Life in My World—Five for Friday

1. Ande is back from her Spring semester study abroad in Europe. Ahhhhh. It is a sigh of relief to have her home. Besides giving wonderful companionship, she unceremoniously keeps the dishwasher emptied and always brings out a bar of German chocolate in the timeliest manner. In the evening she mysteriously appears with a bar and, like last night, we sit and savor it while we read and try not to take the last piece.

Ande brought me home this rooster pottery from St. Gimignano. I was so excited when I unwrapped it and said, “Oh, I just can’t wait to put syrup in it!” Ande and Abe just looked at me and then echoed, “Mom, this is not a syrup pitcher.” But I read a fun post by Stacy Julian where her mother always served their maple syrup in a whimsical pitcher and it was THE item everyone in the family wanted to inherit. When I read the post I thought, “Oh darn. I wish I’d have thought to do more fun things like that when the kids were little rather than always be so practical.” When I opened the rooster I was glad to get a second chance to salvage a few years of serving fun syrup . . . albeit to adult children . . . with big plans to serve it to a whole crop of grandchildren. However, neither Abe nor Ande like the idea of a rooster spewing syrup on their waffles, so he sits on a shelf overlooking the waffles. However, someday when Abe and Ande send their children to stay with me I’m serving syrup in that rooster.


2. Everything is growing nicely in the garden. I always marvel at the miracle of a seed. Always. And at the vigor and number of weeds, too, and wonder what Adam and Eve thought the first time they reckoned with them. The spinach, lettuce and rhubarb are ready and the potatoes are on schedule. There was a bunch of broccoli seed mixed in with the carrot seed and it just kills me to pluck them out, but twenty broccoli plants is seventeen too many and I’m just asking for worms if I let them live.

3. Ty comes home is less than three weeks. I am now allowing myself the privilege of thinking about string cheese, gala apples and otter pops and listening to A Better Rain by George Strait. Funny what little things trigger memories and make you cry in awkward places like the grocery store, so you just have to avoid them altogether. But not anymore. In fact, the other day when A Better Rain came on Ande slyly reached to change the song, but I told her it was okay to miss him now because he’s almost home.

Ty had his companion cut his hair this week. In his words: “Talk about a mistake. I had him cut the top with a size four guard on the buzzers. That went well. It is pretty hard to screw up you know. Then I asked him to use a size one on the sides and fade it up to the top. His first pass was fatal. He did it and I could feel it wasn't good. That was confirmed by the look on his face as he let out a long "OOOOOOOOOOOOhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" We then just both bust up laughing. He kept going at it and it was horrible. It was blotchy on the sides and too high from the first pass and just hideous. I taught him how to make it smooth and not blotchy and he went to work. Pretty soon, it wasn't blotchy, but it wasn't really smooth and the fade is horrible. I am completely un mirror image. It is just in time for us to attend all of the zone conferences for the whole mission too. We will go around and train all the missionaries with my horrible hair."

Three weeks 'till family pictures.

4. One more week of classes. Bittersweet. Sweet & Sour. My most productive hours in a day are from 5 am – 10 am and though I look forward to summer vacation and using those hours here at home (plus being able to stay up a little later at night), we’ve had an incredible year studying the New Testament and I appreciate and love the kids.

Ande brought home several pieces of art from Europe and this was one of my favorites. It is by DaVinci of Mary and Elizabeth with Jesus and John. I could look at it for a very long time. I have loved learning about art from her.


5. Calvin and I are headed to the temple in Tri-Cities this afternoon. I do love the order it restores to my world and then tomorrow I will get together for a BBQ with some scrapbooking friends and Sunday Abe and Grace will be here. Oh and yard sales. I just may try and hit a yard sale or two. I do love a good bargain. Did I ever tell you about my yard sale secretary desk?

That is Life in My World this week. Do you serve syrup from a fun pitcher?