Sisterhood, Nature's Beauty & Music

Sunday, March 16th, the Elkhorn Creek Ward Relief Society gathered at the home of Sis. Cheryl White to view the General Relief Society Presidency Devotional Broadcast in celebration of the Relief Society birthday. 

The Devotional began with the General Relief Society presidency (President Camille N. Johnson, Sister J. Anette Dennis, and Sister Kristin M. Yee) speaking from the Red Brick Store in Nauvoo where the Relief Society was organized. Elder Dale G. Renlund then spoke to us. We followed this with a testimony meeting of the sisters in our ward. Then we enjoyed some light refreshments and mingling. It was a cup-filling, sisterhood building evening for each of us. 

Monday, March 17th, was St. Patrick's Day. When we woke up, I said to Claude that we should do something green. He suggested we find something in the back of the fridge!! Oh My!!

It was our Andie's birthday. I posted this on our family Facebook page. "Happy Birthday to our Middle-Most Child! Today I share a few pictures from baby to high school graduate of Andie Christensen Marx. Andie is a delight. We are so grateful she came to our home. May you have a very Happy Birthday with all your little friends in 1st grade running you ragged today. May you have some days that are not so full this coming year. Enjoy this walk down memory lane. Keep making memories. Love Ya Bunches!!"

I decided to do a home chore and clean the inside of our fridge, wipe down the kitchen cabinets and clean the inside of the microwave. This was good use on my right arm as much as I could. 

In the evening, Katelyn called. It seems Raelyn is taking a new medicine and she comes home ready to go to bed. This is very, very uncharacteristic of our Raelyn. Katelyn talked with the doctor to no avail. She was told to let Raelyn continue the meds. Katelyn wanted Raelyn to have a priesthood blessing. I told her to contact her Elder's Quorum president and he would be sure she had someone come to give Raelyn a priesthood blessing. Katelyn followed this direction and sent a text a brief while later that they had come and given Raelyn a blessing. Raelyn slept through it all. The brothers even commented that Raelyn was really not very active self. So grateful for the priesthood and the gospel. Good people who care for each other as family evening miles away from where I am. Such a blessing. 

Tuesday, March 18th, we spent our entire morning working with AT&T to install a new modem. I received a text from AT&T stating I needed to click a link in the text to get a new modem. Concerned this was a scam, I called AT&T directly, spoke to a very nice young man who sent us a new modem assuring me I could install it all by myself! Claude and I waited until a morning when we both could work together on this change. It seemed simple enough. We stood the two modems side-by-side on the modem stand. We unplugged one cord from the old modem and placed it in the new modem in the spot that matched its label. We unplugged the electric cord to the wall and plugged in the new cord to the wall. Then we were to wait and watch the little flashing light on the front of the new modem and it downloaded all the info it is supposed to download. The light was to turn green. This did not happen. The new modem flashed red quickly with a very occasional green light flashing. Eventually it kept only being red flashing quickly. After about 20 minutes, I found the number I had called about the text message and talked to another nice young man. He ran the new modem through several tests with me unplugging and counting to either 30 to 10 seconds before replugging things in again. He had to make some changes on the order. After a full morning of this, the modem finally worked. There went that day!!

I gave up on trying to do anything in Sandiland and went to the living room sofa to crochet and watch documentaries. I love documentaries. One was even about the Acropolis. Claude came in and watched that one with me as we are making a Greek Isles Cruise later. 

A very bright spot in my day was when I took the Relief Society birthday cards to the mail box for the mail man to pick up on Wednesday. As I left my front door, I noticed the little purple flowers filling the edge of our front flower bed. I have always loved purple as my favorite color. This, as Kim Mansfield used to say, was a 'slice of heaven'. When I came back from the mailbox, I stopped and took these pictures. Oh My, they are Beautiful. I was so happy I cut back the liriope and Claude and I cut back the tall decorative grass. Now these beauties could really strut their stuff.

Wednesday, March 19th, I realized this month was REALLY moving quickly! Zoom and it is gone!

I spent my morning getting airline tickets to Athens. It is a long flight and we wanted as few stops as possible. I managed to find tickets we both agreed on from Cincinnati to Charles de Gaulle to Athens and returning Athens to Atlanta to Cincinnati. Yeah!! It was grueling. We hoped to use our miles to help upgrade our seating. It would take all my and Claude's miles to upgrade and eventually figuring out that was not quite enough. I checked into transferring his miles to account and they charge $.01 per point + $30. Ugh!! Eventually, we decided to just buy the tickets I found that we liked in a step up upgrade. Since the leg of the trip from France to Greece is on Air France flying in behalf of Delta, I had to pay a premium for each of our seats. Sometimes life just nickels and dimes one to death!! But we had airline tickets. 

In the evening we went to Goshen, Kentucky to North Oldham County High School to watch Bailey play with the Oldham County High School Symphony Band in the KMEA (Kentucky Music Educators Associate) Assessment. This was a very, very, very windy day. Claude had to work very hard to keep the Jeep on the road. We made just in time to get our seats to watch Bailey come into the auditorium. She was so happy to see us there. Bailey had some places in the final number where she was the only French Horn playing. Way cool!! The band was excellent and received all "1" which means "Distinguished". This was a great final KMEA Assessment experience for Miss B. 

Now, this is where Claude and I realized we had only had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Nothing else to eat all day. We were hungry. We had decided to eat on the way home and really didn't think we would be that hungry but we were. We had decided to go to Mark's Feed, a barbeque place on Shelbyville Road. We got there and ordered an appetizer right off. It was something called onion straws. We ordered the small one, which was more than enough for the two of us. The server brought us our sodas and this appetizer with a delicious dipping sauce. Claude and I both felt like we had never eaten anything that tasted better. I am sure our hunger level had something to do with that but we both agreed this was a great appetizer and we would order it again. Usually we don't have an appetizer. We just might have to when eating and Mark's Feed.

Thursday, March 20th, was the first day of Spring!! It was a beautiful day. 

I spent my morning finalizing the airline/hotel situation for our Greek Isles Cruise. I had to select our eat assignments on the plan, I had to update my grid and I had to call the airline to give them our flights and have them remove them getting the flight. They would have gotten us flights but they would have been multiple layovers and sitting in the back of the plane. We had to add another night at the hotel. I will still have to find a way for us to get from the hotel to the airport when we depart for home. But it felt good to know all of this is in place. 

I spent a good deal of time on the telephone. Usually, I do not have many calls. This day I had conversations with several people for various reasons. It totaled a lot of time. But it was good to talk instead of text. 

I also started gathering the things we need to take on a trip to Michigan to visit with family. It was a productive day.

Friday, March 21st, we decided this was a good weather day and we needed to get out of our comfy little home. I gave Claude a gift card to Olive Garden for Christmas we had not used. And, our walking sticks came in the mail and we wanted to try them out. We puttered away in the morning with things we wanted to do at home. In the afternoon, our outing was to the Lexington Arboretum to take a walk with those new walking sticks. We did a mile long loop and learned that we like the sticks. I, for one, am much more wobbly on my feet. The sticks kept me walking in a straight line. They also helped me push a little as we went up little hills. It was a good first effort. We will try them in other places. Then we enjoyed a luscious meal of soup (for Claude), salads and bread sticks. So very good. It was a great outing for us.

As we walked, it was very evident we were into spring and winter was leaving us behind. We passed one tree full of dried leaves all pointing in the direction the wind must have been blowing them. They were almost frozen in time like the wind was constantly blowing. That was our winter. We also passed a tree budding out all over. That was spring. I love recognizing things like this.

Saturday, March 22nd, while a beautiful day, we would stay in our home and work on tasks we wanted to do. Before doing tasks, Claude suggested a biscuit run. Off to Bojangles we sped in the green Jeep. While eating our biscuits, we plotted our trip up north. Then I could send texts to family telling them our plan and asking if we could visit them on certain days. Now I'll need to make some hotel reservations. In a bit, we'll be 'On The Road Again' as Willie Nelson used to sing.

In the afternoon my big accomplishment was making two baby apron bibs for Katelyn's friends baby. I think these are so stinking cute! I had enough fabric to make the small and the large size. 

Sunday, March 23rd, was the Sunday I had to take the Relief Society roll. I struggle with this. Remember names has been an issue all of my life. I would make a fake name that used words that would help me remember the real name. Like when I was a teenager and we had a street named Gladstone, I called it Happy Rock and then could remember Gladstone. We have a lot of new ladies in our congregation because of a boundary change. I am trying really hard but we now have that spring move-in thing happening. Then we had visitors as a choir came to sing. Ugh!! I was so grateful for Heidi Barney as she was able to help me confirm a few names I wasn't sure of. Little blessing!

We had a great Relief Society Lesson based on Pres. Henry B. Eyring's talk in the October General Conference entitled "Simple is the Doctrine of Christ". We had a great discussion and the ladies shared well. I read the talk before attending and this quote jumped off the printed page to me. It is from Alma 7:23) “And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive.” It is okay to ask for the temporal things that are of worth and value to our lives. I love that I learned long ago to pause when I recognize something for which I should be grateful and say a quick prayer of thanks to my Heavenly Father for letting me know he remembers me. What an amazing relationship we can have with our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

We hurried home so Claude could get a little nap before we hit the road. Neither of us had a good nights sleep and we had the promise of nasty rain on our drive that evening. Best to start that kind of drive with a rested body and mind. 

We spent our late afternoon, early evening at Bailey's next to last Louisville Youth Orchestra concert. It was held at Christ Church United Methodist in St. Matthews, Kentucky. This church was truly beautiful. The banners along the front were the quotes from Christ as he was crucified. We are close to Easter. Bailey plays the French Horn and was on the back row, left end, third from the end of the horns. In one number she was the only horn playing in some places. This was the concert where they recognize the graduating seniors. Bailey was one of those. She also presented the guest performers with their bouquets of flowers. Our girl is really grown up and is about ready for that next step into adulthood.

We made it home just before the most powerful of the storms came. You know it was powerful when our lights flickered off for a brief bit. Our neighborhood power lines are buried and that doesn't often happen. It was a might storm with thunder and lightning. We were very glad we got home and inside before any of that madness happened.

Finally, I wanted to share some Facebook fun. Occasionally I find something on Facebook that makes me smile or even laugh out loud or it might make me pause as it says some tender feeling I have in my heart. This is one of the good things about Facebook. 

This one I shared on our family Facebook page. I made sure Hayden and Bailey were noted in the post. I have given each of them a Legos kit for Christmas for several years. This gave me a chuckle.

I found this one and immediately thought of Andie, our daughter. She is a first grade teacher and has a particularly challenging group of friends this year. I sent this to Andie in a text message and told her to 'hang in there" as the year is nearing an end. Ever the quick wit, Andie replied, "Well, we've gotten to the point where they use my words back at me so maybe that's saying something. I dropped a file folder and the papers spread out everywhere and one of my little squirrely friends just looked at me with big eyes and said, "Don't cry French fry." While another one of them said, "Is this a big problem or a little problem?" I loved the wisdom of my daughter and am grateful these precious little friends have her for a teacher. They may not realize it now, but they are richly blessed with her as a teacher.

PowerPoint, Crochet, Shop and Music...

Monday, March 10th, Claude and I both woke feeling off. No motivation despite things on our to do lists. Still feeling exhausted after a nights rest. Simply off. We decided we needed to do something so we didn't waste a day. The best idea we could come up with was start with a biscuit run. That should get us motivated and moving. It worked!!

I called Nissa while we were having our biscuit run. We talked with her for a while. She was down with a bad back. No fun. I also did some texting with Jake. Later in the day, Katelyn called Claude to tell us Drew wanted to be baptized. Not right now. He wants to learn a bit more. He wanted to talk or text with Claude. Claude did that. We will not push this. Drew has to be ready and want this change in his life. 

Claude got me his "Adventure in Key West" document. This is his record of our Florida Keys trip. Now, I needed to make a PowerPoint out of his document and my pictures. This will be our 'scrapbook'. I have already recorded my version in this Blog. I would spend my afternoon working on this PowerPoint.

Tuesday, March 11th, Claude had to be up way too early for either of us. I set my phone alarm. He was up before it went off to shower and get ready to go to Lexington to somewhere on the University of Kentucky campus for the Governor's Legislative Breakfast. After he left, I tried to sleep for about another hour. Then I gave it up and got up. 

In the evening, we journeyed to LaGrange to Oldham County High School with a stop in Frankfort at Cattlemen's Roadhouse for dinner. The purpose of this trip was to attend the KMEA Pre-Assessment Concert in which Bailey would participate. Every year the Kentucky Music Educators Association does and Assessment for all the high schools in Kentucky at a high school in the regional. Bailey's region will be at North Oldham County High School next week. There will be three judges grading them on their performance. Claude and I will attend that. To prepare the kids for this, they always hold a Pre-Assessment Concert and play their music for family and friends. This year we were surprised by Miss B. She was the solo French Horn in at least three places in their final number. She had not even told her parents. She wanted us to be surprised and were very happily surprised. She did great. 

Each of these we attend is the final one for our girl and us at this high school. Bailey is a senior and will be off to college next year.

Wednesday, March 12th, would be my first yard work day of 2025. I would spend my morning cutting back the liriope in the front flower bed and along the back fence. In the afternoon, I finished the Key West PowerPoint. Since I worked in the yard, that meant we had hamburgers for dinner! Burger King was our choice. We have a brand new Burger King built on the spot of the former Burger King. We decided to dine in and experience this new establishment. As we ate, I was looking around an noted this for the bathrooms. Someone has a very interesting sense of humor!

Thursday, March 13th, I helped Claude finish the front flower bed. It has two HUGE bunches of tall decorative grass. I should be trimmed back in the fall. We did not get that done. It now needed to have the old grass cut away so the new grass can grow this summer. Claude did the cutting it down with the tiny chain saw and then raking up the grass. I did the gathering, folding over and putting that grass in the big garbage bag in the big garbage can. My arm moved in twists and turns it hasn't experienced in a long while. It will be very sore for a while like any muscles would after exercise. It was good to be able to move like that again. 

In the afternoon, I cut Claude's hair and booked our shore excursions for our trip to the Greek Isles later this year. I also ordered us walking sticks for getting around Greece. It appears from all my study of shore excursions, that all of Greece and the islands are on hills that are paved with cobblestones or gravel and have stone steps that can be slippery. Maybe these walking sticks will help us not to fall as we did in Italy!!

Since we worked in the yard, we opted for 5 Guys burgers for dinner. Aren't we just the most clever!

Friday, March 14th, I awoke very tired. Laura reminded me on Thursday that we would have a Blood Moon that night. It really didn't start until late and went until early Friday morning. I set my alarm for 2:15am Friday and laid down on the living room sofa to catch a little rest. Claude headed to bed. I was awake by 1:30am and started checking on the moon every half hour or so. One of our local weathermen posted this timeline for Kentucky viewers of the Blood Moon. 

A Blood Moon is when the earth's shadow passes over the moon. When this shadow is completely over the moon, the moon appears a coppery red color. The first part I saw was like a dark bite was taken out of the bottom of the moon. As I went out at intervals, that dark area grew larger. It was great fun to watch. I took several pictures. I only kept these two. 

I figured I would fall right asleep after seeing all this. It was about 3:30am. I went to our bed and curled up in my flannel sheets and blanket. It felt so good but, alas, sleep did not come. I laid there for an hour. I believe my body thought the hour of sleep I had before viewing the Blood Moon was my good nap and it was time to get going. Ugh. I got out of bed at about 4:30am. I tried crocheting and other things. At 6:00am I went back to bed and finally fell asleep. But I didn't sleep in at all. I woke up very tired.

I had a very successful solo shopping trip. I needed to get the refreshments for a Relief Society activity on Sunday. Saturday was to be a very rainy and windy day. If I can help being out in that kind of weather, I plan to stay home. This meant doing my shopping on Friday instead of Saturday. I had a few other things I wanted to check on so I drove to Walmart instead of Kroger. I was very successful. I purchased two birthday gifts for April birthdays, my face cream and nail file, fabric and bias tape to make two bibs, the grocery list items for our kitchen and the refreshment items for our Relief Society activity. Yeah Me!!

I spent the rest of my day doing some crocheting until my arm hurt. It is nice to be crocheting again. 

This was our grandmonster, Aubrey Anne's birthday. I posted this on our family Facebook page. "Happy Birthday to Aubrey Anne Thompson (aka Bre Thompson)!! Hope you are smiling this lovely on your special day and throughout this coming year. Love Ya Bunches!!"

Saturday, March 15th, my heavens, this is happening way too often. Saturday morning I informed Claude I did not want to adult this day. He said, "It is Saturday and that is supposed to be a day to do what you want." Way to go Big Guy!! I gave in and decided to watch some television and crochet. That way my time wouldn't be wasted. I did that and then decided to do laundry while I crocheted and watched television. Eventually, I gathered my Relief Society birthday card gear and set up at the dining room table. Then I completed all the April birthday cards for Relief Society. It was not a shut-out of a day and I tried not to adult. But I did do some good things with my day. 

Sunday, March 16th, we did have big rain storms and wind last night. The winds started in the early afternoon to blow in the weather front. Saturday evening the rain, thunder and lightning came. During the night, I could hear waves of very heavy rain when I would awake to roll over. As we left for church, another round of rain started. After we got in the church, you could hear the downpour of rain. Now, it is gray and cloudy but the rain is supposed to be done.

Our chorister couldn't come. Claude asked if I thought I could lead the singing. I have not done that since my shoulder surgery. I did do it this Sunday. I realized I cannot bring my arm up as far as I used to and sustain that lift of my arm. But I can lead keeping my arm down a bit. We had good talks in sacrament meeting. 

We went to Jimmy John's drive-thru to pick up lunch. They came out after taking our order to get Claude's credit card. It seems the years the previous owner had the building, they let grease go down the drain. It had built up and now Roto-Rooter was out to flush out to pipes and get them back to a good place. They will have a very difficult day today. 

Claude got his nap. I rested and watched a Josh Gates Expedition Unknown and an Unearthed. Now I'm finishing my Blog up for the week. Tonight, I will take a couple of other ladies that live nearby and we will go to Versailles, Kentucky to Cheryl White's home to watch the General Relief Society Presidency's Devotional Broadcast to celebrate the Relief Society Birthday. Should be a nice time. 

Let's see what kind of trouble I can get into this coming week!!

An Average Week...

Monday, May 3rd, 2025, we would actually leave our home. It is very easy for me to spend all my days in my home. I have lots to do and love being in this lovely little home. However, there were things to be taken care of this day that were outside of our home. 

We first drove to Simpsonville, Kentucky to meet Lindy Meadows. Lindy is Laura's daughter. Laura is my BFF and would be having major surgery on Thursday. Lindy and Casey, her sister, hatched a plan to make matching t-shirts for their family. Everyone would take a picture of them in their t-shirt and these would be given to Laura after her surgery on Thursday. Lindy was kind enough to contact me to see if I wanted to be in this with them and Laura is like my sister. Oh, how happy that made me. Monday we drove to Simpsonville and picked up my t-shirt. What sweet daughters Laura has. 

This afforded Claude and I the opportunity for dinner out in Frankfort. We opted for Chili's. Then we went across the parking lot to Walmart so I could purchase new flowers for my parents grave. I was very happy with one of the bunches of silk flowers and, fortunately, they had two exactly alike. It take two or three, depending on the arrangement, to fill the flower vase on my parents graves. Once back in the Jeep, Claude drove us to Sunset Memorial Gardens and I replaced the flowers. I noted they had placed a marker number for the plots in this area. When my mother died in 2012, hers was one of only three or four burials in this newly opened section of the cemetery. Now there are lots more plots and I am sure this marker helps others to find their loved ones more easily. Claude pronounced the flowers beautiful. He is such a 'guy' that this comment was really appreciated. I stood quietly for a moment and looked at this spot. It is hard to explain, but I felt my parents very close to me for a moment. I know they are very busy doing heavenly things, so to feel them that close for that moment in time was cup-filling for me. 

Okay, I did a thing a bit back. I had been seeing ads for Chair Yoga plans. I have felt this would be a good thing for my exercise program now that my arm is so much better. I really wanted something I could do and would do in addition to the treadmill. I have a friend who is a nurse you was following this which gave me more confidence in trying it. I only purchased a week of the exercises. I downloaded the document and told Claude what I was up to. Asked him if he wanted to join me for chair yoga. He said he would like to do that. This Monday, we started our first day of chair yoga. Yeah us!!

Tuesday, May 4th, 2025, I received a text message from AT&T telling me to change my modem or I could experience problems with our Internet. At my age, you must question everything to be sure it isn't a scam. I decided to not respond to the text message until I called AT&T to verify they sent the message. Joseph, at AT&T, was the person I talked with. He was very cheerful and very, very helpful. He assured me he could do that right over the phone with me. Yeah!! As he got the information to send me a new modem and explain to me what to expect and how to return the old modem if necessary, he commented how nice it was to talk with a happy customer for a change. Isn't that a very sad statement on how we function as a society? He was so happy, he checked our billing for our Internet and said he could lower it by $10 per month. Yeah!! So, be nice people, be nice!

Before we ended the call about the new modem, Joseph said he could also check our cellphone bill with AT&T. This is bundled with DirecTV and is ridiculous. Joseph said he couldn't do anything with the DirecTV portion (this I already knew), but he could put us on a newer plan that covered the same things we have with this very old plan and save us another $60 per month. Hallelujah!! We made the change. It was very pleasant to work with Joseph. I commented to him that he made an old person very happy. He said I didn't sound old. I explained I am 74 years old and have earned every gray hair on my head. He laughed and I laughed. Then Joseph assured my I sounded like I was 30 or 35 years old. I left that call very happy. 

In the evening, Claude and I had an appointment to attend the temple in Louisville. After I showered and put on my makeup, I had Claude take a picture for me in my Laura t-shirt. The t-shirt has a saying Howard has said about Laura for years, "It's not the size of your arms, but the reach of your FIGHT!" Laura is fighting cancer. How great is that for a t-shire. And, Lindy had the presence of mind to have it made in pink which is Jessie's, Lindy's sister, favorite color. Laura is truly going to love this surprise and it should be a boost to her as she heals. 

I loved being at the temple. I put Laura, Howard, Jessie, Lindy and Casey's names on the prayer roll. Then went in for an endowment session. There is a female and a male officiator for each session. The male officiator at this session was Lance Meadows. This is Lindy's husband. This made this session even better for me. My friends names were on that prayer roll, I was taking the name of one of my ancestors through that endowment session and Lance was our officiator. When we left the temple, I quickly sent a text to Lindy and another to Laura explaining that Lance was our officiator. If I were a sign-seeker, which I am not, I would call this a good sign. I am a person who recognizes the hand of the Lord in our personal lives. This was definitely one of those times. 

Wednesday, May 5th, 2025, for breakfast I had my usual bowl of cereal. Claude made a fried egg sandwich. I took this picture and posted it on our family Facebook page. A great opportunity to share my feelings about a bit our family history.

"This is one of my favorite memories of Evan, Claude's father. He loved fried egg sandwiches. They were a mainstay of his diet particularly near the end of his life. The picture is actually Claude making himself a fried egg sandwich. Evan left his mark on his son in so many ways.

"I love hash browns. Evan would always make me a big plate of hash browns when we visited. He marveled that such a tiny person (I was tiny once upon a time) could eat a big plate of hash browns.

"Evan was such a good man and I am grateful for all his characteristics he passed to Claude.

"Ya'll have a great day and contemplate the value of a good egg sandwich...or whatever characteristics you want to pass to the next generation."

This day I would start walking my treadmill again. 15 minutes at 3 mph each day. I also crocheted around a girl burp pad. In the evening, I participated in a Google Meet call for our Relief Society presidency meeting.

Thursday, May 6th, 2025, would be a goal driven day. I woke up early and did my home PT and walked the treadmill. Then I showered and started the laundry. I started looking through the 83 potential shore excursions for our Greek Isle cruise. 

I did find this love picture on Facebook. Now purple is and always has been my favorite color. I shared the picture on our family Facebook page and assured my family they didn't have to, but it was okay if someone made me this cake. Andie asked about the recipe. I posted the recipe in the comment section. 

Purple Velvett Cake

Ingredients For the Cake:

          2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature

2 large eggs, at room temperature

2 tbsp red food coloring

1 tsp white distilled vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp (or more) purple food coloring

Ingredients For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 pound cream cheese, softened

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

Instructions:

1. Preheat and Prepare Pans: Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans.
2. Mix Dry Ingredients: In a medium bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder.
3. Mix Wet Ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together vegetable oil, buttermilk, eggs, red and purple food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla until smooth.
4. Combine Ingredients: Gradually mix dry ingredients into the wet mixture until the batter is smooth.
5. Bake: Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and bake for 25-30 minutes. Let cakes cool in pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Prepare Frosting: Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until smooth. Gradually add sugar, beating until fluffy.
7. Assemble Cake: Frost the cake layers and assemble the cake.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Servings: 12 slices

Friday, May 7th, 2025, was a day I will call "Together". 

Claude and I both woke up feeling very dizzy and off-kilter. We both decided to patiently get through the morning. We had our breakfast and sat for a bit together. In the afternoon, we sat at my laptop and made shore excursion decisions together. It was an hours long process. We decided three of the islands, we will stay on the ship and the others we picked shore excursions for. After doing this together for several hours, I looked at Claude and suggested we have an outing. He totally agreed. We had a couple of errands to run, so we did those first. Then we went through the drive-thru at Sonic and got a small chocolate shake each. We sat in Kroger parking lot and ate our shakes. Then we went in Kroger for separate reasons. Claude wanted to get bread and milk. I needed to check on refreshments for a Relief Society function on Sunday the 16th. We met back at the front of the store and headed home. Once there, we did our chair yoga together. At the end of our day with each of us relaxing in our recliners, I reflected on our day and thought how lovely that word "together" is. It is so nice to get to this point in a marriage and enjoy being with and having each other. "Together"!

Saturday, May 8th, 2025, was another at-home-kinda-day. I got up and did my home PT for my arm, ice up for a bit, then walked the treadmill. I was set to have a very productive day. 

Claude had given me his write-up of our Key's trip. I needed to read it and make sure all the order was right and punctuation was correct. I did that while I iced my arm. I gave the document back to Claude and he made his corrections and eMailed me a working copy to make our PowerPoint of our trip. I do this in lieu of a scrapbook. 

I decided to take all the other things off my desk and get as much done on this PowerPoint as possible on Saturday. I was actually looking forward to. I opened the new PowerPoint document. I got to the fourth page and my laptop completely froze up. I tried touching all the icons as it is a touch screen. I tried getting the mouse to move to click on something. I tried control, alt, delete to get the task master screen up, I tried pressing the power button to shut down the laptop. NOTHING worked. NOTHING. I closed the laptop and let it sit for a minute. When I opened it, I went through the same process of trying everything and it still was frozen on the PowerPoint page. UGH. I decided to just leave it alone for a while and see if that helped it catch up to all my entries. I started crocheting around a little girl burp pad. Then I tried again and nothing worked. I decided to unplug the laptop and let the battery wear down. This would take hours but at least then it me clear itself. Claude awoke from his nap. He went to Sandiland and pressed the off button with his finger and the laptop eventually turned off!!! I left off for a while. When I did turn it back on, it worked and all my documents came up and I could move around again. Hallelujah. I have received messaged stating HP would cease supporting my laptop would in July 2024. This meant, if it wouldn't work, I might have to get a new laptop. I really, really, really didn't want to do that. Thank heavens for a hubby with a heavy pointer finger on his right hand!! Thank heavens for a crochet project so all that energy I had for accomplishing things could be channeled in a different direction!

For dinner, Claude made BLT's. Then he made us strawberry shortcake for dessert. Yum. We spent our evening starting viewing the Ken Burns documentary about baseball. 

Sunday, May 9th, 2025, today was Ward Conference. Great talks in sacrament meeting by Bishop Barber and Pres. Holt. We had a really good Relief Society lesson taught by Elizabeth Christensen. After meetings, Claude went to get our lunch while I attended a meeting with the Stake Relief Society presidency and our ward Relief Society presidency. 

Claude got us salads from Panera for our lunch. They actually have my Asian Chicken Salad I love. what a treat! Claude took his nap and I sat to watch a Josh Gates before I came in to Blog. Alas, the Josh Gates Expedition Unknown episode was about his search for the Yeti in Nepal and Bhutan. What I did not remember, is this is 5 episodes long!! I did sit and watch all 5 episodes while Claude napped. I do enjoy Josh Gates and Expedition Unknown. 

When I checked Facebook today, I saw this and shared it with our family Facebook page. "Tortoise shaped house in Gobi desert, Mongolia. Be still my turtle-loving heart!!

Claude commented: "Oh crap, Now she's gonna want one."

Now I have Blogged. I will walk my treadmill after Claude finishes. Then we will do our chair yoga before sitting down for a bit more Ken Burns and Baseball. A good Sabbath Day!!

Home Again, Home Again...

And we are home again. A full week back home. A quiet week. 

Monday, February 24th, was finish up the laundry, get back at home PT, start blogging about our trip, etc. 

We came home to a very small amount of snow on the driveway and front door area. The problem, once again, was we got snow, then ice, then the temperatures stayed below freezing and in the teens while we were gone. Since the front of our home does not get direct sun this time of year, the slow melting caused ice to form over the drain along the roof. We have the lovely stuff to keep the leaves from getting in them. It also allows the snow to stay a bit and then freeze into ice as it thaws during the day and refreezes at night. I went to the kitchen to make myself some popcorn and saw my hubby on a ladder with a pick getting that ice to break up and fall into the flower bed below. Bless his heart!!

Tuesday, February 25th, I finished up blogging about our trip. Yeah me!! I awoke not feeling great so it was a good day to finish the blog and rest.

Wednesday, February 26th, I had my final day of office PT. I was amazed at how well my arm did while we traveled this time. It was markedly improved from when we did our Route 66 trip in October. I commented to Claude several time that I felt like we were at the end of office PT. When I finished all my exercises at Scott County Physical Therapy, Tina came over to do the stretching of the arm and shoulder. She asked about how my arm did on our trip. I assured her it was really good on the trip. After Tina stretched my arm and shoulder, she measured me and assured me it was okay for me to stop office PT. What I really need now is to strengthen the arm and shoulder and I can do that by continuing home PT. That was it. My movement is probably as good as it will get with this new shoulder made as it is. The strengthening and getting it used to doing all it did before I will do at home. Wow!! This is about the anniversary of my fall in Pompeii. What a year it has been. This shoulder had really ruled our lives in a lot of ways. So grateful for Scott County Physical Therapy. So grateful for home PT to support their effort. And, especially grateful for Claude and his unfailing support and help to get through repairing my right shoulder. I am blessed.

Thursday, February 27th, I again awoke feeling weak, feverish, and generally awful. Like I was coming down with the flu. I stayed inside and down all day long. Grateful we have food for our table. Grateful for this little home we have made and the peace and comfort I feel in it. Grateful for a hubby that loves and cares for me and understands with this older body just needs to rest.

Friday, February 28th, another day of not feeling well. I got the Relief Society newsletter for March disbursed and in the scrapbook. I also finished the snowflakes for the Relief Society Christmas gifts to the sisters this December. That was the sum total of my accomplishments this day.

Saturday, March 1st, we started a new month. Wow, how fast time flies as you get older. I felt better and was very grateful for that. I spent some time looking at our Greece trip, starting the grid for it and making a list of questions and things to do to be ready. We took the easy route for dinner and hit Taco Bell for a box of tacos. This has become a fun dinner to do every now and then. 

Sunday, March 2nd, we attended sacrament meeting. Oh, how grateful I am to take the sacrament. Claude had his very early morning Zoom Stake Council Meeting. We came home from church and he took a long nap, woke up and felt like he need more sleep so he took his second nap. Yeah Claude. It was a good, quiet Sunday afternoon. 

I want to talk about communicating with grandkids and great grandkids. First, let me share my memory of this communication when I was a child. It was done by personal visit or by letter. Pictures were taken with a camera using a roll of 24 or 36 pictures. You waited until you finished taking the roll of film before they were developed. You put the roll of film in to be developed which took several days. You picked up the negatives and pictures. Then you picked the negatives you might want copies of for grandparents, parents, whoever. Those negatives you took back and left for developing. A few more days later, you picked them up. Then you wrote a letter after labeling the back of each picture. You put the letters for that person in the envelope with the letter and they went in the U.S. Mail for several more days to get to your loved one. Quite a process as I briefly describe it here. But we felt very efficient and grateful we could send a picture every now and then to relatives far away. 

Phone calls were also only done on Sunday evening because you were charged by the minute for each and every long distance call. We would limit our time on the phone to 30 minutes. That is all we could afford with our budget. I might only call my parents once a month. Now you call at the drop of a hat and think nothing of the expense. Back in the day, we were very grateful for a phone to hear a voice many miles away for even a few minutes. 

Fast forward to today. Claude and I have 5 grandmonsters and 6 great grandmonsters. Over the last week or so, I have connected with four of these kids with this lovely digital technology we enjoy today. 

This is Emelia. She had a Daddy-Daughter Dance to attend. Her father works evenings and could not take her. His really good friend stepped up and took Emelia for him. This reminded me of a Daddy Daughter Dance we had at church. I was probably 10 years old. My younger sisters, Junie, would also attend this dance. She was probably 8 years old. We each needed a date and, of course, we only had one father. Junie went with Papa. I went with Uncle Harold, Papa's oldest brother. I loved Uncle Harold and had a wonderful time with him. I remember all the girls had to make creative name tags for this Daddy Date. Junie made drew snow shovels on heavy paper and put their names on the blades. I took a Styrofoam ball, cut it in half so it was like a snowball. I put ribbon coming down from the back with our names on it. When I found Emelia was going with Drew's friend, my heart was happy. Katelyn sent us this picture and brief video clip of Emelia going on her Daddy-Daughter Date.

Our Bailey loves Harry Potter. We started keeping her at our home after Thanksgiving and having a Harry Potter Fest. I found out a Harry Potter store was being built in Chicago. I also learned about a road trip to see the filming locations for Harry Potter. I sent the picture to Bailey about the road trip suggesting she might want it for her bucket list. Her reply was, "YES!"

Raelyn called us while we were on our Florida Keys road trip. She wanted us to say good-night prayers with her. We did and were so grateful she included us in this opportunity. We talked briefly as it was her bedtime. We told her we would be coming home across a road called Alligator Alley. She really wanted a picture. I send her these two pictures of the alligator we saw. Her response, "Wow". 

Our Hayden is going to DePaul University study film directing. He loves the movies. Every year when in high school, he and Andie, his mom (our daughter), would buy a ticket to see all the Oscar nominated movies. Hayden would print a list of the Oscar nominations and we would all vote on the movies we thought would win. Now, Hayden is at college but he still found an Oscar nominated movie ticket. All the movies would be shown over two Saturdays. Hayden works at a movie theater and was able to get the ticket for free and attend these two Saturdays watching all these movies. Hayden sent all of us Oscar ballots generated by ESPN. This morning, I got this report of the picks I made. Hayden titled the text, I am still the King! He will always be the King of predicting the Oscars. 

Connecting with these important young people in my life means the world to me. It is moments taken to connect and feel family across many miles. I am grateful for this good use of the digital world.