Quilting, continued

 

On the frame, being tied, and binding all pinned. Only in reverse order!

Pam's Surgery

 Pam Christensen is not out of the woods yet, but she DID survive a stroke, anurism AND an aortic dissection on Friday the 28th. It's only Sunday the 30th, but she is out of ICU in St. George, and into the Cardiac care unit. Four and a half hours of open heart surgery. Tandy rushed out to be with her. Scary stuff. 

Miracles galore. 

When I'm at a computer, I may try to copy and paste some of Tandy's posts from her FB group into this blog post.

Necklaces galore

 

I mentioned once that I'd like to have a board with cup hooks on my closet divider to hang necklaces on.  Mike made me this! It's covered in padded black velvet and holds just about everything I own, necklaces and bracelets. Very nice. 

It's not like I wear a lot of jewelry. My every day attire in retirement tends to be jeans or sweat pants and a t-shirt. Ha. We do go to the temple twice a week, but I only wear my church clothes long enough to drive there, walk in to the dressing room, and change into white clothing for our shift.

Maybe seeing this array will help me decide to look a little nicer than "normal" for my every-day attire. Necklaces go good with sweat pants, right? 😁

Funke-town

 

These are folks who have been our friends for over 30 years. I think. We met them in Hawaii when we were in the same ward. Our kids are close in ages. Now we (and our kids) are all old. Er.

Steven Funke at 72 is the "youngest,"  still skiing and active. His wife is Alma. Funke is a Dutch name, though it does still sound funny on our tongues.

They like to ski at Brian Head and frequently stop by our place to acclimate to the change in altitude between Torrance, where they live now, and Brian Head ski resort. Alma was way sick with altitude sickness one time!  This time, they were on their way home from a business meeting in Layton, Utah, and spent the night with us on Sunday to try to avoid driving through Las Vegas to CA, which is basically a parking lot as many SOCAL folks are on their way back home after a weekend in  Las Vegas. We had a fun visit. Played a catd game with Doug and Diane Gardiner who also stopped by.

Funny story. December of 2020, a year ago, they were here. Their whole family was! Almost. They drove a few vehicles, some came from Texas, some from California. An uncle from Oregon. Then their Bus broke down. It is a converted 15 passenger shuttle bus with a large vinyl wrap on it advertising their Urban Youth Park business ( parkour gyms). Doug offered to look at it. And see if he could repair, or find someone who could. Then Steve fell and broke his hip on the slopes. Had it replaced that weekend here at the Cedar City hospital. They had to send most people back to TX and CA, so he was left here... He recuperated at Doug's and two days after his hip replacement, he re-built Doug's basement stairs for him. He had to wait for auto parts and  the bus to be repaired. I think his twin brother stayed with him. They were supposed to be on a big ski trip together, but obviously a hip replacement squashed that. So, it was nice that Doug and Diane [whose knee was replaced THIS December 23rd], got to see them. The guys got kind of close working on that project together.

I'm feeling like the odd one out, having never had any major surgery or joint replacements. Lucky and blessed, actually.

Service Missionary call

 

This is something new and different for me and Mike.

We applied to be Service Missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We were called to serve in the office at the Cedar City Temple. We started training in December, and have completed just a few shifts. We work for about 8 hours each week, with assignments on early Tuesday morning and late Thursday evening.

It is so nice to be in the Temple. The people who work and serve there are so nice. We have learned so much! It's computer work like recording ordinances, and answering phones, helping with the recommend desk, and more! Even though it's not operating at full capacity, the temple is surprisingly busy. We are amazed at the number of names of SOULS whose lives in the hereafter have the opportunity to be affected for good, if they do choose to accept the proffered ordinances. And we are just one smallish temple of over 100. In the eternal perspective, it's a mere drop in the bucket of how much work needs to still happen. But still! We are helping, and it feels good.

Many MANY people have been calling in sick, however, due in part to this new Omicron variant surge. We will probably be trying to cover some other shifts in the near future.

As of February, we now serve on Thursday nights, Friday Mornings and the first Saturday of the month.