Okay, Here Goes!

Andrea tagged me, so here are a few obscure facts about me:

10 Years Ago:

• I was called as Relief Society President for the first time and asked for Andrea as Education Counselor.
  
• I decided to lose weight so to weigh 150 by my 50th birthday, but went overboard with the lack of eating and overexercising, eventually breaking 130 and going into clinical depression. Bad year for me, and all my own fault!
  
• Good stuff was that Riley was born and
  
• Annie married Bryan in the Atlanta Temple. I love that precious family!

On My To-Do List Today:

• Get Opa and me packed up for our time at Days Inn.
  
• Go with Opa to Provo for Utah car tags.
  
• Call Keith's pools in Mobile about getting a new pool liner so our house will sell.
  
• Contact a yard service to make our Mobile yard presentable.
  
• Make Jelly-Surprise muffins (Trent's birthday breakfast request.)
  
• Send out a ward-wide email publicizing our upcoming Ice Cream Social/Family Talent Show.

Before I Die:

• I hope for "No Empty Chairs" at our table.
  
• Serve missions with Opa.

5 Places I've lived:

• Chicago, Illinois
  
• Plainfield, NJ
  
• Mobile AL
  
• Fort Rucker AL
  
• Heidelberg Germany

5 Jobs I've Had:

• Staff Member at Blue Lake Camp
  
• Salesperson at Books and Co
  
• Assistant Manager of Youth Services and Storyteller at Mobile Public Library
• Art and General Music Teacher at Theodore High School
• Art Teacher at Patrick Henry Elementary in Germany

What I Would Do if I Became a Billionaire:

First I would pay my tithing and then I would:

• Buy 2 vacation homes big enough for our extended family to stay in together, one at the beach, one in the mountains

• Get a new car of my own, a Honda or Subaru with automatic and 4-wheel drive
• Provide college money for all grandchildren
• Take all my girls to NYC for a week of sightseeing Broadway shows.
• Go back to Germany with Opa
• Be affluent enough for missions to England and Washington D.C.
• Share

Bad Habits:

• Procrastination
• Overeating
• Talking too much
• Lack of self-control
• Addicted to buying books

Things I Enjoy:

• Spending time with my family
• Singing with Dave
• Watching certain seasonal tv shows (specifically American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance)
• Discussing the gospel of Jesus Christ with Opa
• Listening to talks on the Speeches website

Things You May Not Know About Me:

• I am a direct descendant of William Brewster, head religious guy on the Mayflower
• I have become quite the country music fan
• I can cross and wiggle my eyes at the same time
• I was born in Chicago
• A roach once crawled in my ear

I tag Ashli and Rich, Amanda and anyone else who hasn't been tagged.... Your turn!

No Doubt About It!

Our Father in Heaven loves us, no doubt about it. He knows each of us personally, as individuals, no doubt about it. He delights in showing tender mercies over each of his children:

"And when they had set their feet upon the shores of the promised land they bowed themselves down upon the face of the land, and did humble themselves before the Lord, and did shed tears of joy before the Lord, because of the multitude of his tender mercies over them." Ether 6:12

When we think about it, we can each think of a time when we have felt the Lord's tender mercies upon us. Little things that help us to know that he knows us. I was reminded of one of those little things today in Testimony meeting, as someone quoted a scripture from D&C 136. If you are familiar with that section, you know that it was given by Brigham Young as he addressed the pioneers as they were in the early days of their trek west. The verse that was quoted was one that I have always felt was put there "just for me." Do you ever feel that way about a scripture? The verse I refer to is verse 28. It reads:

28 If thou art ^amerry, ^bpraise the Lord with singing, with music, with ^cdancing, and with a ^dprayer of praise and ^ethanksgiving.

The first time I read that scripture, I felt overcome, because it literally seems to speak to me. If thou art merry? I am Merry! And what am I supposed to do? Praise the Lord with singing, with music, with dancing, etc. Please don't feel I am making light of this precious coincidence, my name in a scripture about the things I love to do best. I smile every time I read it. A tender mercy for me... no doubt about it!

Things That Make My Heart Sing

Annie just posted about things that make her heart happy. It pretty much touched my heart, so I thought, "Why not?" So without further adieu here is a list of things that make my heart sing. In no particular order.
1. Opa
2. Grandchildren
3. Jacob's phone call each afternoon
4. All of my children.
5. Finding new family members as I research our history
6. Mutti
7. My guitar
8. Seeing beautiful mountains on a daily basis.
9. Driving up Redwood Road and seeing four spires in our neighborhood.
10. Getting emails from friends I love.
11.Gospel discussions with Opa.
12. Aha moments in the scriptures
13. The smell of rain
14. Snow on my face
15. Teaching
16. Quiet moments in my garden as I share a plant with a bee, me weeding or pinching back, the bee gathering pollen.
17. My rollie (roll-around), my favorite seat as I weed or pinch (see 16)
18. Singing
a. in church
b. in the kitchen
c. in the shower
d. while rocking a baby
e. those wonderful folk songs that bring back sweet memories of years gone by
19. Dancing in the kitchen with grandchildren
20. Making muffins for my loved ones
21. John Denver music
22. Eric Carle books
23. Reading aloud to children
24. Smiles on little faces
25. My life

So, what makes your heart sing?

Long Time, No Blog

Well, March is almost over and it looks like I am a major blogging slacker. No posts in February, none in March, so far. I guess I've been busy, but there's no way I can catch everyone up on all our comings and goings, so I will just take it from here, with apologies. Opa and I are almost in our new basement home here at Chez Benham. We have seen the progress through framing, insulation, drywalling, drywall finishing, and now we are ready to paint. We had planned to use the painters our contractor suggested, but at the eleventh hour decided to do the job ourselves! No worries, because we have painted before, we have a very cool paint sprayer, and are just doing a one color job. If it looks just too weird we can always do a contrasting trim later. As for right now, the doors are in, our carpet and flooring has been ordered, as well as our appliances, our cultured marble should be installed this next week, our IKEA kitchen and closet components are awaiting pickup, so all is going along according to plan, except maybe a little bit later than we had thought. We wanted to be in the apartment by Tuesday 1 April, but we will probably be at least a week before all is in place for our move. Irene, Ricky's Mom, is arriving Monday from Mobile for a week's visit with her grandchildren and Lynne and Ricky. We have reserved a room at Days Inn in Lehi for the duration of Irene's stay, so things won't be so crowded.

Here are some pictures of our apartment at this point in time. We hope to prime this afternoon and paint on Monday. Or not.

This shot is from the staircase going down to our apartment. Notice the interesting corners, doorways, etc. Out here it is business as usual to have curved corners and edges, etc. I like it, I like it!!!

The doorway to the left goes into our bedroom. We had originally had plans for double doors there, but changed our minds. (We do that a lot....) The doorway to the right goes into our main living area. Check out my windowseat! I have always wanted one of those, though not necessarily in the kitchen, but I will take it where I can get it!

Here is a closer shot of the window seat. Out the window you can see the not very pretty window well, which is a basement fixture I plan to fix up. I'm thinking maybe a mini-mural of the flowers in my garden in Mobile. What do you think? Opa and I are planning to plant herbs in there, conveniently located for impromptu snippings for cooking.

This shot is from our bedroom looking through the bathroom door and into the closet. We had planned to have our washer/dryer in the closet, but found that there just wasn't space. So it is going to be in the storage room just next to the closet, which will be almost as convenient as our original plan.

This next shot looks into our main area, where we will have our dining room table just to the right, and a sitting area in front of the window, where we can look out onto our patio. I hope to plant the niches in the rock wall with Johnny-jump-ups and maybe some other flowering plants that enjoy the shade.

So there you have a small pictorial status report on our new apartment. Opa and I are very excited about this little home we are making for ourselves, and will ever be grateful to Lynne and Ricky for the generous sharing of their home with us since last November, and even more so for the donating of their very needed storage space so that we will have a nice place to park ourselves between the church missions we hope to spend the rest of our lives serving. Our plan is to submit our paperwork just as soon as our house in Mobile sells. We just switched realtors, and hopefully something good will come of that very soon!