It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Finally!  Some snow.  I took this outside my front door.  No flash. "Snow" setting on my point and shoot camera.  It's 9 pm and very dark and snowy.  I'm so glad my bulbs are finally getting some water.  AND, I'm so glad the car in inside the carport!!  We should have 6 inches by morning.  Maybe.  I hope my snow boots are still on the bottom of my closet.  I haven't seen them in a while.

 Here's a shot of the newly decorated tree.  It's an old picture, because our tree has been up for weeks now.

 My Christmas Tree collection on top of the piano. They make me smile.

 A warm little corner scene.

 Lastly, the tree in regular light so you can see that it is a Cedar Redman tree--the colors are Red and Gold.

 Oh, wait:  the obligatory December pumpkin.  They were too pretty to throw away, we never carved them, Gail's kids only drew and painted on theirs, so into my oven they went. The pumpkins!! not the kids!! I am NOT the wicked witch of Hansel and Gretel!

Almost December?!

Ending November and beginning December makes me a little frantic.  No, a LOT frantic.  I'm the ultimate procrastinator.  Well, perhaps that's a bit harsh.  I just procrastinate some, not all, the time and all the stuff.

But wait!  What happened to Thanksgiving?

We had a lovely Thanksgiving at our house.  I only made half the dinner for that day and Gail made the other half.  Mike's Mom brought the cranberries and we had pleeeennnty of yummy food.  We spent time playing games and enjoying one another's company afterwards, and some of us even watched a movie ("Brave") later on.  Since I only had done half the meal, I actually did some baking on Wednesday, PURCHASED rolls instead of making them, AND I had time for an itty bitty cat nap before everyone arrived on Thursday afternoon!  I would call that pretty successful.

But my thoughts did turn to what I was thankful for.  Lots of times during the week.  I wanted to produce a lovely photo essay about the things I am thankful for.  But I had another one of those "FAIL" moments with my camera.  It was put on hold (the essay).  Then Mike took me camera shopping on Black Friday.  I'm still learning about the new camera.  Electronics carry a huge learning curve with old folks.  Plus, Blogger is incredibly slow and driving me crazy!!  And, you know me and photos on the blog.....hard, HARD, HARD for me to do

But here goes on what I am thankful for this season:

1.  My family.  Beginning in the front room, here is my lovely living room mantle decorations with  a plaque, flowers and photos of my children.  I am so grateful for our wonderful, forever family!

2. Then I move to the kitchen and there is a photo of the Savior. . .well, a print of a painting* of Jesus.  Next to that is the temple.  Big blessings in my life that I'm forever grateful.  Every day.  Strength comes, tender mercies are felt, faith increases. 

3.  My work keys and a book from my work place.  I do love my job and I'm so grateful for it.  I enjoy the folks I work with.  I enjoy the good surroundings.  I enjoy my paycheck and feeling appreciated most days. I do look forward to retirement someday, but that's quite a ways off.  In the mean time, I'll continue to be grateful to have a career that allows me to take care of bills and do some travelling and learn LOTS of stuff!  Always, lots of stuff right at my fingertips and students who keep me on my toes and kind of in the loop with what is going on the rest of the world.

4.  My bike helmet.  Thankful for health and strength.

5.  My overflowing refrigerator the day after Thanksgiving, full of leftovers.  Only now all the leftovers are about gone (oink, oink).  The bounty we enjoy is just INCREDIBLE and I always want to be aware and grateful for everything we have and take nothing for granted.  Here's a photo of some extra stuff gathered in at the Thanksgiving turkey sales.  Mmmm, Turkey!

Hmmm.  Looks like it is time to defrost the freezer.

6.  A full basement/pantry shelf  of home-bottled/dried.  I am thankful for the resources we have to preserve our bounty.  It doesn't go to waste.  While living in Hawaii those 9 years, the seasons were so constant that there was produce most of the year round of one kind or another, so food preservation and storage wasn't done the same.  And things didn't preserve as well.  Here, we have the means and know-how and habit of doing this in our family and for that I am grateful.

7.  The (practically) perfect pecan pies I made ...and they have ALL been eaten and I have thoroughly enjoyed every single supersweet and nutty bite!!  EVERY bite--and I had a lot of bites!!!  Thank you to Mom and Dad who grew and shared the pecans, and THANK YOU to Mike who shelled them for me to make those yummy pies for Thanksgiving and last Sunday.  Yes, we ate three pies in 5 days.  Three pecan pies, 3/4 of one huge apple pie, and TWO [rather small-ish] pumpkin pies.  OINK, OINK!!

8.  Eggnog.  I just really enjoy eggnog.  I found someone else who likes it more than I do, however. ;-)  Student worker, Emily, was chugging some down on her way into work one morning.  Good thing it's usually just seasonal in the stores or we two would be a whole lot bigger!  

9.  My Dishwasher.  I just love it that someone (or something) can make my dishes all clean and sanitized with such little effort on my part.  No boiling the water, no dishpan hands.  It's great.

10.  Our love of word games.  Here's a few.  And I'm grateful that so many of our family members love to play them WITH us!

This scrabble score sheet hangs with honor on our fridge.  Eric beat me
and MIKE!!

11.  I am thankful for music.  I seldom listen to music EXCEPT at Christmas time.  But Eric has changed that a little.  He's always singing, he plays the piano and sings and practices.  He brings music into our home on MORE than just Christmas. 

I'm thankful to be able to enjoy Eric's music.  I should take voice lessons from him before he moves out.


12.  I'm thankful for my automatic clothes washing and drying machines. Kind of like the dishwasher, because I've been without these little babies, too.  But, thankfully, I didnt' have to boil water (very often), etc.  MOST modern inventions I really enjoy.  Immensely.

*  That print of the Resurrected Lord has been hanging on our kitchen wall for many a year.  I ordered the print via mail about 23 years ago from Deseret Book. Not "e-mail," but MAIL.   That was before you could order things online!! ha.

Well, the temple picture and the picture of Jesus arrived in the mail one day and the kids excitedly stood around, watching me open up the packages. When I showed the picture of Jesus, three-year-old Nick said, "Ooooh, who took DAT picture?!"  We've always adored that story.

Renewed

Besides attending the temple on Wednesday morning, which is always a spiritually renewing experience, I ALSO renewed my expired drivers license that day when I got home.  I think the only other time I let my license expire was when I was in college, didn't have a car and didn't drive. Much. I think that lapsed about a year before I got my Utah one. It was my original Texas license that'd expired that time.

So, now I'm all current and up to date [and spiritually fed].  At the Cedar City DMV, even with people milling around and waiting (only about 5-8 in the chairs) I was in and out within 15 minutes.  Not bad, eh?


This is not me. I just felt the need to illustrate a blog post for a change. ;-)

Have you voted yet?

I love my town.  Mike and I have had this silly tradition of voting on election days first thing in the morning right when the polls open at 7:00 a.m.  We are about the first in line, if ever there IS a line.  Most elections, there is not.  The voting judges are usually just settling in, and we know them, they know us; it's kind of fun.  Plus, it is VERY quick.

Mike broke our tradition!  He voted early this election.  He yielded to peer pressure.  He just happened to be in the city offices one day, ran into an acquaintance who said, "Whatcha doin'?  Come vote!" So he did.

This morning I wanted to attend my "Sunrise Yoga" class.  Actually, I think it's called "Wake Up Yoga."  We discussed how early one would have to get up in the summer to teach an actual "sunrise" class.   Pretty dang early!! ha.  Anyway, it started at 7 and I really wanted to attend.  So I did and opted to vote later in the day.

I knew there would be lines.  It's a pretty hot election year!  I showed up at the polling place during the noon hour.  I was not alone.  But, I had an interesting thought cross my mind on the bicycle ride there.  I think I let my driver's license expire on Saturday!  Yikes.  Seems that we must show ID and that was what I was planning on using.  The sign specifically stated a "Valid" Driver's license.  Oops.  So I dug around in my planner and wallet and came up with two other options.

But about this town.  The line (which I waited in for 30 minutes) was full of co- workers from the college, friends and neighbors from my ward, neighbors in my ward who work at the college--just a good group.  I was visiting, etc. and having a nice, time.  I stepped out out line once with a request to the stranger behind me to, "Save my place, please, while I go chat briefly with my friend and neighbor just ahead of us in line?"  She agreed.  Then I came back, chatted with her a bit about my lack of license dilemma.  Then I saw another gal I needed to talk to and made the same request of her to "Save my spot! I'll be right back!" and ran to the exit door to have a very important and brief conversation with the girl I needed to talk to who was leaving.  Well, THAT time, I'd left my backpack sitting on the floor because I'd been digging out one more form of ID and I'd missed the gal finish voting and that's why I had to chase her to the door!

When I came back, my backpack was gone!  Yikes!  I had a brief heart attack. Was it stolen?  No way! Not with all these people around.  Did someone in security come and take it because it was a suspicious, abandoned bag?  Hardly.  There was no security around, for starters.  And all the people in line knew it wasn't abandoned.  I was only gone about 30 seconds.  Maybe 45 to 60.  Then I hear a voice from back in the line.  "You lost your place.  You have to go to the back of the line."

Really?  I was so stunned.  I saw my backpack sitting on the floor at the end of the line.  All alone.  Then I saw whose voice it was--my co-worker, Paula!! She's such a hoot.  And it WAS funny, once I realized it was a practical joke.  Later, at work, I told Paula how I'd had a brief heart attack thinking it was missing/stolen (It contained my planner/brain, AND a bunch of money for a change ).  I just didn't think it could have been taken so quickly.  And Paula confirmed my suspicions.  When she went up there to the front to get my pack, the people around me in the line said, "Oh, you can't do that!"  And Paula said, "It's OK--we know her! It'll be fine."

"No, really!  You shouldn't move it.  You can't do that!"  But she was persistent (and fast!) and pulled off a great joke on me!!

Happy Election Day.

Wardrobe Malfunction

Not what you might think it is.

Friday of last week, I went to the free yoga class for Faculty/Staff on campus.  It's part of our T-Fit thing and I really LOVE having a private yoga lesson! It's only "private" because no body else was there this time.  Just me and Kenzie.  I'd rushed really quickly to get over there and get changed.  She had given up on anyone coming and was almost ready to leave.  But we ended up having an abbreviated class, and that was nice since we both had other places we needed to be.

Proof that I dressed rather hastily was evident when I bent down into my rather awkward Forward Fold (honesty, in my brain, I look so limber and lithe and slender and GRACEful!!) and found that my knit pants were on inside-out.  So, I started giggling.  Such and old-lady thing to do, right?

Yes, I'm getting more old and feeble every day.  The next morning when I was dressing for just hanging around at home, I noticed my t-shirt felt a little odd.   Yep.  It was on backwards.

Wardrobe malfunctionS.  Silly, silly me.  What next?  I shudder to think.  I did manage to get to work today will aspects of my outfit intact.  And, I managed to get to weights, change, and get back and complete the day fully and carefully dressed.  Whew!

Fall and October

October 22 was the first day it felt like winter was truly approaching.

We have had a GLORIOUS Fall!  Absolutely lovely.  The leaves have been spectacular.  We've had a enough rain to make the garden keep producing up until the very end.

Drizzling raindrops fall,
Soaking parched garden and trees.
No more crunchy leaves.

That was my rainy-day Haiku. :-)

Here is my sunny fall day Haiku:

I rode my bike through
Golden carpet on the street.
Leaves go crunch and fly.

Then the leaves really came out in their glory and I've been crunching through them ever since.  Love it!

In four months at the library of my work place, I've hired 4 new staff people.  Four.  Training, training, training and more training!!  It's been an adventure, to say the least.  But I still enjoy my job.

I received a cute little recognition award a week or two ago.  SUU is really big into customer service and quality experience, etc.  Someone recognized me, submitted the nomination and so I was given a little "Caught you Red-Handed" doodad. (it's candy and the nomination paperwork stuff).  The incident: There was a young woman who had some sort of health crisis one afternoon in the library and while waiting for the ambulance to arrive,  I sat there with her and comforted her. My supervisor thought that was nice, and submitted it to the Red-Handed folks and I got my little candy-bar treat and recognition.  Nice, huh?  (the girl with medical incident was fine the next day.)

Please see Eric's blog posts about our Fall Recess excursion to the National Parks.
http://tbirdnation.org/2012/10/29/beautiful-sunday/   T-Bird Nation school blog

http://dailybowloflife.blogspot.com/  is his personal blog with a couple of posts about the adventure.

I was there.  Ditto to all he said, except the stuff about wanting to be in a tent.  [How's that for lazy blogging!?!?] ha.

I'm auditing an online class on Library Media and Reference.  I have learned some stuff I never knew before!  That is always a good thing to do--keep on learning.

We had our annual Library Gala this month.  A fun time was had by all. Mike and I and Eric attended.  Fun, food, dancing, speeches and displays.  Eric blogged about than on the T-Bird Nation blog, too.

Sunday the 28th was the Primary Children's Sacrament Meeting presentation, and that is always fun.  I loved all the songs and the kids did great.

Mike and I, Eric and Mike's Mom all went out to see "Les Miserables," and it was fantastic!  Luckily, I was able to obtain a couple more tickets, so Gail and Seth got to see it, too, at a later date.  The Fall USF season just closed over the weekend.  What a romp that was!

Mike and I worked as volunteers at the University's big Halloween bash, this year being dubbed "The Scream" (instead of "The Howl" like the previous years).  8 pm to 1am on Friday the 26th, and then Mike had to be up at 5:30 a.m. the very next day!!  We just monitored a big bank of exit doors, but we had to stay at our post and it was a very busy and high-traffic area.  I've done this other years, and have never been in a high-traffic area before.  We saw some very interesting and creative costumes as they streamed by us all night long. Yeah, some were very raunchy, but we did see some cool pirates and supermen, 80's folks, other super heros, TMNT, a set of shower pouffs!  Those were clever.  There were some pretty cool Zombie characters, too--one of which was Eric.  HIS makeup job was done by a friend and it was superb. It's probably on Facebook if you want to see it.

The Cedar City Heritage and Livestock festival went off well. I went to the parade (1,000 sheep down Main Street is kind of cool to watch), taste-tested lots of yummy dutch oven stuff. Mike and his team won first place for their main dish entry and some other smaller awards.  They were SOOOoooo tired.  So sore. So exhausted... But, man!  Was that food good!  Caroline and I did that together and we had plenty to eat, that's for sure.

I also attended a football game in October.  Unfortunately, the one I attended was not the one that our team won.

Mike turned 60 this month.  We celebrated by going to the Cedar City Music Arts Dinner/Soiree and the Utah Symphony concert that night.  Sixty.  Wow.  And I'm following close behind.  How did this happen?

Add in a couple of wedding receptions, a few night meetings and appointments and that calendar just fills right up.

Oh, and we decorated our circulation desk area with spider webs and spiders, bats, etc.  And dead roses in a vase.  And shrunken heads (which are really apples, but they looked so cool!).

I'm going to be Indiana Jones for Halloween because I have the hat AND I happened to find a bull whip at a stand in the vendors booth at the Livestock and Heritage festival.  Cool!  What a deal.  Khaki pants, a leather coat and satchel and I'm set.  (Yeah, right.)

What are YOU doing for Halloween?

SUU Homecoming , 2012

What a fun week.  No, I don't have a single photo to share, however...

I was tending grandkids on Friday, so I took Caroline to school in the morning, brought Jonathan home with me to pick tomatoes, and we played with other stuff in the yard.  In the morning I had a health screening appointment, so  I took him with me.  He seemed a bit alarmed when they poked my finger to make it bleed.  I think he was wondering if he was next!  Thankfully, Samantha Kunzler set him right at ease and distracted him in a fun conversation about his age and siblings and school, his toy, etc.  She was so cute with him.

Then we went back later to the college campus and they were setting up for the big party on the quad, so we saw the band practicing. That was loud and fun.  We also met up with Caroline's class in the art gallery.  We missed them in the Natural History museum, but we walked through it anyway.  Her class was on a field trip, so we just thought we'd meet up with her.

That afternoon, we picked up Caroline from school. That was a long, hot wait in the car!  Jonathan fell asleep waiting, and I almost did!  So we came home and had naps while Caroline nicely did her homework.  Eric even had friends over for an early dinner and I just snoozed away on the living room floor.  Not much of a baby-sitter, am I?

Caroline and I attended the party on the quad last night.  Free fun food, great bands and free drawings (which we did not win) and FIREWORKS at 10:00 pm.  Oh, and a pep rally, too.   Where Caroline was smacked in the face with a little spongy football thrown out by Thor, our school mascot.  He doesn't throw very well. [However, he CAN dance!]  Caroline was right in the front row and he should have been throwing it that hard to go OVER the crowd, but it smacked her in the face instead. Ouch.  She said it only stung for a little while.  What a good sport.  The weather was great!  We got to watch Eric dance his little legs off.  No wonder he's sore and achy when he comes home from dancing with friends.  He's quite the dancer!  Made me tired to watch.  Caroline and I wandered around a bit, but then settled on a quieter side of a hill for the rest of the concert and other stuff.

Early Saturday morning was the SUUper Sorrel 5K fun run/walk.  I went alone. I won a 2nd place medal for the old lady category.  Fun times.  And I got a cool shirt.  We went up the Canyon trail and the rabbit brush in the fall is just spectacular.  So bright and vibrant.  The weather was pretty nice, too.  The canyon is always windy, but it wasn't bitter cold.

Caroline was in the Homecoming Parade at 10 a.m. as part of her school something, so I dropped her off for that and then Mike and I watched the parade down University blvd.  I DID take a photo on my phone of Caroline on her float, but I have no idea how to get it off my phone and onto the computer.  Oh well.  We were there.  It was a pretty good parade for small town, small University stuff.  They throw candy still, and we happen to know a lot of the people, so that makes it fun.

We bypassed the tailgate party after the parade,  after I solved a little problem at work, then Caroline and I walked the rest of the way home.  We only had time to rest a little, grab some lunch, then it was off to the football game.  We were in the sun!  For most of the time and it was hot.  But the game was good, our seats are great (I got season tickets for football for the first time!) and I had a good time. Too bad we lost.  But it was a good game.  They didn't trounce us, or blow us out of the water, and beat us by just one touchdown I think.  I still have a lot of questions about football.

I'm about ready for another nap!  It was all I could do to get my homework assignment done before doing this little blog update.  And the homework is definitely NOT top grade.  Caroline is snoring, Eric is snoring, Mike is close to it.  Must be that time of they day. :-) ZZZZZZzzzzzz

Happy Homecoming week!  I won't even tell you all the activities we DIDN'T attend--there were many.

And this photo is for Liz.  The builders said she would know exactly what is was.

Linda gets Crafty

Yes, I actually made a paper-crafted item.  Gail did NOT come by her talent from me, meaning she did not inherit her incredibly wonderful gift of paper-crafting from me.  The above project was something that I signed up to make at our Relief Society Super Saturday yesterday.  And I actually made this!  I know, I know--you are shocked to read that I actually did a craft willingly!!  I'm so pleased. It was not horribly difficult.  The plan was to go and find out how they were done, then perhaps make others by utilizing Gail's abundant paper/craft supply.  I was thinking of a larger garland (this is a garland to hang for decoration) that says "Happy Halloween" or something.  Maybe I'll stick with the shorter ones, like "Joy" and "Noel" for Christmas. I actually wanted to make them for work decos.  We'll see.

I also made one other craft item on Saturday involving wood, paint (and I got paint on my new pants! blurg!), photos, ribbon, and decopage.  I won't post a picture because I made seven of them--one for each grandchild.  They'll just have to wait and see what they turned out to be. :-)

Happy Crafting!

Library Ladies at Lunch

Plus the grandson. ha.
These are the lovely library ladies I work with on a daily basis.  We are at the Pizza Factory for Ellen's farewell luncheon.  She's in the back center.  We also had a number of men who were there for lunch, a couple who were not there...but it's all about the Library Ladies, you see.  We have some super student workers, too (all of whom are ladies this semester).  In

Change is the only constant. And other stuff.

Yeah, and we might not like it, but that's the way it is.

I've been wondering if I should start taking things more personally here at work. It's been an, um, interesting past few months.

It started when one faculty member retired.  That was cool.  We were all happy for Randy, and he'd worked here longer than ANY one else in the library.  Almost anywhere on campus, actually.  Good guy.  So, with his retirement, a position opened up, and a part-time library faculty person applied and was accepted.  That was Loralyn and she used to be in Acquisions.  So that left Acquisitions open.  My Tuesday/Thursday night person applied for that job and was hired.  My Tuesday/Thursday night position was now opened, so we advertised.  We also advertised for a new part-time daytime circulation position.  We filled both.

But wait!  There's more!  THEN the Monday/Wednesday evening person decided, after many years of being our constant night time person, decided to retire.  Like in a day. No notice.  It was so weird.  She went into to Human Resources to just discuss retirement possibilities and ended up with her exit interview completed and keys turned in.  Luckily, it was summer and she doesn't work in the summer time.  But it was more complicated than that to replace that position.  But we did it.

Then, the cataloger (one of two that we have here ) decided that it was time for her to retire after all.  This summer.  We will miss her.  She is and was a sweetheart and just loved her job.  But it was time for her to do something else, so it's OK.  That position wasn't advertised.  Until recently.  Until  after I'd mostly completed training my new hires at Circulation--all three of them!!  Well, guess what?  One of the new hires decided that the cataloging job would be better, so he applied for that one, has been hired and now I have to find a new Tues/Thurs/alternating weekends night shift person. Really?  Again???  Didn't we just do this?  Should I be taking this personally?  Do people really hate working with me that much?  [granted, they don't actually work with me, as they work nights and I work days.]

But wait!  There's more!! Monday evening, the library department chair sent out an email stating that our office secretary is retiring.  Like yesterday.  That's right...no notice, no nothin'!  And we're three weeks out from the huge Library Gala!!  Poor people upstairs now have to handle more and more and more as that approaches.  It's really a big thing.  They're coping. I checked with the other dean's assistant up there. She's doing OK.  I, on the other hand, am quite grateful that mental health care is included in my insurance.  Period.

Search committees will be formed, we'll advertise the night position again.    Oh My Goodness.
Can I just say, however, that my new staff person that we put in the afternoon position has been a delight?  I work with her daily (unlike the night position people who come when I go) and it's been great.  Part of the reasoning with that and some other changes was to enable people like me who work at a service desk can actually go away and take our leave so it doesn't stack up drastically.  And I can.

Yesterday, Gail had to be in Salt Lake for jury duty selection.  She wasn't selected, but I did take care of J all day for them.  I took Caroline to school, too.  J and I did dishes at Gail's and general straightening and folding laundry at her house, then we came to MY house and picked vegetables in the garden for a while.  Then I fed him lunch and then I TOOK him to lunch with me and my co-workers at the Pizza Factory. It was a surprise send-off luncheon for our departing secretary.  J was pretty good and I'm glad my friend from work called me and let me know about this last-minute excursion.  Plus, since J had already eaten, I didn't have to worry about whether or not I could find anything for him to eat.  (He even used the potty there and stayed dry!)  It was a fun little party.  We then dropped off a box of tomatoes to my library for those folks to enjoy.  I'm done doing tomatoes, I think.  I plan to give away the rest, or at least most of them.  They sure are good.  Maybe I'll bottle some more, but honestly--I don't even LIKE bottled tomatoes.

Tonight Gail and I are going to see a USF production.  It's not Shakespeare.   "Stones in His Pockets." I've never seen it, but it sounds delightful.

I have a ticket to attend (in my stake center) the dedication of the Brigham City Temple on Sunday.  That will be nice.

Mike and I were given (thanks to his mom) Music Arts tickets for the season of music stuff in town this coming season and that begins in a couple of weeks with the Utah Symphony.

Mike and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary on Monday.  We celebrated on Saturday and went out to eat (with Eric) on Saturday for lunch. That was kind of Eric's birthday lunch out, too.  Sunday/Monday, Mike was sick in bed with a cold/sore throat, etc.  Yucky stuff just keeps on coming.  His mom is really ill today with a serious cough/bronchial infection.  HOWEVER, Mike was not so ill that he couldn't get out of the house and he did get out and he brought me GORGEOUS flowers to the library.    I guess he really does love me. ;-)  We've all been enjoying the gorgeous yellow and white  roses, daisies.  I think I try to take a picture and attach it later.

I obtained tickets for all the home football games this year.  Haven't been to one yet, but homecoming is approaching with lots of fun stuff, so maybe I can get to at least one.

I went to the temple on Saturday morning.  Just me, myself and I.  That was a very nice little respite.  Then I tended Jonathan and Caroline while Gail went to a shower.  (I bottled tomatotes )  Still haven't cleaned my house.  It's gettin' kind of deep around here...ugh.  But the laundry is fairly caught up, so that's good.

I'm pretty much over my cold from last week, but have been avoiding walking the required 10,000 steps daily or other exercise.  Next week for sure!

I'm tempted to take the night position at the library.  If I didn't like my paycheck so much, I'd apply and "retire" from the circulation coordinator position.  Not really.  But after these months, just working 2 nights a week sounds pretty tempting.  Just every-other weekend?  piece of cake.

Oooh, speaking of cake... we've had lots at our house, thanks to Eric's very kind and generous friends who made him TWO of them and celebrated his birthday for days. We helped him eat a lot of chocolate cake. Mmmm, cake.  We also had zuchinni for his Birthday dinner on Sunday.  I told him we'd have zuchinni.  I asked what he wanted, and he sweetly replied, "Anything.  I like everything you make, Mommy. Well, except corned beef and cabbage."  So I said we'd have zucchini.  I had just picked up a bunch from our back-door neighbors.  I made grilled zucchini on the outside BBQ, I made sautee'd zucchini with summer squash and onions, AND I made breaded and fried Big Slices of Zucchini rounds. Yummy.  we also had chicken and tomato slices. And apple pie!  Happy 22nd birthday, Eric !  He got a ticket packet for music arts, too.

Oh, and since Eric hasn't been blogging lately, you will be happy to know that he has a part -time job! The athletic dept hired him to be a ticket taker at games. He worked last Saturday's football game and last night's volleyball game.  Good for him!  I hope he can still keep up with everything.

Every heard of "The Librarian" movies from TNT?  fun stuff.  I love being a librarian.

MmmmmMMM...fresh-baked apple pies.  We ate two of them and gave one away.
The only thing lacking was the ice cream.

Remember that green pumpkin that decided to grow through the slats of our back fence?   (looking down from inside the fence)

Well, I'd say it's doing rather well.  Weeds are doing better, but that's OK.  We  have just been letting them grow simply because we haven't had the time to properly take care of all those weeds.  Oh well.  The pumpkins don't seem to  mind.  We have 9 orange ones.  Jonathan and I counted them on Saturday.  

Aren't they lovely?

Good Hair Day

Just wanted to share.  It's a rare day.

Labor Day, 2012

I looked through my past posts of Labor day.  They were very much like this one. Here are some "Before" and "After" photos of my day's activities.

 It is garden time.  Mike and I went out this morning and picked tomatoes, green beans, yellow pear tomatoes, cabbage, peppers.

 I'm still workin' on getting peaches done.  Such a great year for peaches!  We mostly love eating them fresh, but I've bottled a few quarts (well, about 14, actually).

 The apples are wormy wind-falls from the tree.  I just can't let them all go to waste.  Most do, but I salvage  a few.

 The smaller ones are from the garden.  The bigger ones we got at the store.

 These will make either a yummy summer squash cassarole with stuffing OR a delicious "Easy Garden Bake" [see Betty Crocker]

A few of our cabbages did really well.  The plastic bags each contain one huge head of cabbage. If you happen to like the Colonel's coleslaw, let me know and I'll share a yummy recipe I found online that is very, very close to it.  I really meant to get that done today, but alas, I ran out of time and energy.

Bottled Green Beans, Bottled whole tomatoes.

 

Apple Crisp

 Fresh Salsa.

 FOUR (count 'em!) peach pies baking in the oven.  Mmmm.

Some pears are drying in the dehydrator. :-)  Dried pears are like candy.  Seriously.

The List for August

It's been an interesting month.  It's coming to a close.  Here's "The List":

We had an open house/wedding reception here in Cedar City for our newlyweds, Nick and Kaylee.

I began hostessing at the Utah Shakespeare Festival on Fridays and Saturdays in the evening.  I will hostess four more times and get to see the last of the outdoor theater productions later this week, I think.  Yesterday, I hostessed twice--once for the matinee, and once for the evening.

I attended one play at the Neil Simon Festival before it ended this month. ("Driving Miss Daisy."  Not Neil Simon, but a great production, nonetheless.)

I hosted a "Because of Babies" luncheon at my home for two ladies I visit teach or go visiting teaching to.  They both had babies, so we had lunch together to celebrate the new little ones.

I presented some training in Salt Lake City with fellow committee members in my Utah Library Association committee.  That was a day-and-a half trip, and I even provided lunch for them.  (I'm seeing a food theme here.  Are you?)

I helped a dear friend, Cindy, with the food at her daughter's wedding reception.  We ate a LOT of cake after that.  Eric provided music for the wedding reception with a string quartet.  It was lovely.

Mike and I attended a seminar one evening on Social Security.   That was interesting.  Really.  I'm getting older and weird things interest me. ;-)

We've had rain and thunder and lightening so much that I have not had to water either the garden or the lawn in a very long time.  About a month, I would think.  We've had to dry off seats in the outdoor theater a time or two because of it, but we are glad to take the much-needed and wanted rain in our little desert community.

I've been training three new people at work most of the month and last month.  Whole new staff at the circulation desk these days.  I'm the "old one" now. (Well, I have been for a long time, actually.)

A bunch of people in my family had birthdays (David, Tandy, Damian, Laura), and Gail and Seth celebrated an anniversary.

My Dad had some surgery and complications.  That's been a roller coaster ride, he's on the mend but not totally out of the woods yet.  That was just on Monday, August 20th, so we've all been grateful for all the love and support of friends and family--especially all the prayers on his behalf.  Details can be found in Donna's blog (linked from mine).  Donna has been so appreciated by the rest of us siblings, as she is there with them and keeps in close contact with us all.

We had a fun ward party/dinner, attended a number of wedding receptions all summer long, a missionary farewell or two, I've taught my Primary class more than not this month (a major change from LAST month!).  Sadly, I've seen only three of the 6 USF Summer Season plays and the summer season ends on September 1. (We DO have tickets for Les Miserables in October, however!)

And I'm tired.  I start T-Fit at work tomorrow.  Fitness report to follow.

Has anyone ever heard of the movie "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen"?

 

How Doth Our Garden Grow?

 I sent this photo to a couple of my kids (via my phone!) and they were really impressed.  I sent some of the produce to another of my offspring via their aunt, and the other two got to eat in in my kitchen, lovingly prepared for them by Mommy Dearest.

And we've found homes for a lot of it because I just have neither the time nor the energy to preserve it.  Nor bottles or lids or space. (Well, I guess I could go get bottles, lids and make some space...I just don't feel an urgent need to do so right now.)

 This little guy decided that he was too shy to actually go through the fence to the other side, so he just stayed right there in the middle.  Mike unscrewed some of the slats on the fence to give it more room once we discovered this.  It's a little mis-shapen, but it is already turning orange, just one week after I snapped this picture.  And it's much bigger, too.

 Nope, Mike didn't pee in his pants.  The cabbage was full of water as he was trimming it up outside.  It's really kind of flattened, shape-wise.  But it sure made some yummy cole slaw to go with our Sunday dinner.  Actually, we gave this huge head away, gave a smaller one away to Mike's sister, and I made the cole slaw from the second half of another large one harvested earlier in the season that's been in my fridge.  We have several more in our garden, but they aren't doing so hot.  They don't seem to be making the heads as well as the ones we had last year.  These are lighter and less dense, besides being kind of flattened instead of round like a sphere.