Potential Christmas Card

 Oh, how I love this silly bunch of people!

♥️♥️♥️Mine. All mine. Forever♥️♥️♥️

Aug 31, 2026 and BIRTHDAYS!

 We drove up and back to Herriman yesterday, Sunday August 30. Left at 11:30 ish in the a.m. Mike, Caroline and I attended the 20th Ward Sacrament meeting at 9 a.m. before leaving. We picked up Mom, stopped for a visit with Robert and Janet in Provo. Dinner was at 5 in Herriman and we were there close to 4. Home by 10 p.m.! 

We celebrated Rachel's and Logan's birthdays. Rachel turned 12 last week, and Logan turns 10 later in September. We had a lovely family birthday dinner with Kaylee's family and Nick's family. Kaylee always makes such delicious food. 

Rachel was a little bit antisocial during the birthday present and cake and ice cream time. She stayed in her room, avoiding the crowds. Too many eyes, she said. But yet she was on stage not very long ago performing in"En Canto"with school children. Perhaps being in junior high is different than being in elementary school. Mom and I went to her room so she could open our presents.

Somebody need to practice smiling in front of a mirror for portrait time!!😁

And it's not Nick and Kaylee😉

All of their kids are still in the Spanish language immersion program.

My mom and Caroline ( who spent Saturday night at our house) I  rode up with Mike and me. Braeden met us there. 

We saw a lovely sunset on our drive home, and enjoyed scattered rain showers coming and going while we were in the northern part of the state, or at least past Nephi. Our southern part was still sunny and bright! No clouds, no rain. We are supposed to get rain this afternoon, however. We shall see! 

I finally picked enough tomatoes this morning, before it rains, that when they all ripen I'll have enough to actually do something. I don't think it will be soup, as I have plenty of that in my freezer from previous years. Possibly I will just bottle a few quarts and be done. All of the tomato Vines are dying of the curly leaf disease. So sad. My raspberry plants are suffering desperately. But the pumpkins are just lovely. There aren't very many, and they are the smaller "Sugar" pumpkins, but the vines are pretty. And the lettuce is still coming, too. For being an off year in gardening, it hasn't been too bad. I've been able to share a lot, too 

Earlier this month when I met with retired Library ladies for lunch, Sheri Butler asked if I would go walking with her. We have been doing that for a couple of weeks now, three times a week. Her health is improving because of it. She has had a rough health year. She hopes to be more healthy before her knee surgery in December. And we all need to walk. I need to walk, she needs to walk. It's helping me to, I guess. I walk slowly with her around her block, and that is all. Sometimes I will take a circuitous route home and lengthen my own walk. It depends on what I have to do that day. Some days I just walk straight home.  Today I took Sheri a bag of Salad fixings.

Moon over St. George 8/26/2026

 We drove to St George yesterday evening to deliver some garden veggies to Eric, along with our old grill. 

The moon was lovely.

We also stopped for an ice cream treat at Cold Stone Creamery. My, that stuff is yummy! 

Clouds and garden and Iron supplements

 Sunday's pickin's cucumbers, anyone? 

Thursday night clouds. The sunset that followed actually had people out in the street watching it! It was spectacular.

This is what putting an iron supplement under my peach tree looks like. Mike saw the photos and wondered if I'd slaughtered a deer back there!

Other veggies and activities Aug 2026

I made some pickled red cabbage with a nice head of "Red" cabbage that Laura Zufelt gave me. She bought it for a Relief Society dinner, but ended up not needing it.  It looks really pretty and tastes pretty good on sandwiches and in Salads.

 

We played "Three of these things belong together" with cucumbers and zucchini squash. Most people can grow abundant zucchini. I cannot.  But I'm glad for what we do get.  However, my neighbor, Brooke, CAN grow lots of huge zucchini and gave me one. I grated it up and froze four packages for later use in Frittatas or zucchini bread or something. And I made four loaves of Zucchini bread. WITH whole wheat and half the oil (subbed applesauce for half the oil). I thought they turned out pretty good.

 

There have been enough raspberries by picking twice a week, watering like crazy AND fertilizing them, as well as trimming away the dead and dying canes that occasionally we can have raspberries and cream. Last weekend there was actually a day named "National Raspberrys and Cream Day" in the USA.  How apropro. Note is IS a small bowl.

 

Mike got sick last week with a really really bad head cold.  He started with it on Tuesday night (when Aunt Tuny was still here!!) with the beginnings of a sore throat. It just continued to progress. He thought it felt like he did when he had Covid. A couple of times.    He stayed home on Wednesday morning from our regular temple office shift. That just meant I had to work extra hard since he wasn't there. I stayed after my shift and kept my other appointments to do other ordinances (but cancelled his appointments). He felt lousy for a solid WEEK. Plus.  He also missed out Second Saturday assigned office shift, so I did that one on my own, too.  And he missed this week's Wednesday shift, too. Still just a wee bit cloggy, cough-y and snotty.  He is feeling improved. Much.  But the other lady working in the Temple office came to work with HER cold, or the remains of it! That was this morning on Thursday, while I subbed for someone on their early morning shift. Oh well. Mike figures that's probably where he caught his in the first place -- the Temple. I sure hope I don't get it too. I've been avoiding Mike like the plague this whole past week. I've even slept in the guest room.

Still doing the Medicaid Dance.  We've submitted, we've paid, we've waited. We've called and waited, called and had questions answered and have been left with more questions.  It seems like this is more than complicated, and EXPENSIVE, too!!  She has to pay her rent there. Every month. But she doesn't make enough for that.  AND she has to pay a large Spend Down to Medicaid in order to qualify for Medicaid insurance in order to apply for the State Waiver through Medicaid for housing.  The first Medicaid she qualified for (with the spend down of $2,303!! More than half her rent and nearly everything she brings in monthly) is for insurance and all that paid money brought back to her was an extra $204 into her SSA check.  That hardly balances the fact that she makes $3,000 a month and is required to pay over $7,000 a month to various entities!!! I'm rather frustrated and bewildered.  How is this really supposed to work??   How, indeed  . . .  we must wait.  As I understand it, the next step is that Utah Case Management will send a nurse to evaluate Mom. Then they'll decide if she can qualify for the housing waiver.  In the meantime, we keep shelling out money, loaning her money, giving her money (for Our House and For the Spend down). When does it end? We'll probably never be paid back, either. It is getting close to the point of saying, "Never mind. We'll move her in with us."  Again.

 And we have had some RAIN!!  It has been so nice.  Not a lot. like a 1/10th of an inch here, a quarter of an inch there. But it adds up, AND it keeps our lawn watered.  We have had some VERY hot days in July and August, so this little respite of rain and coolness has been nice

Utah Shakespeare Festival is going strong. I've been ushering. I have to go three times this week. I'll see my fourth play tonight, "Something Rotten" since I'm assigned to stay late.  We'll see how it compares to the Stage Door production with our lovely Eric as a star. I've seen "Twelfth Night" twice, "Book Club," "She Loves Me" twice. I've yet to see "See How They Run," "Hamlet," and "Frankenstein." Maybe one other . . . Oh yes. Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida." Not even sure I want to see that one. I'm not assigned to ever usher on that one and that's fine with me. I'd kind of like to see "Hamlet," but I don't think I was assigned that one, either.