It's been so long

I can't believe how fast time flies by!  Thanks Bonnie for the kick in the butt, here are the updates.

This summer Emma auditioned for the community production of "Oliver!" I am involved at the theater and was doing promotions for the play.  At one of the production meeting I told the producer that I thought it would be fun to walk across the stage during the big street scene.  She was excited and said that the theater always needed adult extras so I talked to Brady and he, reluctantly, said he would do the play with us.

In hindsight I truly think that the producer and director were inspired when they casted us in the play.  Neither had herd us sing and we didn't audition so I was surprised when I went to check the cast list and Brady and I had real parts.  Emma was in the children's chorus which wasn't a surprise I knew they were going to cast all the children that auditioned.  My emotions went from surprise to shock when I went home and researched our parts.  Both of us had small solos!  Singing by myself in front of people is one of my worst fears and my part was the high soprano part.  Brady and I were also in all the chorus numbers so we ended up having a lot of stage time which involved a lot of rehearsals.  All the the time we put in paid off our songs came together and it ended up being really fun.

The reason I think doing "Oliver!" was inspired was that during this same time Brady was at the end of his rope with his job.  I have never seen his so miserable.  In one of our conversations about his job I suggested that he refocus.  He was giving everything to his job and didn't have anything of his own.   When "Oliver!" came up he committed to being there but neither of us realised the extent to which we would have to be at the theater.  It did help us both refocus though we were at rehearsal every night and Brady couldn't work late because he had to be to rehearsal.

Brady sent applications everywhere.  He applied to a few inspecting companies in Wyoming along with every place here he could think of around Pocatello.  We also prayed a lot.  In late August Brady got a call from an inspecting company in the gas fields in Wyoming.  They had a job for him but they didn't know how long it would last, could be three weeks or six months.  The pay was fantastic but how could we quit his job of seven years for a job that might last three weeks?  We both wondered how much our family would pay for him working in Wyoming and us only seeing him on the weekends.  In the end Brady and I decided to see if he could take all of his vacation (3 weeks) to go out to Wyoming and do the job.  We kept praying a lot.  The next day, when Brady asked for the time off, his boss decided that Brady wasn't committed to the company and let him go.  We were obviously shocked and hurt how could they do that after all the years Brady had been there?  Brady was excited though he felt like it was an answer to his prayers, it was time to cut ties with ELM.

Brady started his new job the week after "Oliver!" closed.  I am so grateful for the summer we got to spend singing together.  It helped us grow closer and it eased him away from work so that when it was time for him to go it was a lot less painful.  

Brady's new job lasted longer than we expected he didn't get laid off until right before Christmas.  He is home with the family full time and we are working on a few home improvement projects, but mostly he holds Eve and plays with Hannah and Emma.  Right now it looks like he will  be back out in Wyoming in April but he has applied at a few more places in town.  I don't know what the future holds for us but I do know life has a way of working out.

3:00 AM

Yes it's 3 in the morning and I am up holding a sick baby.  I honestly don't know how I am going to make it through tomorrow.

Baby has been sick for a week and now I am sick as a result I have had a lot of time on my hands.  What else would one do with extra time but scrapbook while holding baby on her lap?  Here are a few pages I have done.  For my next set I would like to do a more formal series for a picture book, kind of like an art book featuring my family.  It's not my usual style I like to journal a lot and organize by event and date.  But I think these new pages will just have one picture per page and a theme like seasons or colors with no journaling.  We'll see how it goes.  I am also working on a calender for my loved ones for Christmas so I have a lot of projects running through my head.

The French Open

This really is a random thought but I had to post it.  I was watching the women's final of the french open yesterday.  It was a close match with two women who were basically unknown and had never won a Grand Slam.  One of the women had never been to a final in the French before but was having a phenomenal couple of weeks, the other had been to the Final before but not won.  Toward the end of the match one of the women was down and serving to try to come back, a baby started to cry.  She turned around and shushed the crowd, I loved it because the commentators said if only it were that easy to quiet a crying baby.  So the baby gets quiet and the girl goes to serve, right when she throws the ball up the baby starts to cry again.  they stopped the game to take the baby out!

  Can you imagine being that mother?  That had to be so embarrassing to be singled out and having to take your baby out on international TV.  To me this was a moment that tied all mothers together.  No matter what country you are from, how much money you have if you are at church or a prestigious sporting event it could happen to you.

My sweet husband......

is at the grocery store with all three of our kids right now.  He's a keeper.

Memorial Day Musings

This picture is of the "last rose of the season" given to be by Woody Longhurst.  I'd like to take a moment on this memorial day to remember him.

I met April and Woody Longhurst when Brady  and I first moved into our house in Pocatello.  We didn't have much money so I had packed up all our food and brought it with us from Utah.  The problem was that we had to move out of our apartment before we closed on our house.  This left me with a bunch of food rotting in my hotel room.  Someone in the ward suggested I call April because she had an extra fridge so I did and even though she was so much older than me we clicked immediately and became friends.

I met Woody later and we quickly became friends because we both loved to garden.  He had a Greenhouse and let me start some of my plants in there.  I started 2 flats of flowers and 1 of veggies.  He laughed at me for wanting flowers but helped me get them growing anyway.  We had a nice spring growing our little plants and visiting about life.  Woody had an amazing life and loved to tell stories, and he always seemed to have time for me.  I grew to love him quickly.

During this time I was struggling with severs depression caused by my bi-polar disorder.  I really believed that I could be healed if I met a general 

authority.  I know now how silly this is because the priesthood is the same no matter who holds it but never the less I really wanted to meet one.  I got the chance to meet President Faust later that summer and while the spirit testified to me that he was a great man of God  I was not healed.  I did get my miracle though.  Just not in the way I wanted.  

I went back home and visited Woody later that week.  He showed be a bag of tomato seeds I had carelessly discarded at the end of the last summer.  The little seeds had sprouted and started to grow in the package.  He took each seed (that I would have thrown out) and lovingly planted them.  Watching Woody care for those little tomato seeds so lovingly gave me incite to how much the Savior must care for me.  It was a small simple lesson but one I will never forget.  Just like my friend loved those little seeds the Savior loves all of us.

This realisation was the catalyst that started me on the road to recovery from my depression.  April, Woody's wife, was a retired social worker and so I started going to counseling with her and she helped me find a great team of doctors who specialize in bi-polar.  It was a long hard fight but well worth it, and I am proud to say I haven't had 

a sever mania or depression for 4 years.

Woody passed on a little over a year ago and I am proud to have been counted as one of his friends.  I hope through our friendsh

ip I was able to give some of the love he gave me back.  I know every time I garden I think of him, especially when I eat the first big red tomato of the season.  

The girls

This picture is from last summer and obviously it was a good one!  We are going to make this one even better. Emma and Hannah both are going to do junior rodeo and help with the garden.  Both are researching how to grow a giant pumpkin and are learning to ride a horse and goat tie.  The goat tying is going slowly because the goat had a bit of diarrhea and no one wanted to touch him.   Billy, the goat, is doing much better now so the goat tying lessons will continue.  I wonder if he got sick on purpose so no one would tie him up for a while?  

We are all trying our best to keep Eve from getting hurt this summer.  She loves the animals so when everyone is learning to ride I spend my time chasing her so she doesn't get kicked by a horse.  The other day she was trying really hard to feed the goat his pellets, the ones that came out of the back end. 

Mom is going to help all three girls complete the summer reading program at the library.  With all this planed hopefully there won't be time to get bored or into trouble.

Random thoughts on Gardening

My goal for the summer is to get the most out of the garden that I can.  I'll admit that I have gone a bit green with the whole thing.  It all started with a small bucket of worms...  not just any worms mind you but red worms.  They were a gift from my mother (maybe she was paying me back for all the kittens I brought home as a child).  As it turns out red worms are quite handy to have around.  They can live quite happily in a plastic bin in the kitchen and they eat about a 1/2 lb of food waste a day.   Even better than the tiny amount of water I save from not running that food through the garbage disposal is that red worm by product is great fertilizer.  I didn't plan on going green or on having worms for pets however it has turned into a fun project.  

I had so much fun growing worms and making good dirt I decided to go a step further and buy buy heirloom seeds for the garden this year.  Heirloom seeds can be  harvested and used the next year so, in theory, I won't have to buy seeds again.  Don't try this with corn.  Heirloom corn does really funny things, it grows this gross stuff called smut and it cross pollinates so you get a random mix of corn on each Cob.  This can be fun because you never know what you will get, however I plant some good quality sweet corn to eat and a little bit of heirloom seeds to experiment with.  Heirloom squash also does really funny things.  You can get some unique looking squash especially if you plant gourds in the mix.  I have a lot of fun with it all.  The other great thing is that plants just come up the next year.  I already have lots of little sunflowers and squash that are coming up volunteer.  These will be my earliest and best plants if if they don't freeze.

I hope next year I will have all the fertilizer and seeds I need and some to share.