All's Quiet on the Home Front

After Rebecca and family left on Monday and we did the chairs, we kind of took a little time off.  We’d thought about going to the new Crystal Bridge Museum in Bentonville—one that Walmart sponsored, but we weren’t sure it would be open Mon, Jan 2.  I called.  No answer.  So we decided not.  Late morning they called back.  They WERE open… but since its at least 2.5 hrs to drive there, we decided not.  They were closed on Tuesday…. So we thought, Maybe Wednesday.

Tuesday I did a little copy writing work and we went out to the frame shop to get the lovely picture of the horse head Mom made framed for me.  I also took my picture of flowers and the tree from Mom’s Northridge back yard (that I’d water-colored when Tom and I were living there) to be framed.  It had hung in the downstairs bedroom for a while scotch taped into a frame.  I decided I liked it enough to actually put in a complementary mat and glass.  We went looking for wool pants for Mom but had no luck.  We checked out the houses.

Don, the handyman had done a good job of patching and priming the Church St. House. It looked so much better in white than in dirty beige. The Main St house is now painted down stairs (and as of Friday had the texture and primer on the upstairs rooms.)  It’s really looking nice.  We did some reading.  Mom was going through my mission blog book and getting a more concentrated taste of what we did.  By Tuesday evening, I was just really tired! Dragging my little pituti around. We also managed to get information on how to get the medical records from here transferred to her doctor.

So Wednesday we ditched the idea of traveling to Bentonville and opted to visit a few little galleries here.  We spent some time at the Riverview Gallery- with art work mostly by Duane Hada.  We enjoyed his water colors!  He did bare trees so elegantly… and water… and fish… and I don’t even LIKE fish!  I actually bought some note cards with fishermen on them because I loved the river and the bluffs.  Then we went to the arts and crafts place.  Lots of handiwork and some stunning photography.  We got some knitted dish clothes and some pot holders.  Mom spent time fitting everything into her suitcase.  I think Rebecca’s talent for packing must come from her.

Thursday we left by 8:30…ish… to head to the Little Rock Airport.  We stopped at Colton’s Stake House for soup and salad and got Mama stuffed with good food before her departure.  After we saw her to the security area… (Did you know you can ask for a pass at the check in desk to accompany a wheel chair person to the gate?) Tom and I went to Little Rock AFB to get my ID card renewed.

At this base they DID realize my ID card was expired, but when we explained we were going to pass and ID, they let us in without any problems.  We had to wait about an hour, but we got my ID quickly after that and went over to the commissary.  We only had a half dozen or so things on our list, but $200 later we exited the commissary.  Part of the haul included  14 lbs of chocolate chips.  Er, for food storage…of course and on sale!  We listened to a sequel to Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites and that made the drive home go fast.

Friday I met with the owners of Gift-Tiques to talk about doing a blog for them.  They are lovely women, creative and full of southern charm.  It will be fun to work with them.  I got the go-ahead to get their domain name and took pictures.  So many of their things change frequently, I had to choose the few things they typically had in the store.  We have a tentative idea of how they may want the blog to look, but they’re going to check out some other sites for ideas.  I came home, then turned around and went to the houses to check on progress and determine what came next.  We had another house come up vacant, and so had to look at that one and make decisions.  I also had to prepare for my training on Saturday.  It was a three stake seminary and Institute training.  I only had to worry about getting my teachers there and the last hour of training.

The view from Gift-Tiques cafe

I had been pondering about how our choices day-by-day determine what direction we are going and how the choices between serving God and serving mammon are pretty clear… and yet sometimes we get fooled into thinking, I can do just a little wrong, kind of walk the edge and it won’t be so bad. But that edge becomes a cliff and the fall is disastrous.  So I took scriptures and put them together into a lesson the teachers could use for their classes.  We discussed several other things and actually reached some consensus.  I had 15 of my 17 teachers there… and one that missed was on a cruise.

The main part of the training put on by the CES instructors grew from Pres Bednar’s quote:  “We talk too much because we believe talking and telling is teaching and it’s not.  To teach you first have to observe and learn so that you can discern and then know [what to say]” So we observed two classes and watched how the teacher taught and how the students responded.  Afterwards we were able to ask the teachers and the students how they felt about the process.  Why were the quiet ones quiet?  What could help them participate? How did they feel when the teacher asked…? Did the teacher have more prepared if the students didn’t speak up?

It was very interesting to see the responses of the seminary students (14-17) and the Institute students (18-30).  The seminary students spoke from heart to mouth. As the idea came to mind, it was shared.  The institute students pondered, reasoned, and formulated amazing, thoughtful responses.  One of the institute students said, “When you teach pure doctrine it pierces the heart and makes students feel free and desire to change.”

I left at 7am and got back home about 5pm.  I drove up with our Institute teacher who visited on the way up… but slept on the way back.  I wish I could have slept, too.  Got home, made dinner, and then stretched myself by buying a domain name, attaching it to my existing web hosting site, and importing WordPress for it to reside in.  It only took two calls and one “live chat” to get it accomplished.  Now I have to arrange the site.  But I went from STRESS!!! to satisfaction.

One of the things my teachers said is that you can tell what path you are on by watching what your hands do… or feet… or mouth.  If I give lip service to keeping the Sabbath holy, what do I do on the Sabbath?  I decided I needed to make a list of wholesome things to keep me better focused.  So I made a list: write the Kenyan saints, blog, practice the piano, call family, read scriptures or the Ensign or other good books, organize family history, set up visiting teaching, write thank you notes.  I came home and started on a blog… well, I started on lunch first, then the blog.  Tom came home a bit after 3pm and needed to do some home teaching but didn’t have a companion.   So I went with him and came home about 6:30.  Well THAT made it easy to stay focused on spiritual things!  I’ll keep my list for next week, and the week after.

This next week looks to be crazy busy.  I guess that’s a good thing.