The Canadians Have it Right

We had a Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday since we may be gone for the American holiday. October was perfect! The kids could play outside, the harvest was still happening, and we didn't care that the doors were swinging open and shut all day long. No mud. No snow. No dreary weather. Have I mentioned that going on this mission we get to trade two winters for two summers?! God loves me.

Working backwards: Our boys love a good project! What better project than to cut down the last of the dead poplar trees--after dark--from a ten foot ladder?! In our family, a "project" needs to have a big impact! Once started, we were afraid the big impact might be on the neighbor's house if we didn't see it through to the end. NOT a pleasant way to wake up the people over the fence.

The crash was enjoyed by the pre- and primary-school crowd, as you can see. Wondering why the stump is so tall?  Glad you asked. It's the uphill zip-line stabilizing tree.

 Earlier in the day we enjoyed pressing cider from bushels of apples, smoking "firebird" on the grill (there is no tastier turkey in the world!), and plenty of zip-lining and visiting.

What is it about Thanksgiving that makes it the best holiday of all, whether it's in October or November? I believe it is all about low expectations (low thrill-threshhold, yet again), non-commercialization and family being together. And left-overs.

Suzanne introduced the sisters to an exercise in which we select three adjectives that we want to have characterize our remaining years. One of my words is "engaged." I want to be present. I think gratitude is a large part of what I aspire to.

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” 
― Thornton Wilder

Thanks everyone for all you contributed to make this a Thanksgiving to tide us over for the next year and a half. Believe me, I am conscious of my treasures as I remember this day!

Ahhhhhhhhhtummmmmmm

Does the title of this post give you any idea of my favorite season? There's a spiciness in the air, the leaves are brilliant, hikes are breathtakingly beautiful, soup and bread can be on the menu every night, and we can do some yard cleanup with fire, which satisfies a certain pyromania of mine. I simply can not get enough of the sights, the smells, the feel, the experience of autumn.

And, of course, s'mores.  Here's our new twist on the classic:

  1. Roast marshmallow with a freshly carved stick.

2. Fill the center with a gob of Nutella. (We don't need no stinkin' knife!)

 


3. You can handle it from here. Jay cracked walnuts and tucked them inside--You can add your own innovations. Peanut butter is good--isn't everything with Nutella?

We roasted potatoes in the coals, poked some late-season lavender into a jar of tiny sea shells and arranged crazy curly-willow sticks and mountain ash loaded with its tiny orange berries in a vase to keep autumn just a little longer.

Two hikes this week took me above town and into the maples. Everyone we met seemed overwhelmed by the loveliness, fresh-faced and happy. Truly heaven on earth.

At the end of Mary Oliver's wonderful poem, "When
Death Comes," she expresses so well the way I feel, not just in autumn, but almost always:

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Some bargains are just not

When my glasses were donated in Kanarra Canyon to the Three Nephites, one of whom apparently needs bifocals by now, someone told me about getting glasses from China for a fraction of the cost. They had me at the words "thirty dollars."

Never mind that navigating the websites took thirty hours, nor that I had to go to my eye doctor for an additional measurement: pupil distance, which is not part of your typical prescription, nor that the real cost was more like sixty dollars. After hitting "submit," I am promised my new specs in two weeks.

I wait the required time and they arrive as promised. One pair one day; one pair the next. Oh, yes, I sprang for two pairs, from two different vendors. The better to see you with, my dear. 

Except that I couldn't see through them. Either pair. Blurry near, blurry far, blurry in the middle-distance. I pull them down on my nose and look at the mountains without them. Better.  I take them completely off and read the words in front of me. No worse. Adjusting doesn't help and "getting used to them" is out of the question.

What could have gone wrong?  China glasses worked fine for Jay, for Will and for Phil, and apparently thousands of other satisfied customers.  

I have a couple of theories:

1. My eyes are really not very bad. It's a small distance between perfect and blurry. In the case of my new glasses, naked eyes work better.

2. The combination of progressive bifocals and a crooked face make fitting difficult. Add astigmatism to the mix, and I really need a living human to figure out the ideal viewing range, or whatever it is they do.

So, DI gets a couple of pairs of unused glasses and I get to pay full price (plus $120 for the experience) to see again. I'm happy to do it. Lesson learned.

........ except I hear that there's a fabulous factory in Logan where you can get trap-door pajamas for practically nothing.........

Zion Gal

Here we are showing off some of our retirement gifts from the fifth-grade team: hiking survival gear. 

Thank you, Karen, Franki, Christine and Emma!

We spent the better part of the week with our pals, the Betts, in Zion. What was going to be an overnight backpacking trip ended being two nights because we decided not to take the chance on the government shutting down and not being allowed to hike and waiting to start on Tuesday. Instead we got the permit for Monday, put ourselves into high gear--gathered up our packs, bought new stuff (JetBoil stove: highly recommended! Cheapo fold up ThermaRest sleeping pads---pretty bumpy for princess-types who feel every lump.), arranged a shuttle to Lava Point and took off on the West Rim Trail. We saw a total of two other hikers, and because the government DID shut down, absolutely no one else was at the Angel's Landing saddle, Scout Lookout. There were no cars on the road, no shuttle: we almost had the park to ourselves.  It was heaven!

We hiked roughly five miles each day--a perfect pace for us. The first night we were pretty cold and between the shivering and the chorus of coyotes we realized this would qualify as a true adventure. A regular Karl Lagerberg "slept like a baby" night (slept for an hour, cried for an hour) that was good to see the end of with a mug of hot chocolate in the morning.

After Jay's two hour marathon to filter water, we celebrate with a cup of "Jay's Exclusive" hot chocolate. The JetBoil stove heated the water in seconds. Maybe we should have just boiled the water?

There is almost nowhere I would rather be, though, than in Zion. It is my brier patch, my imprinted landscape, my holy place. I love the air, the sandstone, the river, the cottonwoods, the sky, the clouds. If I could I would lie right down and hug the ground--and without the press of crowds, it was almost as I remembered it from childhood. Our canyon. Our wading pools with polliwogs and watercress and swinging bridges and picnic tables. Our tunnel where we could pull into every alcove and peer down at the rocks and chipmunks who were just learning to be beggars or up at the cliffs of white streaked with red and honk our car's horn the entire mile.

The West Rim is spectacular, the complete package. Forest, grassy meadow, chiseled trails (thank you CCC and the Great Depression's government for NOT shutting down but improving the country while providing jobs), springs, vistas,  cliffs, rock cairns on slick rock, canyons to shout and hear your echo, wildflower's fragrance, breeze, sunshine......ecstasy.

If I don't die at age 90 falling off a cliff in Zion, here's a good place to scatter my ashes when I do.

 Another fabulous time in Zion. May they never end for us!

Knuckling Down to Spanish. A short course in how I plan to estudy espanol

As an educator, I learned a few tidbits about learning that I hang on to.

• To increase learning, you can do three things: Decrease group size. Increase explicitness. Increase time. These 3 things allow for more opportunities to respond, more and better feedback and, of course, more practice.

• The brain learns best on a nibbling diet. Many concentrated sessions beat fewer longer sessions.

• Engagement is everything. Babies are language learning masters because their "on" button is stuck on. They can't not pay attention.

At Education Week, I attended a session on second-language learning. The challenge was given to be the architect of one's own learning. To do that, it's good to look at the perfect model: Babies and toddlers. Little children pick up language naturally because of being bathed in language from birth and maybe before. The brain, being a pattern-seeking organism, begins to make sense of the babble and in just a couple of years the child has a sophisticated understanding of words and their meanings, sentence construction, even humor. It is amazing, but somewhat replicable; realizing that no one is going to stand over me smiling and speaking slowly while I learn.

But, here's my daily plan for learning Spanish:
1. A few DuoLingo lessons on the iPhone. Great free app, by the way. I'm not a digital game player, but the little reinforcing "ching" when I answer correctly is actually pretty motivating. Tonight I learned the word "enemigos." How cool is that? Like "frienemies" except that it's a real word, and now you, too, know it. I am moving on into something called Object Pronouns. Sounds scary so I'll tackle it tomorrow.

2. At least two Rosetta Stone lessons.  Here again, I can't stop with one at a sitting--mostly because I won't accept anything below 80% on a lesson and sometimes that means many repetitions. How I wish I'd taken ANY language in high school!!  Estupidamente me. (Actually, the word is perezoso. Lazy.) And I confess, in the hardest part, writing, I will advance whenever they let me because it is so hard that about three times through and I'm ready to call it quits, 80% or no.

3. Read out loud the old lesson, study and copy the next lesson from A First Spanish Reader. This is a slow slog and these are supposed to be simple stories, but I am a believer in repetition, so I'm doing it. I figure if I just hear things enough times, something is sure to stick.

4. Read a chapter or two of Spanish, Learn the Basics. This and the previous books are on my Kindle. Rosetta Stone is on my computer. The resources are literally at my fingertips.

5. Get started on actual reading Spanish text with Jay.  Probably the Book of Mormon or Preach My Gospel--a few paragraphs each day to begin with.

With just six weeks before we are supposed to be heading out, I certainly don't have any illusions that I'll be speaking the language, but every day a little step closer....

Mission Call

Almost 3 months exactly from the time we were approached about the possibility of serving this mission we received our call in Friday's mail.

I've heard the words, "You are hereby called ________" read out loud when our kids and others received their mission calls, but until the letter was in my hands, with my name, I didn't realize how Brigham Young-like that wording was.

We have dreamed and planned for a mission almost since we were married. This is what we want to do, and have looked forward to; but suddenly I realize what those words might sound like to a 19 or 21 year-old who just made up her mind to serve. Those kids have courage! There is something noble about receiving that envelope, with whatever destination it demands and immediately falling in love with the place. Amazing, really. I admire obedience. You're called to the Muddy, the Iron Mission, Pocatello--and you go.

Already Chile has a special place in my heart. Check this sunset out:

And the little hundred-year-old home we will be living in:

 Here are the baby olive trees all lined up. Isn't that geometric design gorgeous? 

It looks like Egyptian jewelry, or inspiration for a future quilt in my favorite colors.

(Thanks to the Waltons, the missionaries that we will be replacing, who took these pictures)

Here are the basics as we understand them so far:  We'll be teaching English to the farmworkers on this huge for-profit olive farm (ranch?) that the Church is developing somewhat near Santiago, Chile (only sunnier and rural). We get to make friends and manage an English language and computer "learning center," for the workers. We don't proselytize, we don't dress up (jeans, fleece jackets, boots--is that a Kathleen mission, or what?!), and we get to keep our favorite companion the whole time! I don't think we go to the MTC--just a day-long orientation in Salt Lake. The call is from the Presiding Bishopric. We will serve 18 months. We don't drive tractors or do farm labor, although we are called Agricultural Service Missionaries. (It sounds as though Jay and I can keep our dream alive of living on a farm with no responsibilities for plants or animals.) We'll try not to be too lazy!

Sisters in Zion

We had no particular plans, but all just brought--or didn't bring--as impulse dictated. The weather was rainy so the idea of butt-kicking hikes didn't materialize. Saundra stayed at work until midnight the night before but brought her sewing machine and a couple of projects. Suzanne flew from Seattle bringing cut up onsies and bibs for a quilt and we wondered if there was anything we could do with the tiny pieces with no allowance for seams. Gay drove from Camarillo and brought a few groceries in Cedar, and responding to a last minute request, t-shirts and rubber bands. I had a vague idea of making tie-dye shirts dyed with southern Utah red dirt and brought a few left-overs. This was not an orchestrated reunion, but more a "stone soup" get together.

Here's what we ended up with:

Five days, five kinds of cookies: banana with lemon frosting, Ugandan sim sim

(melted sugar and sesame seeds), mocha brownies, pecan praline and chocolate chip.

Fantastic food: Thai noodles, pasta puttenesca, slow roasted tomatoes with quick roasted broccoli and parmesan angel-hair pasta, crusty bread, chipotle chili and bucketloads of Suzanne's Cesar salad. Whole-wheat pancakes, cardamom granola with yogurt and blueberries, Zoom with raisins and cream.
A wonderful visit with the aunties in Cedar and a yummy meal we didn't have to make.

Yes, this is Weeping Rock, bawling its eyes out.

Two projects:

Tie dye with southern Utah red dirt (above)

Quilt for Suzanne's grandboy including a repurposed dirt-died sheet as background for the blocks (below--We seem to like birth order in these pics)

Wildlife sightings:

Wild turkeys on "the 14"

Whitetail deer on the Spencer Bench road

Desert bighorn ram in Zion

Two foxes dashing across the road on Cedar Mountain

                                             

Hours of visiting, all of us sleeping in the loft due to the fact that we all have FOMA (fear of missing anything) and rediscovering the syncronicity of sisters--the joy of making a suggestion knowing that three others will like it (or will be able to top it with their own good idea); and almost the best of all: being able to settle in with a book for hours at a time guilt-free because everyone else was doing the same thing.  Bliss!