SPOON SNOB (2025-34)

 

I hate to admit it.

I'm a spoon snob. 

It's something that seems to have developed the last decade or so. I have a similar snobbery for drinking glasses. The glass, like the spoon, is best when it is thin, with a crisp edge, and enough curve to hold liquid but not so deep that it causes the lips to do anything but act elegant around it. 

My husband Dave knows this about me, and blessedly does not cause me to feel any shame about the fetish. He knows, when he is dishing up soup,  that he needs to dig in the drawer or the dishwasher for the exact right spoon. And when he brings a scoop of orange sherbet as a late night snack, he will be sure to use the long stemmed thin bowled milkshake spoons stored in the side of the utensil drawer.

Once I bought a set of  metal alphabet stamps with a small hammer just to label my favorite spoons. I wish I could find that set now, because I'm down to one favorite spoon, and that is getting dangerously low. I occasionally dig through bins at thrift stores to see if they have a perfect spoon. They rarely do.

I have a similar passion for spatulas. Old metal ones. Firm, with no slats and a perfect thickness to slide under a grilled cheese sandwich. I use my favorite vintage metal spatula in my largest pot when I'm cooking for the masses. The thin flat edge easily scrapes the bottom of the pot so I get even browning. Today, when I was washing it, I noticed a thin line in the middle of it. My cooking angels whispered to me that this might be the beginning of the end for my favorite spatula. It's getting ready to split in two. Time to go thrifting. They really don't make them like they used to.

Come to think of it,  my fetish for spoons may not be as recent as I had thought. Back in high school, when Libby and I attended the art classes at Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, I once pained a self portrait from the perspective of a spoon. The classes, sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University, had two students from each of the schools in the Greater Pittsburgh area, met on Saturday mornings. Mr Fitzpatrick was the head teacher. He was a fabulous artist and a renowned teacher. We had a class in the auditorium, and then climbed the marble stairs in the art museum to the second level, where the halls were lined with wooden easels awaiting us. Sometimes we were set loose int he natural History and Art Museums to do some free sketching. Each week there was a specific assignment. The following week Mr Fitzpatrick selected a Picture of the Week, which was hung on the wall in the stairwell leading to our easels. 

You would have to know that visual art was not particularly in our skill set. I don't know exactly why we were selected to represent our school. The other kids there were incredible artists and were frankly quite intimidating. I knew full well where I was weak.

But I also knew my strengths. I may not have been the best at the art itself, but I could challenge anyone there with my ability to be creative. I think Fitz must have liked that, because I was on the honor roll enough to end up with a recommendation to the Carnegie Mellon University School of Art when I graduated. If I couldn't figure out perspective in a certain painting, I'd change the angle and paint something wholly different than everyone else. 

The week we were assigned to paint a self portrait, I decided to paint my face in the reflection of a spoon. That way the face could be upside down and distorted. I knew what I couldn't do well, and let my creativity fill in the weak spots. The next week my piece was featured as the picture of the week. I was fully aware of what I was getting away with. But that's ok, I never professed to be a visual artist. Our classes on Saturday mornings gave me a greater appreciation for truly gifted visual artists. I'm not one of them.

This is not my work.
I borrowed it from a real high school artist
whose name I don't know.

SIBLING REVELRY (2025-33)

The house on Elm Street
in the process of being built.

In our little church congregation in Pittsburgh PA we held our Sunday School meetings on Sunday mornings, then returned to the church again for Sacrament Meeting on Sunday evening. The in-between was often a chance to have friends over who didn't live near us and went to different schools. Or we would spend the afternoon at their houses. It was the original Primary Friend to Friend program.

There were three basic time "zones" in our Ward. There was the scheduled time for Sacrament meeting - 5:00 pm

Then there was Mormon Standard time, which was somewhere between 5:03 and 5:05.

Then there was Hansen Standard Time, which was any given point after that.

It's fitting, then, that I would give a nod to my beloved siblings a day late.

I'm number 6 of 7 distinct individuals with one common heart, one common mother and two absent fathers. There's probably a whole decade of therapy sessions underlying our life stories. But I can testify that common struggle seems to either make or break families. Fortunately, for us, struggle seems to have stitched us pretty tight.

Since the seven of us live in three different states we have a text thread between us. At some point I will preserve the years of discussions between us and there'll be a pretty good representation of who we are and how the puzzle of us fits together. 

A few months ago, in a moment of silent reminiscence, I found myself trying to pull up memories of my early childhood in Shelley Idaho. Most of my memories are from Pittsburgh, where we moved when I was 5 years old. My pre-Pittsburgh recollections are limited and probably distorted. I sense that most of them are triggered by the limited number of photographs we have of that era in our family history. My pondering led me to the deep dig of trying to remember the layout of our little house on Elm Street in Shelley. 

I sent out a text to the Sibs asking them to sketch a a rough layout of our house. I sketched mine before the older ones sketched theirs. 

The house, with maybe 900 square feet of finished space, housed nine of us. It had 2 real  bedrooms. I think maybe the babies slept in a closet, though my older sisters would have to confirm that. The basement is where older kids slept. Apparently they drew lines on the cement floor to establish boundaries. I must not have spent time down there, but the older siblings sure did. Ann Marie Libby and I, affectionately known as the Three Little Girls, must have filled the upstairs space. Libby and AM straddled me by just over a year on either side. I am strangely jealous of the magical space in the basement that became the bedrooms of my older brothers and sisters. 

Sue and John decided, at some point, that Thursday nights would be Laughing Night. Don't you just love the idea of setting aside a night for laughing?

Anyway, since yesterday was National Siblings Day, and it happened to fall on a Thursday, I wanted to acknowledge I have the best siblings in the world. Happy Laughing Siblings Day, on Hansen Standard Time.

WRAPPED (2025-32)

Twice, in the lifetime of Jesus Christ, we know he was wrapped in cloth. The newborn king was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. On the other end of his magnificent life the master of the world was wrapped in burial cloth and laid in a borrowed tomb. Both of the places he was laid, wrapped, belonged to someone else. It breaks my heart to think of the son of man having no place to lay his head. 

When I see the white sheet laid over the sacrament at the front of our chapel every Sabbath, I am reminded to wrap myself in Him the way He wrapped himself in us. There is a power in enfolding.

Yesterday Libby and I drove to the Salt lake Airport to join the collection of people gathered to welcome home Elder Aiden Harris as he completes his LDS Mission in Little Rock Arkansas. I took note of the massive amount of wrapping that went on in the small space and time. 

It's curious to me that our human instinct is to open our arms when we feel safe and loving toward someone. That gesture invites us in, and we respond the same, our outstretched arms coming in against the flesh of each other, aligning our hearts. Out heads tuck into each other's necks naturally, as if we were designed to do this.

I am uplifted and encouraged at the sight of so much wrapping happening. I've been noticing lately how separate we have allowed ourselves to become. It may have started with the pandemic, then our self defense mechanisms kicked in. We found ways to connect that were not physical. We started working virtually. He got our amusement from videos and reels. We talked without seeing each other's faces, first through our ears and eventually through our eyes. Now people will get annoyed when you call rather than text. We have become isolated people, and it has happened relatively quickly when you stop to consider it. Before cell phones and Ring doorbells, we lifted ourselves out of our chairs and answered the phone, not knowing who was calling or why. We answered the door not knowing who was there.  There was a certain charm in all the unknown of just two decades ago. Now the enchanting mystery of even the gender of our babies is a thing of the past. There is little to charm us any more. We are becoming numb in our need to know everything beforehand.

Maybe the thing I like most about homecomings and departures is the opportunity it offers us to wrap with each other. Touch, the language of the skin, is sadly becoming purely sensual rather than platonic. It takes conscious effort to physically touch each other. Even a handshake or high five or fist bump is something. We get it when we plant our bodies in the space of other bodies, and its most likely to occur when there is unity in purpose. We touch each other during our shared experiences. Think of a funeral you've attended when you haven't seen people enfolding each other in their arms. Who hasn't yearned to hold a tiny baby when you see them for the first time? Even puppies and kittens command a snuggle.

When Elder Harris returned yesterday the sweetest thing for me was to see him wrap his arms around his family. His parents, his sister Sophia (her twin sister Maddie was out of town). Then to see him wrap his arms around his two brothers who make up the triplet team that is the Harris brothers, and his little brother Nick. These six kids, who came in batches of one, two and three, are a cluster of attachment in our minds.  Seeing them wrap their arms around each other, enfolding their love and aligning their heartbeats, felt like a coming home in the eternal sense... like there is no linear timeline to this, but a circumscription of one eternal round.

Triplets reconnected.

Home.

Back at the Harris home, after the airport greetings, I was in the kitchen helping prepare food when I heard the strains of How Great Thou Art coming from the piano in the living room. I wiped my hands with a towel and walked into the living room to see Elder Harris reacquainting himself with the family piano. He stopped when he saw me, and stood to give me a hug.

"It's been a while," he said, referring to playing the family piano.

"Yes, and it feels like yesterday you left. Like it was a decade ago, and yet only yesterday, right?" I said, as I wrapped my arm over his shoulder.

"I wonder if this is how it will feel when we die? Like it was only yesterday we left Heaven, but also a lifetime ago?"

No doubt, dear boy. No doubt.

That's a wrap, Elder Harris.

(That's a wrap, a term used at the end of filming, means "wind reel and print.)

PRAYING FOR THE ENEMY (2025-31)

A few years back I bought a gift for one of my daughters through an online thrifting site. When I went to pick it up I recognized the person selling it as a classmate of my kids when they were younger. We spent a good chunk of time catching up, then he helped me load the item into my car.

When I delivered it to my daughter I mentioned that I had bought it from a former classmate. She stopped short, dropped her head and told me she wasn't sure she could use it.

"Why?" I asked.

"Mom, he bullied me terribly when we were kids."

When you are a grandma and you find out that something painful happened to your grown kids when they were small and under your wing, news like this is extra sad, because there's not much you can do about it at this point.

She didn't really want to stir up old stuff. She had enough trouble loving her current self. I apologized for facilitating any hurt. I offered to resell it and get another.

"No," she said, " Just give me a minute to work through it."

When enough time had passed I asked if she wanted to share anything about what he had done. She replied with non-specifics, but cringed in the memories. 

"I guess what I remember most is that it was the first time I prayed for my enemy."

She went on to say that she remembered us teaching her that there was power in praying for your enemies. She quoted the words of our Savior on the cross: ...They know not what they do." 

"Did the bullying stop?" I asked. 

"Probably not," she answered, "but it must have helped because I remember it as one of my early personal spiritual experiences."

She wasn't really sure if the act of praying for her tormentor changed him or if it changed her. Likely both.  I suspect when we take our personal relationships to the Lord and lay them at His feet, we allow ourselves to be shifted in the balance. 

I've caught myself lately, when I am angered by the misuse of power, especially in our own leadership, consciously turning my anger to prayer. It's the quickest way I've found to temper anger. If nothing else, it reminds me that very few, if any, people are completely good or evil.  

"Help him, Lord, remember and access the better part of himself." 

(and while you're at it Lord, help me to do the same.)

PRESERVED - A POP-UP JAM SESSION (2025-30)

If there's a set of shelves in your basement that holds a regimented army of glass bottles with metal lids, you're a lucky one.

If those metal lids have a date written on top, scribbled with a Sharpie pen in your mother's handwriting, you are extra lucky.

And if you are the child sent down to the basement to get a bottle of golden peaches, or a small half pint jar of jam with paraffin wax on top, you are divinely chosen. This is because part of the reward for running downstairs and fetching last summer's jam is getting to lick the underside of the paraffin before it's discarded.  

Back in the heat of summer, after mom had stirred up a hefty batch of jam, she gently poured 1/4 inch of hot wax on the top of each jar.  The wax cooled, sealing out the air and preserving the flavor. Now, mid February, she slips the tip of a paring knife under the cold wax and pulls it from the jar, a thin juicy layer of jam stuck to the underbelly. She hands the circle of wax to you. The raspberries from last summer rush straight to your tastebuds as you lick it off. Then you know, for sure, that all is right with the world. 

Jam sealed with paraffin needs to be cooked.
Freezer jam is not cooked, and tastes more fresh, 
but must be stored in the freezer.

Today my sister Ann Marie stopped by with a case of fresh plump raspberries.

"Where'd you get those?" I asked, "And how much did they cost?"

Ann Marie knows I'm always on the lookout for raspberries at a good price. We make hundreds of jars of freezer jam to sell at my concerts. The proceeds go to a beloved group of orphan children we help support in Kenya.

"I found them at Sam's", she said, "$2.88 a container. You want 12 of them?"

In our family we don't fool around with small quantities.

I dropped what I was doing and we drove straight back up to Sam's Club in Layton and bought what they had left.

On the way home, as she drove, I wrote a text to the parents of our neighborhood kids who belong to our church Primary Activity Days: 

I seriously only have that small chunk of time in the next few days, and fresh berries won't last. Not every worthy thing needs to be planned ahead, right? So Dave dragged cases of jars up from the basement. I cleared off the island and washed the dishes. Ann Marie dropped everything and came back down from her house to help. We had ourselves a pop-up jam session.

Ten-year-old Dominic came a bit early, so I set him to work washing jars. Graham and Leah joined us. In just over an hour they had washed, mashed, measured and stirred. 

4.5 C crushed fresh raspberries

5 C sugar

4.5 T Ball Freezer Pectin

3 T lemon juice

Graham and Dominic dipped the measuring cup and poured fresh jam into sanitized jars. Leah wiped the rims with a clean damp cloth and added the lids.  By 5:15 we had 20 jars of the sweetest, freshest raspberry jam you've ever tasted. 

At 5:15 Dave and I had to hurry to our granddaughter Gracie's piano recital, followed by grandson Timothy's Night of Percussion at the U of U.  Dominic and Graham walked home with a jar of jam each, and we dropped Leah off at her house with her own jar as well. Ann Marie stayed and cleaned up our mess... cuz that's how she is. The jam in our kitchen will sit out till morning, letting the flavors meld to perfection. Then into the freezer they will go until we sell them to our neighbors and church members. We will then use the funds to purchase cotton pillowcases and tie dye ink so we can offer a bit of love to children a world away from us. We like to think of those kids laying their heads at night on soft colorful tokens of love from children in America who want to follow Christ.

The math of compassion

When we decided to make these pillowcases as our service project this year, we wanted the kids to understand that meaningful service requires a level of sacrifice. No one generally hands you a wad of money and says do something good for someone else. We feel ownership when we work for it. Dominic kept a tab of what it cost us to make the jam, what we can sell it for, and how much we would have to sell to earn enough to buy supplies for our project. The kids figured we will have to sell 64 jars of jam to reach our goal. 

Besides learning together how to do a fundraiser, and how to make jam, they learned that sometimes you have to strike while the iron is hot. Some things have to be put aside when the fruit is ripe and ready to harvest. If you want to preserve something, other things need to be put on hold for a while. It's life, in a microcosm.

These most spectacular little humans left our house today with a newfound understanding of how there is cost and reward, and how to make the two work together. They also learned how to make a pretty darn tasty quadruple batch of raspberry freezer jam (which by the way tastes much more fresh than the jam kept in cold storage in the basement.) They learned how to pitch in and make an assembly line when you are making a large quantity, and that many hands make light work.

Tonight, as I folded the white chef hats I keep in my bottom drawer for times like this, I recalled the Yum's and Mmmmm's from their little mouths as they finally tasted the fruits of their own labor. My freshly wiped kitchen island has two sweet rows of freshly made jam setting up as I turn out the kitchen light. My heart has a batch of capable and loving kids tucked safely preserved in its innermost chambers. How sweet they are to me.

Update, two days later: We did it again with different kids. Millie, her friend Anna, Kali and Dean. We made 25 more jars of jam, plus four for them to take home. There was a lot of hand washing going on because they could not resist licking the spills off the counter. "Golden Rule- if you lick your fingers, you have to wash your hands with soap!"

Love these kids!

THE WOODEN CANDY CANE (2025-29)

Old Clairton Road in Pleasant Hills PA is older than America itself. It may be lore, but the road in front of my childhood home was said to have been a pre-Revolutionary War road. My sisters and I used to throw our small bodies into the grass that rolled down into our front yard, our eyes focusing just above our imaginary rifles, pretending to hide from the Redcoat soldiers galloping toward Fort Pitt where the three rivers in Pittsburgh converge.

Pleasant Hills is the perfect name for that sleepy little town. We knew each rolling hill threaded with ribbons of sidewalk between our house and Pleasant Hills Elementary School. Even now, in my wrinkled old body, I can close my eyes, slow my breath, and transport myself to the daily journey my pale little girl legs took along Old Clairton Road.

It is Saturday morning. The forsythia is in bloom, and trees are greening. An early spring breeze carries the faint sweet fragrance of newborn hyacinth. School is closed for the weekend, but the Public Library is open, and that is where I am headed when a thin hand- lettered poster, taped to the stop sign on the corner of Old Clairton and East Bruceton Road, catches my eye.  

GARAGE SALE!

Being a kid, old enough to read but innocent enough to wonder why someone would be selling only their garage, I turn down East Bruceton Road to take a look. Little do I know that such a sign will have a magnetic effect on me the rest of my life. 

I don't know why I have such a vivid memory of that particular afternoon. I recall the cement driveway, the card tables and wooden picnic table in the garage, the woman sitting in her blue woven lawn chair with a cigar box of cash in her lap. The garage sat tucked in under the house.  I tiptoed into that space, wondering if I was allowed to be there, following the other people who parked and just walked in. Knick-knacks, books, old linens and winter coats shared tables with a boxed hibachi and an old oil lantern. Each item had a little colored dot with a price handwritten on it. These were the days when a penny was still worth something. I had a dime in my pocket. 

I walked away with a small extra thick paperback book of Archie comics and an old wooden walking cane. I don't believe I even went to the library that day. Instead I concocted a plan as I made my way back up the hill to our house. The wooden cane went down to the back room in our basement, hidden, at least partially, under my shirt so no one would see it. The book went  up to the bedroom I shared with my sister, where I spent the afternoon with Archie, Reggie, Veronica, Betty and Jughead.

My plan for the wooden cane was to turn it into a candy cane as a Christmas gift for my mom. Had I been aware of my ADHD as a child I might have made myself do it while I was thinking of it. It wasn't until well after Thanksgiving that I remembered the cane. I found a gallon of old cream colored wall paint on the storage room shelf and set to work. First I tried to wing-it, swirling red paint up the wooden shaft, then adding white between, ending up with smeared wobbly uneven pink. I wiped off as much as I could while the paint was still wet. Proud of myself for figuring out that I could use masking tape to spiral up the crook I tried again a few days later. It took an unusual amount of self discipline to let the paint dry. 

What I imagined

The next week, when I removed the tape, I saw the the paint had bled under the part I had masked off. I don't remember where I would have found that red paint, but I do recall how the drips showed through. It would take multiple layers to cover my mistakes. I just couldn't be still long enough to do it right.

I was running out of time. Christmas was coming, and paint was slow to dry in the cold windowless room in the deepest part of our basement. I spent more time back in that chilly room than my mother wanted, I suppose, because she started to notice I had disappeared to the basement too often.

"What are you up to down there?" she asked, more than once. 

"Nothing."

One word answers rarely worked for our mother.

Two "nothing's" brought on a warning.

Three got me a whoopin'.

Still, I would not tell her what I was up to. I had imagined the big old candy cane next to our fireplace in every future Christmas. I would put my own stamp on the charm. There was a sense of warm anticipation in our home at Christmastime. Mom was happy. Mom could be creative. She lit the candles and let the logs in the fireplace burn. Our living room smelled of cedar roping and freshly cut blue spruce. The lamplight reflected off glass Christmas bulbs and metal icicles. In those days there was so much less available to us. No Amazon. No Target or Walmart or Costco. Magical oversized items were found only in the colorful display windows downtown at Kaufmanns, Gimbels or Hornes. 

In the end, I could not get the edges crisp on my painted giant candy cane. I wept in the back room, ran my fingers over the flawed piece, then took a square of large grit sandpaper to it, hoping I could turn it back into a  useful walking cane.

I don't even remember if I told Mom what I was making there in the back room of our basement in Pleasant Hills. I think I didn't want her to feel bad for spanking me. In my mother's defence, back before parents were judged by each other for their abilities in mindful parenthood, spanking was the most proven form of discipline. 

I don't know why or how, but that half-stripped almost "candy" cane ended up following me into adulthood. I can't remember if I told Mom about it. I suppose it stood as a reminder of one of my first independent moves. It represented the discovery of the concept of thrifting, which has stuck with me ever since, and the prospect of making something new out of something old. Top that off with the joy of creating something for someone I loved, which required sacrifice, and even a little pain and disappointment. It joined so many other almost forgotten experiences that wove into the fiber of who I have become. I guess its a microcosm of life, that wooden candy cane I once tried, but failed, to make.

HOW MY EXPERIENCE WITH FASTING HELPS ME HANDLE THE MESS WE'RE IN (2025-28)

My whole long life I have identified as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I remember as a child mustering the courage to participate in our monthly fasts, held on the first Sunday of each month. It really was courage I had to muster.

I've always found comfort and pleasure in food, and just thinking about not having it still causes a hefty dose of anxiety. When my babies were small and distressed, my first instinct was to unbutton my blouse and pull them against my breast. I can hear the voice of my mother whispering, "Get that belly full and they will sleep through the night." 

It's not that I can't go without; I can actually go many hours and not eat because I'm focused on something, but if you tell me, or I tell myself, that I CAN'T eat, you better believe all I'm going to think about is food. So the practice of fasting, when you think of it as merely not eating or drinking, feels impossible and inhumane to me.

I've found that the best way to tell if I'm truly experiencing a spiritual fast is if I am emotionally ok with hunger. Having the confirmation of The Holy Spirit doesn't remove the pangs and the thirst, but it does make it worthwhile. The way I handle it is I begin with a dedication of my fast, professing my recognition of those I believe to be my higher power; God the Father and His  divine team, including Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, Heavenly Mother, and my appointed angels or guardian angels. These are the folks I trust have my best interest at heart. Then, as the day unfolds I feel supported in my efforts. I begin my prayers as Christ instructed, addressing the Father in the name of my divine advocate, Jesus Christ. I expect that's the doorway to the team. I feel myself, in a sense, set apart from a regular day.

If I tell myself I'm not eating just for the sake of not eating, I will for sure talk myself out of it. I know, I need more self respect and devotion to my body. But if I commit to a power I trust is greater than my own, I find I'm able to do things I could not otherwise do. So hooray for faith, right? 

I am not always great at purposeful fasting, but I do know firsthand the power of it. It doesn't always bring the outcome I desire, but I am strengthened by the process and feel more secure in my trust in the wisdom of a loving God who knows my end from my beginning.

When I feel pangs of hunger, or a lust for flavor and I am fasting with a purpose, I instinctively send words heavenward - spoken and unspoken - praying for whatever purpose I have dedicated my fast. Its as if the hunger elevates my supplication. It makes it easier to obey the commandment to pray always.

Fasting, when I'm doing it right, makes me feel grateful. I am reminded that I pretty much have available to me all that I need to survive. I acknowledge that all good things are gifts from God.  A monthly fast feels like touching home base, if for no other reason than to remind myself that I'm still in the game.

On Fast Sundays we have what is called Fast and Testimony Meeting during our weekly Sacrament Meeting. Our son John told us about the day his daughter Ruby asked on the way to church: "Is today Free Speech Sunday?" 

Ruby meant to ask if this was the Sunday when they open the microphone to congregants to bear testimony of the divinity of Jesus of Christ. Anybody in the congregation can go up to speak. So I guess Ruby is right, it is free speech Sunday, though the topic is supposed to be the Savior Jesus Christ and should be uplifting in order to be a testimony.  You don't have to fast to have a testimony of  Christ, but I think it helps. Fasting is saying to the world, "Step back for a minute, OK?"

Today, Saturday, was a day when I had planned to join fellow disgruntled and frustrated American citizens in a protest march in Salt Lake City. I join other citizens who love our country and our constitution in protesting the methods of our current president and his unelected cohort. These grown men are wielding power swords like three year old playmates dressed up in cowboy boots and superhero underwear. When someone with basic respect does what they are doing, and are in such positions of leadership, the least they should do is explain themselves and reassure us with explanations, if not tenderness for how much it hurts. Instead, they disappear in their golf carts. The protests organized in every state in America were called Hands Off. I want my voice to join the family in resisting the abuse. I had every intention to join them today.

But this morning I decided to remain at home, driven by an unusual desire to, for this moment, be still. All afternoon, as I imagined myself trodding down the asphalt path of protest, shouting my frustrations with the state of our Union, I instead offered up a prayer. Protesting, I suppose, before my Lord, knowing there is power in the act. I needed, for my own reasons, to remind myself that as vulnerable as I feel these days in a country that seems to be spiraling, I am empowered by my belief that regardless of the state of this place I live, I am a child of divine birth whose soul will endure beyond this time and beyond this realm. It does not mean I don't care. Not at all. But lately I feel a deep-seated need to re-center myself spiritually. I think we're all going to need something deeper in order to survive this with our health and integrity intact. 

In a sense, I suppose I'm using the methods I've learned through fasting to deal with my concerns for our country. I gave myself space today to own it personally, not as part of a marching crowd, though I have marched, and will continue to march in solidarity against oppression and oligarchy. Today I needed to retreat within myself. I realized that when I get that anxious, frustrated, angry electric buzz regarding the state of our country, and our whole world for that matter, I can remind myself that my allegiance is to Jesus Christ. Then, following that with my love for liberty, I let my mind rise in prayer. I testify to myself that whatever happens I am safely tucked under His heart. With this as the foundation, I will then plant my voice and my feet where the Holy Spirit directs me. My confidence rises when I turn to the source of true strength. 

I hear the words of one of my favorite scriptures floating through my weary mind:

Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still. with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.     D&C 123:17

Lord, show us your arm! 

I find myself singing this in my head a lot lately.

FIRST FRIDAY April 2025 (2025-27)

It started a few years back. We had given our daughter Annie one Friday a month off from having to be a non-stop mom. We would take her kids, do something fun, have an overnighter and breakfast in the morning, and bring them home early afternoon. It quickly turned into a cousins party, with kids from each family joining in on the first Friday of every month. This makes my heart happy because if you could give this old Gummy anything precious it would be to know her children and grandchildren understand, love and generally enjoy each other. We've had so many memories on Friday nights that we could probably make a fairly thick photo book that would trigger all sorts of memories down the road.

This Friday started with a little service project. When I saw this ad from the Farmington Parks and Rec Team I sent a message that Clan Connors could help.

I kind of expected a few hundred eggs to be filled for the annual Farmington Easter Egg Hunt. When Dave and I picked up the supplies at the Farmington Gym today, they asked us if we had brought a truck or van. I asked just how many eggs they wanted us to fill. Turns out they needed a dolly and we needed the whole back of our van.

I cooked up some chicken while Dave, my sister Ann Marie, daughter Sarah and six grandkids stuffed candy and toys into plastic eggs. We took a short break for dinner, then had competitions to see who could fill the most eggs in ten minute time slots. (Make it a game and they're more likely to enjoy the work.)

Team Girls vs. Team Boys

Sarah teamed up with me.

Two hours later we had filled roughly 2000 eggs, a fraction of what we have left. It's going to be a long week for some of us. But our grands will never look at a typical Easter Egg Hunt the same way they used to. They learned a bit about lending a helping hand for our community.

Next, as planned and promised, the kids gathered up their swim towels from winter hibernation, made sure their swimsuits still fit, and off we went to the Bountiful Rec Center for a night of swimming. Dave and I remained fully clothed, keeping watch from the poolside and sweltering in the chlorinated humid air of what used be be called the Bountiful Bubble.

They wore themselves out with fun. Sarah and her kids had been skiing all day, before swimming. I'm exhausted just watching them. I love them with everything in me that I understand is capable of love. There may not be many more First Fridays when they will all want to be together. Calvin is almost 14 now, and Joe not far behind him. We savor every moment while they are willing to snuggle under our proverbial wings.

I sit beside Dave and watch them splash and giggle and shout. I wonder if God feels this way watching us enjoy His earth and delight in each other. I think He must feel saddened by how poorly we speak of  each other lately here on earth, and how cruel we behave toward each other and this temporary home of ours. It was a comfort for my heart tonight to partake of joy in service followed by good healthy fun.

A pause for a little rock climbing on the way out.

After a stop for ice cream cones, we dropped the kids off at their houses (they rarely sleep over these days, preferring their own beds after a hefty dose of togetherness.) I noted that it doesn't need to cost an arm and a leg or a trip to Hawaii to create these kinds of memories. It takes a little research in opportunities to serve (easily found online JustServe.org), a $5 chicken and small bag of carrots and oranges for dinner, $6 a kid to go to the community pool and $1.49 for an ice cream cone afterwards. 

The memories and friendships are priceless.