A Simple Woman's Daybook~October 25, 2015

Our lives pass swiftly by! I want to do something to remember

the everyday moments and my thoughts about them.  

That is what this Daybook is all about.

Focusing on the little things that become my life.

One entry at a time.

Just for today~Saturday, October 25, 2015

Outside my window...It is dark, so dark I cannot see my hand in front of my face out there.  It is nearly 8:00 and it feels like about 11:00 pm. Sundays are strange as we have church from 11:00 to 2:00.  We eat dinner after church and then the night drags on and on.  Going to bed at 9:00 can't work.  Then I wake up at 1:00 and I'm wake all night, thinking about what I have to do the next day.  Then I am too tired to do it because of lack of sleep.  Haha...  

These are the bemoanings of a woman who is getting older.  In my younger years seasons and time changes didn't affect me at all, nor daylight or darkness.  But now the body is in sync and keenly aware of all of that.  All the changes seem to be harder adjustments.  For you young ones out there, it is like jet lag and you haven't even gone anywhere!

I am thankful for...my life.  I view everything as a gift from our Father in Heaven and am grateful for it.  All the blessings and all the challenges that bring understanding and learning. 

In Church today we talked about how a grateful heart can marvel all day long at the gifts from God. That heart sees God's hand in it all.   While an ungrateful heart spends most of its time complaining about the state of things and often feels entitled to something better.  That heart focuses on what it doesn't have instead of what it does have.  Then when there is a blessing the heart thinks it deserves it and earned it, etc.  Or even worse it thinks it was just a lucky break or a coincidence rather than a gift from God.    Gratitude and unhappiness are not compatible.  An unhappy heart is not a grateful heart.  A grateful heart is not unhappy.

From the learning room...I am learning about relationships, I am learning about family history, I am learning history itself and technology and long- suffering with some chronic pain.  I am learning about life stages...I am learning about love.  When we say we love someone..it is what we do for them.  It is not about what they do for us.  When we get our expectations out of whack that gets a little too selfish.  I think to love someone for who they are trumps to love them for what we can get out of it.  Of course we all want that love to be mutual.  But sometimes it just isn't.  Expectation adjustments help!  Love is what we give.

I am reading...The Orphan Trains, in my spare time.  Which means I have read about two pages and it is waiting for me by my chair, just in case I find some of that spare time.

On Pinterest This Week....I pinned a lot of pins.  I find it relaxing there when I have worked really hard or am bothered by something it brings me back to the things I love.  Beauty of the earth, order, family, worthy and wholesome activities and daydreams.  https://www.pinterest.com/onedesigner/

From the kitchen...I made a huge pot of soup yesterday and scorched it.  I have to do it over soon which means going shopping again for all the ingredients.  Ugh, I wish cooking and I could become friends but it's not looking likely.  I have never burned something like that before it was awful.  

Some spiritual thoughts I have been having...my thoughts are still lingering over the wonderful conference talks we heard in the beginning of October.  The leaders of the church have been like dear friends over the years.  We enjoy our reunion with them every six months and hearing their wise counsel.  I love that we can revisit the talks from General Conference anytime we want to on lds.org.

Someone I am praying for this week...Our dear friend, Mike, who is very ill right now and his family, our family and our friends always. We pray for all of you that have specific needs that we are aware of and the world in general.

I am hearing.. some instrumental Christmas music.  I know...don't judge.  You know that two months from today Christmas 2015 will be over at the stoke of midnight.  I know how fast two months goes. I don't want to miss any of it.  I love Christmas and I want to be better organized than ever this year.  So I am starting to organize a lot of it in my mind already.

One of my pleasures...I really like teaching.   It is so hard for me and I work so hard at it.   It feels so good when all the preparation is done and you have given your presentation.   If someone has benefited from it in some small way that is enough.  

It makes me feel like I have a purpose and a service to do and that I am needed.  I think all women need that after the kids are long gone.  It is wonderful to feel part of something as vital as family history.  I feel that my careers have been varied and interesting.  Corporate, Medical, Design, and now this wonderful discipline of genealogy has me spellbound.  I have every intention of doing it as long as I live. When the passion for something runs deep it brings so much satisfaction into your life.  And writing...that is my cherry on top.  I couldn't ask for more.

Pet Peeves...that we have to listen to election politics for another 16 months, but whose counting?  I am.  

Past Remembrance...our youngest granddaughter...

When Hazie was just three. 

 She is one adorable little girl.  

Now she is eight!

She is a little bundle of pure love!

If I could change one thing it would be..That cancer would just go away.  Forever.

An enjoyable movie/TV show we have watched lately...We watched
The White Countess last night.  It was very good.  A movie from 2005.

I Am Quoting...

I am curious about...what El Nino will do for us and to us this winter. Jim has been working on our drainage all week coming down from the hill. I am so grateful to have such a hardworking, talented and good husband.  He works tirelessly around here to keep things up.  I am blessed.

Plans for the rest of the week...Starting my fall cleaning to prepare for the holidays, meeting with friends, working on Tuesday and teaching the staff, hopefully seeing Carol who has been under the weather this past week. Wednesday more cooking...soup reprise. Thursday or Friday hopefully a day trip to San Francisco.  Maybe a movie in a real theater.  All the usuals of running a house and some computer work on the Family Tree.  Touching base with as many people as I can.

One of my favorite things...our family.  I miss our kids so much. The grandkids are growing up so fast.  Laura and Robert went on an overnighter and left the boys home alone.  What?  Oh yeah, they are teenagers now.  Spencer nearly 17.  So it was OK they did very well on their own.  They are such good boys. Our cousins, I miss them all. We miss all our family all the time.  We are planning some time together this next summer and it will take that long to get everyone's schedule to jive.  I look forward to that so much.  So yeah, family surely my most favorite thing of all.  Those far and near and those friends adopted through love.

Some things that made me so happy this past week...just reflecting on all the happy things that happened in Washington a few weeks ago that you can read about in the post below this one if so inclined   An all day seminar that we had been planning at the library for months finally happened last week and it turned out very well.  Hearing that our friend Judy did not have a heart attack.  Texting with my friend every night, letters from some family members, it was just a great week.  I had dinner with five friends.  That was really fun too.

The most surprising thing this past week...was not a happy one.  It was learning that our friend has an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Here are two photos I'm sharing... We haven't had much Autumn around here this year so far.  But I love it so much I am enjoying it on Pinterest instead.

Gorgeousness

Happy Halloween if you're into that!

UNTIL THE NEXT DAYBOOK,

BE HAPPY AND CARRY ON!
Take Care Of You For Me!

Happy Halloween 2012!

Vintage sepia photo where someone added
 black glitter to the hats
And put it in a black frame.
One of my favorite Halloween Decorations
Especially for my Genealogy Friends!

In the olden days Halloween was different than it is today. Although I am not a big fan of the scary parts of Halloween, both the imagined and the real, there are things I do like about it. For one, it seems that most kids are pretty crazy about the costumes and the trick or treating. Because kids love it, they tend to remember it when they grow up. I think that any holiday that bookmarks childhood memories can be a good thing.

When I think back to my growing up years a lot of it is just a fog. The repetition of daily life seems to all blend into a happy feeling inside of me but not a lot of real specific things are there unless I search the archives of my memory with real intent. Things like Halloween seem to stand out pretty well.

It seems that the costumes were mostly homemade and I can remember a lot of ghosts and hobos. There were also a lot of gypsies and little girls in lots of mom's make-up and fancy fake jewelry and boys with blackened faces done by lighting a match to a cork and then rubbing it on your face. Lots of kids just wore their own clothes and a mask of some kind. I don't remember adults in costumes unless they were going to a grown-up party or wanted to really scare kids at their doors.

The tricks that I remember were soaping windows. It was something the bigger kids did that really made people mad as it was hard to get off the cars and houses. Heaven knows we never did it, mom and dad would never allow anything like that thankfully. In my Dad's day it was turning over outhouses and he was known to have participated in a few of those events! One time he and a bunch of kids put a guy's buckboard up on his barn roof. They got in some major trouble from their parents for that. We on the other hand, were perfect little angels. Sure we were!

We had some fun school activities with costumes and bobbing for apples and old-fashioned things like that. I remember "going fishing" for prizes, eating popcorn balls and frosted cookies. These events were the precursor to the school carnivals of today I think.

Halloween was always a bench mark for the beginning of the colder and rainier weather and staying warm outside under your costume was essential. It seems that it would be dark so early and was usually the first week of daylight savings time. And no one was interested in eating dinner, that's for sure! We just wanted to go, go go! The thing about candy in those days was it was a rare treat which made the pay dirt all the sweeter. (Is there a lesson for another day here?)

Jen's pumpkin art
Our Daughter is so artistic!

We would always pray for no rain in Sacramento where I grew up. Rain always put such a damper on the blocks and blocks of door to door trick or treating. We lived in a housing tract and going out was so much fun.

You didn't have to be afraid of weirdos that liked to poison kids and things like that. Kids were out in mass and parents just didn't have to worry about the safety of their kids like we did in our kids' day and especially now that we have grandkids. Fortunately, most people now just take their kids to homes of people they know and still every year you read of unfortunate events involving little kids. Not so in our care free days of growing up.

We all used large paper bags to collect our loot. One of our parents would always go with us until we were about 10. Then we could go alone if we took our little brother with us. One time I remember that I was 10, Steve was 8 and our baby brother, Gary, was 5. Out we went with Gary in tow and we hit every house for about five blocks. We had a ton of candy and were pretty excited. The few rich people even gave out 5 cent candy bars!! When we arrived home exhausted and happy we ran to our rooms to empty our bags on to the floor and count and sort the stuff. Steve and I ran into the bedroom and then we heard our little brother crying in the kitchen.

 I took the still life photos last night

 at the Oakland Family Search Library. 

 One of our staff members, John, 

does these lovely arrangements for the Library.

The next thing I knew my Dad was standing over Steve and me saying that we needed to share our candy with Gary!  " What? Are you kidding us?"  (How could we be so selfish and bratty I wonder now?)

I guess we weren't doing the best job of watching him as he ran to keep up with us that night. It seems little Gar, was not quite tall enough and he was dragging his paper bag in the wet grass. He arrived home with nothing but a big bag with a big hole in the bottom. Poor little guy! He was heart broken and we begrudgingly shared our candy. To this day I call him and remind him not to drag his bag in the wet grass every Halloween!

 

Faux Calories! 

Pumpkin Carving Time

I think this is cute!

Trick or Tweet!

The Little Blue Bird of Happiness & Excessive JOY!

All Set to Fly in Her Beautiful Little Nest.
You know you are a basket case grandmother when
a Halloween costume created by
your awesome daughter makes you weep.

Jen's World Famous Halloween Trail Mix

1. I start with about 3 pounds of basic trail mix: nuts, raisins,

cereal, coconut or whatever you like.

2. Add a pound of candy corn. You can also use the pumpkins

that are made of this same stuff...or both (;

3. Throw in a big bag of Halloween colored M&M's.

4. Add about 1/4 pound of Halloween pretzels.
These are "Bats and Jacks" from Sam's Club.

5. The best part of this mix is the foil eyeballs. They are chocolate

filled with peanut butter. You can get caramel ones too but I like PB best.
(Sorry the photo is so lousy...I couldn't get the camera to focus on
the eyes--just the plate! arggh!)

Toss it all together and you have yourself
several pounds of Haunted Trail Mix.

These are the basic ingredients that I always use. The fun part of a mix is that
you can add anything you like to make it unique.

Happy Halloween

Be safe wherever you are. I am so glad the church kids did their parties and trunk or treating last last night. May every parent be nearby when little ones go out. I am always so glad when it is over for another year. Loving the Fall, not so much this Holiday. Sorry to be a party pooper.

Italian Treats and Tricks

The definitive and very last word on Halloween
from Uncle Lowell's winning pumpkin!

This morning I am sharing Laura's post hot off the press regarding Halloween in Italy. I know, I know, I did a wrap the other day on the whole Halloween scene, but how could I leave these precious grandsons out of the mix? We had the curtain call, well, this is the encore...the last one for 2009! I promise!

Laura said....

"The boys went trick or treating again this year- they had a blast! Two days before Halloween however, the plan was to stay home, make caramel corn and watch a movie. This was their idea not mine, but I didn't mind and had planned accordingly. So when we went to a Halloween party on Friday night and all their friends were dressed up and dazzled about trick or treating- they got the itch to go too. I wanted to say no because I just didn't think I could pull it off cool costumes and safe candy (Spencer's peanut allergy presents quite a problem in this department) in such a short amount of time. In the end... I gave in! Good thing it is dark outside on Halloween night and my boys don't mind costumes made of old bedding! Anyway, it was a fun day- have a look!

Ross as Anakin Skywalker

Spencer as OB1

Jedi Knights

A little Halloween Drama

A little more Halloween Drama
(because the first time wasn't enough to make me
wonder why I ever let them watch Star Wars in the first place!
Mamma Mia!)

Trick or Treating Fun!

(This is one of the homes in the
gated community where they live.)

I find it funny that three of our five grandsons were Star Wars characters so popular 28 years ago. I can still remember the insanity of diving into big cardboard boxes at Toys R Us grappling for various Star Wars figures along with other nutty moms back in 1982! That is some pretty good staying power! The sun has officially gone down on Halloween 2009! It appears all the grandies had a ball.

Back In The Day

In the olden days Halloween was different than it is today. Although I am not a big fan of the scary parts of Halloween, both the imagined and the real, there are things I do like about it. For one, it seems that most kids are pretty crazy about the costumes and the trick or treating. Because kids love it, they tend to remember it when they grow up. I think that any holiday that book marks childhood memories can be a good thing.

When I think back to my growing up years a lot of it is just a fog. The repetition of daily life seems to all blend into a happy feeling inside of me but not a lot of real specific things are there unless I search the archives of my memory with real intent. Things like Halloween seem to stand out pretty well.

It seems that the costumes were mostly homemade and I can remember a lot of ghosts and hobos. There were also a lot of gypsies and little girls in lots of mom's make-up and fancy fake jewelry and boys with blackened faces done by lighting a match to a cork and then rubbing it on your face. Lots of kids just wore their own clothes and a mask of some kind. I don't remember adults in costumes unless they were going to a grown-up party or wanted to really scare kids at their doors.


The tricks that I remember were soaping windows. It was something the bigger kids did that really made people mad as it was hard to get off the cars and houses. Heaven knows we never did it, mom and dad would never allow anything like that thankfully. In my Dad's day it was turning over outhouses and he was known to have participated in a few of those events! One time he and a bunch of kids put a guy's buckboard up on his barn roof. They got in some major trouble from their parents for that. We on the other hand, were perfect little angels. Sure we were!

We had some fun school activities with costumes and bobbing for apples and old-fashioned things like that. I remember "going fishing" for prizes, eating popcorn balls and frosted cookies. These events were the precursor to the school carnivals of today I think.

Halloween was always a bench mark for the beginning of the colder and rainier weather and staying warm outside under your costume was essential. It seems that it would be dark so early and was usually the first week of daylight savings time. And no one was interested in eating dinner, that's for sure! We just wanted to go, go go! The thing about candy in those days was it was a rare treat which made the pay dirt all the sweeter. (Is there a lesson for another day here?)

Jen's pumpkin art

We would always pray for no rain in Sacramento where I grew up. Rain always put such a damper on the blocks and blocks of door to door trick or treating. We lived in a housing tract and going out was so much fun.

You didn't have to be afraid of weirdos that liked to poison kids and things like that. Kids were out in mass and parents just didn't have to worry about the safety of their kids like we did in our kids' day and especially now that we have grandkids. Fortunately, most people now just take their kids to homes of people they know and still every year you read of unfortunate events involving little kids. Not so in our care free days of growing up.

We all used large paper bags to collect our loot. One of our parents would always go with us until we were about 10. Then we could go alone if we took our little brother with us. One time I remember that I was 10, Steve was 8 and our baby brother, Gary, was 5. Out we went with Gary in tow and we hit every house for about five blocks. We had a ton of candy and were pretty excited. The few rich people even gave out 5 cent candy bars!! When we arrived home exhausted and happy we ran to our rooms to empty our bags on to the floor and count and sort the stuff. Steve and I ran into the bedroom and then we heard our little brother crying in the kitchen.

The next thing I knew my Dad was standing over Steve and me saying that we needed to share our candy with Gary! " What? Are you kidding us?" I guess we weren't doing the best job of watching him as he ran to keep up with us that night. It seems little Gar, was not quite tall enough and he was dragging his paper bag in the wet grass. He arrived home with nothing but a big bag with a big hole in the bottom. Poor little guy! He was heart broken and we begrudgingly shared our candy. To this day I call him and remind him not to drag his bag in the wet grass every Halloween!