December ?????

December 2012 – Stirling BLOG How on earth did it get to be December? We are suffering with a time problem – the rushing by of days, weeks and months and now years! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. We had family come share the day and meal with us. Our son and his wife, Scott and Jenni; Jenni’s daughter Alyson and her fiancé’ Jordan; our daughter and husband, Julie and Dave; two of their children came with them, Sarah and Tyler (Tyler is a recently returned missionary); and our grandson and his wife, Justin and Lindsey and their daughter Myah. That was quite a group and we handled it well. Everyone helped with the food and they also cleaned up – couldn’t ask for more! We so enjoy being with family. All those years of sharing Thanksgiving with wonderful friends, who treated us like family were so appreciated and treasured, but it is grand to be with our own family! Then Friday we drove down to Julie and Dave’s for dessert and were able to see and visit with our grand daughter and her husband Rachel and Jeff and Noah! Noah and Myah are growing up so quickly – they don’t stay babies very long!

This is Scott, Jenni, Alyson and Jordan

Julie and Dave with Tyler, Justin, Sarah Last week we drove down to Salt Lake City to see the lights on Temple Square before it got so cold. We were able to walk and marvel without crowds, treated ourselves to a cup of hot chocolate at the Nauvoo Café in the Joseph Smith memorial building, and walked over to City Creek to watch the fountain show choreographed with music and fire! Yes you read that right. Fire in the fountain! It was a good beginning to our Christmas season.

This week we have tickets to go to two big Christmas shows. The first one is a family playhouse – they do a fun Christmas show at Utah State each year. And Friday we have tickets to the Eccles Theater to see the American Festival Chorus under the direction of Craig Jessop. Each of these experiences will be shared with good friends who also enrich our lives! The next week we leave for Texas and our grand daughter’s Maggie, wedding! She is being married in the Houston Temple and we are so happy for her and grateful to be able to be part of this special time of her life. So I will BLOG again after the wedding!

Endings and Beginnings

Well, I realized I have not blogged in some time. No particular reason – just not much noteworthy going on I guess. It was a good summer – we enjoyed our family and all the activities in our valley – the music and cultural events were wonderful. There have been some community concerns – discord and contention - which has not added to our peace and tranquility but life goes on and as long as we move ahead, things generally work out OK. Because of that we took several trips over the last few months. We went camping 3 times up in our Canyon – to 3 separate campgrounds. And learned to enjoy our camper and relax. We also took two trips to Yellowstone. The first one we went with our friends, Mark and Carolyn Baird. We have known them since our California days and enjoy traveling together at least once a year. The second time we went on our own and took some hikes and because it was around the second week of September we were able to see many of the animals who live in the park. Huge herds of Bison, some Elk and even two wolves!

This week we just returned from a week long + trip to the Canadian Rockies. I had heard form years about Banff National Park at Alberta and wanted to see the area and Lake Louise. So we took off passports in hand. What a good time we had. The people were gracious and the country is beautiful. The wonderful beauties of the area did not let us down and we saw waterfalls, glacial lakes, rushing rivers, glaciers, ice fields and one lone Elk or Caribou we were not sure which. We decided to drive all the way up to Jasper, located about as far north as Edmonton AB. That area was beautiful also and each corner turned offered a new place to explore.

The only drawback for us was the cost. We knew the exchange rate was not in our favor but only by about 5 cents. But the price and cost of things was so high! We paid well over $5 a gallon for gas by the time we figured out the computation from liter to gallon. Something about our Scotch/Irish nature rebelled at paying so much for the ordinary things. One sad and one happy thing occurred in September. The sad thing is that our grand daughter, Katie and her husband Nate moved to Pennsylvania (Nate graduated with his Masters and found work there) and they took their baby, Porter with them! We are going to miss that family beyond measure! The happy thing is that our grand daughter Rachel told us she is expecting another baby in April! Their Noah will be 2 in March, so life moves on.

We are beginning to realize that we are now the older generation for sure. It is strange to know that we are in the last decade(s) of our lives. But for now we are going to enjoy this time in our lives and find ways to serve and be happy.

Summertime

July is only half way over but it has been full to the brim. Actually I guess to be accurate we would have to include June also. I have always loved summer time. I would rather be warm than cold any day. I enjoy the flowers and sunshine and long days. But I have found that the real joy of summer is seeing more family. We had all three great grand children visit on one day and had two of them stay over night with Nana and Papa the great. We took them to the pool and enjoyed watching them splash and play. We also had our son, Scott and his wife Jenni, come for the 4th of July and we all went down to Julie and Dave’s for a family bar-b-q. All in all it has been a very good summer so far.

We have also taken off a couple of times for short camping adventures. The last one was this week – we went up to Tony Grove a campground up Logan Canyon at about 8000 + feet altitude. There is a small lake there and the wild flowers were so lovely. The path from the campsite down to the lake cut across a meadow of wild flowers and it was a wonderful treat to walk through several times while we were camping. We have tickets to see most of the shows at our local opera house. The Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theater runs from July to August and is located at the Ellen Eccles Theater in Logan. They have NY caliber Opera and Musical Theater with a full orchestra! We were able to go to opening night with July and Dave. What an outstanding performance of “My Fair Lady”. It is so wonderful to live in an area with this kind of cultural experiences. We love it! July may be half way over but we know it has so much more to offer as time moves along.

It’s May, it’s May – the sunny month of May

Finally – sunshine and warmer temperatures! And the desire to purchase and plant some of the gorgeous flowers I see in the nursery centers – including the grocery store. They are everywhere! Since we usually go south at the end of the month I have struggled for a couple of years to decide whether to plant early and have to ask someone to water or to wait and not have as large a choice of plants. So this year I compromised, and bought two hanging plants one a bright yellow marguerite daisy, and a bright pink ivy geranium. The daisy I am going to leave in the pot and use it without hanging. We have no place to hang plants without drilling holes. Plus this way I can move it around easily if I think it would look better someplace else.

The geranium I have decided to re pot into a larger pot and put on our kitchen patio. It will be able to droop over the wall and add some color. We have a wonderful neighbor who loves plants and I am going to ask her to tend these to hardy babies.

Once we get home I will go our local nursery and let them help me choose and plant my large pots that will live on the front patio throughout the summer. Oh how I miss my perennial garden! I so enjoyed seeing all those plants come back to life and show off for us each year. The community has many perennial plants that were favorites of mine but it just isn’t the same. But then again, I don’t have to arise early to dead head and pull weeds and check for bugs. So maybe that is a pretty good trade off after all.

April – Easter – Spring in Utah

We are having a typical, so they tell us, Utah spring. We get a day or two of lovely warm air, then clouds and windy with dropping temps, followed by snow. Repeat until June! But today is lovely - Warm, sunny and no wind. I even bought a couple of pansies to put in one of my pots out by the driveway so I will see them as we come and go.

Easter was a good day. Our church meeting was very nice and felt like Easter. After our meetings we drove down to Julie and Dave’s for Easter dinner. Justin and Lindsey were there with Myah. We had been told she was going through a phase of not feeling very good about men – but as always, she took right to her Papa the great! Made him feel wonderful. And don’t they look cute together?

Rachel, Jeff and Noah were there also. Noah is right on the edge of taking off to walk on his own. He kept us all entertained and did a little bouncy dancing for us. Katie, Nate and Porter spent the day with Nate’s family. Sure is hard to share sometimes – but know they love them also. And Porter is their only grandchild so far.

Dancing was a subject for sure – Julie, Dave, Justin and Lindsey are taking a dance class once a week and they demonstrated their version of the east coast swing. Boy can they dance now. They all need to go someplace where they can show off their skills on a dance floor. Maybe a cruise?

Feltus was elected a state delegate to the republican state convention. He has received so many phone calls and so much mail it has been a bit overwhelming. He has also attended many “greet and Meet” sessions to meet those who hope to win his vote at the convention on April 21. Glad we have a close end date. But he is enjoying the experience of being involved in local politics.

So – life is good for us – we both feel pretty good – we stay busy or as busy as we want to be – we love being closer to family and being involved in our community, church and friends. Last week at the temple a new friend said we certainly did not looks like we were in our 70’s - I guess we don’t act like we are in our 70’s. Goal – keep doing whatever we are doing to feel and look younger than 70!

SPRING!!! Has it come to your house yet?

Felt like I needed to post a spring time note!

We are already suffering with early allergies. According to our weather site on line our area has High levels of tree pollen from Elms. Who knew? I am feeling a little better but poor Feltus is congested and his sinus’ are hurting and uncomfortable at best. This morning he went over and tried out the dry sauna for awhile. He said it helped but made him feel chilled and weak when he got out. Hoping that tomorrow will be a better day.

I have taken this day or two to get back to work on some of our pictures. I have almost finished a slide show of our great grand babies first year. Of course for that to be accurate I would have to wait until November to finish it – but have lots of cute pictures and it is fun to watch them grow up and change before our eyes.

Our daughter, Julie, with her grand babies
Noah, Myah and Porter

Hope you are enjoying spring at your house!

WINTER BLAHS

Here it is past the middle of February – and I definitely have the winter blahs!

We are both healthy and I know that is one of the most important things. But I am needing sunshine and warmer air. Maybe we ought to take off again for a warmer place – but that is hard to do when we have obligations ahead of us.

We had a good snow on Saturday night – if snow can be called good. I remember how I longed for snow when we lived in Virginia. A “snow day” could make my week – time to kick back and read a book. But now that I can kick back and read a book almost every day for an hour or so – now it is mainly a nuisance.

Oh well, March and April will come along and things will be better by July for sure!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012

Happy New Year

2012 – Somehow when I was a girl, I can recall thinking about the turn of the century from the 1900’s to 2000’s. I felt that it would be strange to be so “old”; as old as I would be in the year 2000. Now it is 2012 and I don’t feel old unless I sit too long in one place or try to get up from the floor.

Things certainly have changed in my lifetime. – When I was a girl we had one phone and it had a dial, you never called anyone who didn’t live nearby because it cost a fortune. If it was really important you could send a telegram. You wrote letters to family and friends and mailed them for .10 cents –air-mail. Regular mail was .04 cents. We did not have TV – we read books, played outside or inside games and listened to the radio.

We went to the movies at the theater that had only one screen and showed two movies for the price of one, plus a newsreel with all the national and world happenings.

We learned to sew so we could have clothes we could not afford to purchase – a new dress for church and a couple of skirts for school. Mom cooked every night until we were in our teens, going out to eat was a luxury for special occasions. I took my lunch to school each day, until I was in Junior High, in a metal lunch box with a thermos that would shatter if it was dropped.

Going to the park to swim or play in the pool was a fun summer time event and we learned to swim and play tennis by taking classes through the parks department. We got our immunizations in mass at school every year or as needed. Some summers we could not go to the pool or the movies because there were polio scares and no one wanted to be exposed to polio. I remember lining up to receive the polio vaccine – there were several places in our town and I think we were at a bank in line with hundreds of others.

We did our math or “arithmetic”, the long way, no calculators, Some learned to use slide rules for chemistry, I never could master that – and it was reflected in my chemistry grades. The homework papers we worked on and turned in were hand written and we all had to learn and use cursive handwriting. Having a typewriter at home did not happen until I was in high school.

The music we listened to was played on record players (turn tables) that held a large record with an arm holding a needle. When I was a teen ’45 records came out although most of the music I listened to was on ’78 records or on the radio.

Our cameras took film and having a camera was a wonderful thing. I got a Kodak Brownie camera when I was 12 or 13. It used 110 film – the trouble was you not only had to buy the film, you had to pay to have the film developed and you never knew if the pictures you took were any good or “came out” until you got the film developed and pictures printed. You might take a whole roll of pictures – 12 shots to a roll – only to find out that something was amiss and you got one or two fairly good pictures or none at all. And they did not charge you less for bad prints so it was an expensive venture.

Yes, things certainly have changed over the last 60+ years that I can recall. Now everyone has a phone with them all the time. No waiting to get that important message. We rarely send letters – instead we e-mail or text each other. Some times, and this is rare for us, we go to a movie – a theater with a choice of 6 to 10 different screens showing different movies - but usually we wait for it to come out on DVD or order it from NetFlix and watch it at home on our big screen TV.

Most of us have some sort of very small music player - an MP3 or Ipod that holds thousands of songs, we can carry it in our pocket and listen to it in the car, at home or through ear phones or ear buds, almost so small you can’t see them. A big change from the transistor radio I got for my 14 birthday that was the size of a laptop today, weighed a great deal more and had an antenna you had to pull out and rotate to get the radio station if you wanted to listen to your music at the beach or on a picnic.

Now, even youngsters know how to use a calculator and can do math problems that I would not have attempted in high school. We all have cameras and most of us also have one on our phone – we can take video also and post our pictures almost instantly on the web to share them with friends and family. And best of all we know right away if we missed our shot and can retake the picture to get it just right. We don’t “print pictures anymore but instead make slide shows and put them or DVD’s or have books printed with our pictures ordered off our computers.

Personal computers are a normal part of most households and used by old and young alike. When I worked at the elementary school and the school system provided me with a computer instead of an electric typewriter, we were so excited because it had 20 MB of disk space. Now days, most computers come with multi gigabytes of disk spaces and even the small thumb drives hold 4 + gig of information. And to add to the mix this Christmas I got a Kindle Fire. This is a reader tablet that I can load books on and take everywhere with me. So my book reading is gradually changing. It surely will be easier to take books with me when we travel or even when I go for appointments.

And let’s not forget GPS devices that not only find where we are going but give us turn by turn directions, tell us how many miles we have to go to our destination, estimate our time of arrival and tell us when we have arrived at our destination.

I feel certain my grandparents would not believe or be comfortable in the world we live in and take for granted each day.

So what other changes will take place in the next ten years? How many of our “new” updated tools will have gone by the way by then. Only time will tell. In the mean time enjoy this new year with “smart phones”, laptop computers, tablets and readers, and cameras with video ready to be posted on the web.

Happy New Year!