being met.

We went to the temple on Wednesday, always a sweet treat. Being there is so good for my soul. But we come home exhausted and usually take a nap to perk up for the rest of the day. Just as I was drifting off I heard a happy little voice at the front door exclaim, "Hi, we're here to spend the night with you!" It turns out that we wound up in the middle of a little Palo Alto adventure. Sometime that morning a private plane crashed, bringing down some electrical wires that caused a black-out in the surrounding Palo Alto area. Our BJ home was affected. To add to that, Dorothy awoke that morning feeling absolutely terrible. The loss of power in the house was the last straw for her. She bundled the kids up and brought them to our house, then went home and to bed!

You can see two of our little invaders above: B&J's Zachary and William.

So, for another day, we were happily entertained by busy little ones. We played with them, fed them, bathed them and put them to bed. Shortly after that Ben and Jes' flight arrived from Europe. They checked for power at home, then drove over to get the kids. They visited for awhile, packed up their sleeping babes, and went home. And so, by 10:30 PM it was as if nothing had happened.

I am amazed at how things come together. I have been able to prepare myself for all that I'm responsible for, even with all the interruptions. The Lord compensates when we look out for the people in our lives first. I've experienced this before too. So why do I doubt? Why do I fret? Why don't I remember this principle? The people versus stuff war is alive and well in our household. I'm happy to say that the people won this week. Now if I can just remember this.

Our granddaughter, Carmen, died one year ago on Thursday the 18th. Time passes quickly now, whether in celebration or in mourning. It seems like she just left. I was determined to visit her grave on this day and talked Layne into it. We loaded Mom in the car, bought some flowers, and headed out. We didn't do much at her grave, but it was important to me to be there; to think of her, to thank God for her and to never forget her. I reviewed her face, the sound of her voice, her laugh. I reviewed it all at her graveside. She is gone, but I am grateful that she once was here.

Love and things

Two of son Reed's boys play basketball. We determined that, before the season is over, we would attend some of the games. Monday we watched both James and Scott play. I really don't enjoy spectator sports. It helps to know a player or two, but I must steel myself to get all the way through a game. I've decided that one of the reasons is my strong sense of competition. Why doesn't the coach play James more? Here he is, siting on the bench. Why doesn't he train the players to actually win a game. Why doesn't Scott's coach train the boys to actually make a basket when they shoot? Here Scott watches the other team shoot. Why must I watch both teams get smeared by the opposition? Why must I concentrate on the score instead of enjoy watching my grandsons play? There is my problem. I think I need to squash my need to see them win and just enjoy them play. I'll try to do that, next time.

Speaking of competition, I watched granddaughter Allegra compete in a "mock trial" on Thursday night. Their charter school team performs in a real courtroom trying a fictitious murder case. We, the audience, were not allowed to speak, move, eat or chew gum for the two hours the courtroom drama took. But it was so fascinating, that wasn't as hard as it sounds. I love a mystery, you know. I personally found the defendant guilty. But the judge didn't agree. It was quite wonderful to see a bunch of kids work a courtroom with intelligence and style. Even though I was wrong about the verdict, I loved the experience. And Allegra's team goes on to the semi-final competition!

My family growing up was not big on verbal affections. There was lots of physical affection but not many "I love you's". So I had to work with my self to verbalize my love for my children and husband. Over the years I have found my voice but I still have trouble saying "I love you" with emotion. Valentine's Day calls for that, of course. I chose to express my affections in the safest way; through the written word. I filled the house with valentines for Layne, each with a loving sentiment just for him. It was such fun to do it! I loved seeing him discover each one. Why is it so pleasurable to give something to someone else? Who can say what magical workings inside of us are at work to make this so. But loving is joyful.

Saturday night we went to dinner at a place in Berkeley called "Skaters". We went with buddy Lyn Hooker and her husband, Jimmy. Layne and I rarely go to dinner. I've come to feel that eating out is a pretty expensive way to eat food. This place had delicious food and we had great seats, next to the bay. The company was good and the service was good. Our share of the bill was $100! So here's the thing: how good does food have to be to be worth $100? I'm thinking there is nothing that could cross my tongue that would be worth that to me. So, as much fun as our night was, we will probably never eat at Skaters again.

I taught my second Sunday school class today. I do my best to get a bunch of 13 and 14 year olds excited about the Old Testament. I am discovering all over again how much I love to teach. Especially I love to teach gospel ideas. I'm finding great joy in this so far. It is sweet to gather in gospel knowledge and to put cause and effect together. My mind explodes with ideas and regained knowledge. It seems to me that loving people and learning things which can be counted on to be true are the most satisfying things in life.

Little Miracles

The Galbraiths are not good picture takers. Past generations of them, that is. We have searched for good pictures of Layne's parents, grandparents and beyond, but, for the most part, they don't seem to exist. I tell you that as background for a little miracle that happened recently. Daughter Audrey and her family used one of Layne's folk's old chest of drawers for awhile. When they didn't need it any longer, she passed it on to a friend. Several weeks ago this friend sent Audrey a picture that she found under a drawer liner in that chest. What do you know, it is a picture of Layne's father, in the pink of his youth. There are so few pictures of him when he was young and in possession of a full head of blond hair. We think he is receiving a Junior Chamber of Commerce "Man of the Year" award. He's the man on the left. What do you think; does Layne look anything like him?

I am entering a period of time when I am feeling quite overwhelmed. Suddenly, or so it seems, I find myself buried in projects and assignments. There was a time, when I was younger, when such a feeling was common. But now that I'm an older woman, it is a bit more rare. So I am a little unaccustomed to having a new Sunday school class in addition to teaching a class on writing personal histories, helping with the upcoming youth pioneer trek, and taking charge of a group of girls for regular activity days. Oh yes, and working in the Temple each Wednesday. Then, of course, there is Mother. She takes lots of time, if I do my job correctly. She is my most important responsibility. So lately there seems to be little time for investing in my own projects. Of course most of these activities will end soon enough, but, for now, I am busier than I'd like to be. All of this activity reinforces my desire to be better organized. It is the challenge of a lifetime.

One of our foster daughters from Mongolia was here this past weekend, visiting with her family. She married an American cowboy. A smart American cowboy. They have two beautiful sons. It is such a joy to see how well matched and happy they are. I can't help feeling that their life together will bring blessings to more than themselves. Ryan and Bayaraa (Bayartsegtseg in Mongolian) Hopkins and their sons, Gordon and Nolan are a joy to me. I wish I could say that I knew what direction Bayaraa's life would take but I'm very good at being wrong about such things. We have three Mongolian daughters here in America. They are doing pretty much the opposite of what I thought they would be doing at this time in their lives. Hum. So much for inspiration or even intuition. I'm happy to say that my three girls seem to all be doing well.

Our local kids came on Sunday, to celebrate a couple of grandsons' birthdays (the birthday boys, Tim and Vincent are pictured below) and to have our monthly extended Family Home Evening. It was fun as we all get along well. There often are small problems to solve, which troubles my perfectionist mindset, but I remind myself that all of our children are good people trying to do good things. How can I wish for more? Yet, sometimes I long for perfect understanding and acceptance. It seems to be so easy to misunderstand or misinterpret another's intent. In fact, that seems to be the rule of the day. Communication is a delicate art.

Our days are busy. But better busy than bored!

Dog whimpers

Mom has been complaining of late about being "mauled". I can only imagine how hard it must be to not be able to move on one's own and have to put up with so much handling by others. Mom is still adjusting to being sedentary and of course she doesn't like it. Our care of her is an evolving adventure as we discover new problems and new solutions. Of late the problem is the mauling thing. So I gave her an option of wearing sweats on days that no company is expected and sleeping in the same outfit so as to cut down on the man-handling (woman-handling, actually). She likes the idea so we are doing it. But each evening she has begun with what I teasingly call dog whimpers. As I lift her and rotate her for the evening routine the whimpers begin. She sounds like a little dog crying for attention. "What's wrong, Mom," I ask. "Nothing" she replies. And the whimpers continue. I often look her in the eye, call her my little doggie, and whimper back. That cracks her up. I love to see her smile and laugh (she does too little of both) and so the whimpering evening conversations continue. Such is the "evolution" of things with Mom.

A friend suggested that we face Mom's chair toward the view window in the living room. I did that and she loves it. When she awakes from her daily snoozes, she looks outside at the panoramic view, and it pleases her. I believe nature has great powers to heal the spirit. We have blue skies today but the massive amounts of rain have turned our countryside into a velvet green. In the picture here you can see the lovely view that Mom sees from her easy chair. There are such wonders of nature that dance before our view, if we take the time to see. I need to do more of it.

We've had such storms and winds here. They reek havoc with our fussy yard, adding to our problems with growing things. So many of our newly planted trees have died that we treasure those that are left. The front yard holds one of the last of the trees close to the house. It is a flowering cherry tree and my special baby. The wind blew it down last week. It was a sad sight indeed to see it lying there in the mud, surrounded by exploding poppy plants. Layne was ready to haul it away, but Cliff carefully righted it and tied it up. We'll see if it can survive. In the meantime, the few poppy plants I put in the yard have had multitudes of babies. In the same picture you can see them. They are everywhere! So we have found a growing thing that likes it here, a little too well. Who knew that we would need to actually control the spreading of a growing thing out here? Wonders never cease.

We've had a busy week. Layne sang in his quartet for our Church's stake conference. He looked so handsome standing on the stand, between his singing companions. He has a fine singinging voice. Sometimes I forget how fine a man he is when he is so much with me. Because of him, our place is in working order, with all broken things fixed. He manages his time, as always, most efficiently. I, being basically free spirited and by nature disorganized, do my best to emulate his good example. After years of watching him I must admit that I am a tad more disciplined. How I admire order and organization. I continue to be a work in progress.

Life in the Clouds

Every morning now for some time we have awakened to a white world. Layne says we sit in the middle of clouds on these winter days. I like clouds and rain so I don't mind the misty effect of our winter views. Lately the mist has turned to rain and more rain. How we have hoped for a nice wet winter. We especially look forward to rain since our well puts out water that does a pretty adequate job of poisoning our plants with its heavy doses of boron and salt. So we collect rain in cisterns for summer watering. Thus, the 4 day storms that have drenched us for the past week have brought mostly blessings. I say mostly because the accompanying winds have, once again, blow down some of our trees. Trees are a scarcity here so we mourn the loss of each one, carefully planted with hopes of a future forest.

Often, as I sit in our study, I hear the sounds of a manly voice drifting up our stairway. Those sounds could be counted on to confirm the presence of son-in-law Cliff. But lately they have come from a grandson who has found his manhood. Chase is now 18, six foot three (rivaling his grandfather) and announces his own presence with a deeply resonating voice. He seems to have made this change suddenly. Yet it is not so; he has matured at a slow and steady pace but somehow the voice change caps his manliness. I remember being started at my own sons' change of sound and, so soon, here it is again. I have a grown-up grandson!

That means, of course, that I am getting much older. I have to remind myself of my years because I feel so much the same as I always have. The latest reminder came on Monday, as I celebrated another birthday. It was an unusually nice celebration for me. It was even a holiday! Never mind that it was in celebration of someone else. I still felt honored. Each of my children called except Gerald, who called several days later. Lots of sweet people wished me well, including our empty nest group, which met at our house, conveniently for my celebration, the night of my birthday. So I had many well wishers, which warmed my heart. For some reason it is important to me to hear from my children on my day. Perhaps I just need to know that they remember me and that they love me. They rarely let me down.

My sister, Maryanne, came for a visit over my birthday, which added to the sweetness of it. She is struggling with various health issues but is still such fun to have around. We didn't do much but not much is needed for a sweet bond to occur. Mom especially enjoyed having both of her girls nearby and tending to her needs. She feels so badly about being needy. I feel quite challenged in the care of her. I'm worried that I do not do enough to strengthen her and to stimulate her interests. She seems to languish much of the time. She says her mind often feels "empty". I do not understand all the effects of her stroke but she is greatly diminished. Still, there is lots of her left; enough to rejoice over. I'm focusing on that.

Pictures: Top is a typical winter morning in the clouds. Next is me in my Niagara Falls raincoat braving pouring rain to dump the compost. Then comes the grown-up grandson, Chase. Ben's Jessica and their children stopped by on my birthday to sing to me. Left is me with my sister, Maryanne.

First of the Year Dreams

January is sort of like Monday; the beginning of measured time to follow. It is filled with possibilities. In January my mind soars with hopes for great things to come and great productivity on my part. I'm organizing my spaces to work better. I hate to admit that I've done this endless times before, come up with various systems to smooth out my routine and then....forgot to use them. How can I make this year different? I'm working on that. In the meantime I'm creating more systems...

It has been overcast here for many days but the clouds we seem to be living in are not producing much rain. Still, our 5 cisterns are full, which will provide garden nourishment for the coming summer months. So, I'm not complaining. I like the clouds; they don't dampen my spirits at all. In fact, they provide a symbol for me of the nourishing efforts of the heavens. Rain is life.

My nest is empty of kids but somehow there seems to be as much to do as ever. Why is that? I'm thankful for things to do but wonder how to properly prioritize. Am I doing what I should? Am I caring for Mom as I should? What should I reasonably expect that she will be able to accomplish? What should I reach for? It is unfamiliar ground for me. Sometimes I feel quite alone in my responsibility for her care. Layne stands ready to help me, but it feels like all the decisions regarding her are mine alone. I hope I'm not letting her down. She is such a noble soul and deserving of the best experience that can be offered her.

It is the people versus stuff war again being waged in my head. People often interfere with my plans. But wait, aren't I doing my stuff for the people in my life? Yes, I am. People really are the most important thing. So I'm letting the people interrupt me as much as they'd like!

Pictured here are good friends Jody and Jerry Jensen. They provided sweet interruption for an afternoon that we enjoyed totally. Pictured also is Layne talking with his hands to the Jensens. The kids tease him about this particular trait. Here you see him in the midst of major hand talk.

Holiday thoughts

Left is our Carmen tree. If you look closely, you can see pictures of her hanging on the branches. Picture below the tree is of grandsons Zachary and William (Ben's sons) at the end of a hard day of play. Top of bottom three pictures is Mom with granddaughters Alexis and Jacqueline (Ben's girls). In the middle picture Audrey and Reed are playing a duet during our Christmas family talent night. Bottom picture is of daughter Audrey, granddaughter Rayne and me. Rayne is on her way back to school at BYU Idaho.






It is often hard for me to separate Christmas fantasies from realities. My mind leaps into dreams of how things could be and what I could do to make it so. This year's celebrations were different than usual. It was an "away" Christmas. That is, the other side of our family got the kids for Christmas day this year. So we spread our celebrations out into three separate days. One was for Ben and Jes, who left for Utah to spend Christmas with Jessica's family. Christmas Eve was for Reed and Dorothy, who spent Christmas day with Dorothy's family. I hardly knew how to chop up our usual celebrations but gave it a shot. We had a Christmas Eve reader's theater instead of a nativity drama. It turned out quite nicely, I thought, with each child present offering a reading part, backed up by a slide show, all in celebration of the Savior's birth.

This year I made just about all the Christmas gifts to our kids. I found that it brought me greater pleasure to present the gifts. Perhaps it was because I put a bit more effort into them. I tend to get excited about things and, quite naturally, look for an equally enthusiastic response from my family. It never turns out that way. But, I tell myself, it is not that our gifts are not happily received; rather it is that we each respond differently. My granddaughter Allegra is my only very enthusiastic receiver of gifts. It is such fun to give her things! But I still long for a more generally animated response from the rest. I would like to say that my Christmas fantasies are becoming a bit more realistic. But they aren't.

The whole local gang came for New Year's Eve. I often feel that our time together is too much taken up with caring for children and not enough for general bonding. So, Layne and I decided to try something new. We rented an inflatable jumper and placed it to open into the garage. We embellished the garage with a rug, couch and table filled with goodies of all sorts. What a day those kids had! They spent the whole bouncing and playing. By dinner they were finished with that. We dined together, watched "Night at the Museum", played games and toasted in the New Year promptly at midnight. It was generally a fine time for all.

People filled our season. We've had a house full of family and friends for most of these past two weeks. Or so it seems. I am happy and exhausted. This morning, with no early obligations, I slept until 8 AM. Then I read until 9. It was a lovely time.

Lately I've been a little concerned that Mom seems to be less enthusiastic about doing things. Several days ago she told me that it is easy to sleep when there is nothing else to do. I notice that myself, as I fight falling asleep every time I sit still for any amount of time. So I wonder what to help Mom to do, so that she does not default to sleeping for want of a weightier project. I'm pondering solutions.