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Showing posts from April, 2008

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

What a beautiful day. The sun is shining, there is a light breeze, we are both feeling healthy and happy. Tarzan and I are loving life. We started our day with a retirement meeting to find out what we need to do to get ready for retirement and other details. It was a good meeting, not a waste of time at all. We are in good shape and happy with our circumstances. Last night we had a wonderful discussion about our plans for the house and we continued that today as we drove around town looking at new construction going on. We drove by our old home and visited with the new owner and the old neighbors. What a fun day we were having. Then Tarzan remembered he wanted to show me a piece of property for sale that we may want to buy for investment. We drove to the old part of Glendale, the part that is quaint and fun to be in. We parked the car and got out to walk around the property that was for sale. There were two tri-plexes and a house. As we got out of the car, I said, “Wow, what a beautifu

Sigh

Sigh-- Since Countrywide was bought by Bank of America their customer service stinks. We paid a travel agency for our vacation to Ireland and their phone has been disconnected (that's not as bad as it sounds, but it is still upsetting) Note to self-- If you don't want your face to be all frowny and set with a look of discontent, smile. Whatever is getting you down right now will be gone in a minute. Actions to take-- Get international driver's license Figure out how to get Ireland map installed in GPS Secure reservation at Hotel in Dublin Secure auto reservation in Dublin Find new travel agency to plan cruise to Alaska in 2009 Fun to have today-- Walk with Sarah Play 5 games of Peggle Dance Sing Laugh Play with Tarzan Did something make you sigh today? What did you do to have fun?

Self-Improvement

First, you have to know that I have come by this particular flaw in my personality rightly. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all had this flaw and sadly, it has been passed on to all three of my children. I have struggled with this my entire life. It first became apparent after we lived in “the mission field.” When sometimes my brother and sister and I were the only children in the branch and we attended Sunday School together with one adult teaching us; when if we didn’t contribute there was no contribution; when there was no peer pressure telling us it wasn’t cool to know the answer. There were times we traveled 1 or 2 hours just to have the privilege of attending meetings in a chapel, that was in the days when Sunday School was in the morning and Sacrament was at night. You were supposed to have the opportunity to go home between, have lunch and a nap. We took our lunch with us and went to the park, sitting on a quilt, eating sandwiches and napping, while our Dad attend

Noise in my car

The noise in my car began right after my first child was born. It was a crying baby, while I was busy driving. That noise soon turned to a child asking a million questions, each followed by, “why.” Soon, the noise was three children arguing over how much of the back seat was their space and without warning it turned into a near heart attack experience when I got in the car and thought there was an explosion because my teenager had left the radio turned up so loud the sudden bust of sound when the engine turned over was a really frightening experience. It wasn’t until much later that the noise in my car was the continuous conversation that goes on inside my head. It took some getting used to…listening to myself, finding out who I was, what I thought about, what was important to me, when no one and nothing was demanding my immediate attention. I was glad that I had good things to think about. For the most part, I have good thoughts about people and things. I enjoy the news and the music

April 10th

Today is my ninth anniversary. I called Tarzan in the middle of our busy day and said, “I just called to say--happy anniversary.” “Same to you. How many years now?” While Tarzan went through the process of figuring out how many years it had been I relieved the pressure and said, “Nine years.” “How are you feeling about our future?” “I can’t wait to find out what will happen next.” I could hear the smile in Tarzan’s voice as he said, “Me too.”

How children view what is fun...

Wow! Did I miss the boat on this one. At the end of the week in Texas, I had 3 days to play with my grandchildren in California. I was tired after my big week in Texas so I decided to take the children out for every meal. The last night we had together, I said, in my best, fun, grandma voice, "Hey, I have a great idea. Let's have a progressive dinner." "What's that?" "Well, you have each course of the meal at a different restaurant. You start at one restaurant and have appetizers and then you go to another restaurant and have soup or salad..." "We don't like Souper Salad." "No, not the restaurant Souper Salad, you get your choice if you want soup or salad." "I don't like soup or salad." "Okay, you don't have to have anything at that restaurant." "I will put 4 pieces of paper in a hat and we will each draw out one of the courses for the meal. Then you get to pick what restaurant we will go to

What I did Monday

Feed children Pack lunches Drive to 2 different schools to deliver children Grocery Shopping Buy present for birthday party Friday Vacuum Answer e-mail Grade Papers Fix lunch Grade Papers Get Amber and Harris off the bus At this point, we were all sitting in the kitchen having after school snacks when I heard a far away whine. It was so distinct that I asked Tori what it was. She jumped up out of her chair and her eyes got really wide and she said, " I bet it is the tornado warning ." I thought she was joking, it was just barely sprinkling outside, hardly what I would think was a serious storm of any kind. We turned on the Weather channel and sure enough, we were right in the middle of a tornado warning. They said our town had about 20 minutes before we were in danger, so we jumped in the car and ran to school to pick up Maddison. Within about 2 minutes the rain was so heavy I couldn't see the road. I drove carefully to the school and we got Maddison. As we started home,