Skip to main content

Ten Things of Thankful: Mother's Day and Other Things Edition

Photo: A toddler (me), with an impish grin, rolls out dough on the kitchen counter while my mom stands behind me and laughs
Happy Mother's Day weekend to all the moms out there, and gentle hugs to those whose dreams of motherhood have not been fulfilled. 

 1. I'm thankful that I had the incredible good luck to have the world's best mom. I'm sure you can tell from the photo above that she had her work cut out for her when I joined the family. She patiently harnessed my energy and taught me. . .well, everything. 

 2. I'm thankful another friend from California visited me this week. I hadn't seen her since we moved, and it was so good to catch up. I took her to Moon's Rare Books (of course--that's my go-to place to show out-of-town visitors) and then we went out to lunch. 

 3. I'm thankful for spring! Knock on wood, but it looks like the apricot tree is going to have a bumper crop this year. John and I keep thinning the fruit, but it doesn't look like we've touched it. 

 4. I'm thankful for spring! The roses John ordered for me arrived last week, and he has been so busy making sure the beds are just right so we can get them in the ground. The rose bed is going to look so good.
Photo: John installs wooden beams at the back of the sloped (future) rose bed so we can make the ground more level

 5. I'm thankful for family history progress. I went up to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City this week. Usually I do my research from home, but there are lots of resources that are not available online. I was looking for Jennie Frue, the first wife of my great-great aunt's husband. Jennie was married previously to Edward B. Warwick. I had seen a birth record for a daughter of Edward Warwick and a Jennie Silk. I was pretty sure the two Jennies were the same person, but I wanted to go see the microfilm to see if the last name was somehow transcribed incorrectly. Clear as day, the name was Jennie Silk. I got on the computer at the library, and found Jennie's dad listed on the 1880 census as divorced (something that wasn't all that common in the 1800s), and I found a marriage record for Jennie's mom marrying a Mr. Silk when Jennie was very young. I suspect that Jennie took on the name of Silk, even though she was born a Frue, and gave Jennie Silk as her maiden name on the birth record. That baby girl (Elizabeth) was Jennie's only child, and lived only 6 months. It was quite sad, but probably my favorite part of family history research is finding lost children, so I was happy to have solved the mystery, and thankful for the help I received by actually going to the library.
Photo: A list of mother's maiden names, as projected on the microfilm reader. "Jennie Silk" is on the 4th-from-the-bottom row.
6. I'm thankful for freshly vacuumed carpets. I have a robotic vacuum (not a Roomba, but a much less expensive brand that I got on sale) and I love the fact that the carpet gets vacuumed everyday and I don't have to remember to do anything other than empty the collection bin. The carpet tracks are all-over-the-place random, but they make me smile. 
Photo: Vacuum tracks on carpet go in all different directions
7. I'm thankful for a beautiful lightening storm earlier this week. Some bolts were going sideways through the sky. It was a great show!

 8. I'm thankful for Relief Society. We had a watercolor class. I was willing to give it a try. I had fun, though I am pretty sure I'm not the next Grandma Moses of watercolor. 
Photo: A very child-like watercolor painting: blue sky, yellow mountains, green hills, and an odd tree that can't decide if it is a Joshua tree or a deciduous tree. 

 9. I'm thankful for my children. They have taught me so much, and I'm privileged to be their mom. I'm thankful for the adults they have become, too. 

 10. I'm thankful for John (and for his mom for raising such a great guy!)

What are you thankful for this week? Comment below, and/or link up your own post! 

 Text links of those joining us this week:
The Prolific Pulse
MessyMimi's Meanderings
A Season and a Time
The Wakefield Doctrine

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter

Comments

  1. Lisa TomeyMay 10, 2019 at 7:44 AM

    So many beautiful thank yous! Keep at the watercolor painting! Book Store going to is on my "me" list today. I'm taking the day off from obligations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KristiMay 10, 2019 at 7:51 AM

      I would hope that improvement would happen with practice, but I've never been all that interested in drawing/coloring/etc., even as a child, so I'm not sure if I'll pick up a brush again anytime soon. It was a fun evening, though.

      Have fun at the book store! It's nice to take a free day every now and then. :-)

      Delete
  2. MarissaMay 10, 2019 at 9:11 AM

    That has to be the cutest baby photo ever!!! Happy Mothers Day !!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KristiMay 13, 2019 at 7:49 AM

      Thanks! Hope you had a great Mother's Day, too!

      Delete
  3. messymimiMay 10, 2019 at 5:51 PM

    Wonderful thanks, i am thankful you host this hop!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMay 12, 2019 at 8:11 AM

    very cool bookstore (went to the website, of course, lol)
    Funny about this (virtual) world... we see your photo with your mom, and think, 'Yep, that looks like Pat'... the interweaving lives that this place encourages!
    great photo of John... my favorite type of yard project. Shovels and altering the topography.
    Have an enjoyable weekend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KristiMay 13, 2019 at 7:53 AM

      Moon's is great! It's more a museum than bookstore for me, and I'm glad Mr. Moon welcomes those who are just looky-loos.

      Delete
  5. GirlieOnTheEdgeMay 12, 2019 at 7:03 PM

    Lovely TToT. The picture of you and Pat is great! You definitely look like you were quite a handful lol
    Yes, spring has finally arrived! The roses will look beautiful on the slope. The retaining wall looks great!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KristiMay 13, 2019 at 7:58 AM

      I love the photo. My mom looks so patient, and I look like the reason she developed patience. :-)

      Delete
  6. Pat BMay 13, 2019 at 7:57 PM

    It took me a minute to remember which house that was. Seeing you in this photo makes me smile.
    You did some great detective work at the Family History Center.
    I love seeing my kids' artwork at all ages and stages of their lives. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KristiMay 16, 2019 at 5:08 PM

      I'll have to send it to you for your fridge! :-)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Conversations are so much nicer when more than one person does the talking. :-) Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts; I'd love to hear from you!

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Things of Thankful: Live from Oregon, part 2

stock photo of old computer monitor When I was 10 or 11, I remember sitting next to my dad in our living room and reading computer code to him as he entered it into an Apple computer. We would finish the exercise and he would hit enter (or was it "run"?) and wait expectantly for the green type to appear on the screen. If we were lucky, the whole conversation would occur. Most often, there would be an error either in my dictation of the code, or in the typing of the code. We would then go painstakingly back through the lines, character by character, to find and correct the error. After what seemed like hours (and might have been), we would succeed and the computer would finally run the entire program. It was magical! My dad designed and built an earth-sheltered, passive solar home decades before solar panels were commonplace. He also was on a 9-month waiting list for a Prius, when hybrids were not seen on every street.  While my dad is definitely on the cutting edge of technol...
5 comments
Read more

Monday Mentions: Equate Crutches

Have you ever needed crutches? I hadn't, until a week ago.  I'm pretty sure I strained a muscle while running a half-marathon.  (That sounds kind of cool, doesn't it? I'm not actually that cool; the last time I strained a muscle it was from carrying too many shopping bags at once.) In any case, I found myself in need of some crutches. I sent my husband to the store to get some. Photo: A pair of crutches leans against a wall  Not that crutches are all that complex, but because I hadn't used any before, I wondered if I could figure out how to adjust them to fit me properly. I shouldn't have worried. John came home from Walmart with their generic store brand of crutches, complete with instructions. First, I needed to take out a long bolt that went through the hand grip. Then I needed to find my height range, push down two metal pieces, and slide the crutches until the little metal pieces came up in the hole near my height range. (Having two people for this...
4 comments
Read more

What a Wonderful World! (An #AtoZChallenge Post): Z is for Zion National Park

  Visitor Center sign in Zion National Park My husband recently re-retired, and we are front-loading travel. My #AtoZChallenge posts this year will explore our adventures--some pre-retirement, some post. Today's location: Zion National Park in Utah.  Zion is a bit of a shibboleth. People from outside of Utah (or those who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) tend to pronounce Zion as "ZIE-on." Locals (or tourists who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) use more of a schwa sound, pronouncing Zion to rhyme with lion. However you choose to pronounce it, it is an amazing, beautiful national park and has some amazing hikes. The last time my husband and I visited Zion National Park, we entered from the east, and traveled through the mile-long Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel. It is an engineering marvel, completed in the 1920s. Before we passed through the tunnel, though, we spotted a group of bighorn sheep, including some babies...
8 comments
Read more