April Rose

UPDATE: Now I found I was duped, just like thousands of others. This was a hoax. I had become emotionally invested in B's story. I found the answer thanks to a friend (thx CM) who blogged about it. She calls it the "ugly side of blogging." And yes, it is.

She changed her name & plans to "clean" up her site to no longer include her family's real names. I don't know that I will go to that extent, I'm lazy, but I think I will change the status of who can view my blog. I have found it very therapeutic to write. I have always found it therapeutic to write.

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Little April Rose was born alive yesterday, Sunday, June 7 (see my entry about baby blogs). She weighed 4 lb., something. Today I hurried home from work to see how she is doing & there was an entry from April's daddy that he had closed the blog. I just checked now on my way to bed, as I have done for the past several weeks, & the blog's gone!!!! Gone! They took it down because of hateful artwork & emails. I just want to sit here & cry. I want to know how she's doing. I'll just have to keep praying for her family.

Thankfully, Jonah is doing well. He had some sweet potatoes today, his first food, & there was a sweet picture of a messy face. His Papa Jim, great-grandfather, can't go see him because of an ongoing cold. I saw Jim today, he stopped in at The Citizen on his way through town.

Sibling Party

The sibling party was very nice. Jim & Donna put a lot of work into it. Everyone was thanking me! I didn't do anything except plan it. Jim & Donna did everything else.

My phone was on low battery & so I only got 2 pictures. I should've had a tape recorder to tape the reminiscing. It would have been priceless.

Here's a picture of the sisters, backwards, but they didn't want to move Odetta. My picture was blurry, can't remember why, but I didn't want this picture. They broke up before I could retake it. I took a picture with Onda's camera, then Luana's camera & then used my phone camera. We were trying to get their legs all crossed the same way. So, from left to right is Maxine, 66, Donna, 68, Onda, 76, Luana, 78, & Odetta, 83. Hopefully Luana's & Onda's pictures turned out better than mine did.

Then the men. I made this picture larger because it's not as blurry as the girls' picture. Left to right here is Bernard, Larry, Keith, Dorin & Jim. Jim wasn't going to get in the picture because he's not a brother, they decided to do all the men. I want you to notice Larry. He has the TV remote in his hand & he is watching the TV, LOL. I think the Kentucky Derby was finally being run. They waited for it all afternoon & then people were starting to leave & they hadn't taken any pictures.

I think they took a picture with everyone. The ladies posed with Vaudis & Lucy in it, but I didn't get that picture, then they added me to the mix. I don't know if they did couples or not. I was too busy with Alashandra's baby Zeke by that time.

Moving in May, 5/2

As many times as I ran back & forth between Jim & Donna's house & the party room, I feel like I moved for 15 minutes. It just wasn't consecutive.

Today was the Porter siblings party. It was such a rainy day. Then this afternoon, it cleared off & was a beautiful, sunshiny day. I took Mother & Luana down in Don's car. It sounds like I'm going to have to buckle down & clean out my car because Donna wants to take Mother down to see their cousin Elva Larsen in Brigham City. Luana wants to go too.

Everyone was to the party except Larry's wife Madge. She was sick. Larry rode down with Keith & Onda, Maxine & Bernard. Vaudis rode down with Dorin & Lucy. Lucy drove. Donna & Jim's granddaugther Alashandra came to drop something off & we talked her into bringing Matt & Baby Zeke in to meet us all. They are blessing Zeke tomorrow.

We attended Burkley Balzar's baptism & confirmation this morning in Franklin. I THOUGHT Amber had said that Burkley would be baptized first, but no such thing. Whitney 2nd Ward was the host ward & the host ward's children are always baptized LAST!!

So, once I got over the disappointment & irritation, I decided that I'd just run home & get my rice pudding & laptop. Which reminds me, the laptop is still out in the trunk of Don's car. The rice pudding is a recipe I got from A Year of Crockpotting. Mine turned out very runny. I used skim milk instead of half & half or whipping cream. That may have been why. When I make it again, I'll use more rice.

Almost quit today

We kept having obituaries and weddings come in. We had a death notice from an accidental shooting of one of the community's prominent citizens. Mike Kunz, a businessman & city councilman, was cleaning his gun at his office down town this morning. It discharged & killed him. We also had an obituary. And then 2 weddings. Amy, job share partner, accepted one & had to jump the weddings, but turned the second one down. It was too late, there was no room.

Amy was so overwhelmed from weddings & obituaries & death notices that when I asked if the obituary was Mike's obit or a new one, she told me it was a new one. I asked who, she said someone from Whitney. She's new in the area, the names don't mean anything to her & I know this. Whitney is too close to home. I go to church in Whitney as part of the Whitney 2nd Ward & our ward shares the building with the other Whitney ward. I was positive it was someone I knew.

Then I found out that they had redone the obit page, page 9, and had started obits on page 5, the social page. Well, they (not sure who, but I'm assuming Rod, Bob, Kelly, Jessi & Krysta) shoved pages 5 & 11 through without me even seeing them, & checking for style. Pages 8 (DUP) & 9 (OBITS) were redone & sent to Bear River Publishing without me checking for style. I wanted to see page 9 with the new obit. They refused to let me see it. It was already gone, there was nothing I could do. I absolutely lost it & had a temper tantrum right there. I wanted to read the new obit. I wanted to see who it was. No one was telling me who had died. I was so upset.

Krysta handed me the page. I saw that it was Josie Winward. She was 101. Her daughter Gayla was in the same grade in school as I was. Josie has a daughter Renee & the husband's name is Rene. How strange is that? In reading the obit, I also noticed that all but one of the obit pictures were not the requisite 4 lines down from the name. That's ok, who's going to notice but me & Abby, maybe Necia. Amy either doesn't know or can't remember that little tidbit.

They ruined my DUP page, absolutely ruined it. I had a terrible headache. I thought I was going to have a stroke. I can't get that angry & upset.

Then they did pages 5 & 11 without me seeing them. They did an obituary & Mike's death notice on page 5. You don't put obits on the Social page, but if you get them late & have to pull something, you pull the filler articles anyway. Page 11 was the book signing of the guy that didn't like the last article we ran.

OK, something positive did come out of this. I finished by a little after 10 p.m. & don't have to go back in the morning. Woo hoo! I do have to go back in tomorrow afternoon & do Jean's personalized children's stories that I was supposed to have done a week ago. She came in today at 4 & wanted them. I was so stressed. Kelly came in the editor's office & then turned around & left.

He had upset me before the obit fiasco by telling me to get back to work. I was out in the bookstore using the classified ad computer showing Nancy Cale the blog for Baby Jonah. Jim was there & he & I had been talking about Jonah. Nancy Cale wanted to hear about him. She couldn't comprehend a baby so tiny. I thought Kelly had come in to tell me to get back to work. Jean said she guessed she'd better go & not come in on Monday's.

Kelly told me later he had come in to tell Jean not to come in on Monday's & bother us. But then decided against it. I'm glad he told me, but I was still upset. I was so ready to just gather up my stuff & walk out the door.

I'm still considering it.