Do You Love Me???

Ahhh...February. The month with lots of 'love' floating around, especially on February 14th when Valentine's Day hits.

In our home, Claude and I celebrate our anniversary. We were married on Friday the 13th, 1970. This year was our 41st anniversary. I find this simply amazing. I've spent two times more of my life as a married lady that as a single lady. Soooo, after all those years, what does one do to celebrate this anniversary.

The intent was to be in Egypt cruising the Nile River, then spending a few days in Cairo and one day in Alexandria. Alas, that did not happen. It is a good thing our tour was cancelled given the current politic upheaval going on in Egypt.

I did receive an eMail from the Lexington Opera House about an upcoming musical that struck my fancy, "Fiddler On The Roof". I've seen the movie several times but never seen a stage production. I queried my hubby as to his interest and received a positive result. So off to my sewing room I went to place an order for tickets.

I tried first for Saturday evening tickets and could only get obstructed view seat. I mean really...who in the world deliberately purchases obstructed view seats. Why would a theater place a chair in front of a pole or other object. Well, as you can tell, I was not going to purchase obstructed view tickets. I called the Opera House and got tickets over the phone instead of over Ticketmaster. We got Sunday evening tickets on the 3rd row aisle seats. These turned out to be GREAT seats.

Claude and I exchanged gifts on Saturday. I gave him the last two seasons of Monk and thought he might want to view them on Saturday evening.

He gave me a beautiful necklace. It is a silver key. The top of the key has two hearts with rubies on them. One is larger than the other and it looks like my little heart is nestled under the arm of Claude's bigger heart. At least, that is the image I see when I look at this. The lovely pendant came on a short silver chain. I was greatly impressed that Claude, knowing my preference for chains at least 30 inches in length, purchased a new chain for this pendant. Thank you dear for knowing me so well.

Sunday, our actual anniversary date, we went our separate way in the morning. Claude was off to visit Owingsville Ward and I headed to Georgetown to our Ward. We met at the Mexican restaurant for an anniversary lunch. Then Claude headed home and I went to sit with my mom for an hour.

When I got back to Sadieville we had a couple of hours to rest so I read some more in my novel. Then we loaded ourselves into the Jeep and headed to Lexington.

I've grown to love this little Lexington Opera House. This was our first time sitting in the Orchestra seats. It just a comfortable theater, not really big at all, but just a very nice feel to it.

The production was excellent. All the wonderful songs you know from this musical were performed during the play, "Tradition", "Matchmaker, Matchmaker", "If I Were a Rich Man", "Sabbath Prayer", "Sunrise, Sunset", and "Far From the Home I Love". During the intermission, I could hear people coming in and out of the theater humming or quietly singing, "If I Were a Rich Man". I have to say as I watch Tevye performing that number I could see Claude on the hill working this summer and singing that like Tevye when he thought no one was looking. His arms in the arm and his feet stamping out the rhythm in a little dance. I told him about this during the intermission and he had a grin. I assured him I would be checking frequently to see if he was out there singing while he worked.

I truly believe my favorite song in the play though is "Do You Love Me?" All these changes are happening to Tevye and Golda as their oldest three daughters get married. They are not sticking with that 'tradition' everyone has always known. It causes Tevye to reflect on his life with Golda. Theirs was an arranged marriage. They met on their wedding day. They both express their nervousness at this. In the song, Teyve asks Golda, "Do you love me?" Her musical response is a listing of all the things she has done for him during the 27 (I think that number is accurate) years together. The point being, it must be love is I did all of this and stayed with you during poverty and everything else. But Teyve wants to hear the words and he continues with musically asking Golda, "Do you love me?" Eventually they end with they do love each other, not that saying this out loud makes them love each other, but saying it is "just good to hear". It is just a sweet and tender piece of music and expresses a wonderful view of marriage and how love is expressed. I found it totally appropriate for our anniversary and for a Valentine's Day song.

We both totally enjoyed this stage production of "Fiddler on the Roof". I promptly stood for the standing ovation at the end. It was a great date for our anniverary.

This morning was Valentine's Day. We usually don't do much for Valentine's Day. Claude always bought each of our kids a box of Valentine's candy when they were little. He now gets something sweet for each of the grandmonsters. But our celebrating is our anniversary the day before. But, this morning I fixed me a glass of orange juice for breakfast and then set out to wash dishes from the day before. (That's right, I do not do my dishes everyday. And I have NO issue with that.) I turned around from my dishwashing to get something off the island. Claude had quietly set a bag of 'Chocolate Turtles' on the island to surprise me. One of my favorite animals in candy form, and chocolate candy at that. What a guy!! He was scoring BIG points the last few days.  I have saved the bag and when we sit to watch a movie tonight, or Monk, or whatever, we'll share this delightful little treat for our Valentine's Day celebration.

Now...the funny from this morning.  I know this will lose something in the telling over the actual experience but I want to remember what a cute moment it was.

Claude and I both woke up about the same time this morning. I rolled over and asked him if he was going to City Hall before his meeting. He told me he was. I said, "Then, when you return, you'll find me right here (meaning, still in bed). He chuckled at that and assured me, knowing my lack of ability to sit still for long, I would be up well before that time. I told Claude I had stayed in bed all day before, of course, I had just had major surgery both times, but I did stay in bed all day. Another chuckle from Claude. Then we agreed that he is better at 'resting' than I am. Our kids will get a chuckle out of that!!  Next we somehow managed to get to sleeping like a stone or something. The end comment was Claude saying, "I'm like my favorite stone. I'm a sedentary stone." This caused major laughter on my part. My hubby had a major in college of geology. Think about his comment and then my laughter. Finally I composed myself enough to say, "I believe the rock is called 'sedimentary' rock...not sedentary stone." Then Claude had to laugh as well. I'm tellin' ya...old age can be quite funny!!

Next funny of this morning...

I called Andie to check on Hayden. He has not been well again this weekend. There was question of his being able to go to school today. This was to be his class Valentine's party and Andie didn't want him to miss it. So, I called to see if he made it to school and how he was doing. Bailey was within ear shot of the phone conversation. I heard her come up to Andie and ask, "Who are you talking to?" Andie did just what she used to be able to do to Hayden and said, "I'm talking to Darlene." Darlene is my middle name.  I can only guess the expression on Bailey's face as she tried to process who in the world 'Darlene' was. Andie asked her if she would like to talk to Darlene. Bailey said yes and Andie handed the phone to Bailey.  I said, "Hello, is this Bailey Marx?"  Short pause as her little brain processed. Then she said, "This is not Darlene...this is Ma!!"  I tried to explain to her that my name is Sandra Darlene Lawrence Christensen. But dear little Bailey was adamant, "No, your name is MA!!" It is fun to mess with their little heads a bit every now and then.

I have had a great anniversary and Valentine's Day is turning out great as well.

From the Youngest Guy to the Oldest Guy In My Family...

In January I went to LaGrange to watch Hayden and Bailey so that Michael and Andie could go to the theater in Louisville to see a play. When I arrived at the Marx home, Hayden gave me a present he made for me.

In his kindergarten class, their teacher gave them a coupon book for a Christmas gift. The coupons were things that could be used in class during the remainder of the year. Hayden turned in one of his coupons that allowed him time to work on art. He spent that time drawing a picture for 'Ma' (me).

My lovely picture present is a purple turtle. That alone is just wonderful. My favorite color is, and has always been, purple. I LOVE turtles. So for the youngest guy in our family to make a purple turtle is, in and of itself, just magnificent. Hayden actually drew this turtle in the water and swimming toward the brown land on the left side of the picture. I just love that. If you look carefully at the bottom of the picture you will see green squiggles under the water. That, my friends, is seaweed.

Silly Moi put all the things she worked on in a pile to bring back with me when I came home the next morning. Then I promptle walked off without them.  I called the Marx home and told Andie that I left my picture and some other things. She saved them and I got them when we went for Bailey's birthday party.

I've begun the practice of scanning pictures the kids make. This is the scanned version. I just want to thank Hayden for using one of his precious coupons to make a gift for his 'Ma'. It brings joy to my heart each time I look at it. It is taped to my closet door in my sewing room so I can see it often.

Today I spent the morning at Papa's apartment. My goal was to do some deep cleaning. Claude had two meetings in Georgetown so we could ride in together, he dropped me off at Papa's while he went to do meetings until 1pm. Papa and I had a nice chat about some things that he needed to talk about, I cleaned the front bathroom and part of the kitchen.

As I cleaned the counter over the kitchen sink, I came across two clear plastic bags. They were sealed shut and each contained a piece of plastic. I couldn't figure out what they were. At first glance the red one looked like a whoopie cushion that you would need to blow up. The other one was a turquoise color. Hmmmmm...

I showed them to Papa.  He looked at them and didn't remember what they were either. He opened one of them to see what the object inside really was. It was a piece of plastic that is about 6 inches wide and 3 feet long. That is it, just this silly piece of plastic that is very stretchy. Papa suggested after looking at it that they might be tourniquets. I told Papa they seemed a little long to me for a tourniquet, unless you needed to put one around your belly!!! We had a chuckle and I brought them home to see if Claude had any ideas.

I showed them to Claude and, without any prompting from me, he also thought they were tourniquets. I'm not sure but that is what we will go with.

It was fun to go through all the things piled on that counter. We found a teeny, tiny boom box that is actually a little bitty radio. Amazing. We also found a little flat metal thing that you can record sound to. The sound on it is a baby laughing. We're not sure whose baby it is but we are thinking it is Hayden. If any of the rest of the family may have given Papa an item with the sound of their baby laughing, please let me know. We left the sound on it and put it back on it's place on the shelf.

So there you have the discoveries of the oldest guy in my family. There is a lot of stuff in that apartment and I'm sure as Papa and I dig through it, we're going to find lots of interesting things. Right now Papa is going through journals and family history stuff and sorting it into boxes for him and for Mimi so it will be easier for me to work with in the future.

I do love my family. There is always some little thing going on to keep life fun and interesting.

I Have Been Remiss...

January 25th I entered a regular post to my Blog. I didn't enter another until February 7th. That is almost two weeks without a blog entry.

Each time I sat down to write a Blog entry during that two weeks I searched my brain for the right 'title' for the post and couldn't find a title or the emotion to write. Sad...but true. February 7th I sat down and determined the best way to get back to my blog was to start one separate blog entry to fill with miscellaneous things (this Blog entry) and to go ahead an create the two full entries I knew I wanted to make.

When I began this Blog entry, I thought of the word 'remiss' and looked it up in my trusty dictionary I keep on my desk. The 3rd definition is the one that fits my feelings about not blogging recently. That meaning is: not energetic; languid; sluggish. That would be my feelings over the last few weeks. I can find many reasons for this feeling. Winter is really hanging on all over the place and it is particularly prolonged in Kentucky. I had bronchitis in December and Influenza A in January and it has left Claude and both tired and listless a lot of the time. We made three quick trips during that time and travel leaves one tired. And sometime, not all the time (thank heavens), a girl just gets a little blue and has to work her way through it. Even if that girl is 60 years of age.

February 7th I picked myself up by the bootstraps (figuratively speaking) and set myself back on course again. I did this by starting this particular entry and adding to it as I completed a couple of other blog entries I want to do about particular events. These are just tidbits that have happened that I want to remember and I'll let this be the 'tidbit' entry.

So here, in no particular order, are some of my tidbits of thought over the couple of missed weeks.

Got a great call from Katelyn Sunday, February 6th. She has been asked to give her first talk in Sacrament meeting on February 20th. She was so happy she was about to burst when she called to tell us. This has prompted Claude and I to make plans to attend her Sacrament meeting in Muskegon, Michigan to hear this talk. This allows us another opportunity to visit with the Michigan branch of our family again.

Wed, February 2nd, was my Countryside Homemakers meeting. I taught the lesson this month that is provided by the Scott County Extension office. It was on Green Cleaning Products. It was a fun lesson to learn about and teach. I was able to include a recipe for the veggie cleaner that Andie, my daughter, makes and a recipe for liquid soap that Bonnie, my mum-in-law, makes. It is great fun to go to the training to teach these lessons and then to present them to our own chapter. I have told our Relief Society president about this training and offered to share it with the Relief Society sisters in our ward if it is ever needed. I did that last year with the Osteoporosis class.

I did learn another very easy dessert recipe at Countryside Homemakers. Our chapter president make these delicious mint cookies. She melted the melting chocolate that comes in a block that you can break off sections of. Then she put a tiny bit of mint flavoring in that melted chocolate. Next she dipped a Ritz cracker in the chocolate so it was completely covered in chocolate. The chocolate dipped cracker was placed on wax paper to cool. I ate one of the edible wonders and it tasted exactly like a Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie. I am not kidding...it was just delightful.

At Church the members are now responsible for cleaning the building once each week. In the past, our Ward (congregation) has chosen to assign this to the auxilliaries and priesthood groups. They have determined this year to try assigning a few families each week to do this cleaning. Claude received an eMail that he and I, the Bolton family and the Durkin family were to clean the building this last Saturday, February the 5th. I called the other two families to see what time would work best for them. The Boltons could only clean Friday evening or Saturday between Eddie getting off work and then driving the kids to Louisville for a special fireside with the youth. The Durkins could clean either Friday evening or Saturday morning but only one of them could come either of those times. Claude and I needed to be able to get Papa and be to LaGrange by 11am Saturday to celebrate Bailey's birthday. We all determined to clean Friday evening at 6pm.

Claude and I arrived at the Church at 6pm. There was no one there. Neither of us has keys to the building anymore so we just waited in our car. After a bit Eddie and Bernie Bolton arrived in their car. They live across the street from the Church and have a key to the building. About that same time Kelly Durkin arrived. Eddie explained that they had friends who wanted to meet them in Frankfort Friday evening. To facilitate this, their family came over earlier and had already taken out the trash and vacuumed all the floors. This left the kitchen and the bathrooms for us to do. Eddie unlocked the building and then locked us inside to do our cleaning. This way, when we left the building would be locked. Eddie and Bernie headed to Frankfort to meet up with their friends. Kelly headed to clean the kitchen and Claude and I took the bathrooms.

I mention all of this because I was struck by the willingness of the Bolton family to pick a HUGE part of the cleaning process and tackle it as a family before the rest of us could come. How thankful we were for willing hearts and hands to get this done as quickly as possible. It was fun to work with Kelly in finishing up our cleaning duties. A big thank you to both of these families for all they did to make the responsibility as light as possible.

Tuesday, February 1st, I went to the Lexington Stake Center with Claude and Papa. They go there every 1st, 3rd and 5th Tuesday afternoon to cover a shift at the Family History Center contained in that building. I went with them so I could practice the organ for their 3 hours shift. I was to play the organ in the Lexington North Stake Center for a special stake meeting conducted by Elder David Bednar on Sunday, February 6th. I really needed time to practice. Even though this would not be the organ I would actually play, it would give me the practice of using the pedals and practicing the music on an organ instead of the piano. It was great fun and after 3 hours I was beginning to get the hang of it again.

After Claude and Papa's shift was over, Claude treated us to 5 Guys Burgers. This was Papa's first foray into 5 Guys Burgers and he totally loved his burger. Claude had the presence of mind to only buy one large fry. That was plenty for the 3 of us.

Claude attended the City Official's Academy at the Marriott in Lexington Wednesday, January 26th thru Friday, January 28th. This is training for recently elected City Officials that is done by the Kentucky League of Cities. It is excellent training. Claude has attended before. This time he attended at the Mayor of Sadieville. We have 4 newly elected City Commissioners. They each arranged their schedules so they could attend all the training. One is a mom with a little boy in pre-school. She had someone watch him for her. One works 2nd shift at Toyota. He came to the training and then went to work on his shift after that. One took vacation from his job to attend the training. We were so happy and pleased with these new commissioners dedication. Claude was so cute. He would come home and say, "All the kids were there again!!"  He was just very proud of these new commissioners.

Maybe I can stay on track now. This morning I woke up and to a beautiful scene. We had snow Tuesday and some flurries on Wednesday. It has stayed cold and the snow isn't melting. It was cold enough this morning that we woke up to ice on all the trees. It was just beautiful. The sun was coming up and shining on those trees. I took pictures but the sun was so bright it would caused lots of glare on the pictures. Sometimes it is just a gorgeous world that we live in.

A Wonderful Meeting...

Sunday, February 6th, we had a special stake meeting in lieu of our regular three hour block of meetings on Sunday. Elder David Bednar was our special guest. He is one of the 12 Apostles of our Church. Elder Posey, our Area Seventy was also in attendance.

I was to play the organ and Claude was to lead the congregation hymns. This assured us soft, comfy seats at the front of the building. I don't get to play the organ often. I love to play the organ. I don't have any real organ training but I am capable of finding a nice set of stops and playing the hymns and some prelude and postlude. However, I found myself telling Claude Sunday morning that I was a bit more nervous than usual. There would be an Apostle in attendance and it just added a little more to my level of nervousness.

We arrived at the Stake Center in Lexington an hour early. The chapel was already full of people and the cultural hall was open and filling fast. Pres. Hymas, our stake president, had asked me to start prelude 40 minutes early. I told Claude I thought I should start right away. This was confirmed as we met Pres. Hymas when we entered the chapel. So I hurried to the stand and got the organ ready to play prelude for an hour.

Elder Bednar was in charge of how the meeting went. These are some of the remarks that meant the most to me from this wonderful meeting.

Elder Posey quoted Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me." What a wonderful scripture to focus on. He also said we need to know who we are, be who we are, and act who we are.
Pres. Hymas was asked to speak next. The thought I liked best from him was the reminder that 'the gospel is beautifully simple and simply beautiful'.

Elder Bednar requested some members come to the stand and bear their testimony. The first was Kathy Hymas, wife of Pres. Hymas. The J.T. Friemann (spelling) from the Frankfort Ward and Brittny Manwaring from the Georgetown Ward each bore their testimony. These are youth that are high school age.

Elder Bednar'a wife, Susan, gave a brief message. She shared her experiences being the wife of an Apostle and seeing the Church through the lens of being a world-wide Church. When Elder Bednar travels outside of the country, which is a great deal, she is invited to travel with him. This does not always happen when he travels within the continental United States. She was very happy to be able to travel with him this time. They lived in Arkansas for 20 years and have a deep love of the South.

Elder Bednar spoke for the last half of this two hour meeting. He started by telling us that, of the 192 (or something close to that number) countries in the world, the Gospel is now in 170 of those countries. Amazing!!!

God is not a changing God. He spoke to his children in Old Testament times and we have that record as the Old Testament. He spoke to his children in New Testament times and we have that record as the New Testament. He still speaks to us today.

The Church is not a building. It is a body of believers.

Agency is the capacity to act and not just be acted upon. We use agency to make and keep covenants. When we use our agency and make a covenant, we accept the terms inherent in that covenant. Then we are bound by the terms and must act within those terms. When we choose not to act within those terms we are not using agency, we are sinning.

The Atonement does not just provide the ability to have our sins remitted after we repent. The Atonement is also provides an enabling grace or a strengthening power to aid us in living and serving Him. This can ease our burdens and help us carry the loads we experience in life.

This was a beautiful meeting. The closing hymn had three verses. The end of each verse had the word Allelujah repeated three times. As Claude led and I played the organ for this hymn, I was overjoyed as the congregation sang those thre Allelujah's at the end of each verse. They actually took a breath between each one so that each Allelujah was accented. It was very powerful.

This meeting was just great. I'm so grateful I was able to attend. It was a filling experience.

Bailey's 4th Birthday...

Tomorrrow our little Bailey Marx will turn the ripe old age of four. Zip...and the time flew by. This is a great age for kids because four fingers are much easier to hold up than two or even three. Claude, Papa and I journeyed to LaGrange to have a family celebration for Miss Bailey Marx.

Bailey wanted a 'unicorn' birthday. Bailey LOVES horses. Especially the white ones. So it is natural that she would want a unicorn cake for her birthday. Andie, loving all things that are 'food art', found a My Little Pony cake that could be adapted very easily to be a unicorn cake. 

When we arrived Andie was finishing up the icing on the cake and Michael was finishing picking up the toys.

Hayden and Bailey were so very happy to have old people to play with. Papa stretched out to watch and catch little naps as he could. Hayden brought in his pretend light sabres for him & Claude. I like the second picture of Hayden and Claude because it looks like Claude is actually trying to use the Force on Hayden. Oh my... 

Bailey entertained me with a tunnel and all it's possibilities. The tunnel's final role was as the entry into, in Bailey's words, "The most perfect dog house I ever made!!

Michael headed out to pick up our barbeque dinner and the kids pulled out their Leapster's to calm down a bit before dinner. Hayden was such a great little host. He taught Claude how to play a game and enjoyed watching his Grampa play with the Leapster.

Michael returned with the food. Hayden brought in the special plate Andie made at a ceramics class for the celebratee to have their cake on. He placed it at the head of the table for Bailey. She was very happy to take her seat where this special plate was waiting for her unicorn cake.

Andie had Hayden help her get the cake ready to be brought in. Hayden carried in one corner to help Andie get it to the table. We were all ready to sing 'Happy Birthday' to Bailey. It took a few tries but she got all the candles blown out.

Now, here is a picture of just this cake before it was candled or cut. It was just a beautiful cake.

Bailey wanted the part that would have been the cheek of the horse. Hayden wanted the eye with all that sugary decoration. It was not only a beautiful cake, it was also delicious.

Michael had Hayden help him set up the gifts in the family room for Bailey to open. Then the rest of us joined them in the family room. Bailey started out in the big chair and eventually moved to the floor. Hayden would hand her a gift. She would tear into it, thanking the giver after the gift was opened, then Hayden would quickly give her another to open. Bailey loves to open one gift and play with it and then open the next. This system with Hayden helping kept the show moving and then the kids played with Bailey's birthday gifts.

Bailey received lots of fun gifts but I'll just share a few here.  Andie and Michael gave her a DVD about how to do ballet. It came with a ballet barre and mat. The mat has the positions for your feet in the four or five positions that most of ballet is done in (according to the DVD). Claude and I gave Bailey a new leotard and practic tutu.

One of the funniest moments was Bailey placing her doll in the baby carrier she got. The carrier had straps to hold it up like a basket. Bailey would put these on her shoulders to wear like a backpack. That would work just fine, however, watching this poor doll flop around and be upside down at times while Bailey tried to wrangle it on her back was just too funny. Makes one very happy they play with dolls to learn these skills.

Bailey's big gift was a horse, not a real horse, but a big stuffed horse she can pretend to ride on. It was so much fun watching Bailey and Hayden play with this horse. Pictures don't do it justice but here are a few pictures to get the feel of their fun. Papa got a huge laugh out of watching Hayden combing the horses mane. At one point Hayden licked his hand and wiped it on the hair to get it to stay in place...wonder where he learned that trick!! Papa was in stitches.

Now, I have to explain this one. It could be titled "Children's Ingenuity". Right after the kids saw the horse they kept trying to figure the best way to get on it. Eventually they would realize you could step up on the footstool and get on. And lastly, they got the hang of putting a foot in the stirrup to get up on it. But at first, it was great fun to see them try to figure out just how to get on top of that horse without someone lifting them up and setting them on top. In one of their earliest attempts, Hayden set on the floor at the back of the horse and Bailey sat on his head as he tried to lift her up to get on the horse. Such a caring brother for his younger sister. Here is a picture:

It was soon 2pm and time for Hayden and Bailey to have quiet time as well as time for us to get Papa home to let Tiny, his little dog, out. We said out goodbyes and got hugs around and pointed the red Buick toward Georgetown and then Sadieville. It was a really fun little family party for Bailey. Happy Birthday little one!!