remember when

This is a photo of my mom, Florin Young, with Emily (who was known as Emmie in those days) and Juli. It is from June 1979 and taken in Woodbridge, Virginia where we were living at the time. Elise was to have been born by this time but she decided to come in July, long after my parents left to go back to California. We were in Virginia for Steve's military training. He was attending officer basic at Fort Belvoir. In fact, when this photo was shot, he was most likely at the week-long bivouac (fancy word for camping and playing soldier) of which my due-date fell right in the middle.

I was given this photo by my friend, Jamie Kaye, in her Christmas present to me. She also included a note written to her and her mother by my mom. It is dated November 24, 2002 - written six days before she passed away. I love the books she gave me but these two pieces of history are even more special.

Ho Ho Ho

Max and Sadie get into the Christmas spirit!

We were in St. Louis Friday night and Saturday and Noah went to a party where he made this graham cracker house.



Lucy, our little love


Suger cookies we decorated with Noah


Below is a project I finished in November. These are the chairs to Beckie's dining room table that I recovered (finally!)



This looks like a desk but it is actually the cabinet to an old organ. Solid walnut. My go-to repair man, Bob, cut wood for the shelf. Sarah stained it. Voila! A place for plants, CDs, and other stuff in my music studio


Here is Santa's ski slope all set up. Bring back memories, kids????


My birthday presents - the green Adirondack chairs and the outdoor grill


Some other news I forgot to post earlier - Bear Creek Ward has a new bishopric. Larry Jespersen was called and he asked for Ryan Hatcher and Jimmy O'Loughlin for his counselors. They will be so great! Our former bishop, Ladd Egan, took a job in Utah with the CBS station. (he, like Steven, is in broadcasting).

long overdue update

Today is the first morning when I don’t have to leave at 7:15 to teach orchestra at CIS. We are done for the year. I have a piano student coming in about 20 minutes. So, in that tiny amount of time I will to try to catch up on events since Thanksgiving

First of all, Thanksgiving week was a little bubble of calm and happiness – no school to worry about, very few students to teach, lots of family around me and instant phone/skype access to children far away. My birthday was great – we went to the Muppet Movie to celebrate. On Saturday, we bought a lovely Christmas tree that Beckie heartily approved of because it is fat enough to hold all the ornaments.

We have decked our halls for Christmas. I like our current way of decorating – in small steps each day. One day was just the living room tree, another day was the Peanuts stuff in our room, my studio took three days. Yesterday, I finally put up the last decoration – the Santa’s Ski Slope. I admit having a bizarre attachment to that thing. The motor doesn’t work anymore so one has to manually place the skiiers on the ramp. It is too wide to fit under the tree where it is located in my studio so it is out in the middle of the room. BUT, it was my gift from Steve in one of our poorest Christmases and so it means a lot to me and I will not allow it to be thrown away even though everyone suggests it year after year.

Christmas goodies have not taken such a front seat this year – mostly because of me. When I was going through the neurological testing, there was some concern by the neuro doc that I might be pre-diabetic. Well, that really opened up my eyes to my eating habits – which were actually not THAT bad but when I started looking at my diet with a diabetic lens, I realized that I could be doing a LOT better. After a visit to my family practice doctor, (who does not like the term “pre-diabetic” because, in reality, everyone is pre-diabetic depending on their weight and eating habits. You eat more sugar and are heavy, you are just farther along on the spectrum leading to diabetes), and after some blood tests, I am not as “pre-diabetic” as the neuro doc had me believe (my A1C was not consistent with diabetes). Nevertheless, I have “seen the light” and we are not doing so many goodies this year and the ones we are making are mostly being given away (to make other people diabetic – kind of twisted, don’t you think?).

News about Ruth. Her son and his wife, Richard and Roseanne, came to Columbia the week after Thanksgiving to get her permanently settled into Candlelight. It only took a few off-the-wall phone calls from Ruth to Richard during the first couple of weeks living there to convince him that she is truly not in her right mind much of the time. She “sundowns” which is a term describing the confusion that old people often get in the evening and night time. Ruth now has her room furnished with her nice bedroom set and her house is pretty much shut down until spring when her kids return to put it on the market. Fuzzy Bo, the cat, LOVES Candlelight. The other three cats are now living with God. Sarah and Roseanne and I corralled them into pet carriers and we toted them off to the Humane Society. Two were pretty sick and the third was wild enough that no one would adopt it. I have the scars on my arm as proof. Whooee! that was an adrenalin rush catching that one. I try to see Ruth at Candlelight a couple times a week and she is adjusting well, I think. I know her kids are sleeping MUCH better now knowing that she is safe and eating well.

We acquired Ruth’s little chest freezer – we offered to pay for it but Richard said to just take it. We made room for it in the laundry room and it is full of deer meat – yes, Ken shot us another deer this year. I am going to try my hand at some deer jerky after the first of the year.

My “official” musical performances are over – CIS concert was last Tuesday. Da Capo Strings (my adult string group) was the week before at Candlelight. Sarah and I are going caroling tonight with some folks in the Civic Orchestra. Speaking of, I did NOT play in their holiday concert last Saturday. Prairie Strings had a wedding at the exact same time so I opted to make money instead.

Oh, I have watched Rango and Rio and I enjoyed both quite a bit. I have Cars 2 waiting to be watched – probably tomorrow.

Well, I think I hear my student pull up. Sorry no photos. Maybe later…..