FRONT PORCHES

A puzzling thing I saw yesterday. As opposed to this house. Even in the cold weather I would sit out there. The house faces east so the morning sun would pour in, warming the sitters and the rockers.

I blame Frank Lloyd Wright for the decline of the front porch. Luckily this family didn't buy into his ideas.

Even this house--whose porch is tiny--is inviting. Can't you just imagine eating breakfast out there when it is warm? Or sitting out there with a notebook to blog?

And speaking of warm, it is coming, isn't it? Remind me of my longing if I complain of the heat in the middle of July. Someone forgot to tell Utah about global warming--and a lot of the rest of the country, too.

GOODBYE TO MY UNCLE VIRGE and MY COUSIN HOLLY'S HOUSE--THE ONE I GREW UP IN

Uncle Virge once kept a baby skunk in a grain barrel for me. He didn't want a skunk in his grain barrel but I wanted a shrunk for a pet so he let me bring water to the skunk every day and try to tame it.


He was the most colorful relative I have ever known, outspoken, often brash but had the kindest heart and absolutely 100% integrity. I adored him. Thankfully, he knew I adored him.


Today was his funeral. I cried and laughed and rejoiced. Uncle Virge died true and faithful.

He lost both his boys--he only had two children--and his wife and now they are all together. Here are his daughter-in-laws and the grandkids.

While we were at the cemetery I took a picture of our stillborn baby's headstone. He was only a five month baby but as any mother knows that is a baby, just as much as any baby is. I thought I would never recover of the grief over this baby. Of course time deadens the pain of any hurt but not the memory.

This is my "bestest" cousin of all times. We sold her our family home. She painted it and changed every speck of it. I am astonished. It is absolutely beautiful. It looks like a decorator lives there.

This is where I grew up. I slept in both of the upstairs bedrooms you can see windows for, and one on the other side of the house too. In the summer I slept on the front porch.

Right here.

The other end of the front porch Mom enclosed to make her walk-in closet--before she did that, I slept there too.

This is the breeze-way. As teenagers we slept on top of the roof and the boys found us one year and used our own garden hose to soak us.

This is in one end of the living room.




This used to be one end of the porch before Mother started closing it in. Holly has decorated this room well.

This is another room Mom made. She enclosed the back porch--that no one used--and made it into a sun-room. The best place for spend a cold winter day. It would get hot in there, even on overcast days.

This is Holly's new kitchen island.

This is the kitchen I burned up when I was a teenager. Have I told you that story?

The flames went from the stove, to the ceiling, across the ceiling and down the other side, almost to the top of the table. Of course it looks better now. The metal cabinets are the original ones, Holly just painted them.

Holly re-did the dressing room and installed a claw tub.

This is a "rubbing" that Holly made of our great-great grandmother, Lillian Abigail Gauchet's headstone.

And even though I took 72 pictures of Holly's house and lots of pictures at the cemetery I will close with this headstone rubbing.

We came from good people, people who worked hard, sacrificed for their beliefs and religion. They served their families and friends all the days of their lives. We live in far more luxury than they had but they were happy. Hard work makes for happy families. I guess I will go clean the kitchen now because it needs it. I hope to be happy.

7 WEIRD OR RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME.

My friend Pam tagged me with this:

1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Okay, Pam, first of all I don't know seven people with blogs to tag. So, I'm afraid that part will have to go unanswered. I keep telling my friends to start a blog (you are the only one who has minded) but they just look at me like I'm an adolescent, trapped in a grown-up's body and say, "What's a blog?" Then they say, "What's the purpose of a blog?" And then they say, "I don't get it." All the time they are giving me that look. I do visit a lot of blogs, almost daily, of people I've stumbled on but they are popular and probably wouldn't even read my comments. So, I'll do the weird or random facts.

By the way, what does it mean to tag 7 random people? Who are these random people? Am I a random person? What makes a person random? maybe that's a weird fact.

7 weird facts about me:

1. I slept on the front porch as a kid. It was dripping with Virginia Creeper (the vine, not a weird--or random--person from Virginia). The porch looked like an grotto. I slept in a real double, brass bed with a down comforter. I had a night stand with a lamp, a box of comics--later a stack of books, and a portable radio. Mom said I could sleep there until the first frost. I prayed for a late frost. I would have slept there all winter if she had let me. As you can probably tell I lived in a very safe, small town. Mom left the front door open (screen door closed) and her bedroom was ten feet away so don't think she was negligent. She was the best. I sleep in a bedroom now--I wish I could sleep outside--but the window is wide open, summer and winter.

2. I think I am thin. When I pass a mirror I am always startled--and disgusted.

3. I think I am young. When I see my face I am always startled--and disgusted. So I smile. Then I look better but I do not, under any circumstance look at my profile. I have considered wearing a chin strap to bed to firm up the profile but it sounds too much like a jock strap.

4. I used to be a good cook. I had dinner on the table at 6:00 pm sharp and it was tasty. Now I don't love to cook but still love to gather recipes, as if I'm going to go right to the kitchen and pull out pans and measuring spoons. I watch the food network--except for Emeril--I copy recipes off the Internet and put them in files. It's my hobby. Reading people's blog is my other hobby. I read people's food blogs, especially the vegetarian food blogs. I found a recipe on A Veggie Venture called SPICY THAI NOODLE SALAD that I did make and it was very good. I had to make a whole extra recipe of sauce though. So, out of perhaps 100 recipes that I have saved I have made one. One percent. Not a very good track record, is it?

5. I love to sleep but never get to bed early enough to do enough of it. Maybe that's not weird. Maybe it's just poor planning.

6. I love to give gifts. I used to take a little gift (a loaf of sweet bread, etc.) to the people I visit teach each month (visiting teaching is an LDS thing) and then one day two of them said it made them feel guilty so I quit. I have never understood that. Why would they feel guilty. I wanted them to feel loved. I also used to buy Wednesday gifts for my girls--the ones I gave birth to and the ones who married my boys. Not every Wednesday, not even one Wednesday a month. But if I found something and I couldn't wait until Christmas or their birthday's to give it to them I gave it early. Then my fortunes took a nosedive and I couldn't buy Wednesday gifts anymore. When my fortunes reverse I am going to buy Wednesday gifts again. I can hardly wait.

7. I know sugar is a poison. I know it in the depths of my being. So, why am I always making caramels, I wonder? I just finished making 500 caramels for one order--that's over sixteen pounds of the stuff, and twelve Thanksgiving bags with name tags for my sister for her Thanksgiving table. I am slowly contributing to people's ill health. Someone should shake me. But not before I get my chin strap on because I don't want that wonky chin flopping around because I think I'm really young and fit and I don't want anything flapping all over the place, giving hints that I'm not.

There, maybe those aren't weird. Maybe they're just random.

And this post is too long. I really must learn to condense.