Here is one of the appealing tasks we could be assigned to for our mission. I'm copying it from the mission handbook:
Medieval Zone FHL B2 (Family History Library Basement Level 2)
"The Medieval Zone provides service by researching and organizing medieval records. They develop, maintain, and make available the Medieval Family Files (with temple ordinance date when competed) for selected individuals who lived before 1600. The need is to prepare early records that may have been filmed but not yet reduced to digital form, and are not well resourced, nor merged into family units. The goal is to avoid so much duplication as presently experienced. Although the principal effort is aimed at data from England, there are also substantial efforts in German, French, Polynesian and Scandinavian underway. Another unique feature of this work is in the level of effort being accomplished by workers at home. This zone is uniquely equipped to do this kind of work. The zone has no contact with library patrons and, as the work becomes very complicated quite frequently, everyone is highly trained and uses the best of technology and experience."
Sounds good to us! They all sound good, but some especially so...
Monday, June 23, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The Packet!
We received our missionary packet today, the one that lays out all the details of the mission.
It turns out that the mission is divided into the two main divisions, Church History and Family History, and then each of them is divided into many many subdivisions. We read their descriptions as soon as the packet came, and we already have clear preferences. More on this as time goes by.
In general, there are the outer, public areas that everyone knows about, such as the Family History Center, and the Church History and Art Museum, and work among the patrons there. Within these divisions are areas pertaining to parts of the world, such as Chinese, or Scandinavian, where specialization is possible. There's a Deaf specialty, also.
And then there are areas where archives are handled. For example, there is a facility in Orem that is just opening, which when up and running will work 24/7 to digitize vast amounts of church-related printed material.
In the Church History section, journals are often sent to the church which have to be analyzed for authenticity and relevance (my words, actually); also summarized and passed on to the professional historians.
There are teaching assignments also. And more you will hear more about shortly.
We learned a few things about our apartment and our branch, too. We don't know which apartment we'll find room in, but the map we were sent shows various complexes surrounding Temple Square, all within 1/4 mile. We need to take cooking and eating tools, linens, and of course personal care items, and there were a few comments that suggested the apartments are only incompletely furnished and we might need to buy some furniture - too bad given how much we'll have in storage here! We'll call for more details.
Our branch meets at the Salt Lake Stake Center at 143 West 200 North. It is made up of half of the missionaries working in this mission, and our class of November 2008 entering missionaries all attend together. (The other branch meets in the JSM Bldg.) We meet at 1:30 with RS / P first.
Our cohort of 20 (those entering in November) are to do activities together at least every 3 months. In other words, we are a 'family' or a team, regardless of our assignments. We had something a little less structured but similar when we were in Beijing, and it was quite satisfactory.
We work 8 to 4 every day, with the exception of about 20% of the assignments, which have Saturday hours and shiftwork during the week. We are given 4 hours a week during work time to do our own family history research, and are required to bring our PAF files for 4 generations plus names and dates for the 5th generation, along w/ our Patriarchal Blessings.
That's a quick overview. It's exciting and I've left a lot out. I'll tell you more about our favorite areas soon.
One delightful development: the mission has 3 choirs, general, men's, and women's. We'll be there!
It is possible to be invited to extend. I hope we qualify...
It turns out that the mission is divided into the two main divisions, Church History and Family History, and then each of them is divided into many many subdivisions. We read their descriptions as soon as the packet came, and we already have clear preferences. More on this as time goes by.
In general, there are the outer, public areas that everyone knows about, such as the Family History Center, and the Church History and Art Museum, and work among the patrons there. Within these divisions are areas pertaining to parts of the world, such as Chinese, or Scandinavian, where specialization is possible. There's a Deaf specialty, also.
And then there are areas where archives are handled. For example, there is a facility in Orem that is just opening, which when up and running will work 24/7 to digitize vast amounts of church-related printed material.
In the Church History section, journals are often sent to the church which have to be analyzed for authenticity and relevance (my words, actually); also summarized and passed on to the professional historians.
There are teaching assignments also. And more you will hear more about shortly.
We learned a few things about our apartment and our branch, too. We don't know which apartment we'll find room in, but the map we were sent shows various complexes surrounding Temple Square, all within 1/4 mile. We need to take cooking and eating tools, linens, and of course personal care items, and there were a few comments that suggested the apartments are only incompletely furnished and we might need to buy some furniture - too bad given how much we'll have in storage here! We'll call for more details.
Our branch meets at the Salt Lake Stake Center at 143 West 200 North. It is made up of half of the missionaries working in this mission, and our class of November 2008 entering missionaries all attend together. (The other branch meets in the JSM Bldg.) We meet at 1:30 with RS / P first.
Our cohort of 20 (those entering in November) are to do activities together at least every 3 months. In other words, we are a 'family' or a team, regardless of our assignments. We had something a little less structured but similar when we were in Beijing, and it was quite satisfactory.
We work 8 to 4 every day, with the exception of about 20% of the assignments, which have Saturday hours and shiftwork during the week. We are given 4 hours a week during work time to do our own family history research, and are required to bring our PAF files for 4 generations plus names and dates for the 5th generation, along w/ our Patriarchal Blessings.
That's a quick overview. It's exciting and I've left a lot out. I'll tell you more about our favorite areas soon.
One delightful development: the mission has 3 choirs, general, men's, and women's. We'll be there!
It is possible to be invited to extend. I hope we qualify...
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Houses And Other Encumbrances
Today we have our 6 properties, and from the moment we conceived of going on our mission sooner rather than waiting, our goal has been to lessen the load.
That means either selling or renting out all of them.
We have no idea how long this mission will last - 12 months to 4 years, probably at least 18 months. So we have no business owning several domiciles and the huge bills and responsibilities that are part of owning properties.
We put the land on the market some time ago, and now we have this Anacortes house for sale and also the Tucson Sallee Place home for sale. We have been successful in getting renters where we weren't able to sell, or the timing was wrong to sell. So we're making progress.
The Anacortes house is being shown tomorrow and looks great (except for the lawn, which is only partly mowed due to rain).
Our goal hasn't changed. We report to church headquarters for training in 4 1/2 months. There's still time!
If the Anacortes house sells quickly, which it could - this market is not like the supersaturated Tucson one - then we will possibly see if we can start our mission sooner. We'll cross that bridge when the time comes.
We would consider ourselves very blessed to have the land and Sallee Place house sell. What a relief that would be!
Your prayers and positive expectations are welcome!
That means either selling or renting out all of them.
We have no idea how long this mission will last - 12 months to 4 years, probably at least 18 months. So we have no business owning several domiciles and the huge bills and responsibilities that are part of owning properties.
We put the land on the market some time ago, and now we have this Anacortes house for sale and also the Tucson Sallee Place home for sale. We have been successful in getting renters where we weren't able to sell, or the timing was wrong to sell. So we're making progress.
The Anacortes house is being shown tomorrow and looks great (except for the lawn, which is only partly mowed due to rain).
Our goal hasn't changed. We report to church headquarters for training in 4 1/2 months. There's still time!
If the Anacortes house sells quickly, which it could - this market is not like the supersaturated Tucson one - then we will possibly see if we can start our mission sooner. We'll cross that bridge when the time comes.
We would consider ourselves very blessed to have the land and Sallee Place house sell. What a relief that would be!
Your prayers and positive expectations are welcome!
Pre-Mission Travels
We expect to take a month to travel before we end up in Salt Lake for our mission.
We have people we don't want to postpone seeing, and we want to feel free to extend our mission if we want to without getting Wanderlust.
Here's our pathway, without firm dates so far. If you are on this list, be forewarned. And then later we'll add some dates:
1. Drive (in the Durango) to Great Falls MT to see grandkids and drop off a bed.
2. Drive to Salt Lake City UT to drop off our mission belongings. Quick hello to friends and family.
3. Drive to Boulder UT to meet someone coming from Tucson with our Prius, who will take our Durango back to Tucson.
4. Drive to Denver or Colorado Springs (in the Prius) to see the Samuelsons.
5. Drive to Fairfield IA to see Kay Ferguson.
6. Drive to Paulding OH to see Deb and Sara and Sara's kids.
7. Drive to New England to see: Jim and Lenny, Lucy and Allan, Patrice and Harry, Valerie and Peter, Bill and Joyce, Dorothy, and as many other people as we can find and fit in.
8. Drive to Eden Prairie MN to see Adamses.
9. Drive to Cowley WY to see Toni, Rich, and the boys.
10. Drive to Salt Lake for our mission, arriving approx Nov 5 in the evening.
This is the best guess right now, some 3 mos and several days before we'd have to leave.
What is not on this list, and still a possibility, is a trip to England with Lucy and Allan Katz. They lived there for a year and would be great tour guides. Plus, we've been planning a walking tour w/ them, plus some family history in the same locale where they wanted to tour, for some time, long before Lucy retired. But we may not be able to afford it this year. If we do go, the trip will be shoehorned in just after arriving in New England. That means an early start date for the trip.
As it is now, the trip will need to be close to a month long. With England, add 2-3 weeks.
If you have any input about when you don't want us to be somewhere, let me know quick! And I am looking for volunteers to drive the Prius to Boulder, and the Durango to Tucson, on the date when we would be there, which, best guestimate, would be about Oct 15.
Here are some durations of visit. This would be subject to some flexibility as needed - we may build in 1-2 days for flexing the plan:
Great Falls - 2 nights, one full day
Salt Lake - 2 nights, one full day
Boulder - 1 night
Denver/CO Springs - 2 nights, one full day
Nebraska - 1 night
Fairfield IA - 2 nights, one full day
Paulding OH - 2 nights, one full day
New England - 1 week
midway to MN - 1 night
Eden Prairie MN - 2 nights, 1 full day
midway to Cowley - 1 night
Cowley - 2 nights, 1 full day
Total: 25 nights on the road, 26 days - Approx dates Oct 10 to Nov 5 (no-England version),
It will be nice to be based in SLC after that. We have so very many wonderful family members and friends we can visit on our days off! Because we will have something like 1 to 3 years for those visits, we're waiting to do them when we're living right there on the Wasatch Front.
We're getting excited.
We have people we don't want to postpone seeing, and we want to feel free to extend our mission if we want to without getting Wanderlust.
Here's our pathway, without firm dates so far. If you are on this list, be forewarned. And then later we'll add some dates:
1. Drive (in the Durango) to Great Falls MT to see grandkids and drop off a bed.
2. Drive to Salt Lake City UT to drop off our mission belongings. Quick hello to friends and family.
3. Drive to Boulder UT to meet someone coming from Tucson with our Prius, who will take our Durango back to Tucson.
4. Drive to Denver or Colorado Springs (in the Prius) to see the Samuelsons.
5. Drive to Fairfield IA to see Kay Ferguson.
6. Drive to Paulding OH to see Deb and Sara and Sara's kids.
7. Drive to New England to see: Jim and Lenny, Lucy and Allan, Patrice and Harry, Valerie and Peter, Bill and Joyce, Dorothy, and as many other people as we can find and fit in.
8. Drive to Eden Prairie MN to see Adamses.
9. Drive to Cowley WY to see Toni, Rich, and the boys.
10. Drive to Salt Lake for our mission, arriving approx Nov 5 in the evening.
This is the best guess right now, some 3 mos and several days before we'd have to leave.
What is not on this list, and still a possibility, is a trip to England with Lucy and Allan Katz. They lived there for a year and would be great tour guides. Plus, we've been planning a walking tour w/ them, plus some family history in the same locale where they wanted to tour, for some time, long before Lucy retired. But we may not be able to afford it this year. If we do go, the trip will be shoehorned in just after arriving in New England. That means an early start date for the trip.
As it is now, the trip will need to be close to a month long. With England, add 2-3 weeks.
If you have any input about when you don't want us to be somewhere, let me know quick! And I am looking for volunteers to drive the Prius to Boulder, and the Durango to Tucson, on the date when we would be there, which, best guestimate, would be about Oct 15.
Here are some durations of visit. This would be subject to some flexibility as needed - we may build in 1-2 days for flexing the plan:
Great Falls - 2 nights, one full day
Salt Lake - 2 nights, one full day
Boulder - 1 night
Denver/CO Springs - 2 nights, one full day
Nebraska - 1 night
Fairfield IA - 2 nights, one full day
Paulding OH - 2 nights, one full day
New England - 1 week
midway to MN - 1 night
Eden Prairie MN - 2 nights, 1 full day
midway to Cowley - 1 night
Cowley - 2 nights, 1 full day
Total: 25 nights on the road, 26 days - Approx dates Oct 10 to Nov 5 (no-England version),
It will be nice to be based in SLC after that. We have so very many wonderful family members and friends we can visit on our days off! Because we will have something like 1 to 3 years for those visits, we're waiting to do them when we're living right there on the Wasatch Front.
We're getting excited.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
A House, A Home, Pt 2
Our house is on the market - or to be clearer, our WA home is on the market. It looks great!
There's a little left to do, but the bedroom is painted (as you saw), the deck railing is pressure-washed and is now partly painted, thanks to a sunny respite. Flowers (deep-pink rhododendrons, a purple iris, a deep-red rose, and many chive blossoms) are on the table in a small vase. The counters are clear, the front lawn is mowed and weeded and the back will be done tomorrow. All clutter is out of site, or on its way to the storage area. The stove is clean, the granite counters are shiny.
All that's left to do is to find something like a printer table to hide the cable spaghetti on our family room floor, and to put the TV on, because a TV on a printer box on the hearth is not as attractive as it might be. And I have one more business-related box to secret away.
Tuesday the carpet cleaners come. A week later we have our Realtors' open house.
Pretty much, we're good to go. Now bring on the buyers!
This is a good little house. The yard is wonderful - just the right size. We could grow all our own produce here. It's tempting to keep it.
But we will be away for over a year, maybe even over a year and a half. And that's a long time to be making house payments, and paying the tax bill and utilities, and getting the lawn mowed by someone who won't forget and who understands about doing the trim, too, and raking the leaves.
So we are selling it. Sigh!
One lesson learned: it is easier, on average, to live without one's junk than to live with it. Tomorrow we have an expedition with several boxes we brought up in the trailer, to take them to the storeroom. Knowing you will be living without purse, scrip, or boxes in a few months sure makes the decision easier. (Not quite true about the scrip, but still...)
There's a little left to do, but the bedroom is painted (as you saw), the deck railing is pressure-washed and is now partly painted, thanks to a sunny respite. Flowers (deep-pink rhododendrons, a purple iris, a deep-red rose, and many chive blossoms) are on the table in a small vase. The counters are clear, the front lawn is mowed and weeded and the back will be done tomorrow. All clutter is out of site, or on its way to the storage area. The stove is clean, the granite counters are shiny.
All that's left to do is to find something like a printer table to hide the cable spaghetti on our family room floor, and to put the TV on, because a TV on a printer box on the hearth is not as attractive as it might be. And I have one more business-related box to secret away.
Tuesday the carpet cleaners come. A week later we have our Realtors' open house.
Pretty much, we're good to go. Now bring on the buyers!
This is a good little house. The yard is wonderful - just the right size. We could grow all our own produce here. It's tempting to keep it.
But we will be away for over a year, maybe even over a year and a half. And that's a long time to be making house payments, and paying the tax bill and utilities, and getting the lawn mowed by someone who won't forget and who understands about doing the trim, too, and raking the leaves.
So we are selling it. Sigh!
One lesson learned: it is easier, on average, to live without one's junk than to live with it. Tomorrow we have an expedition with several boxes we brought up in the trailer, to take them to the storeroom. Knowing you will be living without purse, scrip, or boxes in a few months sure makes the decision easier. (Not quite true about the scrip, but still...)
Sunday, June 8, 2008
The Morning After, And After That
So what purpose does this blog serve now?
It may not be kept as a blow-by-blow account of things, but there is much preparation - and transformation, I think - left to be experienced. So I will keep it for myself, and for whatever other wise purposes there may be, and you can read it or not as you will...
Preparations to date: We have written our acceptance letters and will have them endorsed by our bishop today. This is not quite as straightforward as it might sound: first we have to have our records transferred to this ward, and then we can have our bishop endorse our letters.
Bishop B Anderson from Tucson had the foresight to list Anacortes as our home ward, so even though he did all the hard parts as we filled out the papers, and offered us great counsel and encouragement and used his time for interviews and so on, he is not the bishop of the so recently called missionaries. That is Bishop J Rutter of Anacortes, who met us last week.
So first we switch our membership, and then our bishop signs, and then we send the acceptance letters to church headquarters.
The next step of preparation that we have begun is to figure out about our stuff. We are limited in what we need to take with us, what we can take with us, and the rest has to be stored here.
That's because we are putting this house on the market this week. And unless it and another major property of ours sells, we won't have a house at all - just two storage units, one filled to the door with our belongings from Tucson, and the other awaiting our furnishings from here.
But what goes where? We now have three lists: Storage unit, Salt Lake, or Tucson.
We thought there might be things that should go back to Tucson, for someone's use there, and that can be accomplished when we trade cars with Katie and Tyler.
So that's the next item for planning: when to trade cars - we have the big one, and they have our beloved Prius, which now barely accommodates the 5 of them. So we need to switch, and with a distance of nearly2000 miles between us, doing that is not trivial.
We have also considered what to do if this house sells before we're ready to leave. We have some contingencies, but it all depends - primarily on when this house needs to be vacated. (The market in Anacortes is not nearly as bleak as the one in Tucson, and our house, a one-storey rambler, is of a popular type.)
So: membership, stuff, houses, and cars.
And just a side note: the general presidential election is held 3 days before we report. We've got to figure out how to vote in that also. Probably absentee from AZ, because we won't really be residents of WA at all by then...(and we have plenty of properties left in AZ to use for addresses!).
So these are the infinitely fascinating things we'll be talking about - these and I hope some elements of spiritual preparation. Stay tuned ... ????
It may not be kept as a blow-by-blow account of things, but there is much preparation - and transformation, I think - left to be experienced. So I will keep it for myself, and for whatever other wise purposes there may be, and you can read it or not as you will...
Preparations to date: We have written our acceptance letters and will have them endorsed by our bishop today. This is not quite as straightforward as it might sound: first we have to have our records transferred to this ward, and then we can have our bishop endorse our letters.
Bishop B Anderson from Tucson had the foresight to list Anacortes as our home ward, so even though he did all the hard parts as we filled out the papers, and offered us great counsel and encouragement and used his time for interviews and so on, he is not the bishop of the so recently called missionaries. That is Bishop J Rutter of Anacortes, who met us last week.
So first we switch our membership, and then our bishop signs, and then we send the acceptance letters to church headquarters.
The next step of preparation that we have begun is to figure out about our stuff. We are limited in what we need to take with us, what we can take with us, and the rest has to be stored here.
That's because we are putting this house on the market this week. And unless it and another major property of ours sells, we won't have a house at all - just two storage units, one filled to the door with our belongings from Tucson, and the other awaiting our furnishings from here.
But what goes where? We now have three lists: Storage unit, Salt Lake, or Tucson.
We thought there might be things that should go back to Tucson, for someone's use there, and that can be accomplished when we trade cars with Katie and Tyler.
So that's the next item for planning: when to trade cars - we have the big one, and they have our beloved Prius, which now barely accommodates the 5 of them. So we need to switch, and with a distance of nearly2000 miles between us, doing that is not trivial.
We have also considered what to do if this house sells before we're ready to leave. We have some contingencies, but it all depends - primarily on when this house needs to be vacated. (The market in Anacortes is not nearly as bleak as the one in Tucson, and our house, a one-storey rambler, is of a popular type.)
So: membership, stuff, houses, and cars.
And just a side note: the general presidential election is held 3 days before we report. We've got to figure out how to vote in that also. Probably absentee from AZ, because we won't really be residents of WA at all by then...(and we have plenty of properties left in AZ to use for addresses!).
So these are the infinitely fascinating things we'll be talking about - these and I hope some elements of spiritual preparation. Stay tuned ... ????
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Mission Call
Here are the details of our Call, signed by the President of the Church on June 3, 2008:
We are called to serve at church headquarters in the Family and Church History Mission. We report on 7 Nov 2008, and it is anticipated that we will serve for 12 months.
(We have been informed that it is easy to extend that period up to 3+ years.)
We will receive further instructions in the mail in the next few days, and we'll let you know what those are.
We were joined on our conference call by several family members. Thanks to all those who were there, and we missed those who didn't get the word in time.
Now we will continue our preparations, and your prayers are solicited on behalf of our success in matters such as selling our Tucson house and land, as well as maintaining our good health and all other matters, both worldly and spiritual, in which we stand in need of success and/or improvement. Thanks!
We are called to serve at church headquarters in the Family and Church History Mission. We report on 7 Nov 2008, and it is anticipated that we will serve for 12 months.
(We have been informed that it is easy to extend that period up to 3+ years.)
We will receive further instructions in the mail in the next few days, and we'll let you know what those are.
We were joined on our conference call by several family members. Thanks to all those who were there, and we missed those who didn't get the word in time.
Now we will continue our preparations, and your prayers are solicited on behalf of our success in matters such as selling our Tucson house and land, as well as maintaining our good health and all other matters, both worldly and spiritual, in which we stand in need of success and/or improvement. Thanks!
It's HERE!
but we haven't opened it yet. We are thinking about how to proceed. Prayerfully, I can assure you.
For all you faithful blog-watchers, we will have a conference call at 6 pm tonight (PT, incl Tucson, or 7 pm in MT and UT), which we hope will allow anyone interested to be there: it's after day activites and before evening activities - we hope!
The number is 308-344-6400, pin 887953#. If you have trouble getting in, hang up and enter the pin slowly, even if it tells you it is invalid. And stand away from a computer while doing that. Maybe call in a few minutes early so you can be sure to be there.
Keep an eye on this blog for changes: If I hear that this time is bad for a few of you, we will try to find a better one. And of course I will post the details right after the call for anyone who has to miss it.
YAY! They do want us after all...any last guesses?
For all you faithful blog-watchers, we will have a conference call at 6 pm tonight (PT, incl Tucson, or 7 pm in MT and UT), which we hope will allow anyone interested to be there: it's after day activites and before evening activities - we hope!
The number is 308-344-6400, pin 887953#. If you have trouble getting in, hang up and enter the pin slowly, even if it tells you it is invalid. And stand away from a computer while doing that. Maybe call in a few minutes early so you can be sure to be there.
Keep an eye on this blog for changes: If I hear that this time is bad for a few of you, we will try to find a better one. And of course I will post the details right after the call for anyone who has to miss it.
YAY! They do want us after all...any last guesses?
Friday, June 6, 2008
Not This Week, I Guess...
The mail just came. At least the mailtruck just went by. But nothing for us. I suppose there is some small hope it will come tomorrow, but it seems unlikely it would take 4 days from Salt Lake, and we know they're mailed on Tuesdays.
So it looks like we wait for another week...
So it looks like we wait for another week...
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Waiting...
It's nearly 11 am on the first day the call could come (on this revised schedule previously laid out).
I just ran out in the rain and checked the mailbox. It's empty - mail hasn't come.
It is not lost on me that someday all this will be history, well-known, understood, absorbed, assimilated, written, finished, archived, journaled, told to future generations, and even forgotten. But right now it is all future, all potential, all what-ifs and full of hope and a little terror (what if it's Ohio?).
Maybe it will switch from unknown to enlightenment in the next hour. Or not till tomorrow, or next week, or the one after that... But maybe in this next hour.
Whatever it is, it will be life-changing, it will change OUR lives - and the only way to walk through this is by faith, and an earnest desire to make the best of everything, and the firm knowledge that we will do so.
Maybe no one is watching with us. But it feels like a roomful, at least.
I just ran out in the rain and checked the mailbox. It's empty - mail hasn't come.
It is not lost on me that someday all this will be history, well-known, understood, absorbed, assimilated, written, finished, archived, journaled, told to future generations, and even forgotten. But right now it is all future, all potential, all what-ifs and full of hope and a little terror (what if it's Ohio?).
Maybe it will switch from unknown to enlightenment in the next hour. Or not till tomorrow, or next week, or the one after that... But maybe in this next hour.
Whatever it is, it will be life-changing, it will change OUR lives - and the only way to walk through this is by faith, and an earnest desire to make the best of everything, and the firm knowledge that we will do so.
Maybe no one is watching with us. But it feels like a roomful, at least.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Late Spring Cheerfulness
Now that I have the knack of getting photos into blogs - even if not where I want them - I have a few more to share. These are of our house from the back.
Our Newly Painted Room
When we moved into this house two years ago, after we got back from China - having bought it sight unseen - we knew we had to do something about the deep turquoise master bedroom right away.
This climate can use some bright colors at times, so we decided to make it a good solid clear yellow.
Yellow, even with primer and two coats, over deep turquoise has a tendency to look greenish.
And it wasn't until we had these coats on that we noticed there was something wrong with the woodwork. It was looking grayish. On closer inspection we found it was actually a very pale shade of lavender. NOT GOOD with yellow! It just looked dingey.
So Monday we started painting. Our friend Judy, who is mildly insane in that she adores painting, especially the fussy stuff like woodwork, joined us in Fixing The Room.
What an awesome job she did! We now have yellow yellow walls, and white white woodwork. Last night we went out and bought blue curtains (all we could find, actually, that would fit) and found they went perfectly with an indigo and pure white embroidered coverlet that we brought back from China. And now we have a lovely bedroom!
As you've seen, I've added some photos. I didn't want to leave them at the top, but I can't get them to move...
This room is the only one that NEEDS painting. But it makes the neutral colors professionally done by the seller two years ago look very dull.
As we continue preparing the house to be sold, we are solving problems one room at a time. I'll probably share our successes with you again.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
What Elder Godfrey Said - Then And Now
Last Friday when I called Elder Godfrey from the Missionary Department to request our address change, and he told me about the mustache and all that old news, he also said our call would be mailed on Tuesday (today).
Just now I talked to him again to find out where to send the new photo he requested.
And attempted to verify that we were expecting the call later this week.
And he said, well, if all goes well, the computer system works, no secretaries are sick and so on, we could expect it in two or three or maybe four weeks.
I reminded him that last Friday he said it would go out today and he said, well, if that's what he said then that was probably good, but he didn't have the stacks any more and couldn't say for sure.
Now the interesting thing about this is that over the past several weeks I have shared with several family members that I knew that it wasn't coming two weeks ago (though we thought it should, by rights) and it wasn't coming last week (though technically it should have, from what we knew). I also shared that as I looked at the weeks ahead, I saw that this week there was a faint chance, but that my real sense of it was that it was actually coming the following week, or more likely the week after. This was a clear vision of a reality, and didn't make any sense at the time.
When Elder Godfrey said it was coming this week, I accepted that with delight, but was surprised because of that prior clear vision. Now what he's saying is more compatible with the original vision of it.
So now we can all just sit back and wait for a miracle (its coming this week) or a wait a little longer for what is more likely...
Stay tuned!
Just now I talked to him again to find out where to send the new photo he requested.
And attempted to verify that we were expecting the call later this week.
And he said, well, if all goes well, the computer system works, no secretaries are sick and so on, we could expect it in two or three or maybe four weeks.
I reminded him that last Friday he said it would go out today and he said, well, if that's what he said then that was probably good, but he didn't have the stacks any more and couldn't say for sure.
Now the interesting thing about this is that over the past several weeks I have shared with several family members that I knew that it wasn't coming two weeks ago (though we thought it should, by rights) and it wasn't coming last week (though technically it should have, from what we knew). I also shared that as I looked at the weeks ahead, I saw that this week there was a faint chance, but that my real sense of it was that it was actually coming the following week, or more likely the week after. This was a clear vision of a reality, and didn't make any sense at the time.
When Elder Godfrey said it was coming this week, I accepted that with delight, but was surprised because of that prior clear vision. Now what he's saying is more compatible with the original vision of it.
So now we can all just sit back and wait for a miracle (its coming this week) or a wait a little longer for what is more likely...
Stay tuned!
Monday, June 2, 2008
One Step Of Progress
Just now I received a call from our rental agent in Benson. Our house there is now rented with a year's lease. YAYAYAYAYAY! This house has been vacant since last October, and a real drain on us.
Now we have the opportunity to wait and sell it at a more advantageous time. (This is the least conceivable advantageous time, with prices down a hefty amount and days on market at record highs in the Tucson area.)
One of the mission preparation steps we undertook in January was the resolving of all the real estate challenges: selling or renting our properties that we were not currently using. So this first success in that area is very welcome in a week during which we are expecting our call, and in which we fasted with our mission-preparation steps foremost in our minds.
We pray constantly for additional relief in this area.
Now we have the opportunity to wait and sell it at a more advantageous time. (This is the least conceivable advantageous time, with prices down a hefty amount and days on market at record highs in the Tucson area.)
One of the mission preparation steps we undertook in January was the resolving of all the real estate challenges: selling or renting our properties that we were not currently using. So this first success in that area is very welcome in a week during which we are expecting our call, and in which we fasted with our mission-preparation steps foremost in our minds.
We pray constantly for additional relief in this area.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
A House, A Home
Yesterday I had good cause to notice the difference between a house and a home.
Five months to the day after we had our last meal, just the two of us at our little table, before leaving for Tucson, just before leaving our little 'second home' behind, we sat together again at home in Anacortes.
In reality, I think there is no such thing as a second home. Home is where the heart is, and also the essentials of life: the favorite frying pan, the family-history archives and heirlooms, the folders full of income-tax returns. (This observation presumes that all these things are in one place.)
Saturday night we arrived back in Anacortes, having driven for 16 hours minus a 50 minute lunch break, and having stopped at the store on the way in to pick up some essentials to get us through till Monday.
As we sat at that same little table, eating a bite of supper at 11 pm, the circle closed. We were right where we'd been. The 5 highly stressful months in Tucson were effectively excluded. We were home now, and all that was 'other'. I was neither all happy nor all sad: it just WAS. It was the first moment when I fully realized that home was here now.
Why not all happy? We love Tucson. We just can't have it. It's hard to live in two places. Going back and forth, the original model of having two houses, means never being 'home'. It's stressful and unsettling. One has to pick.
Further, in these years of missions and travel, having domiciles sprinkled here and there is unnecessary and not even appealing. One is enough.
And one is good. I have said for several months that we want to be homeless when we go on our mission. That sounds a bit cute. Other senior-missionary couples have said it. But the fact is, we don't want to be homeless. We want a homebase to return to. We want friends who miss us. We want a recognizable HOME for family members to visit and grow fond of, because it's ours and has a great deal of us in it and around it.
And for now, this little house in Anacortes is home. As we go about putting things away from the 5 months out of town, the very decisions are different now that this is home. The awkwardnesses or compromises of what goes where are not as tolerated, for example. Things need to be 'right' about it, because it's home.
Not that this is the ultimate house. It is still going on the market. Anacortes is home, and this is our current house. But as soon as we can we'll be finding and moving to the final house, which will become our true home.
We haven't had a true home since Sweetwater. We left there in 1997. The time has come...
Five months to the day after we had our last meal, just the two of us at our little table, before leaving for Tucson, just before leaving our little 'second home' behind, we sat together again at home in Anacortes.
In reality, I think there is no such thing as a second home. Home is where the heart is, and also the essentials of life: the favorite frying pan, the family-history archives and heirlooms, the folders full of income-tax returns. (This observation presumes that all these things are in one place.)
Saturday night we arrived back in Anacortes, having driven for 16 hours minus a 50 minute lunch break, and having stopped at the store on the way in to pick up some essentials to get us through till Monday.
As we sat at that same little table, eating a bite of supper at 11 pm, the circle closed. We were right where we'd been. The 5 highly stressful months in Tucson were effectively excluded. We were home now, and all that was 'other'. I was neither all happy nor all sad: it just WAS. It was the first moment when I fully realized that home was here now.
Why not all happy? We love Tucson. We just can't have it. It's hard to live in two places. Going back and forth, the original model of having two houses, means never being 'home'. It's stressful and unsettling. One has to pick.
Further, in these years of missions and travel, having domiciles sprinkled here and there is unnecessary and not even appealing. One is enough.
And one is good. I have said for several months that we want to be homeless when we go on our mission. That sounds a bit cute. Other senior-missionary couples have said it. But the fact is, we don't want to be homeless. We want a homebase to return to. We want friends who miss us. We want a recognizable HOME for family members to visit and grow fond of, because it's ours and has a great deal of us in it and around it.
And for now, this little house in Anacortes is home. As we go about putting things away from the 5 months out of town, the very decisions are different now that this is home. The awkwardnesses or compromises of what goes where are not as tolerated, for example. Things need to be 'right' about it, because it's home.
Not that this is the ultimate house. It is still going on the market. Anacortes is home, and this is our current house. But as soon as we can we'll be finding and moving to the final house, which will become our true home.
We haven't had a true home since Sweetwater. We left there in 1997. The time has come...
Here in Anacortes...
Here we are at home in Anacortes, with all our stuff.
This afternoon we put a lot of it away. We also have the internet sort of working. And we harvested 3-4 lbs of edible-pod peas, and cut off the old asparagus stalks so we might get some spears this season. The broccoli raab had just about taken over the garden, with 8 foot stalks, and the brussels sprouts are nowhere to be seen. And alfalfa abounds...
But the garden is little and we had fun in the cool (65 degree) sun and we'll have a little harvest for our supper.
Also some beasties went to snail heaven today....
This afternoon we put a lot of it away. We also have the internet sort of working. And we harvested 3-4 lbs of edible-pod peas, and cut off the old asparagus stalks so we might get some spears this season. The broccoli raab had just about taken over the garden, with 8 foot stalks, and the brussels sprouts are nowhere to be seen. And alfalfa abounds...
But the garden is little and we had fun in the cool (65 degree) sun and we'll have a little harvest for our supper.
Also some beasties went to snail heaven today....
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