A Drive Down Memory Lane

Today on my way home from church I decided to take the long way home. On a whim I started driving towards the home of my youth. The place where I grew up, spent my life from age 1 to 22. It was kind of a shocking trip.

I wanted to see how much had changed in the neighborhoods. As I drove down the street I passed many familiar houses. As I passed, names would come. Wynn's, Seeley's, Stewart's, Klingler's, and on and on. Then, as I got closer to my destination I found myself saying, "Ricks', I don't know, I don't know, John and Sylvia, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know." I knew I was close to the farm where I grew up, but I couldn't really see it. Where had all these houses come from?

I finally arrived at our lane.

When I picture this place from my childhood I see a long gravel road. It seemed about a mile long, with a horse pasture on the left and a grain field on the right. Halfway down the lane is the big white brick house in which my family lived from the time I was in 3rd grade on. It was then one of the larger houses in the area. And it was surrounded on all sides by fields. At the end of the road, after a gentle S-curve, was the farm. It had 5 huge chicken coops, an egg-processing plant, the old farm house that we lived in previously, giant walk-in coolers and freezers, numerous smaller outbuildings, an elevator leg and grain bins, and sidewalks, gravel, dirt, weeds, and old farm equipment scattered in nitches between buildings or laying at the edge of the 25 acres that my father owned.

The first shock I received was immediate. This road was paved! I would have thought I was in heaven if the road had been paved when I was learning to ride my bike. Even walking was hard on the large rounded rocks that passed for gravel back in the day. The finely crushed gravel that I see on some country roads now is still a definite step up in comfort to what we had. Driving a car on this road had to be done slowly, the sound of rocks flipping up and hitting the oil pan under the car was enough to slow anyone with sense down.

My next shock was the number of houses on this street. Big beautiful houses with gorgeous landscaped yards lined the street to the left. I drove slowly, gawking in awe at the change. It seemed like I had only driven about half of a city block when I suddenly realized that on the right was our big white brick house. Surely it had been a longer walk than that to catch the bus at the end of our lane. It kind of saddened me to see the house. My mothers beautiful black wrought iron posts that held up our front porch were replaced by ugly wooden logs. There were also blue shutters put up next to each of the front windows, that looked incongruously out of place. The trees and bushes had overgrown so much that the house was almost hidden, but the driveway was black-topped! That would have been nice.

I kept slowly driving and gawking. I couldn't believe that there was another road behind our big house that had houses on. There were more houses on the lane to the left on the lane from our big house to the farm. And, once again, it seemed so short! All of a sudden I was driving past the farm house, which hadn't changed. Many of the building had been torn down and hauled away leaving long flat expanses of cement. I drove clear through the loop of the farm, on the road which was entirely paved. It was a shock to the senses, the mind, the memories, and the emotions.

I'm kind of glad I went. Kind of. But I don't think I want to go back.

I Have a Secret

For the past 10 years or so I have been engaging in a clandestine activity during church. My husband knows about it. My kids do too. I think I've kept it pretty secret from the rest of my church-going companions, though.

This is my secret.

I draw people.

Once I sat behind a young family. Obviously the mother took great care in styling her daughters long tresses. I was fascinated with the braids and ribbons. I came home that day with hair sketches. Sometimes I sit across from a very interesting wrinkled old face. I have to draw it.

Lately, though, I have been sitting on the stand. When I had my foot surgery in December I couldn't get around very well, so I got in the habit of staying on the stand for the entire meeting. The last few weeks I began to notice all the interesting views I was getting of the backsides of people talking from the pulpit.

I began to sketch. I have to be quick on Testimony day because I never know how long they will "pose" for me.


And just in case you are wondering, I find that I remember more about what they said when I sketch than if I just sat there.

So here are my "Secret Sketches" from the last couple of weeks. And please keep my secret. I don't want people to be self-conscious about what their backsides look like while they're standing there.

What Dreams May Come...

I had a dream Saturday night.

I am the ward chorister. Every week I get up in Sacrament meeting and lead the hymns. I'm always a little bit nervous about it cause I'm not the best at it.

In my dream I arrived early as I usually do and went up to the front to post the hymn numbers on the display. All the numbers were ripped up, wrinkled and ratty. Some of the numbers had been replaced with torn pieces of lined loose-leaf paper with a big number scribbled on with a blue ball point pen. I was horrified but did my best to make the hymn page numbers look nice on the wall.

Then I went over to the music stand to adjust it to the height I like. As I pulled on it the top just pulled right off. It just totally fell apart in my hands. I tried to put it back the best I could. I had to hurry because the meeting was about to start.

When I stood up to lead the opening hymn I raised my baton ready to start. To my horror the end of the baton was all bendy and flopped around like a dead fish. I decided to use it anyway. I kept trying to make the best of every problem that arose. I just kept thinking, this is okay, I can deal with this.

As I brought my arm down to start the hymn and the congregation started to sing, I heard the choir behind me. They were following the choir director and were singing a totally different song. It was a chaotic awful sounding mess.

I was glad when I woke up and found out church hadn't started yet.

I arrived early, the numbers were crisp and new, the stand didn't break, my baton was stiff, and the congregation sounded harmonious and unified, and there was no choir.

Whew.

March Gifts

What am I thankful for this month? Many many things.

~ That Andy didn't have any problems travelling to New York. And that he seems to be adjusted and doing well.

~ That Andy actually writes good letters to us! I feel like we know what's going on with him because he puts so much detail into his letters.

~ It was so fun to see Lisa be the guest soloist with the Idaho Falls Symphony. She did awesome. I'm not a huge fan of 20th Century music, and Bartok's Viola Concerto was not my most favorite piece, but it didn't matter. I enjoyed it immensely and appreciated the extreme talent it took to be able to play it.

~ That I was able to go to one concert with Abby, another concert with Lisa (watching Abby play) and go out to lunch a few times with all my daughters. And we had a blast getting ice cream after Abby's concert. They really are my best friends.

~ That I got my new computer! I love it. It's awesome. Thanks Mike!

~ That David got his Master's diploma in the mail. Whew! I knew he earned it, but it's always nice to actually get that piece of paper.

~ That the snow is finally gone. (mostly)

~ That I had fun creating some cute things this month. Okay okay, I realize I could maybe have been more productive, but sometimes you just have to feed your soul, you know?

~ That I saw some wildlife this month. A few herds of deer, a flock of wild turkeys (repeatedly, and I got some great pictures) and a moose. The wild bunnies in our yard are getting braver and braver (and hungrier and hungrier) and get closer to our house every day. I have about 30 little songbirds hovering around my bird feeder every day. I love watching all of them.

It's been a pretty great month.

Dyed in the Wool - My contribution to Spring

I don't know what gets into me sometimes. I see something and I just can't help myself. I have to make it. I have to try it. I have to learn it. I feel a bit compulsive that way. My latest obsessive spree was spent knitting sheep.
Yes, I knit up some sheep.

My daughter Joni, just shakes her head at me, but she always has a smile and says, "yea, they're cute." When Lisa saw them today I thought she was going into a "cute fuzzy its-so-cute conniption fit".



Every time I saw a new colored yarn I wanted to knit up a new lamby.



And the most fun thing about it is that you can

DRESS THEM UP!

How fun is that? It's like 3-D paper dolls.




I need some wings for my little bee costume, but there's plenty of time before Halloween. Now, what shall I knit for the rest of their little itty-bitty Halloween costumes?



It's been kind of fun, but really I need to get something else done around here.

Spring Joys and Horrors

Many areas of the country have been enjoying the blisses of spring for a few weeks now. On February 10th we made a trip south to Utah and saw people working in their yards, blowing leaves out of flower beds, raking up dead grass, and trimming trees. It was an amazing sight to us, because before the day was over we headed back home to the cold wintery Idaho which still had almost 2 feet of snow on the ground.

I keep tabs on the temperatures in a few places that I have a personal interest.
It's always kind of annoying to see how our temps here in Rexburg stack up.
Right now, for example, Newport Oregon is touting sunny skies and lovely 64 degrees. (and my kids wonder why I want to move there.) In New York where Andy is, it's a balmy 68 degrees. I hope he's enjoying it, 'cause here in Idaho it is now 41 degrees. It actually feels pretty darn nice. I didn't wear a coat or sweater today. Just last week the low temps were hitting single digits so this really does feel like spring.

Our snow has been slowly dissappearing over the last couple of weeks. I watched as our yard has metamorphosed from a wide expanse of white, to grass-rimmed snow fields, to patchy snow on our lawn.

I always watch the snow melting on our lawn with a kind of fascinated horror. I know what I'm about to see. As the snow recedes you can see the evidence of mice. Anyone who knows me well can tell you of my aversion, no, my crippling phobia, of mice.

We have a very large lawn, at least an acre, and there are mouse trails and mouse huts everywhere. Mice will build up a little mound of grass under the snow where they can stay safe and warm as the snow insulates them. They look like little grass huts.

They are kind of fascinating. In the same way that seeing an accident on the freeway is fascinating. You don't want to look, you know you will probably be sickened, but you just can't help yourself. I felt myself drawn to one of the larger mounds. I had a long stick and reached over and flipped some of the grass away from the top. My nerves were jittery to the point that as I flicked the grass away I felt myself shudder and leap backwards. Morbid fascination drew me close once again and I flicked away some more grass.

This time I saw what looked like about 6 little smooth oval stones. I thought, "how odd, do they use the rocks to hold heat?" Then I looked closer.

"EWWWWW! YUCK!! I shuddered and scampered away as quickly as I could. They were baby mice. They were about an inch long each, and they weren't moving. I couldn't get close to it again. But just then Joni came out and asked me what the heck I was doing. (I guess the sight of a 50-something year old woman poking with sticks and jumping around the yard was kind of noticeable.) I told her what I found, and Joni, ever the scientist, came out to invesigate. She pronounced them dead. Burns, our master-mouser cat was right behind her and caught sight of these tasty little bite-sized nuggets. Joni had to wrestle him away and then she gave the little critters a proper burial.

I hope Joni checks out the rest of the grass-hut mounds for me. I don't think my heart to take another round. And I definitely don't want any surprises during the first time I mow the lawn.