tears from heaven...

It rained today. I know why. As the rain pitter pattered on the metal canopy, TAPS played solemnly in the background. The graveside surrounded by mourners whose hearts were heavy with sadness, and heaven wept. For us. Uncle Gus left this earthly exsistence to reunite with his mother who he hasn't seen in over 58 years, his father, brother, and other loved ones.
The service was beautiful, full of rich memories of a father who taught to love, to appreciate family, to find happiness in the simple joys of life, rather than the "things" that often cloud our perspective on what's really important in life. I couldn't help feel a little sorry for myself as my cousin Greg recounted some of his favorite memories about Uncle Gus, because although I spent more time with Uncle Gus's family than any other of my relatives, I realized I didn't really know the man Gus at all, and now it's too late.
Growing up, Christmas evenings were spent gathered at my Uncle Van's house for dinner, playing air-hockey downstairs with the cousins while the adults chatted upstairs. Easters found us at Antelope Island with Aunt Bessie's family. Flying kites and wading in the shallow, salty water. Eating a picnic packed in our easter baskets. Memorial Days found us in Lyman at Grandpa's old homestead where Uncle Jack and Uncle Tom's families lived. After the long 4 hour drive, I couldn't wait until I got to see my cousin Faun and waited impatiently at Grandpa's house till my parents finally dropped me off to spend the weekend.
But Thanksgivings were reserved for Uncle Gus's family! Turkey, mom's homemade rolls and Aunt Peggy's apple pies. Afterwards while the adults visited, us kids would go downstairs, turn off the lights and play "Murder in the Dark". New Years Day would find our family at their house, inspecting their new christmas gifts. While the adults spend the afternoon playing a competitive game of RISK, we played with the cousins new toys and games. I remember every year Paula would get a bottle of "GEE, Your Hair Smells Terrific!" shampoo in her stocking. I would be so jealous, it really did smell good!



Summers would bring us together for barbeques, shasta soda and sparklers on the 24th of July, and since our birthdays were only 2 days apart, occasionally we would celebrate together. One year Aunt Peggy made me a blue 2-piece swimming suit. I thought I was so cool! Without fail, every summer, Paula and I would spend a week at either my house or hers. I loved her house best because she lived in the valley where we could spend hours riding her tandem bike on the flat smooth roads. She loved my house because we could spend hours riding down the steep, fast hills. I do remember one year Uncle Gus called my mom to let her know he was in town for work and was wondering if I would like to tag along back to his house. He picked me up in his big delivery truck, which I felt so cool driving around in. He had to make a few stops at 7-11 to deliver his goods, and at one point pulled out from the back a package of beef jerky and a pop to give to me. I felt so special. I wish I could remember what we talked about during our journey to West Valley, but I do remember not being so shy around him after that.
I have great memories growing up with my cousins, but as far as getting to know my uncles and aunts, I'm afraid I didn't. And that is the sadness that weighs heavy on my heart now.

This has caused me to reflect on my own relationships with my neices and nephews. Do they know me or am I just the aunt who sits in the living room and visits with their moms while they play outside with their cousins. Do they know I like to make up silly poems, that I sing and twirl around the kitchen while I cook, that I like to talk in funny accents and sometimes make up my own words? Or will all I ever be to them is Chelsea, Kayla's and Trey's mom, wife of funny Uncle Tary. I hope to be more than that. I hope I take the opportunity to get to know them better as well.

Uncle Gus, I may not have known you well enough to earn my own nick-name, or well enough to call you by yours, but I do know enough. I know you loved your family and you taught them well. I know you were a good man, a wonderful husband and father. I know you loved my Mom and Dad and loved to hang out with them as much as I love to hang out with my brothers and sisters.
And when we meet again in heaven for the Big Family Reunion in the sky, I'll take the time to get to know you, cuz after your funeral I've got a bunch of questions for you.

No. 1 - You really taught your 7 year old how to drive?

To the Man...Happy Anniversary!

24 years ago today, Tary and I were married. Hard to believe it's been that long ago, I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was so young and naive, I don't know what Tary was thinking when he wanted to take me on as his partner. I didn't have much to offer back then. I didn't know how to cook much, hated to clean, (I was still a teenager afterall) and thought married life would just be "the date that never ended". Told you I was naive.

So today I would like to pay tribute to the man who has stood by my side all these years. To the man who didn't even yell at me when I dropped a quart of paint on the carpet (I yelled and swore enough for the both of us) To the man who changed my tire at midnight because I mentioned it in passing as we lay in bed that my car was acting funny (i over-inflated the tire and had a blow out) To the man who flinches only briefly when I snuggle my cold feet up to him at night. To the man who wipes away my tears when I cry over sad movies, who paints the kitchen baby-poop green, and the living room puke yellow, and is man enough to admit it doesn't look as bad as he thought. To the man who stands in long lines to register my car at the DMV, and who thinks to check the oil in my car. To the man who uses his strong hands to open the jar of pickles, tightens the leaky faucet, massages my feet when I have cramps. To the man who gave my children their curly hair, their dimpled chins, and whatever athletic ability they might posses. To the man who has encouraged me along the way to become the wife and mother I am today.

To that man, I love and adore, even more today than 24 years ago. Thank you for making all of my girlhood dreams...

reality!

Say What?!

Burgerlady 1
Originally uploaded by Zeptonn / Stinger

Please read post below...still learning how to do this blog thing. Thank you.

Say What?

The other night, Tary and I were watching some show on the Discovery Channel called "Hamburger Heaven", or something like that. They were spotlighting some of the best hamburger joints in the U.S. They looked really good, except for the burger in New York that cost $41, that right there would turn me into a vegetarian pretty quick. Anyway, this one lady had this Ginormous burger in her hands, and she was trying to figure a way to gracefully shove it into her mouth with a camera inches from her face, knowing that thousands would be watching, and I'm sure was concentrating so hard on trying not to slop it all down the front of her, that she wasn't thinking enough about what she was saying. This is what she said: "I don't know how I'm going to get this around my mouth"...say what? I'm pretty sure what she meant to say was 'I don't know how I'm going to get my mouth around this'...and the funny thing is, (as if that wasn't funny enough) I totally let it slide. In my mind I heard what she was trying to say. If Tary hadn't pointed it out and repeated it (while laughing) several times, I never would have given it a second thought. But my husband is good at that...he listens. Me on the other hand, it usually goes in one ear and out the other before my brain has a chance to digest the words. I think that's a self preservation skill us Mothers learn in order to keep our sanity. Or maybe it's because I speak another language, and that lady and I have the same dictionary. Let me give you an example:
Christmas day: Our family sits down to a friendly game of "Taboo" that we just got from Santa. If your not familiar with it, your teammate tries to get you to guess the word they have, but can't use words to describe it from a list they have. Kayla is trying to give us clues, goes something like this..."...this is what they do at the beginning of a sports event to see what team gets to kickoff first..." oh, oh I know this one..."toin coss! toin coss!" I'm greeted with puzzled stares, so I shout louder in case they didn't hear me clearly..."toin coss! toin coss!" They heard me clearly alright, they're all laughing now and saying "No, that's not it" What? it has to be. More clues. Yes, that's it. I said it already, more exasperated now, "TOIN COSS!"...buzz. times up. The answer was "coin toss"...that's what I said! Toin Coss!
So lady, whoever and wherever you are...take comfort, I know what you meant.
As for my family, next year for Christmas, you'll all be receiving a new dictionary...Linda's Edition. And yes, Toin Coss will be there!

Ode to Spring

I've been wanting for the past couple of weeks now to officially welcome in spring. I'm still waiting. It's been rainy, snowy, cold, gray and yucky for much too long now. I know in Utah that's what spring is all about, but I'm getting weary of it all.

I just want to go outside and read a good book on my warm cement porch. I want to go watch my son play his baseball game (3 games cancelled already due to weather). I want to tip-toe through my tulips. I want to turn my face to the sun, close my eyes, and drink in the warmth on my face (maybe get a tan too). I want to smell the fresh grass clippings from the first cut of the season. I wanted to spend easter saturday at Antelope Island, flying kites, digging in the sand and wading in the shallow water.

Am I asking too much here? Oh, Mother Nature must be suffering with PMS. One day she is glorious and beautiful, the next day she is cold and insufferable. How long must you torture us?

Let me flatter you with praise so that you might soon come and stay. I call it:

Ode to Spring

Oh Mother Nature, hear me speak

your goodness and grace I do seek.

Our corner of the earth is cold,

so if I could speak to you so bold

I'd ask that you could take some pity

on poor little me, I feel so...

Tired of all this rain and gloom,

can't you send your sunbeams soon?

My sad little flowers need your rays

my pale white skin needs brighter days.

The baseball fields need dry green grass,

not muddy fields when they slide on their ...

assume for a moment we like the snow,

we do, in winter, but it's time for it to go.

The calendar says it's the middle of April,

the short spring season has been peediddled.

Before too long summer will come

and spring will be over before it's begun.

So let the sun come out and play

let it stay out the live long day.

Let it warm our homes, our skin,

let the allergy season begin!

The runny nose, the watery eyes,

the itchy throat, pollen filled skies.

Kleenex, nose drops, visine and more,
just thinking about it my nose is sore.


On second thought, I'll give it a rest;
afterall, Mother knows best!

Frilly...and a little Flirty

I love General Conference Weekend, I don't even care that it was rainy and cold. Makes it easier to be cooped up in the house watching TV all day when it's not sunny and warm outside. I usually sit in front of the tube with a good embroidary or quilt project to keep me awake, (it's just something about their deep soothing voices, Richard G. Scott everytime) but this time I cranked up the radio and sewed me a cute little apron while listening! I made my sister Wendy one for her birthday and thought it was so much fun, I just had to make me one!

They say 'Dress for Success', so I expect this little cute little thing will empower me to make gourmet dinners from hamburger and noodles, will encourage my rolls to rise to the occasion, and even spice up the perfunctionary (is that even a word?) welcome home kiss to my hubby. After all, what husband wouldn't love to come home to the smells of cinnamon rolls baking, steaks sizzling, potatoes au-grauten-ing, and a wife with nothing on but her frilly little apron. Did I say nothing else on? I didn't mean that, of course she would have on her high-heels and red lipstick too.

Now excuse me while I go make dinner for my family...peanut butter and jelly sandwiches tonight!

What?

You don't expect me to get my new apron dirty, do you?

It's been a red-lipstick kind of day!

I have an obsession, not with shoes or purses (ok, maybe just a little purse obsessed) I'm obsessed with lipstick. I have more lipstick than any two lips can wear in a lifetime. Apparently, my problem is that I have yet to find the perfect color for my lips. They look so pretty in their little tubes, and I think to myself, 'what color, when applied, would attract my husbands lips to mine' . Like a fish being lured by shiny things, I try to lure my husband with shiny pretty lips. (Maybe that's the problem right there, comparing myself to a fish.) Anywho, $8 later, and the perfect color on the box when applied on my lips becomes too orange, too red, too pink, too dark or too light. Oh what's a cover-girl wanna-be to do?

Lately I've had an obsession with red lipstick. Blame it on the cute quirky girl on the Progessive commercials, or Nie-Nie, (something else I'm obsessed about but that's another blog). Problem with red lipstick, it doesn't look good on me. It makes me look like a little girl who snuck into her mothers makeup case and went to town. My girls, on the other hand, with their full pouty lips, look like throwback girls from the 50's, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. Of course the irony in all this is that they hate to wear lipstick. A tube of lip-smackers, starburst strawberry, is as about as wild as they go.

They think lipstick is old-fashioned. Tell me, what is wrong with being old fashioned? Maybe that's what our country needs right now, a little more old fashioned women in society. Women who put on red lipstick and a frilly apron (blog to come) and twirl around the kitchen to the crooning tunes of Michael Buble or Frank or Dean while making homemade bread and soup to feed their hardworking husbands at the end of the day. Think of the good that can come out of your homes ladies, and it can all start with one small step...a good lipstick. Off the soap box, back to the red...
..I've determined I just don't have the lip shape to carry off the look. It's like comparing their full lips to red vines, and mine to twizzlers pull-aparts, one strand. But after watching "America's Next Top Model" and feeling 10 years younger, thanks to afternoon at the salon and coming home with a new color and hair-do (thanks chels) we threw caution to the wind and broke out the brightest red we could find and had our own "top mom model" photo shoot. Trey was our photographer, our little Nigel. He did pretty good don't ya think? And 2 seconds after we wrapped up (that's photo lingo for all done), the girls were scrubbing their lips until they were void of any color. I tried, as a mother, sometimes that's all we can do.
As for me, the search for the perfect color-lucious, irrisistable, seductive, kissable lips is still an ongoing process...until then, maybe just a little chocolate on the lips wouldn't hurt!