Happy Mothers Day

This is a picture of the flower I got at Church for Mothers Day. I am excited with it. I found out that plant is one that can be eatten and I will probably try it out later in the summer.


I shared this little tid bit with the sisters that I visit teach. I love the sentiment expressed and hope you might enjoy it also.

Mommy to Mom to Mother -- author unknown

Real Mothers don't eat quiche;

They don't have time to make it.

Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils

Are probably in the sandbox.

Real Mothers often have sticky floors,

Filthy ovens and happy kids.

Real Mothers know that dried play dough

Doesn't come out of carpet.

Real Mothers don't want to know what

The vacuum just sucked up.

Real Mothers sometimes ask 'Why me?'

And get their answer when a little

Voice says 'Because I love you best.'

Real Mothers know that a child's growth

Is not measured by height or years or grade...

It is marked by the progression of Mommy to Mom to Mother...

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Birthday

My birthday is Sunday, May 10th and a lot of neat things have been happening. My family, all of the members, got together and gave me a Vita Mix machine. I have been trying to eat to help regain my health and thought going to a raw foods diet might be part of my answer. I have been eating a green smoothie using my blender but it left chunks of green leafy vegetables in it. The Vita Mix made the smoothie without leaving the chunks -- it was also a lot faster and easier to blend. The smoothie even tastes better. The Vita Mix was delivered to the house Friday night and Phillip told his Dad he bet Mom would make a green smoothie first -- He was right. There is a green smoothie pictured made from Pear and Kale.





The picture above also shows the Vita Mix, and a blueberry muffin (still warm) given to me by the Evensen's (Scott and Camille brought it over - lighted a candle -- sang Happy Birthday -- & visited a few minutes with the old lady.) What a surprise and joy. Thank you Evensen's.

The surprises of the day kept adding up. After Church, Sister Ilene King gave me the heart above from her husband and herself. We are so lucky to have such good friends. Too bad my picture taking skills are so low. The statement on the heart says "Friendship is a flower that blooms in the heart,"

Still not the best picture, it is my dinner, raw chinese rice. The rice is cauliflower put through the Vita Mix with vegetables also going through the blender. Mine has carrot, celery, garlic, raw ginger, and I sliced some green onion (like the looks better). I mixed in some sesame seeds, sesame oil, and green peas. I added just a little liquid aminos for the oriental taste. This has become one of my all time favorites though I am still very new at figuring out how to eat and am sure I will discover new foods to excite me. Happy Eating!!

Beautiful Week

Monday, what a day. I had to get lab tests done this week and because of my schedule I had to have them done at a lab I do not like. By Tuesday morning my phone was ringing off the hook with bad news upon bad news from the doctors offices. I was not dealing well with the news and allowed myself to get into a very bad mood.

Then, I had 2 very special visitors that changed everything around for me. Thank you Colby and Michael!!

Colby Turner and Michael Tippery came over and said they would mow the lawn. It was a very big job with lots of dandelions and tall grass. I have been worried about it because I am not allowed to use gas engines or tools with electric cords because of the defibrilator I have. I did not know how I was going to get the lawn mowed as Sam is in Provo Utah, Phillip is working a lot of very late hours, and Don does not have the health to help at this time. What a predicatment and these two young men came to my rescue. I am so grateful for their help and enthusiasim. I am only sorry I am not very good with a camera. This surprise started on Tuesday and they came back on Thursday. What a blessing.

Wednesday started out a little grey but certainly looked up when I saw the sight below. I rode Trimet bus down to 30th and Division, then walked from there to the Colonial Heights (old Portland Stake House) building where the Family History Center is. I enjoy helping people there on Wednesday morning and usually feel real good walking to the building from the bus stop.

I was cold, the day was wet when I started and the weather was sort of super heavy misting as I walked. I was not in the best of moods when I looked up and saw that beautiful pink dogwood tree with the blue lithadora around its base. The grounds looked magnificient to me then -- what a joy.

Sam called and had some good news for us. He is well and I am much happier after hearing from him and hearing a little of the happiness back in his voice.

Just a little more about this very special place. This is the Stake House I went to as I was growing up.

We used to attend Stake Conference and between sessions have a picnic lunch on the grounds. Parking was very difficult around there, especially during conference -- we could not get home and back in time for the second session -- that was WHY we had picnics there.

I saw leaders of the Church there (usually sitting on chairs on the stage), attended lots of dances and activities there, was baptized there, bought our first house in the ward boundaries of that beautiful building, and now have the opportunity of helping people with family history in that building.

Pink dogwood is a favorite plant of some of the Garlick ancestors and BLUE is my husbands favorite color. What a beautiful memory the picture above represents for me.

Beginnings

I decided our yard needed some changes and I decided the smoker that Phillip built an few years ago was no longer needed. He said it never worked correctly anyway. So I started stealing the cement blocks and using them for another project. Sam was able to help me finish lining out the next project for the cement blocks -- construction of a raised bed in the greenhouse. The picture above is the smoker being taken apart. The picture below is the bed starting to be assembled in the greenhouse.

The outside edge is complete and the interior is being filled up with grass clippings, clipped brances, and other yard debris as if it were a compost pile. I am in hopes of being able to create a good growing medium before next fall so we might be able to grow some easy vegetables throughout the winter.

The project is going very slowly as Sam has moved out of the state looking for work and growing up. My resources for help have been slashed and I am going to continue doing it myself. It does not go very fast but I have hopes I will become stronger as I work through my ideas.

I would like to share a poem I ran across awhile back that I feel indicates some of my feelings. The poem was written Audrey Hepburn one time when she was asked to give some of her "beauty tips" The poem was later read at her funeral.

For attractive lips,

speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes,

seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure,

share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.

For poise,

walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

People, even more than things,

have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed;

never throw out anyone.

Remember,

if you ever need a helping hand,

you will find one at the end of each of your arms.

As you grow older,

you will discover that you have two hands;

one for helping yourself,

and the other for helping others.

Been a long time

It has been a long time since I have done anything with this blog. I have not been idle so I will give a quick run down of what has been happening.Since I last wrote I have been to the doctor many times, had some medical procedures and tests, started volunteering at the Family History Center, started planning and preparing for the garden, and celebrated Don's birthday.I guess I will elaborate on some of the activities.

Medically I have continued pursuing help with my kidney and liver problems. The liver is now resolved, not exactly sure how it happened but I seem to be free of the anticipated problems. The kidney is still holding its own which in my mind is an absolute miracle, I seem to be learning how blessed I am with such good health when they say I am not healthy. I have taken my health for granted and abused my body for a very long time. Repentance and education seem to be a never ending process and not just restricted to our spiritual well being.

My left eye has been not healthy for many years and had gotten to the point it was in constant pain. When I visited with my daughter and her family the condition worsened to the point the eye needed to have surgery to remove a band of calcium deposit from my eyeball. Today my eye is absolutely pain free, an absolute miracle. I have even been able to look at the computer screen for extended times and the sun is not causing pain when I experience its rays.Returning to the Family History Center shift has been a real joy. I am so excited about some of the new things there. Of course the newest asset at the Center is a machine that can digitize records from film and fische. What a marvelous advance -- this allows us to document with images of events and data about our families, the documents can be viewed with close up technology, writing and pictures can be better interpreted, and we can download the information to media formats to take them home and add to our records. The only problem I have is I still have to learn how to fully operate the machine -- but I am very grateful to be exposed to it. The last good thing is the Center is allowing us to download the information with their special machine for free, another miracle in this day of economic upheaval.

I have not been well enough the last few years that we have not had a garden and this year I am hoping to revitalize the greenhouse and the garden. I am making plans for a parimeter garden for our family and really excited to see if I can do it. I have taken out the rosebushes along the north side of the front yard and am now preparing the soil for planting. I suggested to Don we plant dandelions (something I have started eating since last year) along the front but he is not going to allow me to do that -- oh well I will come up with something. My sister Donna is going to help me sort of plan other features in the backyard, hopefully easy care, visual pleasure, and high productivity.

Lastly, we celebrated Don's birhtday most of the week last week. The boys surprised Don with some computer software and updates he is going to really enjoy but as usual when something gets updated something else has to be done to allow the update to work properly. Don received some exercise equipment to help his back and I really hope it will. Tanya and Berret sang Happy Birthday on the phone to him and he was pleased to get a call from them. He has been real pleased with The Harris blog and seeing is grand daughter growing up before our eyes so far away. We all enjoy their posts.

Michael and his wife are doing well -- we are very fortunate to hear from Michael almost every weekday as he travels to and from work -- high tech work world has allowed us to keep track of our family with computers and cell phones and I am so grateful -- my apron strings are so long.

Last week I had a choice experience and tried to take a picture and I just did not seem to be able to get what I saw in a picture. It was a pussywillow tree in bloom. I have never seen a mature pussywillow tree in bloom before and when I saw it I remembered how my mom loved pussywillows and had a special song she used to sing as we were growing up. Such a wonderful interlude.

Pussy Willow

Recently I talked about my mother and her teaching us the "pussy willow" song as we were growing up. My mom loved pussy willows and she tried to grow a pink one according to my sister Donna, but alas it did not survive. When I originally found the tree in bloom it was absolutely covered with the blossoms. This picture shows how unique it is formed which was not visible when it had so many blossoms.

This is a picture of the pussy willow tree 1 week after I originally discovered it. The day was grey with showers the day I took the picture and many of the blossoms had gone away. I tried taking the picture with the cell phone, I did not take the picture the day of discovery because I forgot how so I had to learn how -- Sam taught me that night so I took the picture the next week when I was in the area. Today, Sam helped me email the picture to myself & now I can finally do something with it. Isn't it great to be able to capture these moments?

Below is a try at a closeup of the tree and some of the pussy willows.

I thought about it & I decided to see if I could remember all the words and had some trouble so I searched the Internet and found it. It really brightened my day to see the words in print.

I know a little pussy

Her coat is silver gray

She lives down in the meadow

Not very far away

She'll always be a pussy

She'll never be a cat

For she's a pussy willow

Now what do you think of that?

Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow

Scat

Start singing on the lowest note and each lines goes up a note - start with hand low and as you sing higher and higher bring hand up a little bit.

On the Meow's go down a note at a time and then a loud scat at the end.

I found the song in an area of the music teachers instructing children how to sing going up and down the scale with their voices. It used each note of the scale and mom taught us motions to go along with our singing.

Thanks for the memories.

38 Years

Don and I celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary this past week. Don had a hamburger and I had a fish sandwich. We were alone in the house and had a very enjoyable celebration. The next day we continued celebrating and had dinner with Sam and Phillip. We spoke to relatives and remembered some of our special times. A few of the events and images that crossed my mind are:

Don with Phillip, Sam, and Dale just before Dale shaved.

Phillip and Michael at Phil's Court of Honor
Phillip, Tanya and Sam on a ride with the family.
Dale with my sister Donna at his gradution.
Sam at his graduation.

Tanya and Berret playing.