Forward, March!

 
I wrote this some years ago. But after this winter, when our yard has looked like this:
                                        

 

I'm feeling like I did the day I wrote it,

 and I thought I share it.

(I confess that it's a bit over-dramatic.)

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Of course I know that the snow will melt, eventually, and probably soon, without any help from me. But I am hungry for spring, and unwilling to remain a passive bystander to the natural process. I am impatient for the moment when I can look out over my snow-free yard and say, “This is spring.”

So I am partnering with the sun, helping it to melt the last stubborn lumps of white by spreading the snow in a thin layer. A note of irony greets me at the edge of the lawn: My husband labored many hours, moving this very snow from the driveway into piles in the yard, and now I am putting it back where he found it, hoping that my warm-hearted confederate in this business will banish it from the concrete within hours.

I wonder if the neighbors are thinking I am foolish. They cannot be expected to understand that this is no vain exercise, but rather a pivotal battle in the annually recurring conflict between winter and me. As I work, my task takes on heroic, almost epic proportions. I am a warrior, a nearly vanquished soldier returned for one last duel. Months ago I retired to my stronghold, conceding my enemy’s superiority, occasionally emerging, dressed in battle clothes and armed with a shovel, to stage a weak resistance. But mostly I have waited, confident that in time, my opponent would weaken. And then, I knew, the reserves would come.

So now, with a mighty battle cry in my heart, I have entered the fray in earnest. I work barefoot, daring the small frozen chunks that jump up as I comb them with the rake to strike my feet, and they do. Let them come. They fight valiantly at the end of their life, but they cannot hurt me now.


I hear water dripping off the roof; the sound of approaching victory. I glimpse a spot of red on the end of my rake and stoop to investigate. I have scraped up a ladybug, and it is now dead. The ladybug was not my enemy, and though I am saddened by this unexpected civilian casualty, my work continues. How many ladybugs has the snow itself killed, I wonder?

Many of my friends have learned to accept the enemy; some even embrace it, buying snowmobiles and ski passes. But I stand firm. I pretend not to know that my opponent is only retreating for a season, to gather strength in its own barracks before it returns full-force. I will not acknowledge this. I will not show weakness. I will put a plant on the porch, I will pack a picnic lunch, I will hang the hammock in the backyard.

Three Lessons I Learned From My Appliances

When Wes and I got married, my maternal grandmother gave us her old microwave oven. It was a small black cube from the early eighties, not quite large enough to put a dinner plate in it. It had no buttons. To use it, you pulled the door handle to open it, put your food inside, pushed the door closed, and turned a plastic dial to start it.

Then you could leave the room to do something else, because it wasn't a powerful piece of equipment, and you had some time to kill.

We used that little microwave for thirteen years, until we moved into our current home and decided to get a new one.

Our new microwave was dazzling in comparison.

Disclaimer: These pictures are for illustration purposes only,
 and they may not actually reflect reality. (I have never in my life cooked that many carrots.)

Among its many stunning features, this microwave had a “30 seconds” button. We wondered what use that could possibly be. It didn't take us long to find out. This microwave could indeed make things warm in just half a minute. With a whole minute we could really heat things up. I thought about my paternal grandmother, who never owned a microwave. She was a widow for the last 25 years of her long life, and when she cooked, she froze her leftovers in little tin pie pans. Later, she would take a serving out and warm it in the oven for about an hour. I wondered what she would think of an appliance that could do the same job in two or three minutes.¹

I was used to doing other work while warming leftovers or cooking a frozen burrito, but since this one was so fast, it didn't seem worth it start something.

I was wrong. Thirty to sixty seconds is more time than it might seem to be. There are many things you can do in one minute or less. Here are a few ideas:

     Wipe crumbs off the countertop
     Put a few things back in the refrigerator (or wherever they should be)
     Do a little stretching
     Clean a light switch or two
     Read the scripture you have stuck on the refrigerator
     Make a phone call you've been putting off
     Pet the dog
     Declutter a drawer

I'm not saying that every second of your life should stuffed full with productive work. I am just reminding you that you might have more time than you think you have. Life is made of a lot of little minutes, and if you you use those well, you might not miss out on the big minutes. You wouldn't want to miss a magical moment, and those moments usually cannot be predicted.

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I have written before about my wonderful washer and dryer.² I really do love them. But the washing machine has a quirk I find bothersome.

It has a digital display that shows how much time is left before the load is done. A very nice feature, I thought.

But it's not very accurate. I have sometimes looked at the display to see that it has 12 minutes left until the load is done, then I come back seven minutes later to see that is says 10 minutes left.

Okay, I admit this isn't a huge problem. When I mentioned my annoyance to my husband, he said “Well, it doesn't know how much longer it will take.”

“Yes it does!” I said. “Or it should! But if it really doesn't know, it shouldn't say it does!”

I have learned to live with this issue. But the lesson is important: Don't lie to anyone ─ especially your kids ─ even about seemingly little things. Don't make up an answer or guess if you don't know. Your children (or friends or co-workers) won't lose their faith in you if admit to your non-omniscience, and they very well might enjoy finding the answer with you. But there are things we just don't know. That's what faith is about.

But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth. (D&C 93:40)

I have long admired the parenting wisdom of Dr. William Sears:

"One of the best ways for teaching honesty to kids is to create a truthful home. Just as you sense when your child is lying, children will often read their parents’ untruths. If your child sees your life littered with little white lies, he learns that this is an acceptable way to avoid consequences. Don’t tell your child something is “gone” when it really isn’t just to make it easier for you to say he can’t have anymore. Sharp little eyes often see all and you haven’t fooled your child at all. You’ve just lied to him, and he’ll know that, since he knows you so well. Just say “no more now” and expect your child to accept that."

I like to trust everyone, but it doesn't take more than a couple of lies for me to stop believing in a person. Untruths are so often revealed. It's just not worth it. As Walter Scott said, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

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I am very grateful to have a working dishwasher. Our dishwasher, like many, I suppose, has a “Clean Light”─ a light that comes on when the dishes are clean. I have felt some small satisfaction seeing that message after a long day of cleaning. But as soon you open the dishwasher door, the light goes off.

This seemed to me very much like many of my weekdays. I could spend hours working toward a clean house, but as soon as the front door opened and the kids ran in from school, the “clean light” went out. Backpacks hit the table, mud streaked the floor and after-school snack crumbs flew.

I've realized now that many of the things we do every day are things we'll do again tomorrow. Some of those things are as simple and as universal as brushing your teeth or putting clothes on. But when you have young children (or teenagers), there will always be things you do over and over. And that's okay. We aren't meant to live in a perfectly sanitary environment. A little clutter and a little dirt probably won't hurt much.

I embrace the attitude Phyllis Diller showed when she said, “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.”

And I love this insightful thought: “A household has to be tended if it is to flourish and grow. Housework is never 'done' in the same sense that gardening is never done or that God's providential involvement in the world is never done. Housework and gardening and God's providence itself are exercises not in futility but in faithfulness – faithfulness to the work itself, to the people whose needs that work serves, and to the God whose own faithfulness invites our faithful response.” 
   (Margaret Kim Peterson, Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life)

Another favorite of mine:

On Judgment Day, if God should say, 
"Did you clean your house today?" 
I will say, "I did not.
I played with my kids and I forgot."
And God might say "Good for you ─
That's just what I hoped you'd do."

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These are small lessons. But I see something big in them. I see a life filled with appreciation for all things, big and small.

Be glad you have modern time-saving conveniences like these. Be grateful that you have people you love tracking dirt into the house. Be thankful to have spaces of time, short and long, that you can fill with work or service or looking out the window at the sky and the trees. Be grateful that you have truth to share, and truth still to learn.


Happy Thanksgiving!

1 To read more about my two grandmothers click here:
² To read about my washer and dryer, click here:

I Can't Tell You Why

I saw it on a thrift-store shelf – a straight-sided glass vase with a white candle inside it. Nothing remarkable about the vase itself, really, but there was a word, in black vinyl letters, on its side. The word spoke to me. I wanted it to be part of my home; part of my life. I plopped down fifty cents for the vase and took it home.

There was one little cloud in my happy shopping sky – the previous owner of the vase had slightly misjudged the diameter of the vase compared to the candle she had tried to put in it. It was stuck halfway down. I was sure I could get it out, and maybe find another (slightly smaller) candle to replace it. After all, it wasn't the candle I was interested in, but the message on the vase. 

I began to work on the candle as soon as I got home. I tugged at the wick, firmly but carefully. The candle didn't budge. Well, I hadn't expected it to be that easy. I decided to use a little heat. Not much, because I knew that too much heat would ruin the letters on the side, and that wise word was important for me to preserve.

I brought out a blow-dryer, confident that this tool would provide the comfortable warmth that would soften the wax so that I could pull the candle out. But that didn't do it. I put the vase in the microwave, but I could see that was certain danger to the letters. I tried putting it hot water, conscientiously holding on to it so the lettered side stayed dry. Still no progress.

I turned to a slightly more violent tactic on the candle – stabbing it with a knife. (It was just a butter knife, and my 'stabbing' was more like poking.) I was very careful not to crack the glass or nick the letters on the vase.

After some time, a few small pieces of the candle broke off. Encouraged, I kept working at it, cautiously shaving little bits of wax from the candle's edges. It took some time, but at last I had whittled the candle down enough to slide it out.

I was delighted at my success. But I could see that my work was not yet done. The inside of the vase was besmirched with a thin layer of wax. I needed to get rid of that.

It wasn't easy, because my hand barely fit in the vase. but after several rounds of scraping and scrubbing, I managed to clean all the wax off. I meticulously shined the vase with glass cleaner, inside and out – except, of course, where the letters were.

It looked great. I happily put the vase on a shelf where I could see it every day and be reminded of its transformative admonition:

Simplify

Three days later, one of my children bumped the shelf at a run, and the glass vase – and its philosophic recommendation – was shattered.

I bought the vase because I hoped it would be a reminder for me about simplifying my life. And it did that – though it was not in the way I had expected. 

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There's a song – actually, mostly just a line from a song – that has been taking a frequent spin in my head lately:

We make it harder than it has to be – 

and I can't tell you why.¹            

Life is not easy – it's not meant to be. But sometimes we complicate our lives unnecessarily. And when we do, we often pay a price – sometimes higher than we would expect.

Making eye-catching visual aids or cute handouts to use in a lesson can become a crutch – and not always a reliable one. A teacher's time and energy is often better used to study the doctrine and its application. Too much time spent planning and preparing an elaborate Easter dinner might not leave room in our hearts to consider the miraculous totality of the Savior's resurrection. Extravagant Christmas decorations, long handwritten holiday letters, and the quest for the perfect gift can turn a season that should be a treasure into a burden. (And after the holiday, you have to put it all away!) Delaying a visit because you don't have a treat or a gift to take causes missed opportunities to serve and enjoy the company of our friends, neighbors and family. Incessant fretting about getting your family neatly groomed and dressed in time for church can numb your heart to the inconceivably immense act of grace that comes to us through the Sacrament.

That is no bargain – the price is far too high.

  

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Our first three children were born while we lived far from our extended family members, so we did not have visitors when they were blessed in church as babies. We just dressed them, blessed them, then took them home and redressed them.

But Ben was born two months after we moved to a new home, in an area within reasonable driving distance from our parents, grandparents, and siblings. We were happy to invite them all to come to our ward to see our baby receive a name and a blessing, and to come to our home for lunch after the meeting.

The day of Ben's blessing arrived. I got up early to make rolls and soup and then frantically clean up our small home. Wes fed and dressed the older kids, but when it was time to leave for Sacrament Meeting, I wasn't ready. I told him to go on without me and I would be right there.

After a frantic feeding and changing session for both me and the baby, (and some skillful hiding of dirty dishes) we headed off to church. We were late, but I knew there were other babies to be blessed in our ward that morning, so I hoped for the best.

I arrived at the church and was almost at the door to the chapel when the bishop announced that our Ben would be the next to be blessed. Wes saw me and met me at the door. I put our beautiful baby in his arms and he walked to the front of the chapel, where he and his father and my father and other Melchizedek priesthood holders formed a circle, their arms cradling Ben in the center. Wes began to speak, using his priesthood power to give our son, Benjamin Hyrum Spencer, a name and a blessing.

I still stood in the doorway, not wanting to disrupt the meeting. I was very glad that I had made it in time, even though it was very much at the last minute. And the food would be good, I hoped, and the house was clean. From where I stood peeking through the chapel door I could see that my parents and in-laws and some other family members were there. I was tired, but things were working out okay.

When Wes ended the blessing, I walked into the chapel and sat down with him and the rest of my family. Ben began to fuss after a few minutes, so I took him into the mothers' room to feed him. Another woman was there with her baby. We were new in the ward, so I didn't know many people, but I said hello as I sat down.

She looked at me warmly and asked, with hopeful expectation in her voice, “Is this the baby that was blessed today? Benjamin?”

I smiled and nodded at her.

“I'm so glad to meet you here. I was hoping I would get a chance to talk to you today,” she said. “I wanted to tell you that your husband gave the most beautiful blessing.”

I was stunned and ashamed. What did he say? I thought. Why wasn't I listening?

I thanked the woman for her thoughtfulness, and we talked for a few minutes more, but I could not stop thinking about what I had missed – a once-in-a-lifetime moment of grace that I had been too hurried to receive.

Family members assembled at our house after the meeting ended, and everyone was charmed by our beautiful baby.

Baby Ben with his Aunt Leslie

Baby Ben  with his father

Baby Ben with his great-grandmother, Phyllis Spencer

I suppose the house looked good, and the soup and rolls were yummy. I don't remember.

And you know, I don't think anyone else remembers, either.

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It's not always easy to recognize and remove the clutter of excess complication in our lives. And maybe the practice of simplicity seems too small a solution for what's ailing us in our in our homes, in our callings, in our relationships, in our conversation.

But I think it's worth a try.

Consider, in this context, the Savior's fervent invitation: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

For me. this scripture raises a somber thought: If your burden is not light, perhaps it is not the right burden. Maybe it is an extra one you took on for yourself. Can you drop it?

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Some of life's greatest joys are not at all complicated – a beautiful sunset, a baby's toothless grin, a warm bed on a cold night, or the indescribable holiness of feeling the Spirit of God opening your heart and testifying that He is there, and that life is good.


It's all pretty simple.

¹ I Can't Tell You Why, Tmothy B. Schmit, Glenn Frey, and Don Henley, Copyright 1978

Laundry Quandry

Several weeks ago I wrote about the blessing of finding our house, and how much we have enjoyed watching our family grow here.

But I left out this little bit of truth: When I saw the house for the first time, I was disappointed that the laundry was in the basement. I had hoped for main floor laundry. But that was a small thing, and I could deal with it.

And I did deal with it for several years. But then surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from my head left me essentially bedridden. I gradually began to feel better, learned to walk again, and began to do some work around the house.

But I couldn't get the laundry done. I was not strong enough to carry baskets of clothes and towels and sheets up and down the stairs. I made it work for a while by waiting until my kids were home from school and asking them to carry the laundry up and down. But I couldn't keep up.

Wes and I had occasionally talked about adding on to make a laundry room upstairs. But it would be very expensive, and we had never felt we could make it a priority. It seemed to me the time had come to make it a priority.

I talked to Wes about it. He immediately understood my dilemma and was ready to solve it: "Why didn't you say something earlier? I'll be glad to take over the laundry." 

I looked at him smiling down at me, and I thought, "You dear, sweet, ignorant man. Do you have any idea what you are getting into?"

So my husband became the laundry guy. And to his credit, he did a very good job. He didn't do it the same way I did. I usually did a big load every day or two and did the folding and putting away as soon as the stuff was out of the dryer. Wes saved everything up for Saturday, then had a laundry extravaganza which involved him sitting on the couch in the basement, watching a movie while he sorted and folded a pile of clean clothes taller than me. But it was getting done, and that was what mattered.

As I grew stronger, we shared the laundry duties. I still didn't love our dark, dusty, often-smelly laundry room, but I was content. (ish)

Then one day, Wes said, "I might have bought a washer and dryer this morning."

"You might have?" I didn't understand. How could he not know for sure? It was like me saying, "I might have had a baby yesterday, I don't know, I guess we'll wait and see . . ."

He explained that he had seen an incredible deal online, but that a lot of comments on the site expressed suspicion that the deal was too good to be true. He decided to take a chance, anyway, but when he submitted the payment information, there was no indication that it was accepted.

It looked like it wasn't going to happen, and we didn't think much about it. Then one day about a month later, I picked up the ringing phone and heard a computerized voice say, "Your washer and dryer will be delivered tomorrow."

This was good news; exciting news. But it was not particularly convenient news. Christmas was ten days away. Our oldest son, Sam, was coming home from his mission in five days. And we had no place to put a couple of large appliances.

We cleared a space in our bathroom and hoped it would be big enough (it is an unusually large bathroom, but still . . .). We told the delivery men to put them in the bathroom and we were very glad to see that they fit.

But it was a tight fit. We had to hold our breath and suck in our stomachs to squeeze past the big boxes to get to the toilet. After a few days, our ten-year-old son — who, for obvious reasons, had no real interest in a new washer and dryer — asked what we were going to do with the boxes. We didn't have any ideas. But he did.

We cut the boxes at the bottom so that we could lift them off and for the first time, I got a peek at our new laundry appliances. They were gorgeous — gleaming white with high-tech buttons and dials. In our nearly 25 years of marriage, we had never owned a new washer or dryer. This was a big deal for us.

Getting the boxes off gave us a little more room to move around the bathroom, and our son Adam made a lovely two-room cardboard playhouse in the basement. Our son came home from Argentina, Christmas came and went, the kids all went back to school and Wes went back to work. And the washer and dryer were still in the middle of the bathroom.

I called a plumber who came over and gave me some ideas about where we might install these beauties, but his prognosis was discouraging. There seemed to be no reasonable place they could go, and his price estimates were far higher than we could afford.

So our new washer and dryer stayed in the middle of the bathroom, unused and unusable, for eight months.


In August, I became very sick. I was admitted to the hospital and stayed there for almost a month. My parents, who live three hours away, came to check on me and my kids, and ended up parking their RV in the hospital parking lot. My sister Amber drove up, and stayed by my side at the hospital, occasionally leaving to help with my children or my house.   

My mom is an incredibly good cook, and she prepared amazing meals for me in her small trailer kitchen. My dad brought them to my hospital room, where I ate them happily. (My mother's cooking is a huge step up from hospital food.)

My father is remarkably talented at fixing things. Building and installing just come naturally to him. But he will tell you himself that he's not much of a plumber.

Still, when he saw the washer and dryer sitting rather ridiculously in the middle of the bathroom, his handyman instincts kicked right in. When I finally came home from the hospital and looked in the bathroom, this is what I saw:

I could hardly believe it. My father and my sister Amber had installed the washer and dryer while I was gone. He wouldn't accept any money for the work, but my husband reimbursed him for the parts.

Hurray!

Doing laundry was no longer a chore. It has actually been kind of fun. And we still have the laundry room downstairs, and our kids do their laundry there.

I don't know if this story will mean much to anyone besides me. But when things like this happen, I feel so blessed and grateful. These little tender mercies serve to remind me that life is good. 

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FAQ:

1.    So, how much did they cost?

$129 dollars each. Free delivery. Wes paid a little more for the dryer because he wanted a gas dryer.

2.    Come on, you can tell us — did your husband really do a good job when he was in charge of the laundry?

He really did. But he thinks about things a little differently than perhaps a woman would. One night, after dinner, I asked him do a load because I needed some things washed for the next day. My dear husband said, "I can't. I have to go Home Teaching in an hour."

Huh?


3.   Is your laundry area always that clean, or did you clean it up for the picture?

Yes. The answer is Yes.

 

As Seemeth Them Good

Thirteen years ago today, we bought our house. (I remember the date because our house is green, and we thought it was a fun coincidence that we bought it on St. Patrick's Day.)

We weren't looking for a house. We didn't plan to move. We had lived in our first house for four years, and we had been very happy there. We enjoyed the house and the neighborhood and felt very blessed. But our family had grown to include six children, and as they grew bigger, I began to feel that our small, one-bathroom house might feel pretty cramped before too long. And when we learned that we would be blessed with child number seven, my concern increased.

One evening, while I sat in the kitchen, helping thirteen-month-old Elisabeth eat her dinner, I flipped idly through the classified advertising section that had been delivered to our home that day. A line from a real estate ad jumped out at me — ‘Perfect for the large family,’ it said. Well, that’s us, I thought, and read the ad. It described an eight-bedroom home on a large wooded lot. There was a small picture of the house and for the price, it looked very nice. I read the ad several times, but then put the paper aside and went about cleaning up the kitchen.

But I couldn't get that house out of my mind. I didn't know where it was located, and I told myself it was probably somewhere we wouldn't want to live, or that there was something really wrong with it. I kept thinking about it, though, so I decided to get look at the house listing on the internet. That way, I figured, I would be able to stop wondering about it.

Although I had rather expected that seeing the detailed house listing online would discourage me, the opposite was true. I learned that it was in an area I had always liked. It had wood floors, a finished walk-out basement, a master suite, a big kitchen, a gas fireplace in the living room, and a large, fully-fenced yard.

Wes was at a meeting that evening, and I was determined not to pounce on him with this information as soon as he walked in the door. But I didn't manage to wait very long.  He agreed that it seemed really good, but he just didn't want to move. I sent an e-mail to the agent, though, telling her I would like to see the house.

When the agent called me the next morning, she said she could meet me at the house right away. I put the kids in the minivan and drove to the address she had given me. The house was empty and seemed huge to me. There were plenty of things I liked, and although the decor screamed 1980s (blue carpet, pink walls) I decided Wes should see it. He met me there that same evening, and he was impressed. But still, we were not convinced.

The next day we drove back to the house and stood at the end of the driveway. As we looked down the street, we both felt that we should make an offer on the house.

I called the agent the next day and we made an offer. The owners of the house made us a counteroffer, which we accepted.

Under the terms of their offer, we would put our home on the market immediately. If we had not received and accepted an offer on it within thirty days, the offer on the new house would be void.

This was a fairly major condition, because the housing market had been very slow in our area. There were houses in our neighborhood that had been for sale for two years. We felt that if we were meant to move, the house would sell, and if it didn't, we would stay there with no regrets.

We put an ad in the paper and a sign in the yard and waited. The response was less than overwhelming. We occasionally received a phone call, but very few people came to see the house. We began to wonder if we could do it.

The situation was confusing for us in a number of ways. We had always felt that we should live simply, within our means, and use any surplus to help others less fortunate. We were not sure how such a large house in such a nice neighborhood fit in with this philosophy. We wanted to do what was right; what was best for our family, and we sincerely desired to know what that was.

One morning, as I prayed for guidance in this situation, these words came into my mind: “Feast upon the words of Christ, for the words of Christ shall tell you all things what ye should do.” (2 Nephi 32:3)

From this I understood that our answer could be found in the scriptures. I began to study the scriptures more diligently, wondering how I might find the answer there. We continued to pray about buying the house but received no strong impression either way.

A couple of weeks after we made the offer, I picked up my scriptures and turned to Doctrine and Covenants Section 41, where I read:

“And again, it is meet that my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., should have a house built, in which to live and translate.”

So, I thought, it was good for Joseph Smith to have a house.  How could we know what was right for us?  As I read on, the next verse jumped out as though it were meant for me: “And again, it is meet that my servant Sidney Rigdon should live as seemeth him good, inasmuch as he keepeth my commandments.”

I felt as though the words, “The Spencers” had been substituted for Sidney Rigdon’s name. Throughout the past weeks, we had said over and over about the house, “It just seems so good.”  We had asked ourselves, as we pondered the decision, whether we could buy this house and still keep the commandments. The answer to that question, we felt, was yes.

Now as I read section 41, I felt the Holy Ghost confirm that I had indeed received my answer in the scriptures, and I knew everything would be all right.

I found Wes and showed him the scripture, telling him my feelings about it. He looked at the page with surprise. “I just read this section this morning,” he said.

Within the week, we received two offers on our house. We were able to sell it before the deadline for the price we were asking.

The day we moved in we were greeted by smiling, welcoming neighbors. We settled in and quickly made friends.

Three years after the move, I got my cancer diagnosis. Everything changed. My children were young, and I was very sick. My dear Wes took time off from his job and did everything he could to help, but that couldn't last forever. I needed help.

And I got it. Generous ward members provided meals and rides, cleaned my house and and entertained my children. Their extraordinary acts of service reinforced our belief that we had been divinely led to this home.

Through good times and hard times, we have enjoyed the house. We are grateful for the blessings that have made it possible, and for a loving Father in Heaven who has given us His word and who can guide us through the scriptures to make decisions that will bless our lives.

Just off the Top of My Head . . .

I'll be starting this post with a trip though time! 

Get ready for:

"A Brief History of My Hair"

This is me: Baby with a fauxhawk.

This appears to be from my Cindy Brady period.

Well, you see, it was the 70s, and ... 

Ladies and Gentlemen, we're going to be entering the 1980s here, you're going to want to buckle up . . .

 (I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I thought I could be Farrah. Or maybe one of the other Charlie's Angels.)

There's really no excuse for this mullet. Sorry.

Welcome to the 90s! You'll need a blow dryer, a round brush, and a lot of hairspray . . . 


This picture was taken the day before I started chemotherapy.

This picture was taken about a month after I started chemotherapy.

I'll let this picture speak for itself.        

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    

Because I have had little or no hair for much of the past decade, I have a lot of hats. I mean, really, a whole lot of hats. Most of them were given to me by really great people. A few of them I have bought for myself.

And because I am not an especially neat and organized person (yes, yes, gasps of surprise), I have had hats all over the house. I rarely could find the one I wanted, and when I did it was dusty. Or crinkled. Or had visible food stains.

So I decided to do something about it. I bought a cheap piece of "wood" (Medium Density Fiberboard) from the hardware store, but when I saw the price of knobs, I backed off. The project was officially on the back burner.

But just a few days later – thrift store to the rescue! I got a big bin of knobs – brand new, super cheap – and split it with my friend Arrin.

 The knobs were nice, but I decided to paint them to match my bathroom better. One 97-cent can of satin black spray paint later, and I was on the job.



My son Adam drilled the holes (under supervision) and the whole thing turned out great.

It holds 19 hats and they are easy to get to.

Now, what should I do with the other 67 hats?