The Cutest Baby Ever

It's been awhile since I've posted any pictures of Rolan. Is he adorable or what?! I think he's about 7 months in this picture. He seems to have the same happy disposition that Clayton had as a baby. I miss Rolan so much and look forward to loving on him while he's still little.

Announcement

Found out recently that the Mormon DC choir has a policy against public display of choir event recordings--both for copyright law reasons as well as the quality of home videos--which are never as good as the live performances anyway. In light of this information, I will be taking the Boogie Woogie number off of Youtube within the next day or two. If you want a copy of it, respond to this post or send me an email, and I will burn a copy on cd and mail it to you instead. Happy singing.

A Little Anectdote from my Hospital Roommate. Golly I Love Non-Fiction...

She Don’t Take It From Nobody

Lying in bed in the dark

someone with a flashlight

carving lines and circles on her walls

searching

she rolls, ducks the flashlight’s beam

closes her hand around her red tennis shoes

slips out the front door

charges the corner of the house screaming waving

a big silver blade

sees surprise sudden fear

in the eyes staring from behind the black face-mask

his retreating figure

growing smaller in her sight

while she chases him

screaming

dew grass clawing

the hem of her long nightgown

She thinks probably she would have caught him

if she hadn’t been carrying a machete.

Boogie Woogie Video

Link to video removed. (See more recent posts).
Leah suggested that I use Youtube as a place for videos, so I created a free account and uploaded the video. It took a reeeeeeeeeeeeaaaly long time, but it was worth it. Thanks Leah!

So, next techie question: How do I go about or what would one need to transfer cassette taped material to cds? I found some really cool stuff...but it's old...

Boogie Woogie

I was very fortunate after surgery to be well enough to drive to one of the Mormon DC choir concerts recently. I had been to a couple of their practices with Chantel, so I knew the music was going to be great. It was. They sang patriotic, spiritualist, folk songs and hymns. The program included a couple of soloists from the choir and a trumpet solo by Andy Alphin, who is the top trumpet player for one of our military bands. This choir always sings for free and we had a large audience. As it turned out, I got a front row seat and was able to video a special number Chantel was in: "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy". However, I finally figured out how to get it off my camera and onto my computer only to discover that blogger doesn't allow videos more that 100 MB. Phooey!! Any suggestions? With the exception of the first photo, the rest are from the Boogie Woogie number done as an encore at the end of the show. The audience loved it and I loved being the proud Mama. Rachel heading to the mike for her solo line.

Chantel singing hers.

I hope that Chantel has many opportunities, if she wants, to sing and perform. She is a natural in front of an audience.

Me and my beautiful girl. Don't mind the splotchy mascara. But I did go to a salon for a 'boy hair-cut'. I couldn't stand the hair on my neck and I knew I didn't have the patience to grow it out either.

Funny Baby

I can't take credit for finding this. I first saw it on my niece's website, but this little guy is hilarious. Take a look.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to my Apartment...

The day that I was moving into my new apartment, June 18, is the same day that I got a call from Dr. K (my oncologist) telling me to check myself into the hospital. I had had a CT scan done earlier the same day and the results showed some problems with my lungs. I told him that I couldn't go because I was in the process of moving. He paused--I'm sure he wasn't anticipating that kind of response, and then he said, "But you can't breathe!" I realized he was right--I was having a tough time of it. Then a friend from church called just to check in and see how I was doing, and she ended up taking me to the hospital while Chantel supervised the others as to where to put my furniture in my new place.

That night Dr. Henry appeared at my bedside in the ER and I felt immediate confidence in him as he explained my options. Later, Austin and another elder came over and gave me a priesthood blessing which gave me instant comfort. Dr. Henry operated the next day by doing a pleurodesis--a fancy word for a procedure to permanently prevent the accumulation of fluid around the lung. This is a surgery that I had talked with Dr. K about several times and had already decided to have done. I had even made an appointment to see Dr. Henry--and thought I would have the surgery later in July or August. The way it happened was so sudden that I didn't have time to worry or stress about it. And the recovery is going just fine. When I came home from the hospital, it was to my new apartment and almost everything unpacked and put away, thanks to my amazing girl.

I love my family so much. And when I say that I don't mean just my children and grandchildren, but my mother, my siblings, their spouses, their children. I'm grateful for each one of you, for what you contribute to each others' lives and to mine, for the way you choose to live, for your love for each other. We are a blessed family.

Paint Party!!

Friends gathered on the Saturday before I moved to help me paint the apartment. As it turned out, I wasn't in very good shape so I wasn't much help. I am so thankful for this selfless act of service. My place is really beautiful. This is the only shot I could get of Mary G. She kept turning her head. But she brought a happy spirit with her while she worked. Thanks, Mary!

Chad did most of the directing.

Lori was really fast at taping off. I've always painted without the tape but I'm so glad I bought it this time. It really was an amazing time saver.

Kim, home from college. Cheerful like the rest of her family.

The finished dining room. It really isn't pink, I promise.

View from my bedroom looking toward the living room. I love how the colors turned out and how quickly the work got done. Three rooms in under four hours.

The paint "Krew" (They'll get what I mean) Chad, Kim, Kory and Lori. A great family and wonderful friends. Thank you all so much. This place has a wonderful look and feel now, thanks to all your hard work.

Trying out the Colors

Who would have thought that I'd find an apartment complex that allows its tenants to paint?!! I was THRILLED beyond words when I found out. Beauty and order have become more important to me, more so as I've gotten older. I think it's because our pre-mortal home was a place of beauty and order as well, so it's natural to gravitate toward the familiar. I don't need things around me to be perfect, but too much disorder leaves me feeling confused and out of sorts. Sometimes I just can't think straight until I've cleaned up, or at least created a couple of neat piles.

Before moving in, I did a bit of experimenting with paint colors and different effects. Below is one of the bedroom walls. Two colors worked well in the condo because the walls there are heavily textured which added another dimension. But when I tried to get the same effect here, it just didn't work. These walls are smooth, so in the end I opted to paint with single colors only.

Trying to pull out the mauves and wine colors of my couch cushions.

The living room wall with two different colors. I took some advice that I got a long time ago from Deborah, a good friend and an interior designer. She said to always spend a little extra for sample colors and put them on your walls before you commit to buying gallons of paint that might be completely wrong. I'm so glad I listened to her. That advice worked in the condo, and it worked here also. I would have chosen the lighter mauve and would have ended up with a living room that looked little girl pink. As it was, the darker color turned out to be perfect.
Taken in the living room with the dining room in the background. "After" photos will be on a future post when I'm finished unpacking and hanging pictures. Soon. I promise.

Garden Party in June

Went to a Relief Society garden party on June 12. It was held outside around a beautiful pool and amidst wonderful flowers and foliage. The ambiance was perfect and the food gorgeous and delicious. Everyone wore hats and some of us even won prizes! Below is a great photo of my dear friend, Ann. We bonded quickly when we met and spent many hours together in the temple (and riding together and talking). She and her husband just moved to Nauvoo to enjoy the kind of life they've always wanted. I love you Annie! She won the prize for a hat most likely to be in a fashion magazine.My hat won for most colorful.

These two ladies are newer friends but equally dear. Barbara, who helped found and was once president of La Leche League International (she still works with nursing mothers) and Jenny who has a heart of gold and a husband with one too. Barbara got the prize for the oldest hat. She wore her nursing cap which is a replica of the one Florence Nightingale used to wear. And Jenny won the prize for most like a garden party hat.

Jen, Annie, Sonja, Megan

Close up of my hat. Some of the women thought the flowers were fresh. They were--fresh from Michael's! I used floral tape to put them together and floral wire to attach them to the hat. Not a bad job I think, considering it was my first try. I just wish we lived in an era that encouraged hat wearing like they did when my parents were younger.

I Heard This in Church

"Parenting is like being pecked to death by a flock of chickens."

Happy Father's Day

Because of my joining the Dayley family at just barely 16, this man,Ardell Dayley, played a huge fathering role in my life, teaching by example, commitment to family, hard work, perseverance, love, humility, and honesty. This is one of my favorite photos of my father-in-law, taken in the four- acre family owned Christmas tree farm that was behind our house in Martinez, California, because this is so typical of how I remember him. The tree farm was a great place for the kids to play, for parents to hide from their kids (which we did on occasion so we could talk with some privacy), and the opportunity for us to spend precious time with Mother and Dad every fall and winter for eight years when they came from Idaho and parked their travel trailer to run the farm. Even though Larry and Dan did a lot of work on the farm year-around, it would not have survived the way it did without Dad's hard and consistent work during the farm's busiest season.

Most of my earlier Idaho memories of Dad find him working in the long vegetable garden, monitoring canal water wearing tall rubber boots and carrying a shovel, mowing the big lawn, or walking the rest of the property checking for trouble in the way of gopher holes a horse might step into, fences that needed repair, or an alfalfa field ready for harvest. Later, after retirement (What's that?), Dad maintained that same kind of work ethic on the tree farm in California, constantly trimming trees, checking for disease, cutting out trees that might infect other ones, checking the fence for holes where a few dishonest broke through at night to steal their trees, and repairing the gravel parking lot when ruts developed. He was a man who loathed idleness, not in a preachy way, but as a matter of personality. Dad sat down for only six things I can think of: eating a good meal, attending a church meeting, watching a football game, visiting with a family member, reading (he loved National Geographic, Readers' Digest, The Book of Mormon, and the local newspaper), or resting in the big recliner after a hard day's work. Simply put, Dad was a man who got the job done. I've witnessed that principle at work in Dad's posterity--something they learned from example and can be proud to claim as a legacy of his. Happy Father's Day Dad! We miss you!

Resting and visiting with family. It must have been a Sunday, or we were a group too large for the little tv room, because this photo was taken in Mother and Dad's beautiful and spacious but not often used living room. Mother loved the big picture window that Dad put in when he built the house, and just recently I learned that Mother always insisted on living in a house that faced the mountains. She wanted that and Dad always saw to it, even in the smaller homes he built for them when they were younger.


A picture of my dad at about age 40. I don't have a lot of memories of my own father, something that went missing a long time ago. But I do know that my father was a good and gentle man who loved God and his five children and actively practiced his Christian faith. I can't remember a spanking or even a scolding from him ever. He was brilliant also, his IQ testing reported to have been extremely high. He was in the CIC during his time in the army and passed the CPA exam later in life. My father came from a long line of musicians, men and women who worked more with their minds and less with their hands. Dad was the youngest of four children and his first nieces tell stories of his being their favorite uncle. Dad played the piano, and my mother said, "Your daddy could play a mean saxaphone!" In fact, my parents met during a musical event in which he played the sax and she played the piano. Mom said she wasn't impressed at first because he was a bit cocky, but that disappeared immediately when he discovered that Mom wasn't impressed by that. Dad's siblings and cousin who still live in Memphis speak of my father as a man with great love for family and one who loved to laugh. I look forward to hearing the sound of that some day.

My earliest memory isn't really mine, but my mother has told me the story so often that I can almost remember. She says that when I was born (the third of five children) Dad liked to hold me by cradling my head in the palm of his hand, and my feet resting against the crook of his arm. He thought I was sweet and beautiful and practiced holding me that way until I grew too big. I imagine he must have smiled into my face as well, because I've always known that my father loved me.

One of my favorite memories is our regular trips to Howard Johnson's restaurant every weekend after my parents divorced. We always ate pancakes or waffles, and bacon, and on the way home, Dad made sure to drive us past Graceland for a possible glimpse of Elvis Presley. Dad always slowed the Chevrolet way down and we craned our necks as far and long as we could.

It was a sad day for all of us when we moved away from Memphis in 1969. My father died of cancer in 1972 when he was almost 44 and I was almost 14. Our birthdays are two days apart.

News Flash!!

I am moving into my own apartment!! I get the key on Friday and will be painting (repainting) the walls. If you know me at all you know I love beauty and color, and I just happened to find a complex that allows their tenants to paint! So a periwinkle bedroom is in the plans and I'm not sure about the living room and dining room yet. The actual furniture move takes place on the 18th, but I will have my kitchen and most of my personal belongings--clothing etc., already put away. (I will not be painting the insides of the closets). The complex has two swimming pools, a fitness center, and a business center with free fax and copy machine access. The complex has 1300 units and it feels like a community. I liked it even before I saw the inside of an apartment. Rachel has sent me a care box with kitchen goodies and I can't wait for it to arrive. I haven't had my own kitchen for over a year and I'm really looking forward to opening her box and my other ones and stocking the shelves. I will take before and after pictures of the apartment. And I'll be only 10 to 15 minutes from Tel and her family. My apartment is in different ward boundaries (but I hear it's a fabulous ward) and moving is an opportunity for growth as change always is. The main thing is, I felt the spirit when I found this place--the same feeling I had when we found the Concord house, and later when I found the little studio in Pleasant Hill. This time I had been looking (and looking and looking) and had almost begun to despair of finding just the right place when Chantel and the boys and I drove 10 miles to Ellicott City to this complex. The feeling there was unmistakable. I was ready to sign right then. It's the right place and that's a great feeling. Why it's the right place remains to be discovered.

Beach Camping at Assateague Island Nat'l Seashore

Bought myself a new tent and sleeping bag. Owen shared my tent both nights. Below, Chantel talking to Owen through the tent window.Getting settled in.

Grammy, are you awake?

Owen, how did you sleep?

The beach was beautiful but it was strange to see the horizon without the setting sun. Chantel got pictures of the sunrise on the beach the next morning.

Owen running back to join me for a morning walk. "My mom loves beautiful things, so I'm going to give this [shell] to her and I'll be right back!" Notice the absence of people. Lovely.

Owen found the shell of a horseshoe crab.

Chantel and Soren later in the day.

Soren running from the waves.

Owen playing in the water.

Soren loves to climb, especially on his mama.

My view from the chair beneath the umbrella.

The boys loved being buried in the sand. Owen posed for dramatic effect.

A picture of the marsh not far from our camp. The first afternoon I saw two does and two fawns here happily munching away. The downside to the beauty of this was the mosquitoes that also live here. Thank goodness for insect repellent.

A view of the dune that separated the camping area from the beach.

A view of the camping area from the top of the dune. We had neighbors but plenty of space among us.

This island is known for its herd of wild horses. Strict rules apply regarding them which include keeping your food locked up and not feeding, touching or approaching the horses. However, no mention was made of what to do when they approached us! The last morning two stallions came into camp. Our food was all put away and our tents were down, but we still had a bag of garbage to pack out...

Hey come on, I think it's this way...

Helping himself and finding some string cheese to munch...

Oops, I guess I made a mess...

Heading to the next camp while the Calders look on. Unfortunately, the people at the next site left all their food in bags right out in the open. The horses had a feast while the unfortunate couple watched their food being gobbled up right outside their tent. They took it with good humor and it made a fun end to our stay on the island.