How Come?

When I could be out shopping and looking at such beautiful things for Christmas which I totally love to do...like

Checking out Miso Lino in Walnut Creek!

And taking in the sites and thinking about
what to get you for Christmas if $ were no object...

Then ogling all the house bling...
Oooo, I do love this!

Or checking out the Byers Carolers~
There are practically a whole
city of them you know!

Or eying this small wrath that would look great in
our house and also empty our bank account!

But instead...

All I want to do is sink into this red leather
chair in Jim's office and stare into space.

Or

1. Write in my blogs or get emails from friends

2. Hang out at home in my jammies

3. Look at other people's Christmas
decorations on Pinterest.
Repin and stick a few of my own.

4. Cannot seem to have the energy
to read blogs right now.

5. Cannot arouse even a tiny interest
in Facebook.

6 Want to watch movies about
Christmas but not like usual.

7. Listen to Christmas music but
not all the things I normally listen
to at Christmas..
Just Josh Groban's Angelic voice
singing the classics and classical.

8. Sleep and rest and have some hugs.


After giving this some thought I think it might have something to do with this...

I am not worried I have faith that the Lord will protect him. But I just totally miss him and I miss him for us, for Laura, for his boys and for his parents and siblings. And the very worst of all...him missing his family and being so far away from those that truly matter most to him.

I need a quadruple by-pass on this one but, it is too late for intervention. The sadness is already lodged right there in the middle of my heart. Not even Christmas can budge it completely...but I am working on it. One of the perils of being a Mom, I guess. I have known double and triple jeopardy before but this is a quad. Holy Cow...too much and it really has kind of blind-sided me! Even the two year missions do not prepare you for this.

But do not worry about me, I bounce back fast. Mornings are a new day and I plan to take a deep breath, carry on and keep going. I just need a little carrying on the beach right now. And maybe some extra prayers for them right now too. Sigh.

A Simple Woman's Daybook!~ November 7, 2011

Just For Today...Monday, November 7, 2011

As my friend Marie's says about
writing a daybook post or reading one,
" It is like sitting down together for a chat over (herbal) tea."

Outside my window...it is cold, it is dark, it is winter again already! It is supposed to be 64 and sunny today. The older I get the longer it takes me to adjust to the time change. I need sun light. I do not do dreary well. So glad it will be sunny today. How do you cope when it is 6:30 pm and feels like midnight?

From the learning room...we just never know what people are going through and enduring. We should just be as loving and kind as possible to everyone. Being a light and bringing joy to someone's day is so important. I want do something to brighten each day not add more clouds for anyone. Edifying and lifting another can be about the best things we can do for them. It doesn't have to be anything big, just heartfelt and genuine. Loving without expectations is the best.

I am reading...lessons to do on my genealogy, always scriptures and related materials and blogs now and then, a peak at Facebook once a day and the inside of my eyelids. Got new glasses for the computer and they are helping a lot but still way too much screen time in my life right now.

From the kitchen...Made that favorite soup of Jim's which means basically no cooking this week. He loves that and goes into 'eat it every night of the week mode.' I'm OK for awhile and then I get very bored with that. Not him! Day in day out he is as happy as a clam with it.

Lucky me! He cut this out and I found it on my desk
this morning after adding in the above last night!
He didn't know what I had written, he just knows himself.
Funny isn't it? The timing was perfect!

I am missing...oh, so many people. So many are just too far away that take up a substantial amount of my heart's capacity.

I am hearing...Christmas Music. Silver Bells, Johnny Mathis. I must start thinking about getting in the mood. So excited to be spending it with our east coast family and stopping in Utah for a few days along the way. I am in the mood for that, just not all the stuff I have to do between now and then. I do have a big hunk of shopping done since I get to send $ to the Utah kids and grandkids. Amazon will be helping me out with the Rhode Island contingency and then I just have the beloveds around here. Not too bad. Laura and I are already planning on making some cool presents for some friends in the days right before Christmas.

I am wearing...PJ's....this is such a boring part of this daybook. I may have to delete it for awhile!

I am quoting...our beautiful daughter Laura on her blog..."Well, the day of our big good-bye finally came and is now over. I still cannot believe it. After lots of hugs and a final goodbye at the airport, the tears began to flow, a lot. It really surprised me (because intellectually, I still can not comprehend what is happening). My copious tears and not-so-silent sobs surprised the boys too. I don't think they have ever seen me cry like that before but they were great. They hugged me and comforted me with, 'It is okay Mom, he will come back soon" and "Every day he is gone is one day closer to his homecoming." It was very sweet."

Somethings that made me especially happy this past week...I got all my winter clothes out, sorted, and organized for the season and got rid of things that are too big. This is such a good thing as now I can see exactly what I need to complete my wardrobe and not buy things I don't really need. Although I am always looking for the perfect white shirt, after my exercise in getting everything reorganized for winter I can clearly see one thing. I have not found it yet, but I need to quit trying for awhile! So the only thing I need for winter is a pair of black slacks for work. Not bad.

Jim got more work done on his road and has decided to name it "Tasso Lane." We celebrated the birthday of a sweet friend. And the first week of Robert's deployment is behind us.

I am going...to embrace all the good things in our lives and be grateful everyday for the blessings. Learn to deal better with all the loved ones I worry about. I am going to be compassionate and caring while seeking joy. What I mean by that is I will try not to let the burdens I feel others experiencing right now get me down to the point I cannot help them.

One of my guilty pleasures...oh, there are so many! I admit to be a bit of a hedonist at heart.

Pet Peeve...Kleenex and other foreign objects that go through the washer and sometimes the dryer. Yikes. hatin' it!

One of my favorite things...The men who read my blog. They are a special lot and I love them all. That goes without saying for the women too!

An enjoyable movie I have watched lately..."Bertie and Elizabeth" a fun movie about The current Queen of England's parents. It is a very sweet love story actually.

I am curious about...Pinterest. I have signed up...heaven forbid. I have no time for such things but it looks like a lot of fun. It cannot cut into the things I have to do, so it just means less sleep if I get into it. I think I'll just lurk for awhile.

If I could change one thing it would be....all the bad things that happened this past week. My dear cousin's beautiful dog died and left him and his wife devastated, my brother Gary has been suffering non-stop with a very large kidney stone. My friend Marie is dealing with serious health issues, I learned of some things that have hurt friends a great deal in the last several months. Sometimes you just feel helpless when you just want to take someone's pain away and you can't.

A few plans for the rest of the week...work on my genealogy homework, organize more electronic files, do a blog post on organizing genealogy files and papers, fill out some paper work on one of my retirement accounts that I have been putting off for long enough, have a baby shower for one of the ladies I visit teach that is having her first baby at 40! So happy for her. Baking some Carmel Apple cakes. Work in the library, start to think about Jim's birthday coming up and cooking for Thanksgiving both on the same weekend. I am sure other stuff will come up each day...can't even think about the weekend yet. No ideas!

Some photos and thoughts I'm sharing this week...

Family Reunion in July
A love made in Heaven itself.

Ocean Beach this past summer...
A hero and his boys!

Saying good-bye to his sons for 15 months.

Heartwarming, loving Daddy!

A Family that is smiling in spite of
sending daddy off to war.
They are our precious heroes!
God Bless you and keep you safe, Robert!

Thrill Seekers

The Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas
As we passed it Robert said,
"I really want to bungee off of there!"

After our eight hour drive to Las Vegas we started to pass the various hotels on our way to ours in the late afternoon. We started out quite early in the morning picking the kids up at Robert's parents' home. We visited with Janet and loaded them up into the car and headed over to Robert's Dad's office so he could say good-bye to his Dad for a few years.

It was not the first two year good-bye for them as Robert served a mission for our church in Japan for two years when he was 19. However, that long a separation is never easy. We took some pictures of them together in the courtyard of his lovely office complex.

Bryant, with Robert, Laura, Spencer and Ross

Doesn't Robert look like is Dad?

After we left there we traveled down to Cove Fort to pay a little visit to this church history site. We had a nice time and saw some wonderful exhibits of what life was like way out there in the desert a hundred and fifty plus years ago.

Entrance to the Fort

It is meticulously kept and maintained by missionaries, as are all our church history sites. The miracle of irrigation and TLC has produced a beautiful oasis in these parts. It was a beautiful day. The fort site was selected by Brigham Young and founded and settled by Ira Hinckley in 1867. He is one of Robert, Ross and Spencer's ancestors which made this visit all the more interesting for us.

This tree is so lush and pretty. It is 150
years old and supported by cables.

All of us in front of one of the original
little log cabins at the fort.

After we arrived in Las Vegas and got settled we had dinner and the evening was just free for relaxing or going out walking on the strip. The next day was our play day in L.V. The guys basically spent the entire day at Circus Circus with the boys in the roller coaster place. They had a ball, all four of them. They got home after we did that night.


They were far too busy going on roller coasters to take any photos so these are from the hotel website. I cannot imagine staying in there for all those hours, but they did. Viva la difference!
Jim said it was a combination boardwalk and county fair under a big dome to regulate the temperature.

They also made their way over to the
Stratosphere Hotel in the evening.

So apparently Robert wasn't kidding about jumping off the Stratosphere much to our surprise. :-0 This has to be the first time I have ever seen Robert doing something like this. I told him he blew his cover of being totally sensible at all times! I am glad to know he is not 100'% perfect in every possible thing! He is not allowed to scare his second mom like this, even after the fact!

Thank heavens, Laura and I were at the show seeing Celine! Here is Bungee Boy getting into the astronaut outfit! He does shine in a uniform though, doesn't he? That's beside the point though! Just kidding! I am just so glad he was safe! Easy to say, after the fact, right?

All straps checked 4 times to assure
they would not malfunction.

Hugging his boys before the 1,149 foot plunge!

He survived and loved it but they all
look relieved, don't you think?

Why Jim did not do this too is beyond me, it is so like his adventuresome nature to want to do it. But for whatever reason, he didn't. {{Thanks Babe!}} Maybe he felt like he had already spent his mad money on Celine! Perhaps he stayed down to take care of the boys! Oh I know, maybe it is that you value life and limb more in your sixty-somethings. Whatever the reason, I am so glad.

I think the plan was to keep a low profile about this particular activity where Mom and Gramma were concerned, and the fact that they took three taxi rides back and forth between the hotels during the day. But the boys just couldn't keep it back. The first words out of their mouths were, "Guess what Dad did?" "Guess what we did!" Boys will be boys, always and forever! More power to 'em and us for that matter!

Life on the Island

Once we got settled in, life on the island was really fun. It is so green, uncrowded, uncomplicated there. They are just off the beach by about a block and a half. A nice friend of theirs lent Jim his bike and that made it really nice for Jim and the boys. Each morning they would get up at 6:00 for a bike ride with their destination being the beach, before breakfast and school. They go with Laura normally but this became a special time for a Grampa and his grandboys and gave Laura a little break.

The beaches seemed pretty rocky~ a little boy's paradise!

They love searching for sea glass and shells
and have an on going rock collection.

Jim caught some beautiful sunrises on the camera.

The surf was unpredictable, some days calm,
others quite wild.
The weather was also unpredictable
but one thing you could count on,
sea breezes, everyday.

In the basement they have their school room. It is so perfect for home school and they are really blessed to have such a good teacher. The one to two ratio has its definite advantages, one of them being so much more can be accomplished, in less time. Also they can work at an accelerated pace and have chunks of time off school. That really was nice during our stay. It is just perfect for them to be near all the historical sites in New England as they are studying US history this year. It is just an ideal situation, albeit a lot of work for Laura, it is worth it for them.

This is one corner of the classroom~love the wall words.
They also have a nice table, a big white board
and lots of books and a computer.

During school, the kitchen becomes
the break room for the boys!

The boys come up from the basement school
room for a little treat and a break each day.
Most days they brought up a book to read for pleasure.
Both love reading.

A typical road on the island.

A typical home on the island.

A quaint Inn on the island.

The LDS Chapel on the island

War College Museum

War College Yacht Harbor

Jim by the mighty Anchor
near the Museum

So there are a fraction of the fun things to see and do on the island. The kids can enjoy it for the next several months before they get their new assignment and move on. Military life is not easy for all the relocating, but it sure keeps things interesting. It also gives us a new and exciting destination every couple of years. Every challenge has its upside! And they make such a lovely home for their family no matter where they go. You'd think they've been here for years instead of less than three months.