An Ordinary Week

I knew this was going to be a good week when I ran into my friend Joanne, at the DI in Springville on Monday.  It's been a while as she has been back east helping her daughter who has been struggling with cancer for a couple of years.  Joanne was one of the people in my art group, back in the day.

Spencer celebrated his 35th birthday in Cody.  

Madi got to go home from the hospital after her appendectomy, isn't this the sweetest picture of longing you have ever seen?  Nice job Mom.

Dad and I ran down to Nephi to pick up 45 cinderblocks that I'd found on Face Book Market Place.  They will form the backbone of our memory wall. Dad's been digging at the trench all week, though the heat has made that difficult.  

We stopped at the newly opened Dollar Tree, that is in the Family Dollar Building that is on the right as you enter Payson from the main street exit.  That will be convenient.

Last of all we spent the evening finishing up the George Washington Mini Series that was done in the 1980's. That was a good activity for July as we celebrate our freedoms.

I worked on Tuesday and tweaked this display.  I bought this great etagere from Mary a few months ago, and it's been a fabulous centerpiece for me.  I've been styling it with a sort of an English Library aesthetic, and things like antique books, figurines, brass items, candle sticks and snuffers, just seem to fly off the shelves.

This is a tea set that I bought last spring in Texas but I have been so behind on getting things out that it's been in a box in the family room for months.  This week I managed to get almost everything I've had on hand to the mall.  Still a handful of things that need paint or repair though.

Here is the silver plate tea set, including a tea pot, a coffee pot, creamer, sugar and huge tray that I got from a contact Becca gave me.  All was wrapped in saran wrap, except the tea pot, which was black.  So, I did it, got the tea pot polished and Voila!  The set was purchased at a high-end department store in L.A. called Bullocks 50 years ago.

Always fun to meet enthusiastic shoppers, these gals sit on the floor to sort cheap jewelry bits.

The gal on the right is a regular shopper, she lives north of Ogden and said ours is her favorite antique store.

Whenever she comes in, I am struck with how much she looks like Kathy who I work with.

It was a nice surprise to have our neighbors Joe and Sue Bona come in.  Not sure I have ever seen them in the store, but they had company from out of town who wanted to do antique shopping.  

This adorable couple made me cry.  They are from Arizona and their names are Ben and Hannah.  Actually, she pronounces her name like the Hannah in Benihana.  That's how she tells people to remember her name pronunciation.  She told me she wished I lived next door, she thought we could be best friends.  That would be fun.

And best of all this beauty came in with her Grandpa to bring me dinner, as I was to leave for my book club directly from work.  Isn't she the cutest, Dad had fun hanging out with her all day.  Lucky him.

Ann Shumway and these gals stopped by the shop to take me up to Heber where Stephanie lives.

Here are Carolyn, Anne, Lily, Stephanie and Suzanne.

And  Audrey, a new gal, Heather, another new gal and Sandy.  So, in all there were 12 of us.

We talked about the book, A Girl Called Samson.  It is the story of a real woman who fought in the revolutionary war (Yep, definitely getting my Early American on).  The trouble is that the author took a true story about a homely, unusually tall woman, abandoned by family, who served as an indentured servant until she was 18, and then dressed as a man so she could be a soldier for a year and a half (They found out she was a woman when she was got sick and was hospitalized).  She had been a valuable and talented resource.  But the author tweaked her life, made her merely plain, and had her marry a famous and rich General.  REALLY?  Her life was not amazing enough for you?  Everyone pretty much had the same take.

Stephanie, had this stunning sculpture in her home ... I felt a need to own it.  But after finding out she had bought it for thousands of dollars from the artist who was in some financial bind, I realize, I'll just have to love it from afar.  Weirdly, it's the only piece he had done that I liked at all, and I LOVED it.  Interesting.

Back at work on Wednesday I thought it was fun how this gal carries her puppy.

And loved this gal's t-shirt. "They roared their terrible roars ..." I am such a fan of book references on T shirts.  It's just too bad I look so bad in them

Here's Becca at work, I really don't know how she does balance all she does, but I know that Brady does a lot to make it happen.

Someone else is happy.

Alex got a new truck, a Dodge in fact.  One of Dad's and my connections when we met is that not only were we both from families that were democrats, a rare thing in Utah, but both families were also Dodge fans.  You may recall that the only new car we ever bought was a Dodge Dart.

And yep, this is what you get when we marry a Utah Mormon who's a democrat and who favors Chrysler products.  (Picture compliments of Davin, who promises to do one for me as well.)

Friday was a full day.  It started with an hour of kayaking on Salem Pond with Ann.

The two fishermen told us that the last fish they had pulled out had a hook, line and fishing pole attached to him.  If you look closely, you can see the second pole hanging.  How funny is that?

Then I hurried home and changed out my tumbling glass (I am doing for my glass garden in conjunction with the Secret Garden and Memory wall project.)

Then I went and got a hair cut by Audrey who is a beautician who is in my book club, before meeting up with Keith and Mary at The Grove. Phew.  They wanted to see all the goods that have been coming into the store from Brimfield. They both found treasures, but I resisted.  Then they headed off for some ColdStone, while I ....

Headed out to Tooele to see Joyce.  She had been out of the care center for just two days.  As you see when I got there Clark and Jo had surprised her by making a Cosco run in her behalf.  I was a little miffed at first, as I had offered to bring goodies, but she said not to bother as Bruce, who had brought her home from the care center had stopped and gotten groceries too.  Then I realized that Clark and Jo had surprised her.  I just love being in this family of amazing people. 

How cute are these two?  I did get to leave Joyce a check for the Copper Goods I have been selling for her and took away another load of copper to put into the mall. 

I got home just in time to go to Applebee's with my boyfriend, where I got a Mushroom Impossible Burger which was yummy.  Then it was off to see a play I had not liked at the Shakespear Festival a few years ago.  Fortunately, being close up and personal made it a lot more fun.

I did a bit of Garaging Saturday morning, in fact I drove past Dad on his run down Mainstreet, something that has happened very few times in his 15 years of running four days a week.

When I got home, I finished up stripping off white paint and super glue (They had glued huge magnets on the back) of a plate like this.  It had come from DI and I knew it would be a lot of work, but figured if I failed, or if it broke in the process, I could always tumble the breakage for my glass garden 'sea glass' walk.  Alas I succeeded and was very surprised to find out it was a rare piece of Fenton.

Then Dad and I were off to the Ruth again.  This time to see the youth edition of Phantom.  My friend Mary had attended it on Thursday night and called to tell me that it was her fourth favorite play she has seen in Utah in the 15 years she has lived here.  I told Dad, and since it was Youth Theater it had a short run, Thursday, Friday and 3 shows on Saturday.  He managed to get the first matinee, and we loved it.  Mary was so right!

As it turned out Abbie Welling, the second Ballerina from the left was one of the dancers.  Her Dad is the Vice President of ARS.  The last Youth Theater we saw was Frozen and Barb and Randy's grandson Kyler, Trina's son had a lead role.  What a great program and so amazing.

When we got home, we finally got the 200 pound lions out of our trunk.  I bought them from my boss 3 weeks ago, and neither of us were looking forward to their placement.

But we have always wanted a set to place thus.  Dad suggested we spray paint them black and I agree.  

Today we talked about serving others in our primary class of 6 and 7 years olds .... out of the mouths of babes, came from a 6 year old girl ....  hahahaha. oh, the irony. It reminded us of the time that Ashley at a similar age had drawn about a dozen kids on a pillowcase and told us that she was going to have lots of kids when she grew up and they would all have a job, so she wouldn't have to do all the work.

This afternoon we headed over to Gordon and Trudy's Peck's Mission Call Opening.  They had put in asking to go to a country that borders Sierra Leonne, 

where they served their first mission. They got that call to Cote D' Ldvore Abijan West Mission. They had at one time had to travel into this country and had been able to help establish a small branch there.  Now they will be serving there and hopefully can continue the work they started there.

It was fun to see JaeLin and David Steele, who I met at Treasures, in fact they came in this week. They are on the far right, they are good friends of the Pecks.

It was also fun to meet Gordon's Mom.  She had 14 children, wow.  We know another of her sons, Stan, who was in charge of the Foreign Exhange Program at Payson High School when we had Danny living with us. Her eyes were just like my Mother's in her last years, sort of a blue hazel, so I asked if her eyes had been brown, and she said yes, so dark brown they looked almost black, so just like my Mom's.  That was a sweet moment for me.

We had curried veggies on brown rice for dinner then Dad ran off to the band concert in the park, while I did some reading.  The spokesman for the band, Kenton Phillips lives in our ward and was trying to talk Dad into playing in the band.  They are down to just two trombones .... that would be interesting.

Being Blasted from the Past

Our week started with a trip I didn't take.  Several dealers from the grove headed back east to go to Brimfield, the most famous flea market in the US.  When I heard the costs of flights, renting a car, sharing a moving van to contain the finds, and an Airbnb to boot, I knew there was no way I could make money on the trip.  Boohoo. Though ...

I admit I considered doing it just as a vacation thing, doing what I love.

On Tuesday I thought that I had to work and went into Treasures.  Nope, its next Tuesday, and the next, so I tidied my booths then headed to Orem to check out Farmhouse Peddler, where I have not shopped for months.  I found the two top pictures shown hung later in the week. The top is a textured print.  The middle is a tiny painting of a woman by a window.  The bottom one is also an original painting that I already had.

I worked on Wednesday and Thursday at Treasures and met this man and his wife who live 5 miles from the halfway point on the Appalachian Trail, where Kai ate a half a gallon of ice-cream to celebrate.  How fun is that?

I showed off this picture of my hiker.

On Tuesday Robin had a blast from the past, because she saw this movie repeatedly as a child.  Her Dad loved it, and she thought it had too much dancing.  The movie had Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers, and I, without having seen it, said, "how can it have too much dancing", but after seeing it, I totally understood.

Dad worked at the temple on Thursday and saw a former missionary companion's widow, a former couple from our ward, our former Mailman and his wife, and Jill Wilson, who was chopped off our ward a year and a half ago. So, he had several blasts from the past.

At the Grove on Friday, I had a blast from the not-so-distant past when the gal to the left came in, after I had met her on Wednesday also buying ironstone at Treasures.  Then the guy is a former coke salesman who used to call on Macey's, and the lady with me, is a good customer at the Grove who is also named Paula.  (Her father was Paul)

Funerals are always the biggest blast from the past.  Marie Judd, shown in life with her husband George, was one of the core personalities in the Butler 8th Ward when we moved in back in 1977.  She always served in leadership, and was on every committee, a dependable, capable and talented woman.  The cookie jar is one that she made for her own mother, then inherited.  3 different grandchildren broke it, at different times.  She never lost her cool, she just glued it back together.  George passed away 15 months ago.  

In fact we all decided that funerals are like time machines and remember that Dad always puts the FUN in FUNerals.

Old ward members in the group are Kay Cox, Petra and Lee Gray, Marshall Brough and Dad.  We had chats with them all and more.  We sat with the Poulsons and Dad had a great time visiting with Dan for ten minutes before the meeting.

After the funeral we went to see our Madi who had just had her appendix out a few hours before.  That was totally a blast from the past because I had my appendix out at Primary Children's Hospital as a child also ...  OK, I guess her PCH is in Lehi, and mine was in the Avenues ... but still...

Her other grandma took Reagan shopping and bought lots of toys and goodies for her.  Here she is shown with her dragon Sunset.

Grandpa and I came in on a smaller scale with a stuffed octopus ''bracelet" (2 of the legs have a slap bracelet gadget built in) We also brought a read-and-learn picture book where an octopus takes you on a tour of the ocean.  We hope she has time to read it and learn about the ocean; she's always seemed to have an interest in the sciences.

We came when all the kids were there.

Then after we left, Aunt Darby came by with a lego model of a sports car .... she seems pretty pleased.  And speaking of blasts from the past, I learned this week that LEGOs started out in a carpentry shop in Denmark, the year before Grandma Larsen was born.  They were wooden ... 

But this was the biggest blast from the past of the whole week.  This is Terri Michels and her friend Kaylene.  Terri came to our yard sale last week and overheard me talking to a friend to whom I had showed the house that morning.  She asked if she could see the house, but I told her I couldn't during the sale.  If she came back afterwards I would, but that didn't work for her.  She called me when I was at the Grove on Friday and asked to come on Saturday ... so we got home from seeing Madi just in time to show these girls the house.

She mentioned that her Dad is Rex Wallgren, who was the manager of KCPX, the radio station I listened to as a teen.  He was also the first one to play a rock and roll record back in 1968 , when the station changed formats.  The funny thing is that last week I got a record that KCPX made of their greatest hits, and Rex Wallgen signed it.  I have it for sale at Treasures ... but the coolest thing is that I remembered Rex Wallgren because I was friends with his son Delvin in high school  In fact my best friend Patty Shaffer was in love with him.  Turns out Terri lived right behind Boulton, the elementary school where I went to kindergarten ... AND she went to school with my brother Ross, and knew that he had married his high school sweetheart Julie ... AND that Julie had been Principal of Boulton.  She also told me that Ross was very good looking.  I LOVED IT! Unfortunately, she also told me that Delvin had died of a heart attack ten years ago.

Later these kids came by to return the cement mixer, and to show us the portraits they had had done at the Tiny Art Gallery in Provo.  How fun are these?

Love this picture of Trevor and his cute double dates.

I think this was taken when Nell was sitting for her portrait.

I have no words.

At church we sang this beautiful, but formerly unknown to us, hymn by President Joseph Fielding Smith.  Our cute teen age chorister has been having us sing hidden treasures from the hymnal, many of which will not be in the new hymnal ... it's been kind of fun.

after church we headed back to Primary Children's hospital in Lehi to see Madi. She worked on finishing up the Lego Lamborghini while I wrote down her account of her adventures of appendicitis in her own words in her new diary.

Here she is with her completed car.

After we left Trevor and Nell's family came by to visit.

When we got home we got dinner ready for our friends the Perrys and Tina Bartlet. We had a very veggie filled fried rice with faux chicken and a green salad. Then we had sugar free orange stick trifle, as both of the other ladies are diabetic. We even played a rousing game of zilch.

and coming soon to a Larsen Compound near you ... (Or not if you're Brittany or Emily) 

And for our Finish we have something Finnish for you.