Use Trees!

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been three years since my Daddy passed on. He has been missed. I think of him often and miss having a Daddy Daughter date once a month.

When he passed, and we were planning his funeral, we wanted to do something that had special meaning for the flowers. I had recently worked at a flower shop and knew how to design flowers, and could potentially do all the arrangements for his funeral.

As I was sitting at the kitchen table thinking about this, a thought came to my mind very clear, use trees! Yes! That was the answer. My daddy loved trees! It might have been him giving me the message from the other side.

My Daddy was a big fan or trees, all kinds. He bought many trees in his lifetime. I think Weeping Willow trees were his favorite. He would buy trees that reminded you of a Charlie Brown tree. Very crooked or an unusual angle on one side. He died traveling with family and one of their destinations on the trip was the Redwoods in California. He would often quote the poem by Joyce Kilmer called Trees.

I also love the- Advice from a Tree: Stand tall and proud, Go out on limb, Remember your roots, Drink plenty of water, Be content with your natural beauty, Enjoy the view.-Ilan Shamir

We decided we could buy trees for each of the children of my parents, and after the funeral we could plant them in our yards. We spent time looking and choosing the trees we felt would best serve the purpose. I have a beautiful flowering Pear tree that sits right outside my office window. I love it! When I look out the window at it I remember my Dad and his love of trees. It was a great idea, and I’m so grateful we did it.

Charlotte the Black Widow Spider

Posted on by
Reply

When the kids were little we lived in on the east bench of our town. It was not unusual to see Black Widows from time to time. They would be in various dark places like the garage or in the basement.

One time we found a Black Widow and decided to keep it and observe it for a while. We bought a little container that was safe and gave us ample viewing area. We would put flies, mosquitoes, and other insect type animals in the container and watch Charlotte do her thing. Wow! It was very interesting.

We saw a juicy and feisty yellow jacket (wasp) flying around the house and we decided to put it in the container, alive, and see what she could do with it. Brett put the wasp in and we all gathered around, and wow! Just, wow! She was amazing, extraordinary! She stayed at the other end of the container while the wasp just buzzed and vibrated. It was very angry. Then Charlotte came crawling over very speedy and bit the wasp, then crawled back over to the end of the container. She waited for a minute or two and then crawled back over to the wasp and bit it again. Then ran over to the end. Pretty soon the wasp was very still and calm. Then Charlotte calmly crawled over to the wasp and started wrapping it up in silk. She went round and around the wasp until it was completely wrapped up. For the next few days she would occasionally be at the wasp drinking it.

Having Charlotte was such a fun experience. We had her for a few months, then decided we were done. I had an idea to call the local Nature Center and ask if they would like to have her for their display. She was a beautiful specimen. They said, “Yes!” We delivered her to the Nature Center and shortly after received a lovely letter thanking us for the donation.

During the few months we had Charlotte, we had become very impressed with her and the amazing abilities she had to kill and eat.

Randomness: 40 Cents and a Warm Radiator

Posted on by
Reply

Our minds are amazing. Have you ever noticed how many times a random thought comes into your mind that is a memory of your past and then there is a story?

I was at work the other day and this cute lady was at the register paying cash for her purchase. The change due for the purchase was 40 cents. She had a handful of change and right away, I noticed on top of the pile- a quarter, a dime, and a nickel. I said, “Oh, there’s the 40 cents!” She stopped moving and said, “Really?” I told her I saw the change needed on the top of her hand full of change. Then I told her about how in junior high school lunch was 40 cents, and how I got used to using a quarter, a dime and a nickel to buy lunch. She smiled as we reminisced about how much things used to cost and how much they are now. On many occasions, my Mama would give me 50 cents for lunch and I would get to buy a candy treat in the candy machines, with the left over dime from lunch. Yes, a candy bar was a dime. I was always excited when I could get a treat after lunch.

That reminds me of a story my Mom has told me. She said that she and her sister would get to walk down to the movie theater in Salt Lake City and watch the Saturday matinee. The movie was 25 cents and popcorn was a nickel. They were able to go to the movie most Saturdays. It was such a fun part of her growing up, and didn’t cost too much.

Another random memory that recently came to my mind is when I used to ride with my Daddy over to the college were he worked and I went to cosmetology school and he would drop me off at the door of the building were my school was. I would arrive earlier than most because of coming with my Dad. It was fall and chilly, and still a little dark outside. I would be cold from the drive and walking in the building, so I used to stand near the door to the building where a nice warm radiator was and enjoy the warmth it would provide. Once I had warmed up sufficiently I would go into the class room and start preparing for the day.

The Junk Drawer

Posted on by
Reply

Most houses have a junk drawer. It’s usually somewhere close to the kitchen or laundry room. Maybe you have two junk drawers. It is the drawer that holds things that don’t seem to go anywhere else, or the things that we need and use a lot and we need them close and easily accessible. Here is a list of the things in a typical junk drawer.

Pencil, pen, ruler, tape, highlighter, stamps, chapstick, batteries, scissors, paperclips, a doohicky that holds an ace bandage on, screws, nails, letter opener, scratch paper, stapler, paper clip, little gold bell, screw driver: standard and Philips, red eraser. some random plastic something that may not be needed, but we are afraid to throw it away because what if it is, whistle, white out, etc.

In the junk drawer we had growing up the most useful and handy item was the ruler. Not for me, but for my Mama. She used it often for all kinds of projects, but on occasion she would need to get one of the brothers back in-line, when they were misbehaving. She could open the drawer and grab the ruler in one swoop and hit one of the brothers on the bottom end with it. They would usually laugh, as they ran from her, because she’d hit them on the pockets of their jeans which provided too much padding. I never worried about the ruler, because she never used it on me. Thank heavens!

Junk drawers are interesting and helpful, and a necessary part of a home.

Kindergarten Teacher/Nurse Dreams

Posted on by
Reply

As we go through our young lives, it’s not unusual to decide what you want to be when you grow up. I always wanted to be a Mama, and feel so grateful that I have had that blessing in my life. I thought I might need to have a job besides being a Mama. I thought for sure that being a teacher would be the best job! Think of it, crayons, glue, paper, all kinds of art projects and bulletin boards. I would dream of putting large Alphabet letters up all around the room and teaching the kids to sound out words, and to learn what 1 + 1= and all kinds of important things relevant in life. I would have twenty kids in my class and they would call me teacher. They would need a hug once in a while and pep talks like, “You can do it!” I would have a smily face stamp to stamp on their assignments, and stickers, too. I would tell their parents how much I love being their child’s teacher.

I would say, “That’s it! I’ve decided I want to be a kindergarten teacher!”

Then a little time would go by, and I’d think, maybe I want to be a nurse. They do so much good. They help people feel better. They get to check peoples blood pressure and heart rate and oxygen level. They can hold someones hand when they’re scared or upset about something that’s wrong with their body. Or I could help with important life saving surgery. Handing the doctor the instruments needed to complete the task. Of course we never think about the not pleasant stuff like blood, throw up or poo. But seriously I really wanted to be a nurse.

Then I graduated from high school.

I said, “I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up!”

Then an opportunity came available to go to cosmetology school. I love hair, and make up and finger nails that are painted. I will do this!

I graduated with a certificate in cosmetology, and got my license. I worked in a little shop for a bit while I was pregnant with my “First Born.” I have kept my license and even had a little shop in our home for about 8 years. I love doing hair.

Now that I’m older. I have to say, I’ve never been a kindergarten teacher, and I’ve never been a nurse. I still admire the people who do those jobs and sometime feel like I wish I could have done it all. Of all the jobs I’ve had, I love my Mama job the most. I got to teach them and nurse their wounds and hearts and cut their cute little hairs. I even got to teach, nurse and cut hairs on some adorable daycare kids through the years. In our family we have almost always needed income from me, so I’ve had a ton of jobs. Because of a sweet and amazing husband I’ve been able to move around as much as I’ve wanted. I am grateful for him and his steady income. I am also grateful for all the jobs I’ve had in my life. I’ve learned so much and hopefully I’ve blessed others along the way.

One “Stitches” At A Time-Pointy Finger

Posted on by
Reply

When I was in first grade I had the prettiest teacher. Her name was Miss Peacock. I loved her. The fact that I loved her and that she was pretty has nothing to do with my story except that this experience happened while she was my teacher.

All of the children would go to the restroom together, either after recess or just a restroom break. It was always busy with girls coming in and out of the stalls. As this was a routine and we did it everyday, one little girl had pinched her fingers more than once in the cracks on the side of the stalls. She would stand with her back to the stall and put her fingers in the cracks on either side of the stall. I thought why does she do that? What is the fascination with putting your fingers in the cracks. I made a grave decision to put my fingers in to see what was like. As I did the child inside the stall opened the stall door which pinched my fingers, but especially my index finger on my right hand. I cried out in pain, and pulled my hand from the door. My pointy finger was bleeding and the skin was torn. I didn’t go to my teacher, I went straight to the nurse’s office. All the schools at that time had nurses at the school full time. I remember holding my hand in front of my face and crying hard as I walked to the nurses office. I knew she would help me and call my mama.

I remember laying on the small cot that was set up in the nurses office with bandages and ice on my finger while I waited for my mama to come get me and take me to the hospital. The pain coming from my hand was immense. I kept going over in my mind what had happened and thinking why did you do it? Why did you put your hand in the crack? I must have had bigger fingers than the little girl who I saw do it before, because she was never hurt like I was. It was one lesson that I will never forget of doing something dumb because you saw someone else do it.

We lived in the country, and the school was a distance away our home, so it was a little while until my mama got there. Then we had to drive to the hospital which was about a half an hour away. When we got to the hospital we found out that my finger was broken and was almost torn off just below my nail. It was stitched together and I was given a splint to hold my finger straight while it healed. I learned to write with my index finger straight in the splint. And it healed very well. I have good use of my finger, almost the same as the left index finger it just looks a little scarred up. My finger nail isn’t real pretty, but I’m ok with how it looks.

All said I learned a valuable lesson that day to choose wisely what you do, don’t follow others if their choices are negative, or have a negative outcome, think about consequences- they are part of life and are based on laws that cannot be changed. I feel sad writing about this experience, because I know that little girl (me) that struggle so much, but I always know the woman I have become and how I have overcome so many challenges and come out of those experiences successfully. I always felt God’s love for me as a child and I knew He would help me with life.

One “Stitches” At A Time-The VW Bug

Posted on by
Reply

When I was about 4 years old, I had my first experience in a long line of experiences getting stitches. I was climbing on the back of the VW bug that my parents owned and fell. I don’t know for sure how it happened, but I cut my leg on the license plate in the process of falling. It was bad. I had to have many stitches. I don’t know why my parents never counted, because I sure would have. The cut ran lengthwise on my inner thigh and was at least two thirds the length. I remember my mom running out to see why I was crying, and then the look on her face. She had to run and get a washcloth to hold my leg closed. I spent at least a week recovering on the couch in the living room. When I needed to go potty, someone would carry me to the bathroom and wait, then carry me back. I was so sad that I was hurt.

Since my Daddy passed on, my Mama has given me quotes from his journals. One of the quotes said. “May 22, 1966, Joy cut her leg real bad when she climbed on the back of the car, a few weeks ago but it is healing. Jo and I had to pack her around everywhere for about a week.”

One thing that made my time on the couch not quite so boring, was that some of our neighbors brought me over some coloring books and crayons, which I totally loved. We lived in a great neighborhood.

Little did I know at the time that I would be getting more stitches as I was doing my best to grow up.

Learning To Love Everyone

Posted on by
Reply

While on my mission in Texas, I had an experience with a ward mission leader that I will never forget. First I need to tell you about my first ward mission leader. He was a young dad. He was married to a wonderful supportive wife, and the daddy to a quiver full of children with one on the way. He was in the Air Force and was always doing missionary work, and sharing his love of the gospel with anyone who would listen. He opened his home to us missionaries many times. Whether it be to eat dinner, or teach a friend about the restored gospel. He was consistently reliable. He loved to support us, and follow through with anything we asked of him or needed to be successful missionaries.

Then I was transferred to my second area. I had a great companion and wonderful area, but the mission leader was 100% different. We would meet with him to plan and discuss our work. He was always supportive, but never followed through. Typical one liners would be, “Sorry sisters, I dropped the ball on that.” or “I really missed the boat, there.” or “My week got away from me.” I’m sure it was just me, but he was so frustrating to me. I kept thinking we needed someone we could count on to be successful. I realized as time went by that I just really struggled with him.

In our apartment there was a collection of Ensigns (old religious magazines) and one day as I looked through the stack I saw an article that caught my eye. It was written by someone who was working with a difficult person. They needed the job, and couldn’t quit. They had been wondering what to do about the situation. I don’t remember how, maybe in the scriptures, but they found the inspiration they needed. The answer was to see this person, the coworker, the ward mission leader the way God sees them. How? They used prayer. They pleaded with God to help them to see this challenging person the way He sees them. Since we are all His children and we all have infinite worth and value, surely this would help. It did.

Slowly the coworker became less of a challenge to the person who wrote the story. They actually noticed some of the things this coworker was good at, and finally learned to love them. I was determined to love this ward mission leader, and so I started praying to see this mission leader the way God sees him. It didn’t take long. The next Sunday I watched him with his family. His wife looking at him adoringly, his children running to him arms out stretched, his tiny infant daughter smiling at him while he held her. Wow! I was amazed as I noticed how thoughtful and loving he was to his family. He provided them a safe place to live and grow. He loved God and was doing his best. I am glad to say that anytime he “dropped the ball” after that I was completely unaffected. I was so grateful to just love him, not judge him. It was freeing, and such a blessing.

These days I am not bugged very much by people I deal with, because I always go back to my experience learning to love and see another the way God sees and loves them. Of course I’m not perfect, and I’m sure there is someone out there who might have to pray to learn to love me. This life is tough. We all struggle, but the journey is better and more enjoyable when we get along and love each other. I hope I never forget this lesson. God loves us all.

A Vintage Survival Pioneer Trek

Posted on by
Reply

I looked up the word Vintage, and besides references about wine I found, a period of origin and dating from the past, and the word Survival means the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of difficult circumstances, and decided to use these words to describe the first pioneer trek I ever went on. Of course this wasn’t the first pioneer trek, that trek was the definitely vintage and the epitome of survival. Things have changed a lot since my first trek experience, even in the modern reenactment treks that happen now.

I was about 14 years old, and it was about the mid 1970’s. It was tough! I still feel a little uneasy about how this trek was done, and think it should have or could have been a better experience.

As I remember it, we arrived at the church on Thursday in our pioneer outfits. In our ward a common and expected thing would be for our leaders to have a table set up with a breakfast treat like donuts or muffins and maybe even juice while we waited for everyone to arrive. Not for this event. Nothing, not even water. I was a little bummed, because I didn’t eat before I left home, no breakfast, no snack or anything. This would normally not be a big deal if lunch was the next opportunity to eat, but as I found out later it would be a quite a long while till I would eat.

We got on a bus, and drove for some time, maybe an hour or two. We got to the location, in a canyon somewhere. I have no idea where it was. We got out and were assigned a family group. A Ma and Pa and siblings. The leaders went through the kids bags and removed all candy, gum and any distractions. We got our handcart and started on our way. We walked and walked, we may have even sung as we walked and walked and walked and walked, I don’t remember. We walked and pushed and pulled and took turns in the front of the handcart for a long time. It started to get dusk and we stopped. They said we were stopping for the night. I think they said we went 12 miles. Shortly after we stopped we were givin a cup of broth and a piece of beef jerky. That was it. I honestly don’t remember having water. We didn’t bring water bottles with us. It wasn’t like it is now when all the leaders encourage the youth to bring a water bottle and make sure they take lots of drinks so no one would get dehydrated. So once we were ready we went to bed.

The next day, Friday, we walked and walked again for hours. We may have stopped from time to time, I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything about the food on the second day, but it had to be better than the first day. We walked and pushed the handcarts all day again. I seem to remember that we went 15 miles, and when we quit, we made camp and planned to stay there for a day or so. I don’t remember tents, so I’m sure we just slept out under the stars.

On Saturday, early in the day we had all kinds of busy-ness going on. One thing they did was to release live turkeys and some of the boys chased them down until they caught them. Then they were butchered. Someone chopped off their heads and then we all helped to remove the innards and plucked the turkey. When it was ready it was put in a large dutch oven with other vegetables and buried down in the ground with coals to cook it. In the mean time we played pioneer games and messed around while the food cooked. When the food was done, we dug it out and had the best food I may have ever eaten in my life. That turkey and those veggies were cooked to perfection. Whoever was in charge of that part of the trip was a master.

The next day, Sunday we had our Sunday Sacrament meeting and sat on logs laid out in rows for pews. After Sacrament meeting we did a thing they called solo. We were asked to find a place to spend time in nature away from the other kids and adults. We were to use the time writing in our journal, or reading our scriptures or resting. This was supposed to take place till evening or dusk and then we all gathered together for testimony meeting. I remember trying really hard to have a spiritual experience, or to have something profound to write in my journal, but I was pretty much still feeling out of sorts and kind of insecure. I kept wondering who was in charge and why we were doing this trek. What were we supposed to learn. Maybe we were supposed to learn that we had it easy, that we were pansies, or that challenges are good for us. Maybe we were supposed to learn that we had no clue about how hard it was for the pioneers. I’m sure all of that is true, I just didn’t feel it at the time. Was I too young to truly appreciate what I was experiencing? Definitely, and I’m sure I just wanted to go home.

On Monday morning we broke camp and headed toward the bus and home. Thank heavens! In the end I think they were trying to teach us about hardship and to help us appreciate the original pioneers. I did, and I do. If that’s how pioneer trek reenactments happened today, I would never go on a pioneer trek again.

Thankfully the focus has changed from hardship and endurance to an appreciation of the people themselves. I have been on a pioneer trek since this vintage survival trek and it is much more positive, and even endearing. The kids are assigned or pick a pioneer, and act as if they are that person. They find out the history of that person and what was going on in their lives at the time of the original trek west. This gives them the opportunity to think about them and ask questions like: Why would they do it? What drove them to leave their homeland and sacrifice so much to come to Zion? When you think about that, it’s a lot to take in and contemplate.

They walked an 23,636 steps a day.

Do I put that much energy into anything? Am I driven to follow God and the Prophet like they were? I know I can do hard things for a noble cause, and I want to feel like my time on earth counts. It’s important to make good choices, and to follow good leaders, and bless others along the way. How many steps a day do I make to leave a legacy?

I’m grateful I had a vintage survival pioneer trek experience, but I am glad its over. I am more grateful to the pioneers for their spirit and tenacity and willingness to struggle and even die to get to Zion, and leave such a lasting legacy. Learning about them and following their example is a blessing I will always be grateful for.