One view of Don-Mike's reception

Don-Mike & Amber's reception was Saturday, May 5, at the Whitney Church. About 5 o'clock, I ran into town to see if I could find the paper I had bought for the guest book. We'd been there since 2 p.m. My idea was to have people sign square pieces of paper & then put those papers in a scrapbook with pictures from their engagement, wedding & reception.

Burkley Balzar & one of Audrey's girls at the guest table ~ Photo by Melissa Owen Bodily

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So, I missed the first part of the reception. It started at 6. Luckily I had purple & navy blue cards to start out the reception. I brought lime green & white paper when I came back.

When I got there, some of the first people I saw were Grant Douglas Morgan, Kim Morgan Yamashita & their 3 adorable children, Noah, Isabel & Ben.

Isabel, Kim & Ben Yamashita. Behind Kim is Carl Cordingly. Behind Ben is my uncle Jim Anderson, sitting with Keith & Onda Taylor & Donna Anderson. In the line, far right corner is Don-Mike.

 I snagged the picture above from Kim's blog  The next two pictures are also from Kim's blog.

Isabel took this picture of Mother (Grandma Detta) & Kim & Grant with Kim's phone. It's a little blurry, but not bad.

Grandma Detta with Noah Morgan, Ben & Isabel Yamashita. Kim notes that Isabel is wearing her Easter outfit.

Noah stood up next to me & he is almost as tall as I am & he is only 8!!

BratFactor.com

I checked my Freecycle group tonight, firstly to say that I had received two bags of winter clothing for the Kiwanis Club Coats for Kids Drive. Secondly, to offer a black & red computer keyboard that Nick is going to throw away because it is cheap & the legs on the bottom are broken off. While on that email account, I checked the emails from FlyLady.net, BratFactor.com, Every Day Cheapskate, Living on a Dime, & Heroic Stories, five newsletters that share that email account.

At Brat Factor I signed up for Pam Young's 365 Surprise. Every day she sends a short email. I got behind on them because I wasn't checking that email account every day until I added Freecycle to that account. I knew the emails from Freecycle would get lost in the clutter on raynib9@yahoo.com. So, now I check that account everyday. I'm down to 50 unread surprises. Seldom do I throw one of those surprises away. I've subscribed now for almost 3 years & she seems to send out the same ones every year. Every so often I'll search to make sure I haven't saved duplicate messages.

So, why am I blogging about this? The first email I opened today was Oct. 7 & she asked what kind of thoughts you have when you fill up at the gas station. She said she caught herself thinking, "What if ..." thoughts of fear one day as she was filling up her gas tank; thoughts about inflation & how that would inevitably lead to a file in her brain filled with past thoughts of financial struggles.

Today, as I filled up the tank & watched the numbers whirl, I was grateful that we weren't paying $4.12 a gallon as we were in July. A man at the pump across the island from me was telling me that now crude oil production is being cut back so that the price of gas will go up again. I've always been afraid of filling up a car. These thoughts & fears go back over 30 years to my days of living in Salt Lake City & the fear I had of stopping at a strange gas station & having to go in & pay for the gas. I would run out of gas rather than stop & buy gas. I had a hard time going from Cache Valley to the big impersonal world of a city. It was a constant struggle. I've always been full of static electricity & would get shocked when I touched a gas pump. I was always afraid the gas pump would blow up because I touched it.

It's only been the last few years that I haven't been afraid to fill up the gas tank. My family gets the credit for helping me with that fear. I still drive until the empty light comes on. One reason being that I don't bother to check my gas gauge. I forget.

Pam quoted Caroline Myss in the Oct. 7 email:

"What drains your spirit drains your body.
What fuels your spirit fuels your body."

She said she made out a 3"x5" card with an uplifting message that she will take out when she fuels her car to read to keep those "What if ..." thoughts at bay.

Tonight I picked up a box that came from somewhere. Things at my house just seem to suddenly appear, bubble up out of the black hole. Kind of reminds me of the musical, "Brigadoon." I took the box in the bedroom, sat down on the bed & started going through the box. I found a sack of scrapbook supplies from an October scrapbooking seminar a few years ago. I found a planner that I had started to make with laminated pictures & favorite quotes with a few entries from 2001. It wasn't finished & I hadn't finished using it. The only thing I can surmise is that it went missing & now, seven years later, it has bubbled to the surface again. I didn't want to throw it away, but wondered what I could do with the thoughts & pictures. I thought about dismantling the planner & making myself a small booklet of those pictures & thoughts to look at while I was filling up the car.

If I put the box back where I found it, it will probably go missing again with only one or two things thrown away & one thing rescued. Then I wonder why there are so many boxes & messes, sigh.

Food

I took the chicken & Alfredo sauce from Amy's & brought it home. She told me I could have it. So, it was really thick. I thinned it out with some milk, heated it up & put some linguine with it. I like linguine a lot better than fettucine, but can never remember "linguine." When I send Don to the store I tell him I don't want fettucine, but the one thinner than that. He'll tell me linguine & the next time I want linguine, I can't remember it. I think I must have a mental block where that's concerned. I had to stop & think when I started typing this. Nick really liked Amy's Alfredo sauce, but I noticed he still put a lot of ranch dressing on it. At least it wasn't catsup. Mother puts catsup on everything, shudder.

I went to Ogden this weekend to a scrapbooking seminar. It started Friday evening, but I was too tired to drive down after spending Thursday night in the sleep lab with Mother at Logan Regional Hospital. I kept falling asleep at work on Friday & then at the computer Friday night. I went to bed at 8:30 p.m. Friday & woke up at 9 a.m. Saturday morning. I left as soon as I took my meds because Nick was obsessing about something & I wanted OUT of here.

I still had trouble staying awake while I was driving. I stopped in Dry Basin in Sardine Canyon, & got out & walked around. I stopped at Wal-Mart in Brigham City. I got to the checkout stand & couldn't find my money. I had stopped at the bank & withdrew $50. I thought that would give me enough to buy gas, some goodies & still give me $20 to spend at the vendor booths at the seminar. Anyway, no money. That gave me an adrenalin rush & woke me right up.

I called home & no one could find my money. I know it's in the house somewhere. I had paid DUP dues from the money the camp members had given me. I kept $77 & hadn't taken care of it Friday. It was still in the car. Whew. There was one check for $22 & the rest, $55, was in cash. I've been spending that. I'll have to replace it when I find my money.

While I was gone, Don-Mike fixed the "green baize" door. I thought they were going to get a "real" door, but they didn't. Don-Mike took a piece of plywood & put hinges on it & a handle several months ago. He also lined the inside of this makeshift door with a green piece of fleece & a piece of a blue blanket. The door that separated the staff from the family in Victorian England's big houses was lined with a fabric called baize to keep the sounds of the kitchens & behind the scenes activities from filtering out to the "family." Baize typically came in green, so it was called the green baize door.

Don-Mike took a handle & fixed it so that the door latches. There is still a crack that you can see out, so Don said they'd take some cloth or plastic & put it down that seam on the outside of the door. I have a roll of plastic that has been laying in the doorway between the kitchen & the front room for a couple of years. Yes, I said years.