Your Christmas gift can be found by copy and pasting this google drive address
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B2kCBOu6Mkw5V1ZueGFIcDhVdTg?usp=sharing

Below is an outline of what you will find.

Last Post March 31st to April 6th.

This will be the last time I am posting my blog. With my age, I am finding that I don’t write as clean and clearly as I would like and unintentionally offended others.   So I want to apologize to anyone that I have offended by some thoughtless remarks and I ask for your forgiveness.  I also want my family to know I love them how grateful I am for their service and compassion. They certainly have lightened our load and have made our home a symbol of their love and selfless service.

Recently,  I am especially thankful for Chuck, Laura and Deborah for all their help with the house. As I walk around the house I am surrounded and reminded of the acts of service that they provided.  I love my china hutch more now because Deborah arranged it so beautifully. 

The china hutch

She made it more elegant and demonstrated to me that less is the best.  Also, I can now open my curtains to look out into my back yard through clean glass.  Deborah has a special glove that she tirelessly used it to make the glass sparkle. (I really have to get one.)  She also gave me the idea of putting the pictures of Mom and Aunt Gerrie above my piano.  I love them there.  On the piano I have just the Savior, our wedding picture and my horsehair pot.  When I look at the wall, it reminds me of my heritage, my Saviors love of His children, the best decision I made when I married Willard and the importance of service and the happiness it brings.

A simplified piano arrangement

When I go to my cupboards, I am so thankful for Laura and Deborah’s efforts in cleaning out all my outdated things and just throwing away stuff I didn’t need.  They organized and simplified by cupboards.  Deborah really helped us with our storage in getting rid of all bad bulging and out of dated cans.  I am so thankful for all of her painting, cleaning and attention to detail. She taught me by example that simple is the best and I have tried to use that example in redoing the house to the best of my ability.  (She certainly has more ability than I do.) She was a trooper; she paid a price of the service with an aching back.  Her service will always be remembered in the house.  

Laura, did such a great job also.  I really appreciated her love, service and support.  She opened up my eyes to the possibilities of our home by insisting that we get rid of all the clutter that would detract from the home.  She helped me make the house larger by getting rid of the junk.  She with Chuck and the help of Lance, her friend, helped us get rid of truck loads of junk.  She really went the extra mile in helping us get the home ready to show.  I certainly would recommend her to help anyone to sale their home.  I think her broker John Scott has the best program to get a home sold. I was very impressed with all their efforts, especially using a professional photographer to take pictures of the home.  She did a great job in selling the home and graciously helped us get out of the contract so that we could stay in it, of which I will be eternally grateful h daily.  She helped me appreciate and love the home I did have. 

I am so grateful also for Chucks help.  Every time I use the shower door or the toilet holder or other things he fixed in the house, I think of Chuck and marvel at how much joy it brings me just to have those things fixed that we had just been living with.  I so appreciated his help with packing up the truck at the expense of his back.  He truly went above and beyond his strength.  He is a great son-in-law.

I am also grateful to our other children, for their love, support and advice. I am grateful for 9 wonderful children that help us keep on the right path.

Lastly I am so grateful for a dear husband, who went along with all my whims. He worked until he couldn’t move because of his bad back, (bad backs seem to be an issue in the family).  He supported me and loved me throughout it all.  I so appreciate his love and his sacrifice. 

I did feel good about moving and then when we got the home all cleaned and fixed up, I didn’t feel good about leaving the home because of all the service and love reminders that are here in our home now.  It is like being engulfed, surrounded and comforted by my children’s, husband’s and the Saviors love for me. It brings quiet serenity to my soul.  

In fact, it has had a great effect on my spirit.  I have been trying to arrange for the primary “I Stand All Amazed” for the primary Sacrament program.  I have been struggling with writing it with the help of another sister for months. However, it just wasn’t working because it was too heavy and thick and we wrote too hard of an accompaniment for our new primary pianist to play.   Monday morning I woke up with simpler and lighter idea’s for the song.  I wrote it in 2 days and the chorister was thrilled with it.  I know the Lords helped me with this arrangement but it was just like cleaning house, I just got rid of the junk.

So the lessons that I have learned through all this experience is first, get rid of the junk and keep things neat, simple and clean both in physically, mentally and spiritually; less is more. Second, don’t be so quick to make decisions. Be patient and deliberate in making decisions.   Lastly, be happy with what you have.  Be grateful that you have a great husband, children and Savoir that love and supports you in spite of your mistakes. 

3/24 to 3/30

This has been a busy week but we got ourselves all moved back in.

Tuesday, I called RC Willeys to find out when they could bring our furniture.  They told us it would be April 2.  However, my friend who sold us the furniture got them to bring it out on Friday

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So Wednesday we finally signed the paper releasing us from our contract. Then we went to the storage place and loaded up our stuff.  Willard is such a great packer.  When we were moving it out my son-in-law packed the truck and it took us two loads to complete the job.  But would you believe that Willard got it all in, in one load!  The truck was stuffed but we did it.  We loaded it up all by ourselves.  We were exhausted by the time we got to our house.  Our good friends, Steve and Inger Bishop, came by and asked us to go for a ride to see their new house that they are building.  Then when we got back, they helped us unpack the truck.  Their help was greatly appreciated. 

So, Thursday, we began to unpacking and move the furniture around to get ready for our new furniture.  We moved Jacob’s bed out to the Den in the back where I also have a pantry.   This is where I hung up all our stuff we collected in Kayenta.  We also brought in the dresser.  It came in very handy to put the small plastic containers. 

Navajo Guest Bed/pantry

Then we moved our bedroom furniture into Jacob’s bedroom.  It was nice to have a larger dresser in there because now I had someplace to put my linens that I had to keep up in the attic.Trenton came and got our white couches and they were excited to have them.  

 

The Blue Guest Room

Friday, they came with our new furniture.  We got a sectional for the living room and an area rug.  Willard is sure it wasn’t what he ordered but I was happy with it because it has a little bit of blue in spots. You can’t see it in the picture.  It really makes our living room much larger. I just happen to have a few pillows that I really liked with the couch.  I only had to buy one blue one.

The living room

Our New Couches

Then I took the burgundy floral rug that I had in the living room and laid it diagonally toward the bottom of the room and placed the bed and dressers around it.  You can see a little bit of in the picture.  Also, at the end of the bed there are two big drawers.  I just love that we now have 15 drawers and we use to only have 5 drawers to deal with.  It is wonderful to have room and space for everything.  I find my house is big enough now that I have places to put things. 

Master Bed Room

The Dressers

We put Jacob’s brown chair in the music room and it fits very nicely there.  I love the space and the lack of clutter.  As we were going through things to decide if we wanted to put it back up in the attic, we just cleaned out more boxes and I took 5 large bags to Desert Industry. Now our garage is nice and clean and our attic half full.  

Saturday, I put up the pictures and cleaned the plants and put them up.  So now my house is done.  Willard’s back was killing him and I was sore but we made it through it all. 

Spring is coming.

I am glad it all worked out and we had the opportunity to really clean up our house.  It is like moving into a new house.I am happy that  I get to stay and see my flowers pop up and give notice that spring is just around the corner.

This evening we had Inger and Steve Bishop over for some Raspberry Walnut Torte.  I haven't made it in such a long time.  In fact, it was the first dessert I made when I was 17, when my mother let me cook in the kitchen. It was great visiting with them. We have been friends since 1974.  I was her visiting teachers in Los Gatos Ward and then they move to Boise and we followed the next year.  We really appreciate their friendship.

Steve and Inger Bishop

3/10 to 3/23

I have had quite a roller coaster ride with the sale of the house.  First of all, I wanted to move because we have such a large backyard and it is a lot of work for Willard and I.  Laura, my daughter who is a new realtor, encouraged us to sell our house and assured us that there were houses that would be affordable for us to buy.  So we got the house ready to show.  Then the day before, March 13, the house was put on the market, some people came to see it and made us an offer.  They offered $3000 more than the selling price and they would pay all the closing cost.  We were excited about it and on Saturday after we had signed all the papers, Ben, my son, called and pointed out some flaws in our reasoning. 

We had gone with Laura to look at homes and didn’t have a very good experience.  Then we couldn’t find anything in our price range around Boise and we would have to go out to Nampa or Caldwell.  The homes were awful.  One house had shingles coming off and the lock was broken so we couldn’t even go in but it looked filthy.  Then another one smelled so bad of cat pea, it took us 15 minutes just to get the smell out of our nose.  There are also was a carcass of a deer out on the back porch.   We came to conclusion that we would have to spend more to find a house and financially it didn’t make sense.   So on Sunday we decided that we didn’t want to sale our house.  We called Laura to see if we could get out of our contract, and she said it was up to the buyers but she didn’t want to call them until Wednesday because they were bummed because their house hadn’t sold. So we have been waiting on pins and needles to know what we are going to do.  Then Laura called yesterday and told us that they are going to let us out of our contract and she was going to send over something to sign but we haven’t heard anything yet.  It is driving me crazy. 

Next Wednesday and Thursday we plan on moving all of our stuff back into the house.  The only good things, is that we got our house cleaned out and threw out so much junk.  I am looking forward to reorganizing our house.

We have been working out in the yard. We got the grapes, Marion berries, blackberries, and Logan berries all pruned and cleaned the flower beds.  Thank goodness we have had good weather.

Collen my neighbor,

Friday, I went with my neighbor who has a daughter in the ninth grade, to North Jr. High talent show. She sang a solo and was an MC for the talent show.  I was just amazed at the talent.  There was not one bad act.  It was thrilling to see such a display of talent. Her daughter, Colleen, was going to sing with a guitarist but that girl broke her legs so she had to sing acapella.  She did a fantastic job.  She has a beautiful voice.   

On one of the days we had to leave the house, so we went to RC Willeys, and looked at some furniture.  They just happen to be having a great sale.  So if all goes right we are going to get a new sectional and a new bedroom set.  Then we plan on moving Jacobs’s bed in the den. Then move our queen bed in Jacob’s bedroom.  So then we will be able to sleep up to 5 people because I clean out the music room and now have room for an air mattress, if needs be.  So now we can put up visitors. 

Jacob had his tonsil taken out this week because they had gotten an infection in them. 

Jacob right before the opperation.

Valen and his date to the dance

Sarah family sledding

Whitney found a friend10/3.