A Thorny Situation!

I love my roses!

They are so beautiful, easy to grow and bring such pleasure both inside and out!

But roses have a down side! They have thorns!!

And this is what the end result is when you have a 2-month run-in with a rose thorn!

If you are faint of heart, you may want to stop reading this post right now. Otherwise, remember that you were warned!

Friday afternoon I had surgery on my left index finger to remove a mass which grew as a result of a rose thorn that got stuck in my finger in the middle of August. I thought I pulled it all out with some tweezers, but about two weeks later, it didn't seem healed and there was a hard lump there. Hmm, I thought. I bet I didn't get all the thorn out. So I performed a little surgery on myself, poking around inside and hoping I got it cleaned out. Instead of healing up like all the other many times I've pulled rose thorns out of my hands and fingers, this "thing" appeared on my finger:

I kept hoping it would go away, maybe dry up and fall off. Dan thought it might be a wart. I kept it covered and just kept waiting. Finally on the 1st of October I went to the doctor. He took one look and referred me to a specialist. A week later I got into the specialist and he said it was a pyogenic granuloma which is what your body forms around a foreign object in your body. Could even have been a speck of dirt left from the thorn. Who knows? But he said it needed to be surgically removed. The surgery was scheduled for the 17th. It was quite an ordeal, performed in a operating room wearing one of those oh-so-modest gowns with an IV in me and 5 shots to numb my finger. Now I can't get my left hand wet for at least 8 days, I'm having trouble typing, I'm on antibiotics,the pain has yet to kick in, and the stitches will be removed in 2 weeks. And to think this two month ordeal and the surgery could have been avoided with these!

I still love my roses, though!

It Feels Good To Be Loved!

Grandchildren are so precious! They melt your heart!! I love each one!!

Here is Hannah this morning. Her Mom curled her hair and she looked darling in these pony tails!

On Wednesday evening when I dropped off MaryAnn, Hannah and Joshua, I told MaryAnn: "I have a busy day tomorrow. I'm going to do lots of running around."

Hannah must have been listening because she said: "Grandma, Can I run around with you tomorrow?!!!

It feels good to be loved!

End of an Era!

Here is a project I worked on recently. Dan and I went through our hundreds of record albums and put them in the garbage. We kept them for years and years without every playing them. We had previously made taped copies of many of them. Soon they, too, will be obsolete (they already are to most of you!), and I'll have to figure out how to put them on the computer. Will computers ever be obsolete? We still have a turntable, but technology has changed and changed and changed until there was no reason to keep these stored in our home. It was hard to do but necessary. It felt like we were throwing part of our lives away! Just for a little memory I photographed the album covers of some of my favorites including ones that our family enjoyed.

I wonder if my grandchildren will ever know what a record was? ("music disk: something on which sound is copied, especially a plastic disk with a groove that can be played using a phonograph"). Those were "Happy Days!"

200th Post: A Guest Blogger!

I've now reached my 200th Post!

I thought it would be nice to do something special. I decided to invite someone to be a guest blogger, and I gave them free reign to blog about anything they wanted. Before the Guest Blogger (G.B.) takes over, let me just make a comment about this person. Not only did G.B. agree to do this and then spend time doing it, but G.B. also carefully listened to four sessions of Conference and then attended the Priesthood session as well. In between all the sessions on Saturday, G.B. spent all of G.B.'s extra time doing a repair on one of our toilets. The kit G. B. got at the hardware store said it would take 31 steps to complete the repair! So not only do I now have a working toilet and a spiritually in-tune G. B., but also this wonderful post to put on my blog!! Thanks, G.B.!!!!! You're the best!!!!!!!

Is Your Neighbor a Millionaire? Are You becoming a Millionaire?

Several weeks ago Janis and I went to the Drennan’s house for a friendshipping dinner organized by the ward activities committee. On our way out after a scrumptious barbeque, I looked at books in their family room. Greg pulled one off the shelf and said I should borrow it and read it. He said he wanted all his children to read it. I really like Greg, and several years ago he had recommended another book—a Church book entitled Spiritual Plateaus, by Glenn L. Pace—that I really enjoyed. So I took the book.

The Millionaire Next Door was written several years ago and reveals the “surprising secrets of America’s wealthy.” It was a little late for me, as it explains how you accumulate wealth over your lifetime, but it was still kind of interesting. Frankly, General Conference has provided over the years information very similar to many of the authors’ points in Millionaire.

The book emphasizes that we don’t really know who in our neighborhood is a millionaire. Very often, the ones with the most expensive cars, clothes and homes, are far from millionaires—they are just as likely to be the ones with the most financial headaches.

Here are a few surprising secrets about millionaires:

They live well below their means.
They give careful attention to preparing and following a budget.
They believe financial independence is more important than high social status.
Their parents did not provide “economic outpatient care,” i.e., financial help after the children reached adulthood.
Their adult children are economically self-sufficient. (This one makes ME feel like a millionaire!)
Frugality is the foundation for building wealth. For example, millionaires usually do not drive expensive foreign luxury cars. Very often they choose to buy late model used cars, even though they could clearly afford a very expensive car. They do not buy super expensive clothes, watches, etc.

The authors also provide ten tips for affluent parents. Most of these don’t apply to us, but a few of the thoughts are worth sharing:

Emphasize your children’s achievements, no matter how small, not their or your symbols of success.
Tell your children that there are a lot of things more valuable than money.
Teach your children frugality and discipline.

I love it that Church leaders have been giving inspired advice on this and other practical subjects for as long as I have lived. Isn’t it great that we don’t have to rely on national best sellers by unknown authors to get advice for life? It’s also nice when experts substantiate what our leaders have taught.

The G.B. Hard At Work:

Happy Birthday to the Fab Five!

Five people in our family were born on October 8th! We once got a picture of them all together in March 1997! I hope each one has a wonderful day!!! Special congrats to the one celebrating the BIG 6-0!!

Happy General Conference!

General Conference with little ones is always a challenge. Here is something from the 1986 Rainbow News: "For April General Conference we took the older kids to most of the sessions at our church building. We had them make drawings of the speakers. They thought it was fun, and as you can see, they "captured" some of the General Authorities!"

A Fun Afternoon!

A young family moved into our ward recently from Wisconsin. They assigned me and my partner to be her visiting teachers. She was given a calling in Primary. She was expecting her second child shortly after we became her visiting teachers. After the baby was born and her parents had left (they came for a month), we decided it would be nice to give her a baby shower. Who to invite as she was so new in the ward, who even knew her? Well, in the church it's easy! We invited the Relief Society presidency (who had visited her when she first moved in), the Primary presidency and some of the teachers who she serves with, her visiting teaching partner and the people she visits, and some of the moms of the children in her class.

We had the shower at our home and I had big plans to document it with lots of photos. It was a luncheon. I only got as far as taking a picture of the homemade rolls I made the night before. So much for remembering to take pictures!

But the best part was thinking that in the Church, you have lots of friends who know you and care about you--even if you are new!

Interesting side note: There were 13 women at the shower AND 11 children (4 and under) as well!! Thank goodness for all my boxes of toys!!