Lauren's Tree

I made the mistake of setting my camera to use RAW for some images that needed for my photography class--and then not re-setting it to a realistic file size. As a result, this beautiful example of Lauren's work (Pandagoldfish@etsy.com) took an agonizing amount of time to load. I'm glad that I finally got a good image of it--I have such a hard time getting photos of glass-faced pictures. I usually end up with a reflection of the camera super-imposed on the front--so I can't see what it is that I took a picture of.

I got this from Lauren quite a few months ago and only just finished getting it framed right. Brent saw the artwork in a pile of papers (important! papers, of course) in our bedroom and he asked me if (when I got it framed) he could take it to hang up in his office. I like being able to have the artwork of Meg and Lauren hung on the walls of our home. It reminds me of them and the things that they are doing. The majority of the stuff is from the past few years, though. Right now Lauren is managing a doberman training/breeder kennel. So, even when she isn't waiting for her mangled hand (dog fight she tried to stop by putting her hand in front of one of the dogs) to heal--she has very little time for the intricate cut-work in the piece above. Megan is also busy--too busy really--to use up time doing her sculpting/painting/carving/etc. She has one child--18-month-old Jonathan. She just told me a week or so ago that she is now pregnant with my second grandchild!!! So soon she will have no sleep, an infant, and energy-explosive Jonathan--not really conducive to the completive quiet that she needs for her to do her artwork.

Because I know that both of them will be getting busier rather than busy-less (?), I really treasure the pieces of art that I get from both of them now.

Nathan is done with midterms. He is also doing an index of all the stuff that the Family History Center has. Hundreds of files and tapes and CDs--he got a code scanner to help with the work. Now he will be practicing what grocery clerks do all day--rather than sitting and going through each item by hand and listing what is on it. He's also gotten Brent and me to use our evening time better. I don't know what was said during the Priesthood Conference broadcast two weeks ago, but Nate came home from that and told me that we needed to watch fewer movies and listen to more music--return to nightly scripture reading and family prayer. He is changing so quickly now. I'm not in any of his classes right now and when he doesn't understand something in Algebra, he makes an appointment with the Math Lab. I still get to help him with Spanish--and with deciphering weird handwriting when he does name extraction work on-line. Actually, he gets both Brent and me to help and sometimes we all just throw our hands up and he guesses--putting a "?" after the city or surname or family status.

Brent is gone most of the time now. He was at a legal conference two weeks ago and one of the people in a presentation (Q & A thing) had to bow out and they asked Brent if he could fill in! It was a big thing--I'm so incredibly impressed. FPL said that there wasn't time to get clearance from the company president's office, so he didn't appear on the panel for the discussion-thing--but I think he was pleased that the legal hierarchy would turn to him when they needed someone.

I am glad that he is regarded so highly that those who found they needed someone at the last minute felt that they could depend upon him. My mom used to get upset when a Church meeting would need a musical number because the people who were suppose to do it had failed to prepare anything; and they would call us to fill in at the last minute. "Why don't they ask you to do it in the first place?" Funny question coming from a woman who had taught us, though, that we were given the talent that we had in order to be of use to others. Once when she was to have accompanied a musical number she couldn't "play all the notes" in the score and so she got someone else to do it for her--and then her replacement didn't play all of the notes, either! Grandma Burton told her that she had been given an opportunity to develop her skills as a pianist so that she could help others--it didn't matter if it was note-perfect. The Lord wasn't listening to be sure that the music was performed perfectly--so Mom shouldn't be worried about it either--just to do the best that she could.

Which was pretty much perfect anyway.

Happy Birthday Megan!

Megan Christina Hendry Rytting and her son Jonathan Anson

At the moment I am with Nathan in the library on Palm Beach State College campus. There is a poetry night for his Spanish class--hosted by the Spanish Club. It is extra credit for his Spanish I grade. He was thinking about reciting "The Gecko" but we got here and found out that you needed to have signed up in advance to present a piece. I have really loved hearing him practice the poem aloud as we've driven from place to place this week. For those of you who do not know the poem:

The gecko has adhesive toes.
Straight up the walls the gecko goes.
And then, and this is most appealing,
The gecko walks across the ceiling.

Fool hardy is the one who tries
This topsy-tervy exercise.
To certain death he will be fated,
The gecko can't be imitated.

All of the poems that have been read so far have been written by teachers and there is someone now introducing a novelist who has written poems, is working on her second novel, and teaches at Florida Technical College. It looks like she's going to read from her first book. It takes place in Cuba and has something to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I am making the most of my time here and writing about my oldest daughter's 26th birthday today. I am speaking at the Saturday night session of our Stake Conference (in a few weeks time) and have been asked to speak about living the law of tithing. I am, instead, going to speak about "What Am I?" The Church spends much time with its tag trio of questions: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? As I have thought about tithing--and about Megan--I have been drawn to the truth revealed in the answer found when I ask WHAT AM I?

Am I honest? Am I kind? Am I obedient? Am I brave? Am I truthful? Am I to be trusted?

Behind these short queries lurks a dark, unknowable future place where WHAT we are is revealed. It may in the aftermath of a horrible hurricane when I open my home for shelter and offer my time to re-build. It may happen when I count my change and find that the cashier has mistakenly given me $10 too much. It may happen in the middle of the night when my infant cries and cries and cries--and I am still patient and loving and calm. It may happen when I am in the best room in the dorm--and then change my things for my roommate's after the Christmas break so that she can have a turn living in the best room. It may happen when an exhausted friend needs two large dogs walked every afternoon. It may happen when I am prompted to knock on some one's door and I don't know why. It may happen when I don't think that I can pay for rent and for groceries and I haven't paid my tithing yet. It may happen when someone needs to organize a dance and I am volunteered and then I do my very best to put on the very best dance that the Stake has ever known.

Megan is one of those people who is made of very stern, faithful stuff. She has forgiven me when I betrayed a trust. She has nursed family members when they were gruff and rude and unappreciative. She has adopted the extended family of her husband--spending endless hours on delicate artwork for the centerpiece of a reunion and volumes of her scant time to craft drawings and paintings to give away to those she loves. She is a valiant mother--teaching her son joy and confidence in the Lord. She is strong--working with Anton to finish his dissertation and get it ready to publish. She has a spirit that is irrepressible--when math does not make sense--when her offer of friendship is cruely rejected. She is compassionate as she teaches newly baptized members of the Church the New Member Discussions. She is inspired in the many Relief Society lessons she has taught to women of the Church. She is careful of her family's health. She is empathic when (unasked) she takes supper to a young mother whose husband is away on business. She is charity incarnate.

Nathan shared with me one of the highest validations of all that Megan is when he told me that "I want to marry someone exactly like Megan."

Two nights ago Nathan and I were in Barnes&Noble and I walked past a book. "The Girl Who Could Fly." I finished it last night and am sending to you, Megan. It is the story of a girl who does, indeed, fly--with her body, her heart, her spirit, and her whole soul.

Happy Birthday, Megan! Your 26 years on earth have made it heavenly for me. I love you.

Images I Wrote About Last Time

This is the stack of Eyewitness Books that squashed the flowers that I will take to my Plant Identification class to put in my collection to get a good grade.

These are the squashed flowers Ruellia tweedia (I am SO impressed by the fact that I remember that name.) from the plant family Acanthaceae. (I am satisfied that I finally remember how to spell that--versions of it have been scribbled all over every thing that I have been taking notes on all week long. Finally! I remember it!)

I described these dried flowers as "triangles" but they are more like taffy-violet cloud puffs with handles.

I like how they turned out.

Down on the Flowers

This week is the first week of classes at Palm Beach State College. I am enrolled in a photography class and our assignment this week was to bring in a collection of photos of "things."

I am also taking PLANT IDENTIFICATION 1 (CULTIVATED PLANTS). Really...that's the name. On Tuesday night we ranged all over the campus, clipping pieces off of all the species of ACANTHACEAE to dry for a plant collection and there were no blooms on the Ruellia tweediana we found. Well, I happen to have lots of Ruellia tweediana in my yard because it grows anywhere there is no water, no soil and lots of weeds...{and my yard is full of places like that} and so I collected a handful of their flowers today so that I could dry them and share them with everyone else.

Combining both classes, I took some photos of the flowers. As I finished, this little bit of down blew over. It was a cool combination--delicate flower petals and weightless white puff.

The cat is sleeping on the top of the big leather sofa chair I'm sitting on. She has had a long day--Mary has left and she has followed Nathan and me around all afternoon. I tried to fill in, but after trying to snuggle with her, she kind of gave up and just went to sleep. The soft grey ripples in her fur remind me of the soft grey-purple flutter of the Ruellia tweediana blossoms that are now (three days later) silk-thin, edge-flared triangles between the pages of an old telephone book which is resting beneath three dozen of the Eyewitness volumes that I refuse to part with . . . even though they are definitely not books that I would sit down and spend the afternoon with. I have given away a few duplicates that I've somehow acquired, but {like the "Nine Bowls of Soup" ichthyosaur} I "can't break up the set." And every now and again, Nathan will pull a stack of them into his room and spend a month going slowly back through his favorites.

I like a good mix, I suppose. Brent just kissed my forehead and told me not to stay up too late. It is 9:06pm and he is wisely heading off for bed.

I Leave for DC on Thursday

Brent and I have planned a short cruise (our first) to celebrate our anniversary this year--our 28th. Before that, however, I will be able to spend a week with Megan and Jon Jon and Anton--although Anton is seldom home. He works at a job that requires a lot of him and he is the clerk for the ward. I keep thinking that Anton is in "that phase" where he needs to work really long and hard in order to establish himself. Brent is well-established in his field, but he still puts in 60 hour weeks and goes into the office during his vacation days if there is a problem that he feels he needs to handle in order to keep his group functioning well--and the Chief Financial Officer and the President of the company supplied with answers about legislation that has just/is going to be soon passed.

But this entry was to have been about my up-coming trip to DC. I will be babysitting for Jon while Meg and Anton have a real date on Friday night and Saturday morning I'll be with him while Meg and Anton join one of the recent converts in their ward as she attends the temple for the first time to do baptisms for the dead. Meg, Jon and I will spend a day at the Smithsonian mall--there's an exhibit that Meg wants to see. It is a collection of artwork made from "found" materials. I can't remember the particulars. It sounds good, though.

Nathan was pleased with the rolls that I made tonight. The Publix where we usually shop offers pizza crust raw dough in a bag. I brought a bag home with us today and let it rise on the counter. Then I just squished it down, pinched off 5 or 6 round rolls and baked them for about 30 minutes at 450 degrees. I didn't try the bread when it came out of the oven, but when I had to eat something with my night pills, I pulled a roll apart and took a few bites. "Hey, this is pretty good!" I exclaimed. Brent and Nate both looked at me like I was saying something really strange. "Of course it's good! I really like it," Brent answered. I guess I'll be bringing home bags of pizza crust dough more often now.

The rabbits are in a molting stage. I pick one up and an explosion of rabbit hair explodes into the air. I am really glad that I'm not allergic to it. I would spend all of the year with perpetually red, runny eyes and a sore, irritated runny nose. I keep trying different ways to "defuzz" them, but so far the only method that seems to make any difference is to use rolls of masking tape to gently tease out the disconnected hairs. They hate this, of course, in the same way that they had having their nails trimmed or their ears cleaned.

Which reminds me that . . . I can't remember what I was going to write. It is late and I am on an extra "sleep inducing" med. I rumbled into a patch of poison ivy or something this afternoon so the Walk In Clinic doctor gave one look at me and my rapidly spreading lines of itchy, flaming blisters all along my hands and arms and wrote me a prescription for a healing steroids and one for itching. So the drowsy fog of the meds has just hit me.

Good night. You are in my prayers.

Nathan is a super, incredible missionary.

Funny, Funny Mother

In the spirit of the Christmas reading enclosed below, I have included a photo of the cardinal that I have been trying to take a picture of for the last month. Either my camera is too cold and so fogs up; my camera's batteries are too low to focus; I can hear him but not see him; he is in the sun and I am shooting from the shade; OR Nate or/and Brent call me to come and see him and he is gone before I can get outside----all of this has conspired against me thus far. Last week I was outside and one of the lone sandhill cranes flew over and decided to drop in for lunch. He kept calling to me as I went into the garage to get a scoop of seed to spread on the corner of the driveway, but was moving slowly enough that I had time to grab my camera and snap pictures as he strode up the side of the street. I was clicking away when I backed up to get a different perspective and LOW AND BEHOLD!!! the cardinal was there right beside me. I had an empty digital card, new batteries and was shooting from sun to sun and got some PERFECT shots of the red head. My triumph for the month! My left knee is still swelling and bothering me after physical therapy this week--so I will dwell, instead, on this clear, well-centered photograph of "my" cardinal.

The poem below is a piece that I remember my mom reading at a church Christmas party when I was still in grade school. I had tried googling/yahooing it several times--assuming that she had probably found it in a humorous collection somewhere. BUT I found her original, typed copy in among a box full of pictures. It is too good to keep to myself.

SEE MOTHER. FUNNY, FUNNY MOTHER.

See Mother. See Mother laugh. Mother is happy.

Mother is happy about Christmas.

Mother has many plans. Mother has many plans for Christmas.

Mother is organized. Mother smiles all the time.

Funny, Funny Mother.

See Mother. See Mother smile. Mother is happy.

The shopping is all done. See the children watch TV.

Watch children watch.

See the children change their minds.

See them ask Santa for different toys.

Look, Look, Mother is not smiling.

Funny, Funny Mother.

See Mother. See Mother sew.

Mother will make dresses.

Mother will make robes.

Mother will make shirts.

See Mother put the zipper in wrong.

See Mother sew the dress on the wrong side.

See Mother cut the skirt too short.

See Mother put the material away until January.

Look, Look. See Mother take a tranquilizer.

Funny, Funny Mother.

See Mother buy raisins and nuts.

See Mother buy candied pineapple and powdered sugar.

See Mother buy flour and dates and pecans and brown sugar and bananas and spices and vanilla.

Look, Look, Mother is mixing everything together.

See the children press cut cookies.

See the flour on their elbows.

See the cookies burn. See the cake fall.

See the children pull taffy. See Mother pull her hair.

See Mother clean the kitchen with the garden hose.

Funny, Funny Mother.

See Mother. See Mother wrap presents.

See Mother look for the other end of the scotch tape roll.

See Mother bite her finger mails.

See Mother go.

See Mother go to the store 12 times in one hour.

Go, Mother, go.

See the faraway look in Mother’s eyes.

Mother has become disorganized.

Mother has become disoriented.

Funny, Funny Mother.

It is finally Christmas morning. See the happy family.

See Father smile.

Father loves the fruitcake.

Father loves the Christmas pudding.

Father loves all the new neckties.

Look, Look, See the happy children.

Santa was very good to the children.

The children will remember this Christmas.

See Mother. Mother is slumped in a chair.

Mother is crying uncontrollably.

Mother does not look well.

Mother has ugly dark circles under her bloodshot eyes.

Everyone helps Mother to bed.

See Mother sleep quietly under sedation.

See Mother smile.

Funny, Funny Mother.

Written and performed by Nancy Kathleen Burton Wagstaff

Probably in the late 1960s or early 1970s while we lived in Minnesota.

Birthday Creation from my Lauren

Purple, Purple Everywhere

I turned 51 this month and Lauren made this cut-work card for me. It was way too incredible to relegate to a page of my scrapbook--so I framed it. I will put it up with the other artwork that her dad, sister and brother (and she) have already fashioned. She also wove me a basket, accented in purple, and so I'll hang the two of them together.

I have gotten a lot of my hand-work finished since I have been laying on the couch waiting for my knee to begin to heal. There aren't any spectacular cuts or gashes to show off for all of the time I am restricted from doing the things that I love. I will have to be satisfied with the needlework I've done and the creations Lauren has sent.