39 Years and Counting (and 12 movies to boot!)

With the main holidays behind us and the winter doldrums ahead we celebrated New Years Eve, Barb's birthday, and our anniversary, in a quiet way all in one week.  So here we go with our week.  Above is my Monday project.  There's an online movement I have run across where women are choosing a word to focus on in the coming year, rather than lots of big complicated goals.  This is my word, "Gracious" ... one site on line suggested finding a person who embodies the trait you are focusing on, and display their picture.  I have always wanted to become more gracious, and,  I remembered meeting my Dad's cousin Ruby Haight on a few occasions and being impressed with her kind graciousness.  I couldn't find anything but old age pictures of her on line, so I emailed Jean Larson, who lived in our ward in Orem. I found out Jean and I are cousins when she got up in Relief Society once, and told one of my family history stories ... anyway, Ruby is her great aunt, and I asked if she had a younger picture of her.  This is the picture I got, I loved it.  Now I just need to redo it since it has the errant 'b' in the middle of the Proverbs quote, oops, but I quite liked how it turned out.  

Tuesday was also a quiet day.  Dad got home early and ran and got the stuff I needed to make a salad for our repast with the Kews later that night.  We joined them around 8 for dinner and movie torture ... this time we supplied the funky artsy movie, called Sweet Land that I had found at DI and we watched, well, I watched, while Dad snoozed ... before Christmas.  Later they introduced us to our next BBC period drama, Call The Midwife, which we quite liked.

By then the new year needed heralding, so Steve and Dad took turns shooting off Steve's cannon, which is always a good time.  

Even after a late night,we were up early to help Barb celebrate her 52nd birthday on New Years Day, Yeah!  For the uninitiated, that means 5 movies and dinner.  Here we are at one of the movies at Thanksgiving Point where we celebrated the event.  We saw, Frozen, Catching Fire, Saving Mr Banks, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and the Book Thief.

Here we are at dinner ...

and here's a cute picture of Barb with three of her grand children...

...and the original partiers.

Here is a picture of the photo card album I made to save the cute picture cards I get from friends and family for Christmas, and that I so hate to throw away. I made one last year too, I just wish I had thought of it years ago.

Also keeping busy with mailings and organizing our next flea.o.logy.  This is the new 'instagramable' add Nell made up for the sale, coming in just two weeks .... I need to get busy!

I worked on our anniversary on Thursday, and put together this display booth based on the tradition the Victorians had of taking the 'Grand Tour' which was typically an extended tour of Europe, that took six month to a year ... hey Barb, can you plan us one of those?

Dad surprised me by bringing in Cafe Rio Salads, but we were so insanely busy that I was only able to sit down with him for about five minutes.  Still it was so sweet of him, and one never goes wrong with Cafe Rio Right?

That night we stayed home and celebrated those 39 years by watching the second episode of 'Call the Midwife", I know, so romantic, but pretty appropriate for a couple that had ten kids.

On Friday I finally got out and found out what was wrong with my phone, evidently the new I-phone 5 has a pop up menu, that pops up accidentally and includes a do not disturb button, that is easy to accidentally touch when you are trying to get rid of the pop up menu you didn't want in the first place.   The gal who helped me said she is getting 5 or 6 people a day coming in with this problem since Christmas, when lots of people got this model as gifts ....  so funny, I had at least 5 super savvy computerish peeps look at it.  I lived with the dumb thing never ringing or beeping with incoming calls for 3 stinking weeks ... silly me.

That night Dad and I watched a DVD of Iron Lady ... nope, not a new super hero, though that does sound fun, its a biography of Margaret Thatcher,perfect for entertaining your favorite Anglophile ... and it even has Meryl Streep in the title role as a bonus.

On Saturday I worked again, and Dad spent most of the day working on Grandpa Carlo's financial report that he has to turn in to the third district court as Grandpa's conservator ... what a pain.  He did find time to stop by the shop, to help me install a wall section in one of my booths, as well as moving a huge and heavy door and screwing it into place.  On top of which he surprised me with lunch again.  How sweet is this man!!??  

The picture above is of me facetiming with Titan, that's always fun.  Later we went upstairs for a double feature, first we caught the end of a Hallmark movie, then I watched Sweet Home Alabama, while the love of my life dozed in and out.

Today, with the Sunday Schedule changes, Dad was to High Council early, while I had a long leisurely bubble bath, before taking a full hour to dress, do my hair and makeup, gotta love the 11:00 schedule.  Dad, meanwhile, went straight to his two sacrament meetings at the care centers that make up the 12th branch, which is his new High Council assignment.

I attended our meetings, sitting by Spencer and Brittney in Sacrament meeting, and Brittney in Sunday School, but as she is in Young Women's, I was on my own for Relief Society.  Denise Ekins gave a lovely lesson, and I bore my testimony afterwards.

When we got home, Dad helped Spencer and Brittney tow their car from the church to Crouch's OK Service, Dad thinks its a fuel pump problem.  Tonight we will have dinner and watch the first Downton Abbey episode of the fourth season, legally.

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