The Good, The Bad and the Ugly!

I had big plans for Monday ... but I ended up ironing all day.  Weird, I thought it would take an hour or two not five.  I  have put off ironing pillowcases, table clothes, hankies, aprons and some vintage clothing to sell at the shop.  But as Emily said, "Doesn't it feel good to finally have it done?" and I do have to say yes.  Scott worked in the Richfield store where he did a cookie and cracker reset.  As he was getting off the freeway, almost home, he felt his transmission go out.  Thus we drove my van out to Tooele that night to see Mathew Mason in Fiddler on the roof.  We sat behind Amy and had fun chatting.  I love the music and it was super fun to see Matt do the bottle dance with three other guys, and to be proud of him for being the only one of the four with his bottle still on his hat at the end of the dance.

So on Tuesday Dad took my car to work, while I dealt with getting cars to repair places.  The ugly old boat towing van had a leak in the water system, so I took it to Davin's Friend, Jared's brother'd place to be repaired, then had AAA come and got Dad's car and towed it to the transmission place in Provo.  Luckily Dad had bought a warrentee last time, and it was still covered, so pretty much new transmission for free!!

 Later that day Emily and Sam took off for a session at the temple, don't they look cute? (See below).  Of course Dad works at the temple Tuesday nights, and got to see them for a minute, which is always fun   Oh, and that meant I got to watch Beckie for part of the day ... here she is holding my fabric with which I made the down cushion cover (shown below,) with hand stitched welting around the top and bottom . (Read that as it took all day to do the hand stitching), and Beckie was too busy to let me do it, mostly, so we ended up watching us some of the first season of Downton Abby ... (remember Dad and I watched the whole second season with Britt when we were up there?)

Here are Sam and Emily headed to do a session at the Provo Temple.

Wednesday and Thursday were work days for me,  Emily was good enough to run me in both days since the ugly van was not done.  Dad picked me up afterwards, having dinner early on Thursday with his dad so that he could get me around6:00.

On Friday I was up early to do estate sales in Salt Lake with Joyce, a bit belatedly, for her birthday.  After doing several sales, we headed up to Hoytsville for another estate sale,  it is where Debbie Donaldson, with whom we grew up, lives now.  It was her grandmother's house there, shown right, that got me hooked on antiques in the first place, back in 1962 or 3 when I went with Debbie to visit her grandmother.  This house is fully furnished in period furniture and has rooms of dolls, doll houses, and miniature rooms that are so charming, a real fairy land for this little girl. 

It was so fun to run into Debbie and her Mom Martha Ann at the sale.  I haven't seen Martha Ann since I was married, so that was a real treat!!  She is an absolutely amazing lady and homemaker extraordinaire ... I should have been a better homemaker just because I knew her and saw her in action!!

After the sale we went to a little occasional 'shabby' store called the Vintage Market there.  Debbie's younger sister Jayne is involved in it and I met her sister-in-law. 

Then the other partner and I were collaborating as to how we could pass out fliers for their store at our next flea.o.logy sale, and she noted my name was Perkins and said, "Oh that's my maiden name" ... I let her bla, bla, bla, because we are NEVER related to other Perkins, I asked her conversationally where her 'Perkins' hailed from and she said "Gunnison", which stopped me in my tracks.  Her grandfather is Wendall, Grandpa Milt's brother.  She is Dad's second cousin, how cool is that?

That night Dad and I drove to Highland and had dinner at Heuer's, with Moes along as well, before watching a cool movie about a squadron of Black fighter pilots during WWII.  As always it was great to get back together and spend some comfortable laid  back time with friends who feel more like family.  We have a cruise scheduled with them in the spring in the Caribbean, which we are all looking forward to ... in fact they are each taking their soon to be graduates, AKA their Hawaiian babies, the ones they brought home invetrio from our three couple trip to Hawaii 17 years ago. LOL

On Saturday, after his long run, Dad went over and helped Davin install a light fixture, which is kind of funny, because at the time I was home digging a trench to the garden house so he could run electrical out there to put in a light fixture for me as well.  Then while we were doing that a lady dropped by who had been at the last flea.o.logy and who wondered if I still had a certain light fixture ... she bought it ... so light fixture was definitely the hot word for the day.

Then too its always fun to have Emily and Beckie around when we are out there working, I think I will always remember the time they spent living in the apartment as kind of magical.

While dad was running conduit, with a bit of help from me, we were dodging each other so I could put up the name on the cottage that I had chosen.  Of course, Chawton Cottage is the home where Jane Austen wrote most of her books.  She lived there from 1809 until her death in 1817 at the age of 41.  I put her silhouette on it too, as I think more people recognize that than will recognize the significance of Chawton.

Later Emily got the idea of using one of our boat  pull toys as a mini baby swimming pool.  I wish you could have seen the priceless look on Beckie's face when she sat down in the coolish water, momentarily ... then repeated it a couple more times.  So fun and so, so cute.

That night Dad and I went along with Kews to Paige Anderson's reception in Elk Ridge .... it was pool side, at the home of a Doctor with whom Brent Anderson works.  The pool house was about the size of our Salt Lake house, with the whole upstairs being a huge great room and kitchen and the basement being on street level and being a huge garage.  The house was on the hill above it ... and I wanted to think it was decadent to have a house and pool house that size, but then when I think what the pioneers would think about how we live, I am inclined to tell my brain to just shut up!!  Afterwards it was dinner with the Kews eating Mexican in Provo.

Then on Sunday, after Dad had gone off to his other ward's meetings, I got a call from the Exec Sec asking me to see the bishop before church ... I was devastated when I was called to teach the Sunbeams, in fact I burst into tears ... that's the problem with being the kind of person who wears their emotions on their sleeve, so embarrassing.  I am good friends with the Primary President, and I couldn't believe she had submitted my name, when she knows how I love Relief Society and Sunday School ... Turns out she asked for me as a half time teacher, so I CAN still go to Sam's amazing Sunday School lessons, as he teaches every other week, AND, she told the bishop that too, he just forgot to mention it ... and now I feel like a moron.  The good thing is that I love teaching Primary, I love the kids, the staff, everything, except missing Sunday School and Relief Society. So I am good now.

That night we drove to Highland to Becca's 'Gender Reveal' dinner/party.  She had filled a pinata with candy in a color that would tell us who we are expecting ... and after Eva whacked it so hard it came of its string, it was not long until we all knew the baby is going to be a girl.  It will be so fun, because Emily and Becca will have girls in the same year of school .... I suspect they will be as close as Randy Moe and Jeff Heuer are, and for the same reason.

So that wraps up our week of the good (Becca'a having a baby girl), the bad (Dad's car breaking down) and the ugly (Me driving the old boat pulling van!)