I have wanted to write for this blog for the last month, but there has been so much going on that I have felt overwhelmed. I’m in the car right now, with nothing to do but watch the trees go by and take pictures of the sky to use in my Photoshop 5 class. The class was listed as “Advanced Photography” but is actually just a graphics exercise using the newest edition of Photoshop. I am having a hard time because the “Basic Photography" class was all about getting the black and white shot composed and set—a tiny bit of the world in itself. Then there was the skill and art of developing and then printing just a few of the dozens of photos that I had taken over the last 3 months. This “advanced” class is about knowing how to add a false shadow and make the original picture into a word with letters that have the picture as a pattern in them. The final portfolio is composed of a few dozen solitary items (a single flower, a chair, a frog), a half a dozen “backgrounds” (a beach, a bench in a park, the window in a house) and then some kaleidoscopic graphics as well as a final “composition” that contains a few images melded together into a surrealistic mix. It is just a few weeks before I’m done with this semester—and I am getting to know Photoshop 5 a little bit. So—not a total waste of time and money.
{And I don’t have to count the seconds that a strip of film sits in each of the 5 bathes necessary to develop it.}
{No smell either.}
Since I last wrote, I’ve had knee surgery and another round of shots down the sides of my lower spine. I also finally had some planter’s warts lazared off the bottom of my left foot—no touching the bandages or getting it wet for a week. I take baths with my left leg hanging out of the tub. I have a stylish black boot thing with long Velcro straps that keep it on. It doesn’t hurt—or itch—HURRRAH! It does feel kind of squishy, though, when I walk on it too much. (That fact grosses Brent out . . . I don’t mention it to him now when he asks how my foot feels.)
It is raining right now—a light, steady stippling that would be great on my lawn and gardens. Yes! I have a garden again. Actually it is just a flat of two different kinds of lettuce that Sarah planted for me and has watered every day for the last week. I haven’t eaten any of it yet, but she told me that it’s ready to harvest. What I haven’t told her is that I would like it to go to seed and then in a few months find little “volunteer” lettuces in odd places about the yard.
Sarah—an incredible young woman who has, in her short lifetime, been a plumber, a construction worker, a gardener and an expert on grass watering systems. She is a tiny little woman—she looks like she’s 20 years old. Her face has a pixie/faerie look about it—as if she just sprang down from the branches of one of our cypress trees. When things don’t work, she fixes them. She is the best angel that Heaven could have sent. My knee and my foot (and my back) make it impossible for me to take care of my acre and a quarter. I was energetic when we first got here and put in all sorts of “islands” of bushes and flowers and palms and a live Christmas tree that we planted when Christmas was over. I have started half a dozen avocado trees and they are already taller than me (OK, that doesn’t take much) and in another year or so should begin to produce an avocado or two. Before she came, the whole front walkway was overgrown to the point that people had to fight their way through the branches to get to our front door. I hope that she finds this area a good place to stay for a while—she has single-handedly taken the most stressful (guilt-inducing) part of my life and turned it into a grand adventure. We went to Home Depot last week and picked out some annuals that she planted in all the little poky, empty places in the front of the house to add “colour”. It has been years since I have even thought about adding colour to anything—just hanging on has been more than I could handle for a long time now.
I got to speak in Stake Conference, Saturday night session and had a wonderful time. I focused my “remarks” around the couplet (I think that Mom said that Aunt Jannie first come up with it.):
Today I am becoming just who I want to be;
At six or sixteen, forty-eight or even eighty-three.
I was supposed to talk about how to teach our children the importance of paying tithing. I think that the Stake President was hoping for a 13-minute chat about making a Tithing Bank with/for a young child and then helping the child figure out how much tithing to pay from his/her allowance. Maybe some hints for Family Home Evening lessons on the importance of paying tithing and a frequent reminder of the verses in Malachi. I did mention tithing, but only about 11 minutes into my talk. Instead I spoke about being worthy to hear the promptings of the Spirit and obedient enough to obey those directions. I read my favorite Old Testament story about the widow who obeyed the Prophet Elisha when he told her to use the last bit of meal and oil that remained in her home and “make, I pray thee, first a little cake for me.” Anyway. I’ve included my talk here—you can see for yourself. At the end of my talk, I finished by telling what Meg, La and Nate remembered about Brent and me teaching them about the law of tithing. The crux of my talk was that if they wanted their children to pay tithing—they must also pay tithing. When they attended tithing settlement at the end of every year—each child could echo proudly their parents’ account to the Bishop—and the Lord—that they were full tithe-payers.
Today I am becoming just what I want to be: Brent’s best sweetheart (Meg and La and Nate are also in his heart—but I’m his BEST love); a better friend and mother to Meg, La and Nate; a faithful Stake Primary Second Counselor; a consistent student of the Scriptures; a quieter person who can better hear the whisperings of the Lord guiding me.
I felt a quiet voice suggest that I have pizza delivered to the class I love the most—Plant Identification—this Tuesday night. Dr. Rogers approved the idea and it will be fun to have everyone eating rather than mumbling about how hungry they are because they didn’t have time for lunch or dinner.
Maybe that wasn’t the Spirit—maybe it was just a good idea to show everyone in that class how much I appreciate how they have accepted me—a non-professional-landscape-architect—into their circle. I like that I can do weird stuff like order pizza for a class of 20. They don’t know that I’m a Mormon, but if they ever meet another one I would like them to have a fond memory of one who loved being with them—and cherished the friendship that they returned.
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