Randomness

1. I'm sick of our weather pattern: an inch or two of snow every night.

2. I discovered that I use my sewing machine a lot when it broke and was in the shop for two weeks. Unfortunately, it would cost $500 to repair.

3. Is there some reason besides old age that everything on me hurts right now? All my old injuries are aching, plus new things. Perhaps it's the weather. It makes it hard to excel in our fitness challenge.

4. I made 1/2 a cake for Rene's birthday. I just didn't feel like having tons of leftover cake. It goes with the 1/2 gallon of milk, which is what we use per week now. And speaking of that,

5. I miss Janet. I miss everyone else, too, but Janet's two weeks at home for Christmas went too fast for me. (She may or may not have been bored.) Good thing she calls me often, sometimes every day :)

This story from the Stevens Point Journal made me laugh:

"Under the rule, landowners, their family members and their employees would be allowed to shoot cougars in the act of attacking a domestic animal without advance permission."

Here's a little story about how something once a chore has become a joy and a blessing in my life. About nine months ago, my visiting teaching companion and I started going to see one of the girls we visit once a week with the intent to read the Book of Mormon. She had never read it all the way through before. She was very much discouraged with her life--two small children in a new town where she knew few people and had no friends. Her husband is a recent convert and has his own struggles with the church. He is often out of town for long periods. My friend very much wanted to grow spiritually and to have some kind of store of knowledge within herself to answer her husband's questions and to help her children grow up strong and secure, with testimonies of their own.

The first few weeks were kind of awkward and clumsy. But we persisted. She would put the kids down for a nap, and we would read. We slowly made it through 1 Nephi. The first few weeks, we probably talked as much as we read because my companion had many questions, too. Somewhere in 2 Nephi, my companion stopped coming, but we pressed on. Every Wednesday, I go to her house and we read and talk. We are now halfway through Alma. Yes, it's slow going. We have missed weeks because of vacations, weddings, funerals, holidays. But some funny things have happened.

We have become such good friends although our lives are not very much alike. There is a 30 year gap in our ages, but we have shared our deepest desires and thoughts. We are comfortable around each other. We have had her family over for dinner and sometimes when I am all alone, they sit by me at church. And I like her husband and kids very much. But I have grown to love her.

Another funny thing is that we started reading the Book of Mormon for her, but it has blessed me as much as it has blessed her. Perhaps because I am seeing it through her eyes, I have looked at the verses we read each day differently. As we talk about deep and meaningful things, I have come to see how things I have read many, many times before apply in new ways to my life.

I'm thankful that I was assigned more than a year ago to be her visiting teacher. I don't think we ever would have become friends otherwise. And I'm really grateful for that two hour interval each week when we sit together and bask in the light of His love.

I want to join the circus!

Macey has been practicing for a future career in the circus.

New traditions

It's interesting to see what happens as our children marry and bring people with other customs and traditions into our family. They end up doing what we did--picking for the traditions they grew up with and blending the two into a new family tradition for their own little family.

Our son-in-law, Ben, served a mission in northern Italy. He has talked about the wonderful food there (there's not much food he doesn't like), especially panettone, a holiday bread. You can buy panettone lots of places at Christmas time, even very midwestern Wausau, Wisconsin, but I decided to make him some this year for Christmas. In reality, you need a special pan, but I just made do with what I have.

It's basically a sweetish bread with currants and candied citron. Apparently, no one in the Wausau area wants to buy candied citron, because I never did find any. However, there was plenty of fruit cake mix, which has citron in it, so I used that instead.

It turned out well. And I think Ben liked it. I liked it. I thought it was especially good toasted.

Thoughtful

It's great to have people who know you well enough to know how to give a gift that makes you happy and touches your heart. Tracy was recently the recipient of such a gift. Our kids are also very thoughtful gift givers. Here are some of the Christmas gifts I received this year. I believe that most of these ideas and the execution of them came from the girls, although I know that guys can give thoughtful gifts, too.

My mom has had one of these for awhile and I've always admired it and wanted one. Tracy made this one. For someone who claims to not be crafty, Tracy is always doing crafty things.

Shannon stayed up until 3:45 am on Christmas Eve/Christmas finishing this calendar made with pictures of our beautiful grandbabies. It brought tears to my eyes.

Emily designed and made this cross-stitch picture. She made almost all of the gifts they gave this year. Very creative, Em. I need to find a good place to display it.

I received TWO flannel nightgowns this year. Woo-hoo! For those of you who are uninformed, it's getting harder and harder to find real flannel nightgowns and they are getting more and more expensive. Rene and Joanna and Ben put in the time, effort and expense to get me these this year.

Over the summer, we played a game owned by one of Sarah's roommates called Rapid Recall. It is no longer made. I really enjoyed it, and looked to find it online. To my dismay, it's really expensive because it's "vintage." I had forgotten about it, but Sarah searched diligently and found it for me for Christmas.

Like my sister Susan, I have a foot that has been bothering me. I read about "Yoga Toes" and thought they would help. They are expensive, however, so I didn't get them. I told Janet about them and she searched around and was able to find a deal on them. Here is Ben, modeling them. Susan, you really need some. I think they do help.

In Matthew 7:11, we are taught that our Heavenly Father gives good gifts to them that ask him. It makes me happy to see our children emulating this Christlike trait.

Christmas trip to Utah

Our friend, Casie, got married in the Manti Temple over the weekend. She asked us when she got engaged if we would come and we decided that it was important to support Casie. AND it let us spend time with Sarah and Brian, who aren't coming home for Christmas.

The wedding:

On Friday night, we went to the Carl Bloch exhibit at the Museum of Art at BYU. It was seriously awesome! The church has used many of his paintings in church publications, so they are familiar. We all liked the exhibit a lot.

After the wedding on Saturday, we went up to the Riverwoods Mall in north Provo. It was really prettily decorated--very sparkly. We wandered around, found some really fun stores, and rode in a carriage ride. We got the long version, because no one else was waiting for a ride at that point.

It was a quick trip, but worth it. At the airport in SLC on the way home, our plane was late getting in from it's destination (which was Minneapolis). When it did get in, we were just sitting there watching people get off, when Janet nudged me and said, "Hey, that's Rachel Brown." Haha...we were getting on the plane they just got off. I got to say hi briefly and I met baby Forrest. He's a cutie!