landolakesgirl

I Get By with a Little Help

2009-04-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

I Get By
What would you THINK if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me.
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song,
And I'll try not to sing out of key.

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,
I get high with a little help from my friends,
Oh I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends.

What do I do when my love is away.(Does it worry you to be alone)
How do I feel by the end of the day
(Are you sad because you're on your own)

No, I get by with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody?
I need somebody to love.
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love.
Someone in the Beatles

Boy, does this take me back to the days. I had just finished college and was teaching Chicano kids in Whittier California. I was totally enamored with another, group, Simon and Garfunkel, so really did not appreciate the historical significance of the British Invasion and the effect it would have on the world. Oh well, another trend missed in my youth. Only later, did I come to have their lyrics embedded into my consciousness, as did the everyone else on rest of the planet.
This message, hokey, as it is, has rung true for me recently.

We are constantly told to use our friends to network, as if they were another resource, like a recruiter or hiring manager who will help us get a job. I have a serious problem with this. I struggle with the idea that the only reason to have a friend is to use them to help you find employment. In this world of Facebook with the competition to have hundreds of friends, twittering (and having 1,000, 000 people linked to you), Linkedin with its thousands of tiered layers of people, maybe we should stop a minute in our job search and look to our friends, our true friends and look at what they add to our lives.

When I was a teen and in love for the first time, my beloved gave me a book by Joan Walsh Anglund entitled, "A Friend is Someone Who Likes You." I still have it, with his dedication, packed away in storage. The complete text is printed in this blog. I do want to quote the last two stanzas, though.

And then you think you don’t have any friends.
Then you must stop hurrying and rushing so fast…
And move very slowly,
And look very carefully,

To see someone who smiles at you in a special way…
Or a dog that wags its tail extra hard whenever you are near…
Or a tree that lets you climb it easily…
Or a brook that lets you be quiet.

Sometimes you have to find your friend.
Some people have lots and lots of friends…
And some people have quite a few friends…
But everyone…
Everyone in the whole world
Has at least one friend.

My two best friends are my two sisters. They are both married and live in another state from me, but we are still connected so tightly. Between the three of us we have 12 children and have been through life together. We have buried both of our parents, written a novel and laughed a lot together. I don't know what I would do without them in my life. No matter what rivals we may have been as children, we are there for each other in so many ways now.
I have other friends who I call my soul sisters, who have shared much with me also. I can think of about 10 of them. Not all of them understand my profession, but they are there for me in my life. One is in South America right now, and we Skype. Several are back in Minnesota and we keep in touch by email and phone. Some are new friends who are a part of my life now. I never know when a soul sister is going to show up in my life, but when they do, I almost immediately recognize them for the jewel they are.

There are my online friends in CJ who have been with me for over 10 years now. There are 30 of us who share our lives on a daily basis. Last summer, I was able to meet some of them in Denver at the famous international journaling conference. Whenever we met, it was instant hugs and recognition of old friends even though we were meeting in person for the first time. We have shared life's deepest mysteries and joys with each other. I have posted about some of our struggles and good times here in the past.

There are business friends, those with whom I have worked and shared assignments. Sometimes they blend into my soul friends, and then others stay in the "work only" category. I enjoy their company and respect them for their gifts and the many ways they have enriched my personal and work life. I lean on them a lot. Their honest feedback has been a source of help when I have been floundering around wondering what I am going to do when I grow up. If I don't know I have a flaw (moi?), how can I fix it?
I have gathered a small group of friends who are technical writers. I met them at a much larger networking meeting and selected eight of them to meet on a weekly basis. We support each other in our careers and job searches. They are a knowledgeable group who understand what it is like to want to write with passion, but need to make money also. I grabbed a name out of the air, CC Writers, since we met at a CCC Job Seekers meeting. Three original members of the group are now employed. We have explored our options, crafted our resumes and shared our experiences. They are an invaluable asset in my career development.
There are my Linkedin friends, with whom there is some familiarity, but to a lesser degree. They are still a valuable part of my life. One of my goals is to get to know some of them better so that we can enjoy a mutually productive relationship.
Will one of these friends help me find a job one day? I don't know, but I do know that they make my life what it is.
How about you? Who are your friends? Where do you find them?

Easter Time in a children's world

2009-04-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

These photos are of the kids in Salt Lake at Easter time. Lexi still doesn't get the egg hunt!

The bitter and the sweet

2009-04-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

It was General Conference weekend, which meant my staying inside for some time listening to talks on the Internet. The weather was glorious here (unlike the grey skies in Salt Lake) and I walked each day. There were many messages of hope and encouragement from our leaders, which we all need at this time.
I am not a Luddite, but I choose what technology comes into my life, lest I get overwhelmed. I do have a cell phone, but I don't text, and I am working on building a website, taking the easiest way possible to put it together.

I love Skype. I use it to to talk to my dear friend Pat, who is currently serving with her husband in the Asuncion Paraguay temple as missionaries. Pat and I lived five minutes away from each other for seven years and dropped in and out of each others lives as needed. We are just comfortable with each other. I stayed with them when I sold my townhouse and was homeless for two weeks. They are such great friends.

Their time is three hours ahead of me, and Pat is a night owl. We talked late last night, catching up and sharing with each other. Doug slept through it all, and we chatted away after midnight her time. Congratulations on your new calling, Doug. It is so very cool.

We can't do much about what is going on with our children far away, but we can be there to comfort each other.

That's the sweet part. Now for the bitter. Fourteen years ago my daughter gave a baby girl up for adoption. It was supposed to be open, but we have not seen her since she was three. This points up a truth that we have had to face. People and circumstances change, and life does not always happen the way we want it to. Adoptions are messy. For every set of joyful parents receiving a newborn into their empty arms, there is a confused and hurting young woman who has made one of the most agonizing decisions in her life.

I have lived it from both sides. We had contact for several years and got to see her. For their own reasons, her adoptive parents have chosen to not have contact with us for the past nine years. I have to respect their wishes. We have never regretted our decision, but I ache because I am not a part of Kayla's life. I wish I could know about how she is doing and how life is treating her. The picture above is one that was taken one of the last times we saw Kayla. She is such a lovely little girl, and I am sure at the age of fourteen, she is a beautiful young woman.

Heather kept Kayla with her for a week before surrendering her. During that time we talked about the possibility of keeping her and raising her ourselves. But neither Heather nor I were in a place where we could do this. That Sunday night when we gave her over was wrenching and agonizing, and I never want to go through it again. Looking back, I realize that this must have been one of the longest weeks in the life of the adoptive parents. I am sure they feared that Heather would change her mind and they would be left alone with their lives and hopes destroyed. But we never doubted the wisdom of this decision and even today, after all that has happened, it was the best decision for Kayla.

That's my side of the story.

I have some good friends back in the frozen tundra of Minnesota. They are a gay couple, devoted to each other and sharing their lives together. They have wanted with all their beings to become parents. Three times they have tried to adopt, and three times the baby has been sent to another home. The first time, the birth mother selected another family. The second mother, decided to parent her child herself. This decision was made quickly without much preparation and my friends understood.

But this last time was different. They met the birth mother well in advance. She made her decision. They spent five months with her, taking her to doctor visits, making plans, even sharing in the birth with her. And then, bowing to pressure from wherever, she decided to keep this beautiful baby girl. I have to question the wisdom of this decision. She is not in a good place and the enviroment her littlle girl may not be the safest. I worry for her and her child.

There isn't an answer that wraps everything up in a nice bow. The nursery in Boyd and Harald's home is empty. There is so much pain there.

Old wounds have been opened here. I feel the pain on both sides. I wish there were an answer where everything would work out for the best for everyone.

It hasn't in this case.

A Time to Celebrate!

2009-04-03T06:57:00.000-07:00

It's been an up and down week. It's been raining all week in Portland, but what else is new? Monday was pretty dismal and I was struggling. Nothing happening on the job front, no movement. Things were just so flat.
But Tuesday, everything started to turn around. I facilitate a focus group of eight fellow tech writers and two of them found jobs that day!
It's been a long time in the desert for both of them, but they start on Monday, and we are celebrating that today with lunch.
I have been submitted for a position and have applied for several others that look promising.
My other blog (the business one, http://annecloward.wordpress.com/) is getting rave reviews.
And yesterday a long awaited child arrived safely to the collective joy of many anxiously waiting friends. Welcome to the world, Siri Grace (what a cool name!).
No, this is not Siri, since her exhausted dad has not had time to post any pictures. It's Paige, my adorable great-niece at a few hours old. But all newborns are beautiful gifts from God.

Another good friend received the news that her brilliant quirky son, has been accepted at UCSC. She is a single mom and one of the most resourceful people I know. It has only been through her hard work and grit that this kid has done so well. So, Congratulations, Ellie and Jacob.

And lastly, today is my sister Janet's birthday. (See picture below from her book jacket).

My baby sister, the successful writer and wonderful grandma, became a part of my life years ago. Out of deference to her, and the fact that she doesn't look it, I won't mention her age.

She was born wise and with a unique view of the world, which has brightened many of my darkest times. When we were growing up, mother always made us matching dresses, in three sizes. I was the oldest and wore one, then Ellen wore hers followed by my version when she got bigger. Janet had three versions of every one!

Every once in a while, we go shopping and buy three of the same dress, just for fun!

Today, I have a networking meeting in the morning, a celebratory lunch in the middle of the day and then my shift at the temple until nine.
Even if it is raining, there is sunshine in my world.

May you have lots of light and happiness in yours.

She got them!

2009-03-30T08:49:00.000-07:00

My friend Gina, who lives in Canada got the surprise socks. They fit and she loves the colors. I so like it when things turn out so well.
Speak of socks for surprises to friends, check out this neat pair my friend Boyd made for a dear friend at http://www.fiberguy.com/
Feeling good about sharing the love and warmth.

I had to be the first!

2009-03-28T10:49:00.000-07:00

I am a great fan of a sock designer named Cookie A. (http://www.cookiea.com/) and she has come out with a book a some really cool designs. It is due out April 1st, and I had my local yarn shop reserve a copy for me. They called yesterday at 1 and I had my copy by 3. It is so very cool. She goes a lot into design and how do make your own patterns.
I vowed no more sock books, but this is one I made an exception for.
There is a sock summit http://www.socksummit.com/ coming to Portland in August and she will be there. I am going to see if she will sign my copy.
Her most famous pattern is the Monkey sock which is free online. http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter06/PATTmonkey.html

My new Project

2009-03-21T17:06:00.001-07:00

I downloaded this pattern from Northern Sunshine Designs which I love. It's called Prairie Gold. I am making it in Panda Silk in pure white. I will post the finished sock when I am done. They are going to be worn in the temple, when I work there.

Surprise Socks

2009-03-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

This are just off my needles. They are for a special friend who is going through tough times. I am not going to publish her name here, and it may take up to 2 weeks to get there. I hope she is surprised. They are made from Regia yarn, an old standby that makes up well and wears forever. I like the colorway, so bright and sunny. Should cheer someone up, don't you think?

I feel violated

2009-03-13T13:48:00.001-07:00

My inbox has been flooded recently with some very disturbing emails recently. I don't have a TV, and if I did, I doubt if I would be watching the Big Love, anyway. It's the story of a modern day polygamous family, supposedly an offshoot of a group such as the FLDS.
BTW, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has nothing to do with any of the splinter groups. When they discontinued the practice of polygamy in 1890, some diehards decided to continue the practice and started their own branches of the church. In our world today, if someone who is a member of the Church decides to practice polygamy, they are excommunicated. I come from polygamous folk, and have studied the subject extensively. There is a clearly drawn line within the church between us and them.
Stay with me here.
Over 40 years ago, I got married. It was a gorgeous summer day, much like the one in the following photo. I was married in the Salt Lake Temple (see above). It was June 14, 1968, Flag Day, and it was so bright and sunny.

Before the actual marriage ceremony, I went through another ritual called the endowment. In this ceremony, I made certain covenants with God. I promised to live my life according to some fairly strict rules. Nothing terribly weird or anything, but having to do with my own live and the way I would live from now on. It was a personal and sacred experience.
In the 40 years since, I have repeated the ceremony many times, each time acting as a proxy for someone else who has died. Sometimes the name of the person was someone who was a member of my own family. We believe that in the next life, people have the opportunity to accept or reject these ordinances. The language used is highly symbolic and takes a long time to really understand. I am still learning about it, myself and my relationship to God. The first time I went through it, I was overwhelmed. Some days I still am.
Now I work in the Portland Temple, shown below, and help other people who are performing the same ordinances. I support and encourage them and it is very rewarding work for me. I consider this to be a time to renew my contact with God. The temple is also a place of prayer and meditation for me.

So why the fuss about Big Love? Well it seems the show has decided to do a flashback with one of the characters and is recreating the whole ceremony. They got an ex-member to act as a consultant. It's supposed to go into everything in great detail. When members got wind of this, and protested, the producers said they did not want to offend anyone, and they thought it was in good taste, and did not see what the fuss was about. And they are going to air it on Sunday night.
The only thing I can compare it to is filming me making love with someone. It's that personal to me. And here they want to put it out there, for people who have no idea what it is all about and make a mockery of it.
There are parts of our lives that are private and sacred and should not be displayed, period.
They don't get it. The fact that they are trying to be "accurate" and "tasteful" does not negate the fact that they have decided to go ahead and show it at all.
That's my rant, but I am distressed by this. How dare they take that part of my life, and stomp all over it with their dirty hands and feet!

Come Thou Font

2009-03-12T08:22:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy singing and love to sing in choirs. The problem is that I don't have a great voice. It took me years to discover that I should sing second soprano or alto, and I do better. I never sang in school choirs, too shy, I guess. But in our church, every ward is supposed to have a choir. And so, tentatively, I started singing in them. When I moved to Minnesota, I just started singing with the choir. I even sang in several stake choirs. The leaders told me, it was fine and if nothing else, they appreciated my enthusiasm.
My sisters both have much better voices than I do. Ellen even has led choirs and really adds to one. But anyway, I persevere.
I was hesitant to join the choir in my new ward. There are some excellent voices there, both men and women, and they do an excellent job with some involved arrangements. But two weeks ago, after struggling with seven five year olds for two hours, I was ready for some spiritual refreshment. I cut across the chapel and was stopped by the choir singing Come Thou Font of Every Blessing. I meant only to sit and listen, but then found myself leaving my purse on the bench and joining them.
I grew up loving this wonderful hymn. It was in the songbook for years. I loved the beauty of the melody and the language. Then in 1985, the church removed it from the book! (Thank you very much Michael Moody). We sang it in our choir in West Saint Paul ward and I took my copy of the music and put it on my fridge where it stayed for two years.
The lyrics are so succinct and show such yearning for connection to God as well as an acknowledgment of our faults.
Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I'm come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

I Googled it, and found a wonderful recording of it done by the BYU Men's and Women's Choruses. I will try my best to link to it here. Watch this video on youtube.com
We are singing it on Sunday. I will be there, adding my shaky alto voice to the choir and meaning every word of it.

If you can't say something nice

2009-03-06T08:29:00.000-08:00

Just a quick entry here. Remember that scene in Bambi when Thumper gets reprimanded by his mother, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." That's been one of my mantras. I try to treat everyone with respect. If I don't get respect back, well, that's another story.
So Wednesday, I found myself in a pickle. My van got towed. I parked in a restricted area at the MAX station. I thought I was out of the area, but I obviously wasn't. So I called the guy, and asked him what I had to do to get my car back. I told him that I had never had my car towed, and so wasn't sure what the procedure was. He gave me the address and I said I would try to be there by six.
The whole thing wasn't a total loss. I got on the train, rode it to my normal station and took the bus to my apartment complex. Piece of cake.
When I told my son, his reaction was to go slash the guy's tires. I am not into tire slashing, but it seemed like a good idea anyway. We went down there and met the guy. He offered to waive the after hours fee of $40, just because it was only a few minutes after the deadline.
We talked for a few minutes, and I admitted I wasn't sure where the restricted area ended and now I knew. I asked him to total up what I owed him.
His response? "I'm not going to charge you anything."
Ohmygosh.
"You came in here and didn't argue with me, and treated me with respect. Most people don't."
He also gave me a coupon good for money off if I ever needed a tow.
So, my being nice just saved me at least $250. Not a bad return for not getting angry and nasty, which I don't do well. I run out of steam pretty quickly. I don't do confrontations well at all.

I can see clearly now

2009-02-26T08:42:00.000-08:00

I have worn glasses for over 20 years now, and somewhere along the way, they morphed into bifocals, (no line ones, of course). I am one of those people who reach for their glasses first thing in the morning. I am also hard on them, and have broken several frames in the past.

Last December, upon breaking yet another set of frames, I sprung for titanium frames. They were pricey, but guaranteed to be durable. They haven't broken yet, but they did get bent.

I was struggling with my vision being fuzzy and I knew something wasn't right, and I realized that maybe my glasses needed adjusting.

Yesterday I peeled into my local eye wear place where they advertise free adjustments, and sat down. The young lady in charge took one look at me and said, "Oh my, you do need an adjustment." She laid them out on the counter, and they were askew. She was a bit nervous, since the frames would have to be adjusted at the key point at the top, between my eyes, one of the more fragile parts of the whole setup. She gamely, gently worked on them and voila!

I can see clearly now. No more fuzziness. I cannot believe the difference in my clarity of vision. Fellow drivers in Oregon rejoice! I honestly can see you so much better now.

Here I was thinking cataracts and laser surgery, when all I needed was a brief stint and someone who knew what she was doing.

KnitPIcks and Me

2009-02-23T14:09:00.000-08:00

I discovered KnitPicks online http://www.knitpicks.com/ years ago. I love them. I have knit so many things with their yarn. I also have found it a good place to find needles and books. Their book prices always beat Amazon's. My shopping cart at their siteeternally overfloweth . They are located about 15 miles away from me in Vancouver, WA, and Kelly, their president, has been known to frequent local yarn shops here. Don't ask me how she finds the time.

Anyway, I have been very pleased with their Harmony needles. made out of laminated wood. Besides being beautiful, they are so easy to work with. My yarn just slides over them.

Today while working on a pair of socks, (natch!), using size 0 circular needles, my needle suddenly fell apart. I was just knitting and doing nothing else.

I immediately called their customer service number and told them my problem. Without batting an eyelash, the CSR offered to send me a replacement pair. Of course, she looked up my name, and probably my order history and decided I was worth keeping as a customer.

And now they will. They are a company that stands behind their products and understand the value of good customer relations.

Go KnitPicks!

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-20T19:56:00.000-08:00

These are pictures of my Salt Lake grandchildren. Jordyn gets
Valentine's Day, but Alix has issues. I got to spend two hours with them at the Salt Lake Airport in January whle on a layover on a flight to Boise. Yep, you go through Salt Lake on your way to Boise from Portland. Jordyn delighted us by counting from one to 10 in English, Spanish, and French. Alix walked.
These girls are such cuties. I wish I would see them more often.

Every once in a while Jordyn calls me on the phone. We can carry on some pretty good conversations. The other day her mother was talking to Heather on the phone and asked Jordyn if she wanted to say "Hi." Jordyn said, "I'm too busy. Tell her I will call her later." This from a three year old!

She got them!

2009-02-20T19:32:00.000-08:00

The socks mentioned in my last post have reached their intended recipient, my sister Janet. If you go to her blog, at http://janetkayjensen.blogspot.com/ you can see her poor foot and how it needs some TLC.

I guess I had better get my pair started. I met the woman who dyes this yarn, and of course, had to buy a skein of that gorgeous color for myself, and one in icehouse also.

Sharon, you done good.

Go to http://www.stitchjones.com/ to see see her fabulous yarn.
Here are two of her combinations of yarn. I love them.

Soft Like Butter

2009-02-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago, while on my way home, I stopped at the local supermarket to pick up something. In the cafeteria area, I found a group of women and yarn. It seems they have been meeting for a while. They share patterns, ideas and companionship.

One of the knitters, Sharon has her own business hand dyeing yarn. I bought some in her color, Blush. The yarn is 100% merino superwash. It's the softest yarn that I have ever knitted up. The URL for her yarn is http://www.stitchjones.com
Even someone who is allergic to scratchy wool could wear it.
It made into the most gorgeous pair of socks. The pattern is by Cookie A, and is called Monkey socks. It is so easy and looks as though you have spent days on it. Here is a link to the free pattern http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter06/PATTmonkey.html
This pair is going out the door to someone special who needs a lift. They are heading out the mail this morning.

Another alphawrite

2009-02-13T10:56:00.000-08:00

I is for Image
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T. S. Eliot
I just finished re-reading that wonderful poem again. That line,"there will be time, there will be time/ to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet," jumped out at me again and again. Don't we all do this in our lives, I think as a means of surviving.
How many times have we poured out our souls here, opening old wounds, sharing anguish and pain, and then gotten up from our computers, straightened ourselves up and gone out into the world, confident or at least seeming that we are "just fine."
It got me to thinking about the face I prepare to go out with when I meet others. Creating that face is an art we develop in order to survive in our professional lives. We are taught early that,
"No one likes a frowny face/ change it to a smile/Make the world a better place/By smiling all the while." That's something I learned that from the cradle, I swear.
People comment that I smile a lot at work. I do, rather than be the spreader of gloom and doom.It has taken some conditioning for me. I am such a transparent person, and everything shows on my face. But I have learned over the years to just hide it, and not share all of my life with my co-workers. For one thing, my personal life is just that, personal. I don't feel comfortable sharing much of it with anyone at work. The good stuff,maybe, but not much of that.

We are supposed to get work done, not share each other's personal problems. But personal things do intrude sometimes. They slide in, and if I listen, I can learn a lot. During one work interview, I was asked at(DCIP) how it was to work in an all male environment. It took some listening until she told me that she had been the subject of inappropriate remarks and attention at her previous job. Another time,a co-worker let slip that his oldest was 11, after celebrating his10th wedding anniversary. That one, I just let slide. The dividing lines are invisible, but just as real as the ones that Les Nessman used to draw on the floor of his cube in WKRP. Does anyone remember that? He didn't have cube walls so he drew them on the ground with tape, and everyone had to honor them.
The image I present is that of someone who is capable, organized, and full of energy, ready to tackle anything given to me at work. This is one I have worked hard to create. For one thing, it's to dispel the idea that I am an older worker. I am a good 15 years older than many of my coworkers in their 40s. I never let on how old I am. Never mention the year I graduated from high school, since many of them were not born yet. I color my grey hair, so that I don't look so old.
Lately, I have lighted my coloring up, so it doesn't look harsh and phony, which has the effect of making me look older. I also walk a lot and try to keep fit. I struggle, but work on getting enough sleep, so I don't look so tired early in the morning. I keep my wardrobe neutral, I hope no frumpy old lady looks, or inappropriate fashion trends that would look stupid on me. I can remember when mini-skirts were all the rage, the first time. I wore them proudly, then, having great legs to show off.
There are so many unwritten rules that govern the workplace. I don't apply for permanent full time positions. There is such underlying ageism there. I don't put the date I graduated from college on my resume. I fudge and save I have more than 15 years experience, rather than the 20+ that I actually do have. One of my best resumes has a summary of my accomplishments on the first page, rather than chronological listing of my experience. Contracting is a safer route to go. Most hiring people don't care how old a contractor is, but HR people see dollar signs of increased insurance with age. The fact that I have not been in a hospital for over 17 years would not cut it with them. But their bias about older workers is out there.
I can mention my grandchildren, generally or that they are all under the age of seven, (except Kayla, but then I never mention her). I just say that my husband died at a very young age (54), but don't mention how long ago that was.I take the stairs when asked, walk the half mile to work each way,walk to meet people for lunch downtown, not mentioning it might be a stress.
My age works to my advantage in subtle ways though. I learned how to identify parts of speech, diagram sentences, good usage, and to write while in high school. So many younger tech writers have no idea how to do these things. They take a course or two in college, and call themselves technical writers, but don't have a clue as to how to go about organizing themselves.
They have never had the experience of standing in front of a bunch of seventh graders and having to keep their attention for an hour. After that, corporate America training is a breeze.
I have picked up a lot of information about page layout and design,business process flows, software development, how to get production work done. These are all things that an employer gets with me. When asked about my rate (which is generally near the top), I focus on the"hidden value" they get as a benefit of my experience. I can interview subject matter experts, and manage complex projects, because I have done that so many years. I don't miss deadlines, and know how to manage my workload. I also don't complain or say that something is not in my job description.
I know that many of my contemporaries are retired, or have never worked. I plan on working until I am 70. A general lack of money has made that a necessity. But my employer will never know how old I am.They will just have to judge me on my output.It's the face that I prepare each morning to meet the world.

More Alpha Writes

2009-02-13T10:46:00.000-08:00

I am going to publish a few more of the ones I have done.
K is for. . .
K is for what? Well, for one thing I think it is NOT for Kool, Korny,Kute, or Krazy! This is something that just gets under my skin, the deliberate misspelling of words to be "cute."
It's a part of a trend that I find creeping into my life. And Kewl is another one I don't get.
But the worst part is the names people give their kids, including me. Can totally understand a Katherine vs. a Catherine, and then Kathy vs. Cathy. I wonder if it is just laziness sometimes. Catalog vs.catalogue.
If someone has a legitimate reason for spelling something a particular way, that's fine, but it still causes confusion to the rest of us mortals who are trying to decipher letters and words along the way.I have a hard time with cutesy spelling of kids names. Katilyn, Kaitlyn, Caitlyn, Catilyn, or Katelyn. I have seen all of these spellings at one time or another. Sean, Shawn, Shon, is another name that seems to be prey to this disease.
Two of my kids are caught in this: Erick is spelled Erick, not Eric, or Erik. I say that's because I was coming out of anesthesia when my husband asked me how to spell his name for the birth certificate. I thought Jeremy was pretty straight forward with his spelling, but I have seen Jeremi, and Jerami, also. And his wife Nancy, how can you mess that up? Well, Nanci comes to mind. My niece is Christina, but is called Christy for short, excluding Christi, Christie, Kristy, Kristie. Another cousin is Kerstin, but it could also be spelled Kirsten, Kersten, Kirstin, or whatever someone felt like messing it up. Darcy is Darcy, not Darcey, Darci, or Darcie. Jayna is not Jana. I have also seen Jenny spelled Jennie, Jeni, or Jenni, much to every one's confusion.
Jeremy and Nancy's kids are Jordyn (not Jordan) and Alix (Alixia). So that gets to be a bit much. And Bre is short for Breanna (with a soft a, not a hard one). Her middle name is Clare, not Clair, or Claire. That's because she is named after Deb's dad, who was Clarence. Liam is the only normal one. It is just plain Liam. But his middle name is Colin, not Collin. Deb is short for Deborah, but it could have been just as easily spelled Debora, Debra, or Debby, Debbie, or Debbi. Jeannine at work is not Jeanene, Cindy, who sits across from me is Cindy, but could have been Cindi. Jayme is not Jaime, Jamie, Jami, or Jamey, all of which I have run into. Pegie is the supervisor here, but she could have also spelled it Peggy or Peggie.
Brian is my nephew, but he could have been Bryan. Mathew is another nephew, who lost a T somewhere along the way. Amy is Amy, not Ami, or Amie, fortunately. My niece is Honaye, a name I have never heard anyone use before or since. Her brother is named Star, but it could have been spelled Starr.His older brother is Kevin, which could have just as easily been spelled Keven.
These are normal people with normal sounding names. When you get to celebrities, the naming goes wild. I remember when Frank Zappa (way cool name, in my book), named one of his kids Moon. Who can forget Moses, and Apple, or Knox or Vivienne or Bruno Mowgli? I honestly think these kids are going to need a lot of therapy someday.
I know I am a voice crying in the wilderness, but as someone who has taught school in the past, deciphering names was a real challenge. When I would get the class rolls at the first of the year the challenge was to figure out just what the kids' names were. I am glad I am just an Anne, and that even gets mangled by recruiters from India, who think the e is pronounced. I feel like screaming at them, Annie is Annie, not Anne. But I don't think they would get it. So I am signing this, just plain
Anne
Or Anne Lorene, if anyone wants to get fancy.

Down time

2009-02-13T10:23:00.000-08:00

It's February and I am in the doldrums.

I am finally recovering from a miserable cold and have been trying to muster some enthusiasm for life in general. No job right now. My contract with Regence is over. I will post a few pictures from Liam's birthday party two weeks ago. He and his big sister are down with colds right now, so I am glad we got pictures of happier days.

The kids got a marble maze for Christmas, and this is a new one we added to it. Liam loves to play with it for hours.

A chocolate cake with dinosaurs on it was the birthday boy's request.

And the newest addition to the family. I found this fellow at Goodwill for $2.99. How could I resist?

The kids have named him Rex.

Alphawrites

2009-01-08T21:26:00.001-08:00

On my journaling group, Collective Journey, we have been doing alphawrites. We take a letter of the alphabet and grab a word and go from there. I am not going to publish all of them, but here are a few samples.

B is for Breanna

Breanna is my first grand daughter that I could be a grandma to. She was born seven years minus one day, after Kayla. I was not at her birth, but I was here first visitor when she was born. Deb was finishing up with school when she was born, so I spent several nights with her when she was just days old. I saw her at least three times a week after that until Erick and Deb moved to Portland.
She is seven now and is a beautiful girl. She resembles her mom so much. She inherited Deb's build, which is fine, but she is not a tiny and petite little girl. Deb is 5' 7" and Bre takes after her. She is not overweight, but because she is taller, is heavier than many girls her age. This is the way Deb was when she was little. I have no trouble with it, but Barb, Deb's mom, used to make Deb feel so bad about her size, and Deb to this day feels that she is too big.
She has Deb's big brown eyes, but blonde hair, that comes from Erick, who was a towhead. His hair would bleach almost white in the summer. Unlike her mother, who is big on plain shirts and jeans and denim, Bre is very much in touch with her feminine side. She loves playing dress up, makeup, nail polish and jewelry. Her favorite colors are purple and pink. She loves ruffles, too. I hope she can continue to develop this part of herself and just learn to have fun with girly things.
We have rituals that we do when I am there. We read together before bed. For years, I did the reading. Now she reads to me. One of my challenges is to find books for her that she can read by herself. As her reading skills increase, I am sure this will get easier.
We have been learning to cook since I got here. After nicking her finger once while chopping onions, I decided to get her a chopper for onions and peppers and such. We found one and gave it to her for Christmas, and she was so thrilled. I also bought her three cookbooks, with some good wholesome recipes for kids to make. I gave her and Liam aprons for Christmas, also with their names on them.
She seems to have adjusted well to the divorce, and has accepted Mark as her stepfather. His parents dote on the kids, and she flew to Sacramento on her own to visit them last summer. I told her the other day that she was blessed to have lots of grandparents to love her and Liam. There's grandma Barb (Deb's mom) and her companion, Charlie, Mark's parents, and me. I don't want her to ever feel that she has to choose between us. We all love and care for her.
She is a wonderful big sister, and is so loving towards her little brother, Liam, and guides him through some of the rough spots in his life. I know that when he starts kindergarten next year, she will be there watching out for him. She is also very affectionate and gives spontaneous hugs to us all the time, which we think is way cool. I am a bit nervous though, since she is so outgoing an open to talking to strangers. I know we need to work with her about trusting the right people in her life.
I don't know what she wants to be when she grows up, but I am grateful she has a solid foundation of people who love and care for her and want only the best for her. I wish I could freeze time and just have her always be the sweet carefree little girl that she is right now.

U is for Ugly

I can’t believe it, but I totally skipped U and V. so here goes.
When I was little I bought into the conventional definitions of beautiful and ugly. Beautiful was defined by blondes with willowy waists and long legs and white teeth. Ugly was anything else. Part of this was just my being a child and accepting what other people said was beautiful. I had dark hair and was short, so never fit the profile, and therefore I was not beautiful, so I must be ugly. I used to think, what about Elizabeth Taylor, and Annette Funicello,.two of my idols at the time. What about them? Weren’t they beautiful?
As I grew up, I began to redefine what was beautiful and ugly. My mother was beautiful with her dark hair and white skin. My father’s sisters, my aunts, had the same coloring and they were beautiful with the voices of angels as they sang. My first grade teacher who had white hair and was plump was beautiful to me.
So I realized that my off kilter definitions had as much to do with how I felt about someone as it did about the way they looked.
And that is why I have often felt that older people are beautiful. I love it when e
Ellie writes about some of her older clients, and the beauty she finds in them.
I feel that after so long, what we think and do shows in our faces and bodies. Wrinkles are not ugly if they belong to someone who still has a zest for life and who shares smiles with everyone. Mae, my father’s second wife, was such a nasty person, and she had the most malevolent look about her. We called her the gargoyle, for the way she would glare suspiciously at everyone who came within her range.
People who know what their mission is in life, and their willingness to share it with others, who are clear and focused, are beautiful. They often just shine, and I want to be around them.
To me all of you on CJ are beautiful, because you have shared so much of your souls with me through the years. Being so honest about yourselves has brought out your beauty. I know to the outside world, we look like such ordinary people (except maybe Harald, who is really good looking eye candy). There is nothing that is spectacular about any of us, to those who are viewing us on the surface.. They don’t know what they are missing. Our talents, our gifts our sharing make us the spectacular people we are. There is not an ugly person in the group. When I met so many of you in Denver , I was not disappointed by your physical appearance. I was overcome by so much about you, your honesty, your talents, your just being you.

S is for Stick and String and Silliness

I love to knit. Everyone knows that about me. I have knit Socks, Scarves, Sweaters, Hats, mittens, whatever else I can. I have supplied my family with stuff for years. I knit on the train and in the car when I am on a long trip. I think I am pretty good at it, too.
And it has never been a negative thing in my life until now.
A word of explanation: I work for the Business Controls group, and the A/P department is under us. It is made up mostly of women, who have a high school education at the most. I have to sit in the middle of them, which is not fun, but I just go about doing my job. They are petty and mean to each other, but I really don't let it get to me. It's their department and I just happen to sit in the middle of it.
A recent audit of the department showed they were deficient in a lot of their processes, making many errors. Despite policies and procedures, they double bill, double pay, and incorrectly pay many invoices for Regence. Things got so bad, they brought in a new person, Pegie, who is supposed to whip things into shape. So far, all she has done is “team building” stuff. They have spent hours decorating their cubes, (rows compete at each major holiday), have lots of pot lucks, have a lending library (of romance novels) and go to movies as a reward for getting their jobs done. Aren’t they supposed to do their jobs well, anyway?
I have tried to ignore them and their noise most of the time. But one time they had a pot luck for their department, and one was week later for the whole floor. I came in and wondered if I had misunderstood and had missed bringing in what I had signed up for. I was told very pointedly that the food was for THEM, and I was not included. This came from Cindy who sits across from me.
She is just very negative. I think part of her resentment comes from the fact that she processes our invoices and thinks I make the $75 hour or so that I am billed out for. I don’t make nearly that, but I do make about four times what she does. But that’s not my doing. I do a lot of specialized things that she hasn’t a clue about.
Yesterday, I was sitting at my desk, knitting on a hat for Heber. It was after 1, but I had a snack at 11, and so wasn’t ready to eat lunch until then. I ate lunch and then did a few rows. Well, you would think I had pulled off the crime of the century. She went to her boss, who went to my boss who called me in today. I told Chris that it was my lunch hour and I was not keeping her from doing her work. It’s the perception that I was not doing anything that seemed to bother her.
Another co-worker has been working on a pair of socks. We have chatted about them, very briefly, in passing. She is a new knitter and has been struggling with some things. We have probably talked a total of five minutes about knitting over the course of three days, but that got reported, too. Since when does doing something on your break that has nothing to do with them get you in trouble?
Now Cindy and Jayme, who sits next to her, think nothing of spending ten minutes each day rehashing Jayme’s love life and problems with her boy friend. I have no choice but to listen to it, since they go on about it right next to me.
So I promised Chris I would put a sign up the next time I knit at my desk. It would either say Break or Lunch. That should get her off my back. I swear I haven’t seen such juvenile behavior since I taught seventh grade years ago.

N is for Numbers

This is sort of a freewrite, but I was thinking of numbers this morning.
Sarah (She Who Will Not Be Mentioned) has recently responded to the report that an additional $30,000 in clothing bills have been charged to the RNC, and they were wondering what the money was used for. Her response was a vague, "loose children's underwear."
Now, Sarah Baby, you have five kids. I only have four, but in my time of raising them, I never spent $30,000 in underwear for them. In fact, I don't think I have spent $30,000 total in clothes for them and they started buying their own clothing about 20 years ago.
In fact, there were years when I probably spent about $400 total for all clothing for them period. We didn't have much money and I learned how to be very frugal with what I did have. I remember times when my grocery bill was $20 a week for dad, mom and two little kids. I am still careful in the grocery store, buying lots of stuff to cook from scratch. I can make a giant batch of chili for under $3.00, and that includes using a pound of ground beef in it. I use my 30 year old pressure cooker to cook the beans, and they are pretty darn cheap. Our Thanksgiving turkey is still providing meat for soups for the kids. I put a large container of leftover meat in the freezer and will thaw it out in a few weeks and make some more dishes out of it.
I know how to make five meals out of a rotisserie chicken. I shop at Target and Goodwill, with the exception of shoes and bras, which come from Nordstroms. Since my foot surgery in 1994, I cannot wear poorly made cheap shoes. And as I diabetic, my feet need to be pampered. I have several friends who have had amputations due to poor fitting shoes and wounds that would not heal.
I am sure there are those of you on this list who can beat me at this game. But that doesn't mean that I don't have a good quality of life. I just work the numbers and try to be as careful as I can with what I don't have. I never spend more than I make, having given up credit cards about 8 years ago. With the instability in my income, I save when I am working so I can live during the times when I am not.
How different is that from the government who tosses numbers around with such abandon that we are in shock. I don't know why the Bush administration claims they are fiscal conservatives. The amount they spent on the war alone goes into the billions on a monthly basis. And what do we have to show for it after five years? Over 5,000 Americans dead and how many Iraqi civilians? (As if an American life were worth more than that of a Iraqi).
The financial bailout keeps producing more and more numbers of astronomical proportions. The salaries of the Wall Street executives alone boggles my mind. How much money does one person need in order to live? They attempt to justify their obscene salaries with the comment that "they are worth it, and worth keeping." Hello, who got us into this mess? Freddie Mac people robbed so many people of their homes, and when confronted with the possible consequences of such reckless lending, fired the risk assessment people who questioned their judgment.
I know this is a ramble, but one number I am proud of is the number of people who voted this last election, and the number of people who voted for Obama in the hopes of putting an end to this unrestrained fiscal insanity. Someone characterized the Bush administration recently as an eight year long drunken frat party. No one felt the need to justify or change their behavior.

K is for Knight in Shining Armor

As in, there ain’t one. This has been a difficult lesson for me to learn over the years. It would help if I could sort out fiction from reality. I got a good education at BYU, but it was not without its major flaws. One of them was the concept that you would meet your one and only, marry and live happily ever after. And if it happened on your first date, and you were engaged less than a month later, that’s the power of being in tune with God and getting a correct answer on the first try. Those of us who agonized long and hard over our decision must be deficient, and not worthy of instant revelation.
Looking back on a number of those relationships, I found that many of them did not go the distances, and a little more time taken in choosing a mate may have made a difference. But then such stories are not nearly as thrilling. How boring to tell your grandchildren years later that you dated for a year before deciding to get married and then had a long engagement. Where is the drama? The confirmation of the heavens that you knew the instant your eyes met that he was “the one?”
I don’t trust my judgment concerning men, having made such a poor choice in my marriage. Not that I have had many serious romances in my life, but I don’t’ flirt well or play games. I am totally professional at work, rarely discussing anything of a personal nature. Since the main place I meet men is a church, over 90 percent of them are married. I am usually good friends with their wives, and know lots about their children. Most of them are utterly faithful to their spouses, and that’s what I admire about them.
They just don’t show up on my radar that often.
I know, it’s safer that way.
Tom was an exception. He was always one who could ring my chimes. I suppose he could have even when we connected three years ago, but the circumstances were too awkward. He didn’t think marriage should stand in the way of our getting together and it it became obvious after a while that he had some extra curricular adventures, and saw me as another conquest. I, having been through what I had been, was not willing to play the role of other woman. I had been a wronged wife. I would not inflict that pain on anyone.
I have gone out to an LDS Singles site, but maybe I am too picky. I see too many red flags. Many of them don’t want to even look at a divorced woman. We are damaged goods. I remember meeting one guy at a single’s event who had been married twice. He stated that he divorced both of them because they disobeyed scripture and were not “obedient” enough to him. Or there was the guy who lost his wife to cancer two years earlier. He posted a photo album of 10 pictures. Seven of them were of him and his wife and the kids!
Anyway, I have learned that I need to be responsible for my self, for earning enough to survive on my own, to make friends and find things I want to do to fill my life. I can’t expect anyone else to do that for me. I see so many women who live in a bubble, and have to ask their husband for permission to leave the house. Now, I am all for coordinating schedules, but permission should not be needed.
Tonight is another singles event. I promised to show up. I have been resisting joining the group since I moved here. But I spoke last Sunday at their meeting and met a few people. I know that I will be older than most of the men, and so will probably find some more women who will be more interesting. Maybe I can find another movie buddy to see chick flicks with, like I had in Woodbury. Maybe I will find someone to attend the temple with. But a knight in shining armor, not likely.

Christmas follow up

2008-12-26T22:09:00.000-08:00

I think he liked them. They were a surprise for him. I mailed them to my dear friend Ruthanne, who snuck them to Kelly, who put them under the tree. I really wanted them to be a surprise.
I will post more pictures of the kids soon.

Todd and his socks.

I am not Martha Stewart!

2008-12-14T16:22:00.000-08:00

Gordon Lightfoot is on the player, it's snowing outside and I am going nowhere. Portland is having a rare snowstorm and everything has shut down. They even canceled Church this morning for the half inch that was on the gound! This is a shot I took from my front door. It's darn cold out there though with the wind blowing. I think I will be home from work tomorrow.

That's fine. I made chili and turkey noodle soup this afternoon and can very happily hang out here tomorrow. I think they may close the city down tomorrow.

It's amazing to me, since we held church all the time in Minnesota in weather like this and thought nothing of it. Last January, we even held it the Sunday it was 40 below with the windchill and the wind was blowing.
I have been working on Christmas gifts and I am ready to pack them up and get them off the door. Things are pared down this year, but I still did a few things. Since I am so craft challenged, this is big stuff for me.
This is an apron for Jordyn. I will have you know I put the transfers on all by myself!

And of course, I have ones for Bre and Liam, too.

I only made three pairs of socks: Nancy's socks are almost identical. This is a specialty yarn that has a mind of its own, changing colors in sort of a pattern that I have yet to figure out.

Jeremy's socks are fraternal, since the yarn colors went all over the place. Even though it was the same color way for both balls.

These socks are for a good friend back in Minnesota.

We are going to be home tomorrow, it seems. You need chains to get around. The temperature has gotten colder and we have lots of ice.

Denver

2008-07-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

If I were doing this chronologically, I would have Denver come before the move, but I am not that organized. Anyway, I went to the Journaling Conference in Denver last month. I copied the home page for the conference to post here. It was great fun, and I got to meet so many of my Collective Journey friends:

Connie (my roomie at the Denver Sheraton)

Gina

Fran

Paula

Linda

Kay

Betsy (and Bob)

Elaine

Amy

Ellen

Debby T

Mari

Catherine E (and Sam)

We all hung out together and had a wonderful time. Lots of great journaling ideas. I actually have started writing in my journal again. I took apart my program and put the great parts in my paper journal.

Don't we look like we are having fun? Kay and Linda were not there, being so busy being the hostesses for the whole thing. I don't know where Gina and I were when this was being taken. I think Paula took this picture. Mari popped in an out, as she was busy with her music teacher. I would do it again in a heartbeat, if it meant I could meet so many CJ members in one place.

I only spent 50 dollars on books, and treated myself to a new journal. I realized I am such a word person, and visual journaling might be fun. I took classes in bodywork, writing my way through transitions, (not doing a good job of that), memoir writing (handling secrets), bibliotherapy for kids (Amy's class), and then we did a panel discussion on CJ and how we operated. It's amazing that we have been going for 10+ years now and are still as strong, if not stronger than ever.

My new home

2008-07-19T22:03:00.001-07:00

I know, it's been forever since I wrote anything, but I have been busy. I packed everything up and moved to Portland this past month. The pictures above are from the online web page for the place, and does not show any of the apartments. They aren't too bad, but they are about 30 years old. I am sharing a place with Heber to save money. It is a challenge, but I think we are doing all right. After living with Heather, I am sure anyone would be a breeze. The weather has been right for walking and I am doing quite a bit of it. We walk in the evening and go out into the neighborhood. The trip out here was three long days of driving into the sun, which gave me a constant headache. We spent essentially one day going through North Dakota, and one day going through Montana. The last day was spent crossing Idaho, part of Washington, and then heading into Oregon.

I miss the Midwest big time. It's a lot more laid back here, and will take some getting used to. Of course, I miss all my friends. After all, I had lived there for 10 years, almost to the day. It will take some time to get things sorted out.

I am job hunting, which has taken a lot of time, and not resulted in any positions yet. I am hoping that will change this next week.

Isn't it nice to see me writing about something besides socks?

Latest Pictures of the Divas and More Socks

2008-03-31T18:49:00.000-07:00

Socks for Soldiers Socks:
Lots of other knitting going on. I will post some other socks later when I have given them to their intended recipient.

These socks are probably on their way to Iraq or Afghanistan by now. I struggled with the Opal yarn for months. Glad to have them out th door.

Just a quick post here. These are the latest pictures of my grand daughters, the Divas. For their protection, I will not go into names or locations. The baby is growing so very fast, and her big sister is just being such a cutie!

I am not sure Alix likes being lugged around, but she seems to be a good sport about it.

She is a happy baby and has even learned to sleep through the night earlier than her big sister.

January Socks Finished and WIPs

2008-01-23T17:06:00.000-08:00

WIP (Works in Progress)

Liam's Birthday socks. He turns 4 the first of February!

I finished a pair of socks for my daughter for her birthday (which is Saturday), using the gogeous Tofutsie that I got for finishing socks in October. I had never used the yarn before, and it made beautiful socks. I have enough left over to make a pair for my 2 year old grand daughter, who adores her aunt. They will love having matching socks.

I am knitting socks for Soldiers. It's an online group who knits socks to send to soldiers serving overseas. This is my 7th pair I have knit for them. I am trying two socks on one long Addi Turbo needle. I have no idea what I am doing, but it is slowly coming along. Mens socks with 12 inch cuffs take forever to finish, even when someone else does the cuffs on their machine. We can always use new members. For more information, go to sockforsoliders@yahoogroups.com It's been a productive month!

The official announcement

2007-12-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

This is the official announcement that Nancy created. Since she is a professional photographer and graphic artist, it's a really neat one!
I will post Jordyn's too sometime. She does such a great job.

News Flash!

2007-12-10T06:07:00.000-08:00

She is to be named Alixis. We will call her Lexi. I am glad they finally nailed it down!
Jordyn is torn between loving the little one and having to share the spotlight with her. It takes some time for the big sister to accept the little one. I know. I am a big sister. In my case, it took over 20 years for me to accept her as the way cool person she is.
Anne

Good News!

2007-12-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

My daughter-in-law, Nancy, is amazing. She delivered her first, Jordyn with about seven hours of labor. This time, after being sent home twice for not being far enough along, she delivered the new one (as yet unnamed) after being in the hospital for 9 minutes! She did most of the hard work at home, and was still afraid they would not admit her!
Anyway, the little girl weighed 7 lbs, 5 oz. Her Apgar score was a 9, which is excellent. I wish I knew more. I got some pictures from the hospital. Nancy says they aren't the best, but I think they are darling. She looks a lot like my babies when they were born years ago, and nothing like Jordyn!

Last I heard, mother and baby were doing well. they are home and big sister had having a great time with the little one.
More to follow!

I Can't believe it!

2007-11-30T19:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got a phone call from US Airways. They offered to pay for my renting a machine for a month. They also said they would pay for a new one, if they could not find it by Monday. I made an appointment to come over today and pick up the machine.
Literally, as I was turning off the freeway to go the the supply place, the airline called and said they had it. I turned around and came right back home, and now have my CPAP machine back.
I thought I would have to fight to get a new machine if they could not find it, and they said no problem.
I am so looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight.
I also was disconnected from the internet for most of this week, but that got fixed.
I am getting airline tickets for Christmas for $60 round trip to SLC.
Now, if little Guy would just wander home, life would be great! But I have to hope he is a happy new pet in someone's life, even if I am still paying his vet bills!
Life is much better than it was even yesterday.

My latest Creations

2007-11-28T18:33:00.000-08:00

Socks for my daughter in law for Christmas. She is busy due to the fact she is just past her due date, so I don't think she will be looking here for a while.

An Alternate Universe

2007-11-27T18:56:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, I spent several weeks (yes, weeks) in the hospital. After a while, the outside world ceased to exist. I lived within the confines of my room, eating awful food and being poked and prodded, put to sleep, cut open, looked at, repaired, and awakened. After 20 days, I started hallucinating and didn’t stop until I got home into my own bed.
I tend to overplan my life at times, trying to allow for most contingencies, but this time, there was no way to prepare for this mess, only I didn’t know it. Yesterday, I had a similar experience, only it lasted about 20 hours. It started innocently enough, I got up extra early in Portland, at my son’s home. My daughter and I had planned to return home that day, and had flights an hour apart. This meant only one trip to the airport, which is quite a distance from my son’s home. Her flight left at 7:30, which meant we had to be at the airport at 6 a.m. Figure an hour’s travel time, and that put us leaving for the airport at 5. That meant we had to get up at 4:30. There was no light at all when we got up. Since it was 30º in Portland, and 16º in Minneapolis, I dressed accordingly. Put on my wool socks, a sweat shirt and my down filled coat.
We got to the airport on time, got though security, had breakfast. Daughter was flying direct back to Salt Lake. I had a layover in Las Vegas, just long enough to change planes and then it was home to Minneapolis in time for dinner. She boarded her plane, with no problems. Piece of cake, I thought. I had an hour to kill before my flight left, and I quietly knitted my way through a sock heel. I was prepared for anything. We boarded our plane at 8, got seated, they turned on the engines and we waited. And waited. And waited.
At 9:00, the captain’s voice came over the intercom.
“We are having trouble with an indicator light and are waiting for maintenance to come and look at it.”
Now Portland, while being a good-sized city, does not have a huge airport. How long would it take for a mechanic to arrive and look at the plane? The answer was half an hour. He got there, looked at it, took a coffee break, decided what was wrong. Still no fix, and departure time for us.
Getting it fixed took another 15 minutes, and then half an hour was spent filling out the paperwork to show that he had fixed it.
Now it’s 10: 30. That’s the time I should have been setting down in the desert and scurrying to catch my Minnesota bound flight.
No such luck.
We took off without incident. Our captain announced that since most of us had connecting flights to somewhere else, the airline had rerouted all of us and when we arrived in Sin City, there would be people waiting for us, to tell us where to go and we would all be on our way soon.
Do they have a special class that all pilots take titled, “How To Lie To Frustrated Passengers To Keep Them Happy While Flying?” After we landed, he announced that EVERYONE had to get off the plane, even those who were supposed to be flying on to Orlando. They were going to get on another plane and continue their flight. Now, just wait a cotton pickin minute here. If the plane was OK to fly to Vegas, why wasn’t it OK to fly to Orlando? That’s one of life’s great unanswered questions.
As we trooped up the walkway, there was NO ONE at the US Airways counters. In fact, there was no one from the airline that we could see in that whole part of the concourse. So we waited, and waited and waited again (catch a theme here?). After 20 minutes, some guy showed up, and wandered over to the desk. He was immediately assailed by some 60 people who had missed their connections. Ten minutes later, he was joined by two other women. We were asked to stand in line, and they would get to us, but we would all be taken care of, we were reassured. The line did not move for 5 minutes. Finally, it dawned on us that they had not made new reservations for us, and were frantically scrambling to find space for us on other flights. After half an hour, the guy just walked away from the desk, leaving several of us stranded people to move over to the other line and continue to wait.
The guy in front of me was trying to get to National Airport in DC. That’s where his car was. They were trying to route him through Baltimore and then have him drive to our nation’s capital. Bad idea on several counts. First of all, traffic between Washington and Baltimore at best is a mess, but the Middle East peace conference was in Annapolis (nearest airport being Baltimore) the next day, and between delegates arriving and security details, the whole place would be in total gridlock.
Finally, it was my turn. How hard would it be to get me on a flight to Minneapolis?
“Gee, if we had gotten to you half an hour ago, we could have put you on a flight that is leaving now.”
Now wait again. I was here half an hour ago, YOU were the ones who were NOT here half an hour ago, not me, lady.
So I had a choice to make: I could catch a flight leaving at 7:05 pm and arrive at 12:15 in the morning. Or I could stay in Vegas overnight and catch the 11 am flight that I missed that morning. People who know me, and that’s probably anyone reading this, know that Vegas is not my kind of town. I just don’t dig that scene. Never have. No one is going to just take my money away and not give me anything for it. One eyed bandits are so unappealing, and I have yet to see someone be gleeful just sitting there hour after hour feeding money into them. But I digress, I pulled a minor fit here. I asked for a voucher for lunch and one for dinner. I am a diabetic, I told them. I had not eaten for six hours and since they were not serving any food on any of these flight, I need to eat. They decided not to risk my passing out on them an issued me a $5 voucher for lunch and a $10 one for dinner. Good grief, this is an airport. You can’t even get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, (if you could find one) for under $7. I also demanded a voucher for a cab ride home, since I was not about to have friends come and pick me up at the ungodly hour I would arrive in the Cities.
So then, I spent the next six hours hanging around one of the most dull places in the world, trying to find a place to be comfortable, but there was no place to rest my head. I just had to sit there, knitting and be tired. Finally, I, along with some other disgruntled passengers, were on the plane heading home. We made it to Minneapolis with no problems. Well, there was one. I had to find the US Airways person to get my voucher and pick up my two bags. I found her, showed her the confirmation message, and she filled out the paper for me, telling me that the cab drivers all knew what to do with it and they would pay him.
One last hurdle was left. I needed to pick up my bag and find a cab. After a 15 minute delay, (two flights arriving at the same time were fighting for the one baggage carousel that was open) our bags arrived. I got my large suitcase with my clothes. Now all I had to do was pick up my CPAP machine and I was on my way home.
Yep, you guessed it; no CPAP machine appeared. All the bags from both flights were now reunited with their owners and mine was not in the mix. So it was off to file a report on my missing bag. It would probably be on the noon flight tomorrow morning, they said. Ha! Another graduate of the “Tell them anything to keep them happy” class was talking here.
I headed for a cab, and got the one cab driver who had no idea what to do with voucher. Trust me, I said and talk to the airline in the morning. By this time, it was past my bedtime. It was almost my getting up time. I had been awake and trying to get home for 17 hours. I was tired.
Tonight things are not much better. My bag has not shown up. There is no trace of it, according to the information on the website. The airline guy I called was in India and he had not seen my bag, either. I found out that I could rent a machine for $200 a month, pay $2100 for a new one, or wait for it to show up. None of these alternatives sounds promising.
I am tired and crabby. I am going to wash my hair and head for bed. And try to sleep, which is a challenge without my funny machine.
Maybe when I wake up, I will be in the real world, and not this alternate universe. I can hope, can’t I?

It’s not been a good week!

2007-11-16T09:59:00.001-08:00

This is a double for my kitty

Actually it all started a week ago today. It did not start out well and went downhill from there. First of all, coming on the heels of the identity theft mess (more about that later), I spent the whole of Friday night preparing for a demonstration on using powdered milk and making yogurt for the Relief Society group in Red Wing, some 50 miles away. It had been a week and half since I talked to their leader and just assumed that everything was a go.
Well, it wasn’t. The leader had canceled the meeting and left town with her husband, but she hadn’t called ME (it’s all about me!). I talked to the other counselor when I was in the chapel at Red Wing, and she knew that it had been canceled, but didn’t know anything more.
Then on Tuesday, I had to go and close out my bank account, and open a new one. I also had to contact the police department, all the creditors who were taking money out of my account on a regular basis (including the IRS), and the credit reporting bureaus. I think I have everyone accounted for. What a mess. I also had to order new checks and got the management company to pay for them.
I did this because I wanted to be sure that no one could mess with that account. The police have searched the rental agent’s apartment and no trace of the check has been found anywhere. It could mean that she destroyed the check (hasn’t said she has done that), has an accomplice who has all the checks, or it’s sitting around somewhere the police haven’t gotten to yet. All I know is that I could not take the chance that someone could use the information to open accounts in my name and start charging things. I am also worried that I might not be aware of them. That means I have to monitor my credit reports more than once a year. I put a fraud alert on my reports, hoping that will help.
Meanwhile I have a new bank account that I can’t really use yet. I have some starter checks, but since they don’t have my name on them, many people do not want to accept them. I have a check card coming, but it won’t be here for another week at least, and my checks with my name on them won’t be coming for several weeks.
I also had to buy a new paper shredder, since my old one had given up the ghost a while back. And I have to go through all the trash coming out of my house to make sure there isn’t anything with my name and other information on it. I had been doing that before, but I wore out my shredder last year.
But the worst thing happened on Wednesday night. Little Guy Noir slipped out of my door when I was getting something from a friend and I didn’t realize it until later that evening. He hasn’t been seen since. I left some food out for him at the back door last night. Emme is frantic, she is so distraught about her buddy being gone. My hope is that he hasn’t left the complex and someone will see him and return him or that if he gets picked up by animal control they will scan him. He has been microchipped. I really miss him, too and hope he shows up. It’s been pretty cold these last few nights, but I hope he found someplace warm to hole up. I have left the garage door open a bit in the hopes he might figure out that it was a safe place.
Darn!

Writer in the Pines: Author Interview: Janet Kay Jensen

2007-11-16T05:58:00.000-08:00

This is an interview my sister gave about her novel. I think a lot of her personality comes through. Again, this is so very cool to have a published author in the family.
Writer in the Pines: Author Interview: Janet Kay Jensen
Besides it solves my Christmas giving for the year. Everyone I know will get a copy of it.
Go Janet!!!

The Enemy Within

2007-11-14T06:29:00.000-08:00

The New Place

For four years, I lived in a large apartment complex right across the street from 3M’s corporate HQ. The apartments were originally built to house 3M employees who were there on long term assignments. People lived there for years, often 20+. The last year that I lived there was a nightmare, though. There was an armed robbery, thefts of personal property off of balconies and from storage areas within the building. The final straw came when I had to call the police when two men were threatening each other with guns out in the parking lot one night. One of them lived in my building.

The old place

So I moved about five miles away, to a new townhouse in a much safer environment, or so I thought. I filled out my application for a credit check to prove that I paid my bills, giving my SSN and other information. I had friends who moved in there who did not have such a positive experience. They paid their first month’s rent, signed the lease and moved in. When their bank statement came through, the check to the management company had been altered; the name of the management company had been crossed out. In its place was the name of the assistant manager. She also endorsed the back of the check. When questioned about it, she said, it was no big deal, since she worked for the company. That was not a satisfactory answer for my friend, whose wife is in Utah right now. She went to the bank, got a copy of the check and faxed it to the Management company and asked just what was going on.
Obviously something WAS going on. They started to look at the reports and bank statements and found a severe shortage. (If they had been more on the ball, they would have caught it sooner.) The employee was questioned, arrested, and put into jail.
It seems that every day brought new discoveries. I got a phone call on Tuesday saying that my November rent check was missing. Mine, and several others never made it to the management company or the bank. I guess she was getting bolder and just resorted to outright stealing the checks this time. I don’t know what she was thinking, that she wouldn’t get caught?
But it’s thrown things into a tizzy for me. I put a stop payment on the check immediately. But since the original check has not been found, things are still not settled. The police searched her apartment, but none of the missing checks were found. So, the question has to be, is someone else involved here who might be in possession of a check with all my banking information on it?
She is guilty of forgery and identity theft. I cannot assume otherwise. With the information from the credit application and the banking information from my check, she could do a lot of damage in my name. So yesterday I closed out the old account, opened a new one and then proceeded to call all the people who had permission to take money from my account, such as Qwest, PayPal, my investment people, and the IRS. The last is a bit scary, since it takes a while to process such requests. But the last thing I want to do is have the government think I am trying to get out of paying a small tax bill.
I also have to contact all the Credit Reporting agencies and put a freeze on my credit, and then go buy a new paper shredder. My old one gave up the ghost a while back and I got lax in destroying old receipts, etc. I had to order new checks. I got the management company to spring for them, since I had just bought new ones for when I moved. I go for goofy ones, and these have a Where the Wild Things Are theme.
After all the reading about identity theft that I had done, as well as keeping up with various phishing scams, I thought I was safe. I never buy online from unsafe people, only vendors I trust, such as Amazon.
It turns out the enemy within, without a gun or physical threats, has put me a lot more jeopardy than I ever thought.

Birthdays

2007-11-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

Kayla

Yesterday was Breanna’s sixth birthday. She celebrated with her friends at Chuck E Cheese and I sent her some homemade socks and other goodies. I am waiting for pictures from her mom, which will be coming soon.
But today I am celebrating the birthday of my other granddaughter, Kayla. She turns 13 today. My daughter, Heather, was 17 and unmarried and wise enough to know that she did not have the resources to raise a child on her own. I was still reeling from my divorce and barely holding my head above water, financially or emotionally. The young man involved was not even ready to acknowledge paternity, let alone take over any responsibility for her welfare, or have any sort of ongoing relationship with Heather or his daughter. By the time he got around to admitting that he could have fathered this child, it was too late. Decisions had already been made. He signed over his rights without much resistance. Heather has seen him once or twice since then and had to mightily restrain herself from going over and knocking his block off.
It was a tough decision to make, and one of the most heart wrenching memories I have is the day that we gave her to Robert and Michelle to raise. It was supposed to be an open adoption, and for three years it was. We saw her several times and took lots of pictures. She was a beautiful little girl and her parents loved her. So did we. She was being raised by two loving parents who had two older boys, also adopted, and lots of animals all around. Even though we lived a few miles from each other, we respected their boundaries and tried to not interfere with her upbringing. Michelle is an excellent mother, and she works very hard at providing the best she can for her children.
And then things changed. Robert and Michelle got a divorce, then Michelle took the kids and moved several states away. We corresponded for several years more. We sent Christmas an birthday presents. Kayla has known from the beginning that she is adopted. She has pictures of her and Heather from when she was younger.
I don’t’ know what happened about seven years ago. I know that Michelle stopped responding to emails, and then stopped sending pictures. Did she feel threatened by Kayla’s independence? Did she become afraid that one day in a fit of anger, Kayla would want to come live with Heather? I don’t know. I do know that from our side, that Heather never ever considered that as an option. She has abided by her decision from day one. We would have sent her right back to Michelle.
So, today my thoughts are with Kayla. I wonder what she looks like now? Is she a typical teen ager, interested in lots of things with her friends? Is she still taking dancing lessons? What subjects does she like in school? Does she like school? What are her dreams and hopes for the future? Does she still live in a household with lots of animals?
I know where she lives. I found Michelle online last year, living in a small town in Washington. Robert is also living up there, too. I don’t know whether they are together or not. I wrote a letter to Michelle last year, and it was returned. It was a friendly, non-threatening (I hope) letter wishing her well and updating her on the rest of the family. It was returned to me. I sent it to Robert. I don’t know if he got it or what. I just know that it was not returned. I really don’t want to intrude on her privacy, but I wonder what my granddaughter is up to these days.

Church Service

2007-11-10T04:50:00.000-08:00

Jody, (the Prez), Linda (Education) , Diane (Personal Enrichment), and Me (Secretary)

I haven't written much about my church calling, though it is a big part of my life. About 13 months ago, I was called into the stake Relief Society presidency. Since we Mormons haven't a paid ministry, people are called to serve from within the community. You don't volunteer for a calling. A ward is a geographical area composed of about 500 people and is presided over by a bishop and his two counselors. A stake is made up of 10 to 12 wards or branches (a unit smaller than a ward). I live in the Oakdale stake, which is made up of 11 branches,half of which are in Wisconsin, since we are right on the border. You generally don't get to choose which ward you will attend. You are assigned, based on where you live. It makes sense, since you worship and serve those who live in your area. In Utah, wards can be a few blocks long by a few blocks, wide, but out here, they are way bigger.

Anyway, it was a bittersweet calling, since that meant our previous stake Relief Society president was being released, due to being overcome by a brain tumor. She died this past February. The new president, Jody, is way cool. She's a bit shy by nature, but so grounded and sensible. Her counselors, Diane and Susan are really great ladies. We work hard and laugh hard, too. Since our stake is so big and we have to do visits on a regular basis, we carpool often and have a great time.

Our main function is to support the leadership in the wards and branches and help them strenghten their organization. I love meeting the women in the other areas. I am amazed and impressed with them and their love and welcoming spirit. This is a huge organization that focuses on educating and supporting women in today's society.

My First Norwiegan Sweater

2007-11-10T04:42:00.000-08:00

In the winter of 2005, I took a sweater knitting class and did my first sweater in the round. It's actually three tubes, a main one for the body and two for the sleeves. Then everything gets put together and the yoke is knit. This is a traditional pattern with the roses and all. I made it in Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride yarn.

I learned a lot, but the neatest part is that it is wearable.

This will be my third winter wearing it. In this picture, I am with my nephew Kevin and his wife Emily, who came to visit when I was in Ohio in the spring of 2006.

Sweaters and Socks in The Cities

2007-11-08T04:11:00.000-08:00

Here are last year's projects from Christmas. I went all out for the grandchildren.
I made Bre a multicolored turtleneck sweater.

And Jordyn and Liam got dinasour sweaters!

Just a quick posting of some of my other socks. It's turned cold here, and so I have an excuse to wear them every day. I need to get a few more pairs done, but am so busy with Christmas knitting that I won't get to them until after the holidays. I have so much yarn that I have put myself on a yarn diet. Now new yarn until ........ but then there is this gorgeous new sweater pattern that I have ordered.

About my sock yarn. There is an online company called KnitPicks. I am always ordering from them. Their prices are reasonable, and the yarn holds up. Both of these pairs of socks are probably four or five years old and have worn well. They are good every day socks.

So many patterns, so much yarn and so little time!

Socks in The Cities

2007-11-02T22:25:00.001-07:00

I have made many (over 30) pairs of socks in the past few years. I have given most of them to others. But now I am going to record some of them for posterity. This is a pair that I just finished for my grand daughter, Bre. They are for her 6th birthday, which is next week. They go into the mail later today. I used a fun yarn from KnitPicks, 100% merino, which makes them extra soft. Another unusual feature is the Eye of Partridge heel that I did this time. It's a new pattern, but extra simple. Now if I can just get this program to cooperate and download it.

I Knew It!

2007-11-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

Don't You Marry the Moromon Boys is already being recognized as a special book. Janet received word yesterday (release day) that it has been chosen as finalist by USA Book News for an award in the religious fiction category. She gets to put this stamp on copies. This is so cool for all of us. Go Janet!
More at her blog http://janetkayjensen.blogspot.com/

Friends Visiting—for Paula

2007-10-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

STRAWBERRY-SELLER: Who will buy?
MILKMAID: Who will buy?
ROSE-SELLER: Who will buy?
OLIVER: Who will buy this wonderful morning?
Such a sky you never did see!
ROSE-SELLER: Who will buy my sweet red roses?
OLIVER: Who will tie it up with a ribbon
And put it in a box for me?
STRAWBERRY-SELLER: Ripe strawberries, ripe!
OLIVER: So I could see it at my leisure,
Whenever things go wrong,
And I would keep it as a treasure
To last my whole life long.
MILKMAID: Any milk today?
OLIVER: Who will buy this wonderful feeling?
I'm so high I swear I could fly.
KNIFE GRINDER: Knives! Knives to grind!
STRAWBERRY-SELLER: Ripe strawberries, ripe!
OLIVER: Me, oh my! I don't want to lose it
So what am I to do
To keep the sky so blue?
There must be someone who will buy...
LONG SONG SELLER: Who will buy?
KNIFE GRINDER: Who will buy?
MILKMAID: Who will buy?
ROSE-SELLER: Who will buy?
ALL: Who will buy this wonderful morning?
Such a sky you never did see!
Who will tie it up with a ribbon
And put it in a box for me?
--Who Will Buy from Oliver
This lovely duet sums up the way that I felt on Saturday. We have had rain in the Cities for the past 3 months, almost 19 inches of it, and we still have 10 days to go in this month. After a dry June and July, the heavens opened, and the water has not abated. In addition, it’s been very dreary here, with not many days of sunshine either. It seemed as though on the days it didn’t rain, it was threatening to and so was so so overcast. Until Saturday, morning, that is. Just as the song says, “Such a sky you never did see.” The clouds had all whisked themselves away to Wisconsin, or North Dakota, or somewhere else, and we had that brilliant sunshine just spilling over. The natives knew what a special day it was, too, since they were out in any public place with their dogs, children in strollers, on roller blades, riding bikes, running and just enjoying themselves. We know that soon it will not be this way, and this day was a gift. We did just want to wrap it up and a ribbon and store it, to bring it out one cold and bitter January day, and just remember it.
Boyd and Harald were at the church preparing things for their big dinner the next day, but we all assembled at their home about 1:30. Connie and Steve had been out doing parent thing with Jeffrey, buying him groceries and a new office chair. Beulah Mae was so happy to see everyone. She knew she would find someone at least who would give her a tummy scratching, and Jeffrey obliged.

We all piled into Boyd’s cool car with its satellite radio and headed out. Definitely the day to have the windows open and just let the breeze cool us all off. First stop was the Art Materials store. I took more pictures of the walls and walls of markers, pencils, art supplies, and displays. It’s definitely a place to get the creative juices flowing. Connie had lots of fun just looking at everything. She got even more excited at having the educator’s discount offered to her. Jeffrey picked up some stretched canvases, for his studies, too.

Then it was to Magers and Quinn. It’s a large independent bookseller with a wide variety of titles, and lots of used books. We just hung out for a while, each of us pursuing our own interests. Steve settled in one of the few chairs in the history section, while Connie was having so much fun in the art section. Jeffrey found several books that caught his interest, too. Connie said, very proudly, that she had managed to raise children who were all readers.
Our stop at Penzey’s was short. Boyd needed some peppercorns (they only had about 20 different kinds of them). I could have spent lots more time in there, but it’s not a great general interest browsing shop unless you are into a lot of gourmet cooking.
I think we were all getting a bit tired when we hit Trader Joes. Connie and Steve stocked up on the cheap wine they had heard so much about. Boyd and I were more into snack foods and green beans. It’s a fun place to shop. Their bread is excellent and I do like their organic slant they have to their products.
We all sort of crashed after that, back at the house and just noshed for a while. Boyd had delicious chips, fresh salsa, guacamole, and brie and crackers. We decided on a place for dinner. It took a few minutes, since we did have several choices. Stella’s Fish Shack (which was anything but a shack) won out over Mexican, but just barely. We made reservations for seven. And yes, you do need reservations for six on a Saturday night, since this place has four stories with seating on the roof.
Lots of lively conversation flowed. As Boyd said, Connie, Steve and Jeffrey are like family now. We feel so comfortable with them. They are just good friends. We were celebrating in a way, so many good things, like Jeffrey doing well in school, Connie’s clear CAT scan, life in the fall with good friends. We parted with a gift of Boyd’s award winning crab apple jelly in our arms. Life doesn’t get a whole lot better than this.

Never Underestimate the Power of a Determined Woman

2007-10-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

I am the oldest of three daughters, and I probably drove my two younger sisters nuts with my bossy ways. Our mother raised us to be feminists in a way, though she had trouble following through with her precepts.
Not so with my younger sister, Janet. The word “determined” springs to mind immediately when I think of her. Case in point: her recent achievement. She graduated from Utah State University and then went on to get her Masters in Speech/ Communicative Disorders from Northwestern. After practicing in schools for a while, she stayed home to raise her three boys, but found herself back at Utah State for a while.
Then she took the big leap to realize a dream that she had always had: to be a published writer. It’s been a long haul for her. She worked on a collaborative effort, The Book Lover’s Cookbook, and had much fun with that. It’s a compilation quotes and stories about food in literature and recipes that go along with them. It’s a delightful read and has some great pieces as well as excellent recipes. But she really wanted to write her own stuff. Her own fiction. After finishing her first novel, she shopped it around and got rejected, and rejected again, and again. Not because the writing wasn’t good, (it’s excellent), but the topic is a bit touchy in the circles she runs in, LDS (Mormon) writers. The biggies would not touch it because it mentioned the word polygamy. But it’s not about polygamy. It’s fiction, the story of a wonderful romance, along with great colorful characters, and wonderful humor. She has always had a unique sense of humor, and it’s a great part of the books.
Finally, her one last hope came through. A regional publisher has picked it up. We are so excited about it coming out. I know our mother would be so proud of her. I feel a small part of it. I helped her with editing, both content and grammar and all that. We had many a discussion of motivation and plot, (my other sister, Ellen, has a sharp eye for detail and is a great sounding board).
So, next week. Don’t You Marry the Mormon Boys, comes out. You can mosey over to her website, http://www.janetjensen.com/ or her blog, http://www.janetkayjensen.blogspot.com/ to get more information about her, the book, and what’s next. I look at this publishing as a dream realized, and well deserved. You can also see pictures of her lovely grand daughter Paige.
Mom would be so proud. I know I am.

Drooling Grandma Here!

2007-10-21T14:49:00.000-07:00

I am going to try to add some images here, of my darling grandchildren. Of course, they are smart, funny and cute as can be.

There are three of them, Breanna, age 6, Liam, age 3, and Jordyn, age 2. Breanna and Liam live in the wetlands of Oregon and Jordyn fends for herself in Salt Lake City.

Let's see how the pictures go here.

Hello World!

2007-10-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what I am doing here, but I thought this might be fun. Everyone I know, just about has a blog. I am a transplanted Westerner who is trying to find her way amongst the Scandahoovians and others who live in the Midwest. They are a strange breed, these Midwesterners, at least the ones I have run into in Minnesota. But I am learning their ways, especially how to dress for the cold weather, and how to knit. As soon as I figure out how to do it, I will be adding pictures of my socks.
I am also a journal writer, and have an interest in the craft and uses for journal writing.
Excuse me now, while I go off to find out how to add pictures and maybe even vent a little.