Checking Out the Perfect Week

So what exactly is the perfect week? For us it is a week where each day started with gospel and language study.  Its a week with lots of our favorite food, sushi.  Its a week with service opportunities.  Its a week that includes keeping in touch with our kids, in person, by phone or on line.  Its a week with a chance to get closer to one or another or a few of our grandchildren, its a week where Dad gets to do his hobbies, barbershop singing and mountain climbing (a renewed interest). It also includes time to read, especially good for me if its a Jane Austen knock-off.  Its a week where I have success junking, and get to work at the mall.  Of course contact with our missionaries of any kind is just the frosting on the cake.  So, given that criteria, I just have to say, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, and check.

Yep, that's how our week started, with Dad and Ashley having a platelet party. She and Dad even got to go out to lunch for Mexican.  Check and check.

I meanwhile was having a junking and lunch date with one of my ministering sisters. Just one check, no sushi.

and I got to talk to Britt on the phone for two hours, while she folded these money leis that were due that afternoon.  Isn't Charlie a cute model? Check.

That evening we got a distress text that our friend Steve who needed some help with a plumbing repair he was doing. check

Mission accomplished, and Steve and Terry rewarded us with Sushi, and Veggie Curry too. Yum. 

Check again.

On Tuesday Brittany posted on line that Kai was working his first day at WinCo, Welcome to the grocer life Kai.  Britt is shown above when she won third place in the state at a bagging contest, when she was 16. Another check.

Also that day we picked up Adi for a grandkid date.  We stopped at the Lighthouse Monument to the early Icelandic immigrants in Spanish Fork.

It was interesting to learn about them, and read names like Ingaborg, (Like my aunt) and Gudrun (Like the Swedish designer I like) Check.

After picking up Reagan in Highland, we stopped at a neighbor kids stand, both of whom Reagan knows from school.  What cuties. Check and Check

Then for the main Event back in Spanish. Check

After taking Adi home, we realized the easiest way to get Reagan home, would be for Dad to drop her off in the morning on his way to Darby's, so she and I walked down to Payson Market, where she choose goodies for breakfast in bed.  Check and check.

Not sure why, but she was charmed by the fact that I had put a bed into my craft room, and weeks ago asked if she could have a sleep over and sleep in there.  I have to admit, that kind of tickled my fancy.

Her Nanny has taught her to like sugar with avocados ... so I provided a little sugar for her.

Here is some of the work that Dad got done on both Wednesday and Thursday at Darby's. Check

It was fun to see on line that William and Sam got to participate in car racing, though its not officially Pinewood Derby anymore. Check.

My friend Rosemary is still wearing a mask at work, as she has been having some problems with unknown blood volume loss, and she is trying to stay healthy.  I just loved her necklace.  She manages Treasures North.

On Friday I had an amazing junking day, possibly my best ever, that was not at a fleamarket.  I started by going to a sale in Payson, at the home of a gal who is the daughter of a former antique dealer, where I got a lot of good stuff, and spent $50, then headed to the opening of DI in Springville at 9, where I dropped another $50, then to an appointment with another antique dealer who is managing the selling off of an estate.  The prize of the day, week, year, went to this appointments. CHECK

Then I finished up at the DI in Provo.  Where I sat in this chair, and had some difficulty getting out.  YIKES!

This is a light fixture that was hanging in the IKEA where we liked to go for lunch in Finland.  I wanted to buy it a lot, but I know it would not go in my house, for all that it was such a bargain at $5.  I did, however manage to spent around $50 there as well.

I didn't do a loot shoot, but here is a partial.  I LOVE the shoes.  The Royal Doulton figurine was a 75c find at DI. The pink vase is one of 3 vintage art glass pieces I found.

And here it is, the piece de resistance. It is a copy of the Mother of the Year Statuette, that was given to mothers who won either, the Utah, or the National Award at one time.  Grandma Larsen received one, and we were passing it around the family for years after her death.  I ended up with it and gave it to my wonderful niece Megan after the death of her boys, a couple of years ago.  I was in Finland at the time, and felt a strong prompting that my Mother wanted her to have it.  I was very hard for me to give it up, and I can't help but wonder if my Mother had something to do with finagling this find.  Even though its done by Avard Fairbanks, I have never been able to even find a picture of it on-line, much less find one to buy.  I'm considering having a plaque made, like the one on the Mother of the Year award.  I hope that wouldn't be too confusing. Check, Check, Check ...

I also got these two statues of Joseph Smith for my Prophets and Temples room.

I made sushi for Dad that night.

It made him happy. Check

I have been playing this game for six months now, or possibly more, and I play with four women.  My friend Kim and I seem to take turns winning, but the other three always win.  I figure I am just keeping my Alzheimers at bay, so it doesn't matter.  One of three I won a game against a couple of weeks ago, and this week I won games against the two others.  So fun. As you see they were both by the skin of my teeth, as my mother used to say.

On Saturday Dad was off before 5 to gather with his boys and climb Olympus.for something like his 10th time ... the other nine times, however, were all in his teens.

You may recall that he and I climbed about 3/4 of the way for our first date, thus it was the site of our first kiss, well, that was after a good six hours, so that could count like 3 two hour dates .... hahahaha

Here Dad shows off what they signed in the notebook in a mailbox at the top.  Three generations of Perkins, with a Scott for each .

Look at all those handsome men.

This is Trevor's Strava route to the top, Dad's phone died there and he didn't get any credit on the way down.  My favorite is that he did 297 flights of stairs according to his app.  He looked it up and that's  equivalent to walking up to the top of the Empire State building, three times. Check and Check

I meanwhile spent four hours redoing one of my booths at the mall, with the Americana I had picked up that weekend.  The bulls eye mirror on the wall is  rare, and was a good find as well.  The hand painted eagle on the mirror was purchased at an LDS Ward fundraiser.  Check and Check.

When Dad had recovered sufficiently we went for Mongolian BBQ and Sushi.  Yum! Check

Today we attended church in Kansas City, Kansas, as Elder Staggs, one of our favorite missionaries, gave his homecoming talk. Check.

After watching our favorite Come Follow Me presentation on line, we headed over to our friend Janis' house for dinner and games.  It was kind of funny, because I was figuring out my calories for the day,  before we left, and having no idea what she would fix, I told Dad that if she made mashed potatoes, a side veggie and a tossed salad, I could stay close to goal.  I said it was probably too much to hope for that the side veggie would be cruciferous.  and guess what, that is exactly was she served, with some turkey added for herself.  The perfect ending for a perfect week. Check!

 

In a DI Daze

So, in looking over our week, as we do while putting together our blog, we realized that we had gone to DI every single day it was open.  Oddly that amounted to visiting four different DIs in the five days they were open for business.

This week started for us, as it did for many, at the cemetery.  We I ran to the dollar store in the morning to get spinning flowers, as I had liked seeing them on a few graves in Payson, the day before.  We went to the Springville Cemetery first and left a couple, along with a balloon on Ben's grave. We also left a spinner on Philo and Hanna Anne's graves as well.  Then we drove to Wasatch Lawns in SLC.  These flowers were left for Clark and Jo's baby there.

This is Wayne's stone, then my Dad and Mom's.

We had been at Spencer's the night before for dinner, when Trevor called.  Spencer and Brit had had a friend beg off on joining them for a  BBQ so they had invited Trevor's family at the last minute, and us by default.  Being in the right place at the right time,I guess.

Eleanor brought her crocheting again, and I was still working on squares for the Granny Square afghan.  She said she likes crocheting together, and so did I.

We all watched the Jazz game after dinner, it was just like the old days, but with babies.  Trevor was remembering the time we went in the early morning and stayed all day to get Jazz playoff tickets.  He said he had recently told a friend that even though I was not a huge Jazz fan, that I had done that to support him.  That made me feel pretty good.

The kids had fun playing together.

On Tuesday Dad and I went and played Pickleball for the first time.  It was definitely a good work out.  We really want to be more active this summer.

That evening Dad went to his Presidency Meeting while I took these girls on a double grandma date.  We spent a half an hour at the DI, before heading to 

The Pizza Pie Cafe.  The girls had a great time, and didn't want it to end. 

On Wednesday, Dad stopped and borrowed the Moe's sheet rock jack in Saratoga Springs on his way to Darby's house and got hard at work, going back again on Thursday.

I had an appointment to drop off the rest of our garage sale stuff at DI that morning, and then, since they open at 9, just the one in Springville, I went inside, and found quite a bit of good stuff for resale.  I headed directly to work, where I remarked most of it and put it right in the store. 

That lead me to going back on Thursday morning at opening.  It was fun to run into a couple of dealer friends in line.  I could have bought this baby grand for $600, I thought that was amazing.

The shift lead checked me out at about 9:30 and after getting to the mall and putting some things out, one of them sold the same day.

A favorite customer, Linda, came in and bought this apron from me.  She says she loves to add them to her outfits to add a pocket.  This one was perfect, and she handed me the tag, and then wore it for the rest of her time in the store.  That was so fun.

I had asked my friend Laurie, who is a dealer, if I could add my chairs (which had not sold at the yard sale the previous Saturday) to her quite empty booth.  I told her I would tidy up her booth in exchange for the favor and she agreed.  I bought these chairs from my friend Wendy, 18 years ago, and painted them to match my pink and black kitchen.  I had pink and white striped wallpaper then, and hung hand painted floral trays about the cabinets.  That was really my favorite version of kitchen decor, before the one we have now.  I laughed, after setting up the display, when I looked down and realized I matched the display.  Another dealer was good enough to come over and take the picture for me.  Yeah, I know I get a kick out of some pretty odd things.

On Friday, Dad saw a set of kitchen cabinets at a yard sale while he was out running.  We went back, first thing, and bought them for Darby's apartment.  Then, since we would need the van empty later in the day, we drove to SLC to deliver them to her house.  I worked on crocheting all the way there and back, and Dad even stopped at a DI near her house and let me shop for a half an hour.

Later in the day we headed back to the mall to pick up the chairs Joyce had bought the previous Saturday, so we could deliver them to her in Erda. As always, Dad took the reigns and did the job.

On the way to dinner at Virg's I saw this unusually patterned hill, and took a picture.  Somehow it looks more like an abstract painting, than an actual view.

Virg's was decorated with Steampunk, which seems to have gone the way of the world.  We had great fish and chips, which I might mention, according to the Internet, have between 1,000 and 2,000 calories.  YIKES, a real deal breaker for this girl who aims at 1200 each day.  Obviously not my best diet day, but I did learn all about a show Joyce likes, called Ice Road Truckers ... she enjoyed telling us about it.  It never ceases to amaze me, how may things, a number of things, one might say, are new in the world ...  I guess I am not the only one in my family who is interested in the curious and curiouser. 

Driving home with the light on in the van, I was able to finish up Granny Square number 108 as we pulled in the drive way, and now I move on to putting them together.  All that driving, for the week, also allowed us to finish listening to the new Biography about Dallin Oaks.  Wow, what an amazing man.  Just listening to the book made me feel that my life had been wasted, and that I was the laziest person ever created.  We recommend the book for your reading, or listening pleasure.

As soon as Dad got home from running on Saturday morning, we drove up to Ogden to the KSL yard sale, a sort of flea market being held there.  I was a bit disappointed in the fact that there were less than a hundred dealers, but I did manage to spend about $35, not much considering we spent much more than that on gas.  Of course we finished up at the DI there, where Dad got into the spirit of things, and found the soft sided cooler we've been wanting to keep in the car, along with some LDS DVDs to send to Emily, as they are not available in the second hand market in Texas.  I also found two original paintings for $2 each, one of which is a keeper.

We also went to Viniquers, one of my favorite antique stores in the State, and were sad to hear that it was their last day.  She is tired of being tied to the store, and they are looking for a smaller place.  She let us walk over the property, which is amazing.  Dad and I were honestly a little tempted to buy it and start our own store.  Of course it would have been far from practical for us.

A full set of chintz.... oh if only I had found it when I was collecting.

Here I am with adorable Heidi.  She also owns the Acorn Antique Show there in Ogden.  The last of the really big shows in Utah.  She inherited it from her mother, and has managed to keep it together, which no other show has been able to do.

That night we went to Karisa Capps' wedding reception in the north end of Orem, where we saw the Watsons for the first time since our second mission.  We only saw them once, at a reunion between missions, so it was fun to catch up.  It turns out that they will be heading out on another mission to South Africa in January.  We are so excited for them.

Karisa's mom is a first cousin to my friend Kimi, it was fun to connect.

Hers was a woodland theme wedding ... the first one I have been too. 

The two Sister missionaries, are Elise Peterson Morgan and Kaitlin Kunzler, both of whom were in her MTC group.

The refreshments were like a giant charcuterie board ... soooo fun.  The GF crackers made us smile, as there as so many gluten free Finns ... it took us back.

The woodland cake was so charming.

Oh how we love these missionaries.

Davin and Bri, et al, went to Pioneer Village at Lagoon and took a photo of Brigham Young's desk ... as you see the desk itself is similar to the one I have in my 'prophets' room, but the unusual crown does not sport a beehive, as I erroneously recalled. They were so awesome to scout it out for me.

Today we had a wonderful set of church meetings, and had made arrangements to have ward members who are relatives join us for dinner.  Far right is Scott's cousin Jerry to whom he is related on her father's side, and Debbie on the far left is her husband's first cousin, on his mother's side.  Debbie's son Shane shared with us a talk he had given in the ward when we were out of town, and is shown with his two youngest children, who were interested to know if we had ghosts in the house. 

We told them our one small ghost story, but they were impressed by the rainbows cast through the stained glass window in the parlor.

So that was out week. It was the people we met up with that made it special.  We love you all and appreciate the beauty so many of you bring into our lives.