Trip to the Valley and then to Tucson

On Sunday morning I was asked to teach a Sunday school class for the 4 year olds.  Now, Lyla is four and she has an answer for everything and has the world on a string.  I Imagine that these little 4 year olds are much the same way.  I am delighted to be able to do this but I am not ignorant of the fact that they will have much to say and to teach me.  when David was four the question was asked of the class "Well, do you have family prayer?"  David piped up and said, "Well, we tried it once and it didn't work so we haven't done it again".  He also told the teacher, at a different time, Daddy went hunting and killed a bear.  He drug it home and mommy cooked and ate the whole thing.  well, for starters, Bill does not know which end of the gun is the business end, let alone go hunting or even shoot a bear.  I would have no idea how to prepare bear to eat let alone eat the whole thing by myself.  But I would like to have a bearskin rug...........maybe.  So I look forward to hearing some interesting things from these little people - their view of the world is unique.
Sunday evening we took David back down to the valley to his new digs.  He lives in Gilbert with a family who are employed by CPES to take care of David.  It is called an ADHD home.  One thing they said was that he eats a lot and there are now no leftovers.  I  believe it.  At this rate he is a walking garbage disposal and may even put on more weight than ever. when he was home he wanted me to make Lasagne, Pizza, Australian Breakfast (cheese, eggs, bread, onion, green pepper and ham.  My mother used to make this for me when I was little.  I was such a picky eater that this was the only thing I would eat for sure).  The home that David lives in can best be described as being newer than what we live in.  Larger than what we have in Prescott (I would not want to have to clean this house he lives in).  And it can also be described as being "spare" in that there are no decorations on the walls like pictures or wreaths etc. and there is nothing on the counter tops or the island in the kitchen.  It does not look lived in.  It does remind of homes I have been in before where everything is out of sight as a definite reaction to a deep seated problem.  The man and the wife are both on their second marriage and the two girls that live with them are from the former marriages.  My house on the other hand has stuff on the counters and (no island in the middle of the kitchen) and quilts hanging on the walls to give the house some sort of feeling that people live here and that the home is warm and comfortable and a place where you can live and not just exist.
David was interested in us going to see the new temple in Gilbert that is under construction right now.  It was 8pm at night and I doubt if we could have seen anything.  we went to the motel in Tempe where we were to stay for two nights while Bill took a refresher course on the policies of Safeway - they have called him back to work.  I had a terrible nosebleed and it took a while to get it to stop.
Monday morning he went to training and I stayed in the motel room and finished off the quilt I had started when we were in Maine.
Monday night we went into the pool and hot tub that they had there.  The hot tub was really HOT.
Tuesday morning I took Bill to the training again and then I went back to the motel to do more hand work and then after I checked out, I took pictures of Moose and friend in the landscaping of the motel.  I went down to Arizona Mills Mall and walked around the entire thing.  It is massive and filled with shops that sell everything you could ever need or want or don't want or need.
After his training was over, we drove down to Oro Valley near Tucson to spend time with some friends we knew in Johnstown.

The rest of this week in a blender

I go walking each morning with my girlfriends and we go up hills and down hills and talk all the time.  In a "how to book" some time ago it was referred to as "women's work" - a time when women talk to women and help each other sort out the problems that face us.  I really missed this when I was on the mission.
I got home in time on Wednesday to take Bill to Dr. Ham to have his eyes checked.  He has the beginnings of cataracts and needs new glasses.  I wonder how long it will take him to get the glasses prescription filled?  He complains about his glasses but balks at the cost of a new pair..........and so it goes.
we got home in time for me to leave to go to lunch with my church friends to celebrate my return home from the mission .  One friend is in Michigan doing some family research while another is out of town in California visiting family but the saddest one is the friend who had a chemo treatment that morning and so her day was not one to go out to lunch.  Cancer is a sobering influence in our lives.
Thursday evening we had Relief Society.  I received the assignment to go to visit some ladies in the rest home.  we had to be there very early in the evening because by 7pm many of them are already in bed for the night.  Nurses seem to get them in bed early so that the rest of their shift is easier.  We went back to the church to find the rest of the women gathered to do the small craft thing they had put together.  As I sat there it occurred to me that I am now in the Older Generation.  I was surrounded by young marrieds - around 21-23 yr olds with little babies.  when I joined the church in 1964 I was the youngest person there (21) and there were these OLDER women all around me...........now I have come full circle and I am those OLDER women.  Nothing ages me faster than to hold a new baby.
On Friday morning I ran over to the Las Fuentes craft show and it was a dismal disappointment.  I went to one some years ago to see exquisite knitting and needlework and jewelry.  This time it was filled with glue gun queen stuff and cheater cloth quilts.
At 10am we went to the opening of the Juvenile Justice building.  What a wonderful facility.  I hope that they are able to attain the goals that have driven the construction of this building - namely ultimate rehabilitation of the young people who are incarcerated there.  Determinism drives the philosophies that fuel these goals.
At night we went to the church for an adult Fall Gathering.  David lost his debit card there but someone found it and will return it to him tonight.
Today is Saturday and we went to the Pumpkin festival at the old Youngs farm in Dewey.  It was a lot of fun.  I think the greatest attraction there was the air filled balls that the children were inside and bouncing around on an over sized inflated swimming pool .  the little ones then tried to keep their feet as the balloon bobbed up and down in the water.  They had a grand time.  This attraction had the longest line of all the attractions there.  I watched as the unzipped the balloon and the child got out and the next child got in and then they inserted a leaf blower and inflated the balloon and zipped it up completely and sent the child tumbling into the water.  Great fun for the kids and great fun to watch.
tonight is trunk or treat down at church and I have made white chili with chipotle seasoning.  Well, it is part of the chili cook off.......................pass the ice water please.

Monday and tuesday - home 3 weeks now.

Most days I walk for an hour or more with my friends and up and down the Prescott hills has put me back into my pre mission jeans............Go Team!
On Monday morning I went to the Charity Group quilt meeting and did a binding on a charity quilt.  In the afternoon I gathered stuff to be put out for the young men to come and collect for their garage sale the weekend. of 2 November.
Tuesday morning I went with Bill to the skin doctor and he just squirted Nitrogen on everything in sight and i am convinced that he did not look carefully before he pressed the trigger.  Usually he is pretty good but today he was like a part of the Valentine Massacre.
I drove over to the applique group.  They have two new members since I left.  I drove from there to the Adult center for their open house.  Every extended care facility was there and also a mortuary advertising cremation opportunities..........
I saw Dr. Andy Nelson there and he said I could borrow the massage chair for the week after I have my eye surgery.
We were hoping that the line dancers would perform because they advertised a group of dancers would entertain us.  So we stayed and it was Miss Summer Hinton's dance troupe.  they put on a simple line dance adn Bill and I got up and were part of the entertainment.  It was not as fancy or involved as the dances we learned in Maine, but it was line dance nevertheless.  Had not planned to be a performer at this thing but there we were , on stage and they clapped for us.............
spent the rest of the day cutting out fabric for Lyla's quilt.  I hope that she still likes purple when she gets married.

Moose goes exploring

 Our fall foliage in Arizona

 Our pretty tree in the front yard.

 A moose in sisal fiber in a store in Prescott.

 Moose found cactus in our front yard

 Moose waiting for the sun to get up so that he can go exploring.

 Wagon Mound mountain - a stop for gas on our way home.

 Our last motel on the trip home - on the border of Colorado.

Ganesh water fountain that guarded the Motel premises.

On the way home from Maine.............

 The Chattering Teeth occupy the same space as the family desk top computer in Nebraska.

 Each one of the children liked to play with the chattering teeth.

 Lyla discovers that the teeth will wind up (and they eventually got  overwound)

 Chattering seemed to be a source of endless fascination.

 Oliver wondered if they would eat his fruit candy strap.

 they did eat the candy strip with great gusto.

 A knight and his lady standing at the school mascot in the high  school in Lincoln.

 Oliver is not too sure about the Moose thingy.

 The number plate on a Volkswagen bug.

 Oliver found his glasses and modeled them for grandma.

 Jacob is a hunter, but I guess this Moose is the closest he will get to one in this life.

 We are sure Lyla has gills - she loves being in the pool at the YMCA.

 Oliver wanted to climb the climbing wall and had to be suited up for it.

 contemplating the wall must seem daunting to such a little guy.

But it is up, up, and away for Oliver Ronald Friest.  That kid can climb.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday

We now have TV.  I have not watched it for over one year now and even though it was on soon after it was installed on Friday, I  have not watched it.  There is just too much to do and we are still not back to any semblance of normalcy since arriving back in Prescott.  In fact, my shopping trips are very similar to those of when we were in Maine.  I find a block of time available, plan it meticulously, and pretty much act like a commando, darting from one shop to another making swift purchases and then onto the next store.  It is a real disaster if an item does not fit or does not work.  We purchased an electric Blanket.  Now that is one thing we purchased in Maine, used it a lot and then sold it because in Arizona we do not need an electric blanket.  However, Bill insisted that we get another electric blanket and so he went to Costco and we came home with a nice blue plush blanket.  Unfortunately the controls only worked on one side of the blanket and not on the other.  So we had to take it back.  It is always a pain to take anything back to the store for refund or replacement.  But we did and now we have a working blanket with both controls working for us.  I doubt if I will use the heating unit but Bill seems to be getting cold more easily these days…..even to the point that he is considering moving to the Phoenix Valley.  Now that is a real change – his complaint when we lived there was that it was too hot but we lived in an air conditioned home, had an air conditioned car, and he worked in an air conditioned store and he never went outside for sports or anything and now he wants to move back.  We’ll see.

The TV installer came as a result of our trip to Prescott Valley to sign up.  Bill tried to signup online but it required some sort of password etc. and he did not have it.  the lady at the TV service store bent over backwards almost to provide us with a discount for this and another discount for that and the end result is that even though we signed up we owe nothing for the first month or two and then we get it for really cheap.  I wonder how they stay in business at this rate.  So the installer came and he put a new receiver dish on our garage roof and left the older dish lying on the gravel beside the house.  It looks such a sad sight to see the discarded dish but it is not up to the latest technology – so I guess this is a case of planned obsolescence and a technological demise.

One thing we did buy is a Roku system.  It is a little device that runs off our internet provider and has thousands of DVR offerings that we can call up at will and watch well after the initial show has been and gone from the TV screen.  However, they offer a channel that has movies and more movies and even more movies but as I scanned through them  I found that they are all pretty much rated R and I do not want the influence of R rated movies in my home.

We decided to do something different on Friday night and so we drove over to Prescott Valley and attended a performance of Oliver.  It was magical the way they did it and the character of Fagan was a real delight.  He is the best Fagan I have ever seen.  The Artful Dodger managed to keep his top hat perched on the back of his head and I do not know how he did it.  The character of Bill Sykes had a heart attack 2 weeks ago and was not able to perform so the man who played Mr. Bumble played both parts.  He was pretty good.

Today is Saturday and I spent the day at the church helping with the luncheon for the Genealogy conference attendees.  I peeled potatoes, set tables, made up butter dishes, sliced homemade wheat bread, set out plates of cookies and then helped clean up.  It was exhausting but there were no other helpers for the main person so I am glad that I was there.  She could not have done this all by herself.  We have come to the conclusion that a lot of attendees come just to eat the homemade bread and stew that we have at lunch time.

we still have Blender-itis

Missed a couple of days of blog posts.  Today I had my tooth extracted – it has been giving me problems for the past 6 months or so.  I did not dare go to any doctor in Maine – heard horror stories about them from Anne and from the rest of the staff.

Last night I went to Roots Magic Group meeting.  Roots Magic is the genealogy program I use to keep track of my ancestors etc.  Lee has been holding the meetings while I was away.  I gave a presentation on the work we did in the Mission in Maine.  They were very interested in the slides I had prepared for the talk.

Monday was truly a Blender day.  I went to Quilt Guild and it was really nice to see our group growing as much as it has.  Even splitting off from AQG we seem to have attracted many new members since I left a year ago.  I hurried home expecting to go to lunch with Bill but he was on the phone trying to get the internet again and at last we have it connected.  We no longer have to use the hotspot but the hotspot is included in our cell phone service. I suppose it will come in handy sometime but I do not know when that will be.

He got off the phone in enough time for us to have to skip lunch and be at the insurance broker’s office by 1pm.  That took a long time and we still had not eaten and he decided that we should go to Chino Valley to see the people in the Safeway store.  While there we got our flu shots for the season and I managed to get a little shopping done.  He assured me that there was a Burger King in the north end of town but I told him that there was only a McDonalds in Chino Valley – no other fast food stores except for those that were on the grounds of the Safeway store – Taco Bell and Subway with the McDonalds about a mile north.  So after driving out to McDonalds and seeing for himself that there is no Burger King, we went back to Subway so at 4pm we finally ate lunch and then went home.

Tuesday he had his general practitioner appointment and the doctor was running late (as usual) and we got out of there barely in enough time to eat quickly and then go down to the church for the Roots Magic Group meeting.

But at least we have unlimited internet service.  It has been a real struggle.  And I thought that life after the mission would be a little easier.  Not so, because I have a girlfriend that I walk with daily at 7.30am and we are beginning to walk faster each day – and not so winded on the hills and there are many hills here.

Tidy verses warm climate inhabitants

One of the things that I loved about the spider webs in Maine were the tidiness of them.  The Orb weavers just have a knack of making things wonderful to look at when the mists come up and collect on the delicate webs.  they look like Christmas Decorations.  At our apartment there were a group of spiders who were not so delicate about their abodes, and we came home one day to find our landlord aiming a leaf blower at them and destroying the craftsmanship of these creatures.  I really do not like spiders in general.  They sting and can cause death – as in the fate of some of my pioneer relatives in Australia who got stung by the Red Back Spiders (commonly called Black Widow here in the USA).

We came home to Arizona and my friend had swept the spider webs from inside the house – they get created overnight here and can be quite bothersome.  I wanted to clean off the webs in the back porch area and came upon the most massive daddy long legs spider living under the eaves.  I did not have the heart to take his web down but then I turned to the table and chairs on the porch and then I saw how untidy and ugly the webs were.  I have no idea what kind of a spider made these webs, but they were without order and did not add to the decor of the back porch.  They did not even trap a day’s food supply so I took them down.  That was last week.  This week they are back again – now that is determined industry if ever I saw it.  Perhaps we should take the Arizona spiders to Maine so that they can take lessons in web building?

We attended our own ward (congregation) today – the first Sunday home after our mission in Maine and I looked around and knew only a few people.  While we were in Maine they reorganized the wards and ward boundaries and so we got new people and lost others.  This is quite an adventure getting to know new people…..much like going to the church in Maine – we were there a year and I was just beginning to get the names and faces matched up and families put together and it was time to go home.  Now I have to start all over again.  Oh well, my mother used to say that a change is better than a holiday.  We will find out about that.

I am looking forward to tomorrow because I get to go to Quilt Guild.  While I was gone, they separated themselves from the Arizona Quilt Guild and we are now a separate and distinct entity.  Of course there are some people unhappy with that situation and some people who are ecstatic.  I am one of the latter.  I applaud the ladies who cut off the apron strings so to speak.  I am also hoping that the ladies did a good job at quilt camp and got a lot of things done while there – as well as enjoying each others company.  I am hoping for a lot of projects being shown at show and tell tomorrow.

It is good to be back home and enjoying the warm weather we have here.  I do miss the brilliant green grass of Maine and the green trees which are now sporting fall colors and falling leaves.  But to be fair, our maple tree in the front yard is turning to its brilliant red/gold colors and soon will drop them all on my front steps.  At least it has, in the past, had the good graces to just drop the leaves in one spot so that I do not have to work hard to clean them up.  One year the leaves dropped and I did not get to clean them up right away and a wind came up and blew the lot into my neighbor’s yard – along with the leaves from many other trees in the neighborhood.  Boy was she frosted about that.

During the last general conference broadcast from Salt Lake City last weekend, they made the announcement that young men can go out as missionaries at age 18 instead of the (now) 19 year mark.  The young men in our ward who are now close to their 18^th birthday are very excited about this change in policy.  One thing that missionary work does for the young men is teach them to be disciplined and to work hard at their assignments.  When the two years are over, they are better prepared to settle down to studies at college etc.   They truly come back home purpose driven and achievement oriented.   We send them out as youth and they come home as men ready to take on the responsibilities of life.  It is a very maturing process they go through when our young men are sent out as missionaries.  I am very grateful for the missionary program of the church and had wanted out son to be sent out as a missionary but that was not in his path in life.  His disabilities prevented him from participating in this program.

Sara and her family are at Mahoney State Park in a cabin with another family enjoying the outdoors of Nebraska.  The children do not have school Monday or Tuesday so this will be a wonderful end of warm weather activity for them all.  When Sara and David were little, we did a lot of outdoor stuff at state parks etc. and I am glad to see that this activity is being continued with our grandchildren.

Connectivity at its best!

I am glad for the Iphone.  Verizon has changed options and so we now have unlimited internet access for the Iphone and lap top computers but not the desk top.  Our desktop has been sitting idle for a year and I wonder if a spider or something has taken up residence in the works................we have not been able to get on the internet via the desktop.  We have spent innumerable hours with the tech support trying to get on the net and we thought we had it licked when she said they would send us a new modem since the one we had was four years old.  so they sent us a new modem but to no avail.  We have now conversed with three techs and each one of them speaks English with an accent (I do NOT have an accent) and it is hard to understand them and to get this thing working right.  so I am using the laptop and Verizon hot spot which is now unlimited (a great step up from the 2gig that we had for the past year in Maine) to catch up on the blog.

I went down to the bird seed store to get a bag of seed to attract birds to our feeder.  So far only one lone bird has ventured onto the feeder.  I guess his friends sent him in to test the seed and see if it is good seed.  If he gets sick or worse yet dies, then they will not be feeding from our feeder.  Before we left for Maine, we had loads of birds at the feeder and even in the winter we had a lot of birds at the feeder.  Perhaps they have all gone into hiding because the weather man said we were in for a BIG storm but the system passed us by.

I have been cutting fabric all day and dulled the blade on the cutter so had to break out a new one.  My it does  make a difference when you get to use a new blade in the rotary cutter.  I have started work on Lyla's Queen size quilt.  It has 42 x10 inch squares that are in the shape of flowers.  The color scheme is multicolored and looks like a scrap quilt but the predominant color is purple because she loves purple.

I guess I like purple too because I have so many fabrics from light to dark that have purple in them.  I have rounded up my blues and greens for Oliver's quilt and it is the next one to be cut.  I plan to use my "Twist and Turn" template to make his quilt.  I am also going to do one in Red for Ethan.  I used to have a lot of red fabrics in my collection and may still have that many but as yet have not dug them out.  I have decided to use fabrics from my collection for these quilts.  Fabric has gone up in price to $10+ per yard and I am over stocked with fabrics already.  Connecting Threads sends out a flyer each month and the temptation is great.  I have not decided the pattern to do for Ethan but the Log Cabin block might just be one to suit him.

David called up and has arranged to come up home for the last weekend of October.  I guess he will want to go to the pumpkin patch out at what used to be Young's farm.  He can take it back to the valley whole and they can help him cut it open down there.  He also put in his order for food to eat when he comes.  He is very excited to go with us to Nebraska for Jacob's PhD graduation and hooding.

I guess Monday is a holiday in Nebraska because the Friest family and their friends are going to Mahoney State Park to a cabin there for Sunday night and all day Monday.  Sara has to work on Tuesday at the High School, but Ethan and Oliver and Lyla have the day off.  Must be nice to have a day off here and there.

Here comes the Plumber!

We have been away from Maine now for 20 days and life is busier now than ever.

Today a plumber came to fix our kitchen faucet.  He had a hard time doing so because the bolt was on so tight.  He also had a hard time getting his body under the sink area because he was so fat.  However, he knew his stuff and our new faucet is in place and working well.

Tonight we went to a presentation on the Cuban Missile Crisis.  The man talked for an hour with a talk titled “13 myths for 13 days”.  I was only 19 when the missile crisis took place and I was still in Australia at that time.  The crisis took place 50 years ago in 1962 and that is the year my mother became very ill and passed away.  I did not take interest in politics at that time and the upshot of this man’s presentation seems to point to the fact that politicians do not have a good grasp of crises that come up and in this case there were many blunders on both sides.  However, the missile crisis was avoided and life went on and it seems that politicians are still involved in the decision process and take accolades in success and distribute blame in failures.  One quip by the speaker was “In Khrushchev's cabinet, I wonder whose head rolled for this gaffe”. 

Tonight was the Vice Presidential debate.  We do not have TV and I looked on the internet to see who won, but the comments by viewers seemed so bizarre that I still do not know who won if anyone won.

To borrow a line from  “Hunt for Red October” the actor says to Dr. Ryan, “I’m a politician.  That means when I am kissing babies, I am stealing their lollipops.”  Moral of the story, if you are baby, don’t let a politician kiss you and hang onto your lollipop.

We had a lot of medical things to take care of  when we came home.  So far I have seen our General Practitioner, Gynecologist,  Mammogram, Retinal Specialist, Dentist and I only have a  couple more to see – best part is that Medicare is paying for the lot.  Guess there is some good in growing old.