Monday, November 19, 2018

Parlor Painting Party

We had another great week. It started out with me trying out my wings after book club.  These are in downtown Payson, outside a clothing store that Janis and I also checked out.

When I got home, Dad was hard at work on painting more of the trim in the Parlor. 

 That night we went to see a Steam Punk version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  I loved the costumes, like these triple bustles. 
 This is Gab Moyar, playing the part of Bottom.  It was a great production.  It was the third time I've seen the play, and the first time I could follow the plot.  They did a great job.
 Here is Dad with Gab after the play, he really is a great kid.
On Tuesday we started in on the painting again. You may recall that the pillar on the south side of the spandrel doorway into the dining room was missing its molding.  In this picture the dark brown pieces are original, Dad found them in a box in my old work room in the basement a couple of years ago, but there were not enough to finish up the pillar.  He took a piece to Home Depot, with a small hope of being able to match it.  What he found instead was a wainscotting molding, that he cut about a third off, lengthwise, and which then matched.  How amazing is that?

I took the extra pieces and the crystals off the old 1930's ceiling fixture, and then we took turns painting it, along with the ceiling medallion. We both worked on painting for the rest of the afternoon.

That night we went to Pleasant Grove and baby sat some cute girls.



 On Wednesday I hauled some house cast offs to the mall, shown here are the red chest from our room, and the wooden wash stand we were using in the parlor.  I covered it with my Christmas merchandise.  Oh, and the little figural plant stand that was my pride and joy in my Victorian days, sold within an hour of taking it in.  I'd paid 125 for it 15 years ago and it sold for 175.  I wish everything worked that way.
 
 Dad worked on more painting that day, and then when I got home we headed to the church together.  He had signed up to babysit in the nursery during a Relief Society activity.  I had Young Women's. Here he is with Brother Jaussi, at this point there were three watchers and three watchees.

 The Young Women were learning how to tie quilts, as they did two that had been pieced by one of their advisers.
Bonnie Harman is in the Presidency, shown at the top of the picture.  We found out last week that she and Brett have bought property in Genola, and Joette and her family are buying their house here in the ward. 

I spent most of my time with the YW, but then went into the Gym to put together a couple of banners as well.

On Thursday, at work, while I was working on ornaments for the Festival of Trees, Emily called. Becca and Hannah flew to Texas Wednesday and Emily was nice enough to facetime when they were all at a ridiculously expensive shoe store.  It was fun to visit, and it looks like they are having so much fun.


 When I got home, Dad had rented a wallpaper steamer and had gotten off all the wallpaper boarder.  Then he had mostly finished the painting in the parlor.  So, though I did do a lot of the white trim paint, which took two long days, Dad painted the ceiling and all of the blue paint himself.  He's the best, don't you think.

Then we were off to a stake training meeting for the implementing of the new Come Follow Me program in the church, that starts in January.

I had to leave a bit early, to go to my book club, but Dad stayed an additional half hour.

On Friday Dad got the little bit that was unfinished on the painting, done, while I painted the wood on the bench white, in anticipation of reupholstering it.
We had to return the wall paper steamer by 3, so we cleaned up and headed north.  We were to meet Darby to see the house she trying to get, but had an hour to kill.  We stopped at the DI in AF and ran into Jake Carter.  I would not have recognized him, but once Dad stopped me to introduce me to him, I knew who it was.  He and his wife have 3 kids, a 5 year old girl and boy and girl 2 year old twins. It was so fun to catch up with him, he was always one of my favorite kids in the ward.

 Next we met Darby at the house in Riverton, just shy of Bluffdale.  Here she is chatting with her home inspector, at the back of the back yard grass and the front of the 1/4 acre of pasture.  Its all very nice.  I hope it works out.
The issue is that it was a half acre with animal rights, but Udot widened Redwood Road a bit, and paid the owner for the land, but it was mandatory, and then the property was not the minimum required size for horse property.  Now the owners are working with a lawyer to convince the city that a variance would be appropriate in the case.
 Next we headed south several miles on Redwood Road, to Barb and Randy's house in Saratoga Springs.  We arrived a little early, so we decided to take a walk along Utah Lake which their house backs on.  It was just sunset and the reflection on the slightly misting lake with its image of the Wasatch Mountains, including Timpanogos, was simply magical.  The Moes are six house down from the city boat harbor, so we walked along the back pathway until we got there.
This man, and two others were fishing.  When we first arrived the man was casting, hooking and pulling in one fish after another.  As soon as he recast, he got a bite and pulled it in, and threw it in his cooler.  We watched him pull out 7 back to back to back like that.  He said they are white bass, and when we googled it we found that they are not super popular for eating, since they taste too fishy.  It was amazing to watch.

At the Moes house we had a lovely dinner with the Heuers as well.  I love both the Heuers' and the Moes' new houses.  If I weren't so in love with my house I might be tempted to go build a house there.  Being on the lake is simply amazing.
 After dinner we headed to the Moes' stake musical performance of The Children of the Promise.  It was an ambitious undertaking, and I thought they did a pretty good job of it.  Dad and I had listened to the five books that comprise the series on our mission, so the story line was pretty fresh in our minds.  It was interesting to see how they chose top events and skimmed from one to another.  It made sense to us, but to people who had not read it, I'm not sure it was as much appreciated.  Barb and I are shown here with one of the performers.
 On Saturday I was off to my friend Jenn Reed's Vintage Christmas Show at the Convention Center in Provo.  I was VERY surprised to see Robin and Teri Quigg there.  Robin said she didn't even know it was a Vintage show, and had thought, "This looks like Paula's kind of thing." Then we ran into each other.  How fun is that?
 I was admiring this young man's beautiful hair, when his wife came over, I guess she just couldn't compete with that.  I love her confidence and their relationship seems so fun. 
 I ran into several dealers I know, and had a lot of fun chatting. Brandon and his aunt used to do fleaology, he is so much fun.  He actually has always reminded me of Ben, and that makes it more fun to visit with him now.  He and his brothers, now do Junk Hunks and even have an occasional store.  
 That night Dad had his fun, and went to see BYU play with Trevor and Spencer.
 Doesn't it look like they had fun?
 We got the living room put back together between my antique shopping and Dad's football game, except for the coffee table, which I then painted the lower portions of after Dad left.  We moved it into the parlor this morning and took some pictures.







 Dad had a Presidency meeting with the Elders, since he has been called as the Service Coordinator in the quorum, while I worked on my lesson as I was to teach in YW

We had the Primary Program today, and it was wonderful, I think I cried on and off through the whole program, but when they sang the newest Primary Song, I Will Be What I Believe, that I had heard Emily teaching in her Primary in Texas, I so wanted to just buy plane tickets and be there to see her lead their Primary program. 

My lesson went well.  The new teaching style with teenagers, is to lead a discussion, rather than to 'teach' directly.  I actually think it went pretty well, which was a relief.  We talked about self reliance, and how it tends toward serving others.  

After church we went home and I made salmon soup from a Finnish recipe.  It required some substitutions, but it turn out to be pretty close to that which we had in Finland.  Yum.


Then it was time to go back to the church to set up for our Young Women in Excellence program.  Dad had gone to stake choir practice and joined me when the program started at 7.
 This is Azzrin and Emma.  Azzrin come from a totally inactive family, and is just amazing. Of course the other girls had their parents there, and part of the activity was to write a letter to their daughter about how amazing she is.  As it turned out Azzrin got three letters, all from leaders, including me, and was thrilled.
 Our President made the cup cakes.   They have a filling and are very moist.  Its in their family lore that once one of her kids said how amazing they were and asked what they were called, she started to tell them they were called "Better than s..." when she caught herself and said "Better than Soccer cupcakes", which has lived on to be their family's name .... sorry, it just made me giggle.
 The girls walked through a sparkler arch and released a balloon on which they had written a one word focus for the upcoming year. 
Here is Dad and Gustavo Ramirez with their huge sparklers.

 Dad and I had our picture taken at the photo booth, right before I tore it down.
How fun are these girls .... yes, I am loving working with them.



Sunday, November 11, 2018

4 Grandkid Days + 3 Painting Days = The Perfect Week

 Another week has gone by, it was a covered in paint week.  On Monday I got things ready for our We-Can meeting, I spray painted several elements, and had yellow and black paint on my fingers all day.  Here Carol she is a fellow We-Canner, so you can see I wasn't the only one covered in paint.
 Here are more of the gals hard at work.
 Our color scheme is black and yellow, the 'B's are in remembrance of Ben, to whom we are dedicating the tree.
Here are some with their dots.

Dad was home taking off the aluminum windows from our former bedroom windows.
 That night we were excited to get to go and give a Family Home Evening lesson at Trevor and Nell's.  Dinner was also included, thanks.  Since I'm so into bees and beehives at the moment I decided to give a lesson on Utah and Beehives ...  It was pretty fun.  Then Dad read a story about a quilt that a family made in the 1940's for post WWII packages for Europe.  Later the Dad was called to Finland to open a mission there for the first time, and their clothing, food stuffs and linens were all stolen when they were shipped from the USA.  They had to ask the church to replace the items because they were not available for purchase in war torn Finland.  Guess what quilt was on the top of one of the boxes.  Yep sometimes its us who needs the help.  
 Afterward we stayed on to participate in their family scripture study.
How cute is Penny.

 On Tuesday Dad worked on the windows again, here is the before picture from Monday.
This is the window with the original white paint on the frames.  Dad both calked and painted them on Tuesday.

This is how it looked on Tuesday afternoon.  I spent the day taking down the outside Halloween decor, which Dad finished by hauling the iron fencing from the faux grave yard back to the side of the house.

 Dad asked me to document the medallion now that it is starting to fall apart.  Note the curlicue on the right in the middle top.  That is a resent loss.  Anyway, we love telling people that the facial expression on the two sides are: the wife of the couple who built the house, so pleased with her new house, and on the right is the husband, who was horrified when he saw the final bill.
 I worked on Wednesday, getting out and pricing the several items I had found junking the previous week. This picture is of a lovely old ornament that another dealer brought in,

 Dad got the leaves all mowed up that day, did property taxes, and drove around ordering windows for the living room.
The next day, Keith, who works in the north building, came over and wanted to take a selfie with Richard and me.  Later he sent me this ... he's really getting techie, don't you think?

Dad went back to the temple that day, after it was closed for two weeks of cleaning.

After work I drove into Provo and met up with Terry Kew to go and visit her Mom is a care center (lovely lady) and then to her mother's house, which the family is cleaning out.  I wish I'd had taken a picture, this lady was a serious collector, she makes me look spartan. I was there to catch any items of value before they gave much of it to DI.  Terry gave me the Bee items for the Bee/Ben tree, and the little trees are for the Dr. Suess Tree I think I'll do after this next mission. 

I got home before Dad, because he went on a temple cleaning assignment.  I guess they have a volunteer crew of about 45 every night to go over everything.  Dad said he mostly did dusting, sanitizing and some vacuuming

 On Friday we boxed up the indoor Halloween decor, 8 20 gallon bins, a Calderon full, a witch mannequin, the big pumpkin sign, a contractors garbage bag full of plastic pumpkins and skulls, and a folding chair that says "Sit for a Spell" all neatly labeled and stored together.
 Then we got the barrel top desk up to the big guest room.  Whew, Dad actually rolled the bottom part up the stairs by himself.
 Then we went to dinner at Skipper's Fish and Chips, which we used to love early in our marriage, in fact my water broke just before Ashley was born in the the Skipper's parking lot on 21st South. 

Ashley and Zac were at Nenna's early birthday party in Spanish, but we dropped by their house to see it in all its newness.  Its all so nice, having lived there I know that they fixed many of the funny little issues it used to have.  Nicely Done Halls.

Then we went to see 'Anything Goes' at the Hale Center Theater.  It is more of a variety show with singing and dancing, threaded through with a simple plot.  We loved it.
At intermission we got to visit with these cuties, as their family and Dad had arranged it so that we saw it the same night.  So fun.

On Saturday we got busy painting the trim in the living room.  Dad painted the whole double huge front window frame, while I did this and got started on the archway into the dining room.  We are not going to paint any of the red oak, such as the fire place and the spandrel between the living room and dining room, so not to worry.

We took a break intending to walk up main street to a new bakery and sandwich shop there, unfortunately they had two soups and one sandwich, and none of them were vegetarian.  So we headed further south, and had Mexican food, which was delicious.  We stopped on our way home and got a sweet roll at the Bakery place because a kid from our ward was working there.

 I had bought this hand hooked 1930's wall hanging from another dealer for $5 on Thursday.  It had probably collected rain water while hanging on a wall at some point, as it had water marks in the sky.  This is the second soak water draining away.  I soaked it once more.
Its far from perfect, but even Dad likes it.  These hand hooked rugs were a big deal when he was in Finland the first time, though I never saw one with this subject when we were there, and that is what I love.

 That night we were exhausted by the time we got to Davin and Bri's to watch their kids while they went out to dinner.  Here I am with Adi taking it easy and watching The Incredibles II, it was fun to be with the kids, and Davin and Bri got home before the movie was over so we got to watch the ending with them.  That was fun.
Church was great today.  It was one of our final 3 hour blocks.  In December we have a special stake conference, and two weeks with just sacrament meeting.  How strange is that.

Dad went out and took sacrament to the shut ins after church, while I fixed dinner.  After dinner, we were pleasantly surprised by a visit from the Summers. That means that when you include the fact that we saw Ian when we stopped to tour Ashley and Andy's newified house before the play on Friday, that we saw at least one of each of the families with children who live in Utah County.  The Grand kid time was the best.  We love them, and love getting to know them better.  Tonight we found out that Reagan is quite the budding artist.

Well that was our week.  We hope yours was nice as well.  Thanks for taking the time to keep up with us by reading our blog.  xoxoxo