Coincidentally

On Monday I worked to pay back a day I took off for the cruise.  Dad got our "boatload" of laundry caught up and unpacked his suitcases.  That night we went to see an prescreening of a short that BYU students had done.  Steven Bartholomew had posted about it on line, he is the one who came to the house when we were gone and did a submission short for his girlfriend.

Here he is shown at the viewing with another friend.  It was fun to watch the short movie called Seeing Kelly.  Afterwards we spend twice as much time discussing it, critically.  Pretty fun date night.

Dad also ran into his cousin Shelly that day, at her tire store.  How fun is that?

On Tuesday I went to my art group's craft day at my friend Kim's house.

This is my wreath.

This is hers.

Kim' house is just heartalicious.

She is definitely the Valentines Queen!

Kim, Margie and I made wreaths ...

While Amanda and Jann chatted and shared lunch.  Here they are on their way out, in front of Kim's cute place.  Jann had a heart attack while at the hospital having chemo a couple of weeks ago.  Yeah, that!  No wonder she wasn't up to making a wreath. 

On Wednesday Dad posted this collage for Charlie's birthday...

After all it was Ground Hog day, and you can clearly see that Charlie is casting a shadow here as well.

But the fun thing was that these two former Finnish missionaries had a baby girl the same day and named her Charlotte!  Nope it doesn't get better than that.  Such a cooincidence.  Here we see Ian Haws and Hannah Kokkola, as was, with their baby Charlotte.

Coincidentally, I also saw my shadow that day, though it had been snowing all morning.

Here you see my hard work, shoveling walk ways so that people can park and get into the store without walking in the snow.

I also had fun, when I realized I could spell a good solid Brit word with the small number of letter mugs I have left. Since this case is in my British booth that seemed perfect.

And Abigail, in Texas, got to take her favorite book to school to read to the kids.  Coincidentally, it is also a very favorite book of mine, Yoko, by Rosemary Wells. In fact I gave it to Spencer and Brittney in their basket this past Christmas.  Also, Coincidentally, I was going to give it to Emily and her family for Christmas, but they already had this book, show above, that had been given to them by their Grandmother Talley.  (She served a mission in Japan as a young woman)

Another strange coincidence  was seeing this picture on Insta, because of  the juxtaposition of the tree, iron fence and stone house was so similar to our house that I saw it and wondered who the woman was in front of our house.

Luckily on my way to work on Thursday I went to DI and found this wine rack.  The one I had been using to display my rolling pins had sold, even though I marked it quite high.  So that was nice.

I also found this cute white, on a stand, clock that morning

and this cute sock monkey. It was definitely worth the stop.

On Friday morning, when we were doing our 'come follow me' study, we ran across a talk that was given by Elder Gong, in 2016, before he was called as an apostle.  Its about remembering, and was an absolutely amazing talk.  I don't even recall having heard it, though I must have.  I wanted to see what he and his wife looked like as young marrieds, and ran across this picture.  Evidently Elder Hinkley married them.

Also that morning, I took the time to experiment with making a healthier Hollandaise sauce. I had enjoyed Eggs Benedict on the cruise, and after substituting whole wheat English Muffins, I  made the sauce.  I used a bit of mayo, but then used tofu for the bulk of it and nutritional yeast for color and flavor.  I didn't have a lemon, which most of the recipes called for, and used a lime instead, including zest.  Definitely one of my best substitution recipes to date.

Dad rigged a high wire act in the front hall, and we are just about ready to paint.

Here is his collage.

A friend was selling this sweet shelf on line, that day, and I made arrangements to buy it.  How perfect for our dining room.  I have really missed the fire place mantel that Dad wanted to move to the Prophet's Guest room.  This will be great because its considerably smaller, which suits Dad.

That night I met up with Kim to attend the funeral of a mutual friend, Jane Riggs Parker.  She was a local artisan, who worked at Nuskin for her real job, but pottered with Vintage shows on the side.  I think I met her at Kim's witch party, years and years ago.  Coincidently, Brittany's good friend, since high-school, is her niece. Which we figured out a while back, because of comments Britt saw on Insta.

Both Kim and I have a lot in common with her. She was more Kim's age than mine, since Jane is 10 years younger than me.  Its so hard to see someone move on, when they are so very full of life, as Jane always was. Fortunately, I am much less worried about people passing on, after listening to 'After' by Bruce Gregson, with Dad.  Definitely worth the read or listen.

Here are Kim and I dressed in our somber clothes.

Great fingernails Kimi!!

After the viewing Kim and I headed to Cracker Barrel.  She lived in the south for years, and I've always loved it, health considerations aside.  But heck it was Fish Friday ... and their biscuits ... !!! Funny.  Loved our evening out, and took Dad home some Fish and Biscuits as well. 

Anyway, the restaurant is full of antiques, and the baby on the right hung in a frame next to our table.  It really bugged me as to who the baby looked like ... then I had an aha moment.

Saturday morning Dad worked on the ceiling some more, while I finished up tweaking my Valentine decor, at least until we get our new shelf installed in the dining room.

I loved how my butter dish in the cloche looked with conversation hearts in it.

and this is the final home for the wreath I made on Tuesday.

Then we ran out and did some errands, including stopping at a new antique store in Orem.  How creepy is this taxidermied bat in a Victorian fan case. We went on to pick up the shelf at a shop in Lehi before heading to the Moes to pick up the exercise bike we bought from them.  I'd talked about getting one on the cruise because I had enjoyed reading while riding the reclining style bikes they had at the gym on the ship.  As it turns out they had a similar one that they don't use anymore.

While grocery shopping Dad ran into a man who used to do resets with him during the last several years of his working life.

We got home just in time to head out with the Kews to a planned reunion.  Joel Crouch, our favorite mechanic and his brother, have sold their shop to another member of the stake, so they can retire.  They had a party that night.  On the right are Gary Crouch, their brother-in-law Blake, and Joel.  Visiting with them are our friends the Crumps.  We saw so many old friends we could hardly get away.  We saw and talked to Dennis and Bonnie Smith, who used to live next door to us here, and had a great time catching up, as well as many others.  

Here's Dad with our main mechanics for more than 20 years.

After that Dad chose to go to K's Kitchen in Provo for dinner.  The Kews were game, and we had a lovely dinner.  Here Dad is shown with Phil Stevenson, Rui's dad who runs it with his wife Kazuyo. Becca has helped them find a house and they will be moving into a twin home in our stake this month.  So fun!!

Today, after church, Dad turned on the Helsinki 3rd ward's Fast and Testimony meeting.  It was so fun to see several people we know, including Ed Rogers, shown here.  The ward is English speaking, and was formed just after we left.  I would have so loved attending an English speaking ward, but I also loved getting to know Finn's in wards we attended on both missions.

I found this wonderful quote on Insta this week too.  You may recall that Joy is my word for the year.  I am coming to connect the Pure Love of Christ with selfless service, and selfless service with absolute Joy!  And remember Christ asked us to love one another as he loves us/them. Given that, how perfect is this quote from our astonishingl Prophet.  These are days never to be forgotten.  I yearn for conference to come again.

But it the meantime, it was super fun to get a visit from Steven Bartholomew and his friend who shot the short movie in our house while we were on our cruise.  Of course Dad loves a Finnish connection, and besides having one of our missionaries from our first mission, his date is the granddaughter of the first mission president in Finland.  That means she's a grand niece of a Temple missionary we met on our first mission, who is a son of that mission president, and a second cousin, whom she doesn't know, who serve with us on our second mission.  Oh yes, Dad was over the moon.

As were the Talley's in Texas as they experienced a few inches of innocent snow.  Nothing like the Snowmageddon of last year.

Also fun was getting to see Charlie's tea party photo shoot,

and a picture that Trevor posted of himself and Eva, with her all ready to head to school wearing one of his old Cross Country Sweatshirts from high school.

Coincidentally, it looks like we all love making joyful memories.  We hope you had that opportunity as well.