Letters from Home – Page 157 – A blog by Angela Ross

Hidden Renovations

I am thankful for this house and this neighborhood and to live in this state. But it doesn’t mean I don’t wish for more outlets, some ceiling fans, and hidden internet cables. Many of the renovations we have made on this house are not glamorous. There has been no high-style makeover and not even new carpet yet. But we (this is a loose term) work away at wiring, painting, repairing drywall, installing lights, building shelves in closets, fixing plumbing, and other things. We’re steady, but not very fast. We began in the basement and have completed most work there and this week we began the more difficult work on the main floor.

Richard and Rob spent a couple of days in the attic to wire for ceiling fans. This meant very messy work in tight spaces. I didn’t have the heart to take a picture of Rob, our treasured guest, just as dirty as Richard. It’s not something I want his wife Melinda to see. 😉

This summer the west-facing rooms will have ceiling fans with wall switches and this is a good step toward our goals for the rooms. Perhaps we will finish Paige’s room in time for her to move out!

Mark’s Ways

These are Mark’s stuffed animals that I found arranged in a literal dog pile. Evidently “Snowball” was victorious.

I was thinking the other night that I wanted to remember a few things about Mark.

I want to remember how Mark likes to sit close to me when we read scriptures.

I want to remember how he has to walk around the room in order to memorize or recite a poem.

He has managed to wear shorts all winter, changing into pants only when he has to go outside or run an errand with me. In past winters, I have hidden his shorts. Arizona habits die hard, I guess.

The other day he and Timothy were together in his room. Timothy, always the entertainer, was making him laugh. Mark has a fabulous laugh. I stood hidden outside the door and held a recorder in the doorway to capture some of it.

Mark has had an obsession with swearwords, discovering what they really are without saying them. He asks me about them with raised eyebrows, wide eyes, and first letters only. He is disappointed that they swear in the Harry Potter books.

Since he’s decided that swearing is abhorrent, he has come up with his own words to call things when he is frustrated. Each of his contrived words has at least 3 syllables.

He’s asked me not to share his quotes on the blog anymore. I still write them down, though. Richard and I roll around in stifled laughter when I share them at night. We laugh because he is clever and frank and because he brings us joy.

When he gets a little naughty, I remind him that life is not a Calvin and Hobbes comic. He mourns that our winter yard is nothing like Calvin and Hobbes’s snow and yard.

People tell him often that his hair will darken, but this idea brings him no comfort. He likes his hair just the color it is. When we get home from church, after changing out of his suit, he messes up his hair and arranges so that it spikes upward. In his shorts and messy hair, he breathes a sigh of contentment.

He stops to play the piano every few hours, all day long. He is flying through piano books. He tells me that his piano teacher reminds him of Cleopatra. This is not an insult.

I guess that’s how I will end. Mark has always been content to do things his own way. I enjoy watching his life, long legs dangling from the tree in the backyard, climbing the fence, doing his jobs diligently, and hopping around on the carpet as he plays a video game. He is my companion all day and he makes me so happy.

My view from here

I think that Monday is my favorite day. The week still has possibilities at this point.

Monday is the day I pick up the weekend mess. We have neat and deliberate new holes in our walls from the new wiring in several rooms, thanks to Rob and Richard. There is a ceiling fan to buy and some furniture to move back into place. Most notably, there is no longer a network cable strung across the entry hall and hanging down the banister.

I think that Richard and Rob had a great weekend with skiing, home improvement projects, and a concert. I took a picture of Rob at a restaurant we visited. Our number just happened to be his new age.

Aware

I love how painting helps me to focus, find beauty, appreciate color, and marvel at God’s creations. I become more aware of my Creator as I paint.

It is good to be aware of things outside ourselves.

I live in a home within a neighborhood and create a little kingdom within my walls. In the business of working and relaxing in my home, sometimes it’s easy to forget my neighbors. But if the walls were lifted, I would become aware of just how closely situated I am to others. Perhaps I’d see that my Heavenly Father places many more people within my reach than I think. Perhaps I’d be less likely to stay inside or in my own space because I would be aware of the needs of my friends.

One act that is helping me to be more anxious for my neighbors’ needs is studying the Gospels in the New Testament. As I write out answers to “thought questions” from Julie Smith’s Search Ponder and Pray: A Guide to the Gospels with my study, I have seen the faces of my neighbors as I have asked how I can apply the teachings of Christ. I have felt promptings to do many things out of my comfort zone. I have a lot to learn.

When I wonder if I should reach out, I think of the image of people sitting in their homes, isolated, but really just feet away from one another. I see that barriers such as age or experience, religion or wealth needn’t separate us and that I can and should make that walk to someone’s home.

I will miss…

…walking into Paige’s room and finding surprises like this when she moves away to college. We’re in the middle of an art explosion here as she completes her portfolio. (Sorry for posting an unfinished work, Paige. The process is fun to watch, not just the finished product.)

Family Update

The final weeks of this less than halfhearted winter signal the end and beginning of many things.

Paige has decided to attend BYU. So ends the up-and-down anticipation and insecurity in that area of her life. She is intensely busy with her classes, but beautiful sketches and paintings continue to emerge from her bedroom studio as do A’s on calculus tests and English papers from her classrooms. This end of high school stress has an overlay of fresh excitement for a new life in college.

Daniel and Timothy skied on Saturday and missed their bus ride home. I got to see where they ski for the first time when we picked them up. It was a sunny and warm ski day and the slopes were busy with little figures. These brightly clad skiers, Alpine lodges, trees, and sparkling snow were absolutely the most beautiful things I have seen all winter.

Daniel and I have been watching old musicals that I unpacked from storage. He is busy with an AP class and a research project. He has a busy social calendar which includes church dances, movie and game nights, and last week, an afternoon of sledding with a crowd of friends. We have had some late night talks which are enlightening and entertaining.

Timothy loves his after school jazz band. His goal lately is to build tiny models of all of his favorite Star Wars ships and to tease Mark. He has been attending Scout merit badge clinics and I’m still not accustomed to seeing him at youth activities. I’ll catch a glimpse of him and feel a little sentimental. How did he manage to arrive at age 12 this quickly?

Mark finished his first reading of the Book of Mormon and immediately began reading the Old Testament. If anybody can do it, Mark will. He’s put the pressure on me to help him finish his Wolf badge in Cub Scouts. The boy knows what he wants to accomplish and does it.

Baseball begins in a few weeks. It will be Timothy’s last season. It will be another season of machine pitch for Mark. The parks are beautiful here and the backdrop of the mountains is still a stunning sight to me. I look forward to evenings spent outdoors.

We bought new patches for Richard’s Scout uniform. Soon the Catalina Arizona Council patch and commissioner paraphernalia will be replaced with the Great Salt Lake Council and Assistant Scoutmaster patches. Ropes and pioneering poles are standard equipment these days. We miss having the missionaries in our home now that Richard is no longer the ward mission leader, but I think he enjoys spending time with Timothy and the other boys.

I am writing my book and playing the violin, keeping up with my study goals, and not exercising enough. I smile every time I look at these plates my grandmother gave me on my kitchen mantel.

The End.

Bread Baking Cure

It was 2009. I was feeling blue and I was feeling put upon. Church was a challenge and I didn’t feel understood or nourished by the people I was working with there. I was weary of the political commentary I heard in the halls and from comments in classes. I was grumpy, so I decided to fix it with bread.

I baked bread for several days and delivered the loaves to people in my town. The recipients were a mixture of people I loved and people I needed to learn to love. After the first delivery, I was a believer in the bread-baking cure for social maladies.

People reacted in strongly positive ways to receiving a loaf of warm, homemade bread. They would tell their friends; they would announce it in Sunday school that they loved my bread; and one night at a church auction, my offer to bake bread sold for over $100 for our cause. More important, people saw a loaf of bread as an act of love. It was a bridge to better friendship. I exchanged some of my pride and harsh judgments for a little effort in the kitchen and a new reputation for generosity.

Baking bread was one of the tools that helped me to finally accept living in Sahuarita, Arizona and enjoy it.

The knee

Richard really hurt his knee while skiing a few weekends ago. Over the last two weeks he’s taken various days off from work to rest in bed and try to heal. His brother Rob is coming to town in a week and he wants to be healed so they can ski together. The reality is, Rob’s ski trip of epic proportion will probably not include Richard.

Richard yells out in pain now and then, even when it’s the middle of the night. Is it from physical pain or mental anguish? Maybe both.

On Saturday, my sister loaned him some crutches. Bionic Richard was then able to propel himself in great strides ahead of us. This made him lucky because we chose to visit BYU that day and it was one of the bleakest, coldest days we’ve had in a while. He could get between buildings long before any of us could.

The kids and I shopped the BYU bookstore until every aisle was exhausted in its possibilities for our happiness and entertainment. Richard languished in a corner of the store, found a chair, and then settled down for a nap. No one disturbed him because he looked so tired and was obviously physically challenged, his crutches propped against his chair. Sad, sad, sad.

The next day, church seemed to brighten Richard’s mood. The crutches were a source for conversation, opportunities for humor, and some sympathy. He came home and told me that he must have talked to every member of our congregation. That seemed to help him to perk up, even if he might have to go to a doctor.

He’s not had to use the crutches as much the past two days. His moaning has decreased, and he was active all day yesterday. We’ll hope that it’s the beginning of better days for Richard.

Accepted

Paige was accepted to BYU a few days ago. In the next few weeks she’ll let us know which school she has decided to attend: BYU, Utah State, or University of Utah.

That’s all for today. Oh, wait. Is THIS what it feels like to exhale? Wow, that feels much better.

Birthday dinner

We met with Richard’s sisters and their families for dinner before the basketball tournament in Salt Lake. Simple gatherings like this are reason #852 that we are happy to live here.