New Beginnings

Literally! We had New Beginnings tonight. I had forgotten how much work it is to put on a program, but how much fun it is to watch Young Women stand up in front of a group and shine. These are the girls of the 3rd Ward with their NEW Personal Progress books. Aren't they adorably cute? They could be a New Era cover.

And here are Nikysha and Morgan internalizing their values. We had Values cheesecake for desert :)

Maddi dressed up as a woman of strength and courage, which was our theme -"Women of Strength and Courage". She was Dorcus, and she giggled every time she had to say that name.

And this is LacyAnn telling about her project, which was excellence in tennis playing. She went to state!Have I ever mentioned how much I love Young Women's? They keep trying me in other places, and I've served in every organization in the church a women can serve in, but I always bounce back to Young Women's. And when I do, my heart smiles, my soul sighs and I say, "Ahhhh, I am home again."

Baby, It's Cold

Besides showing how incredibly cold it STILL is here, I think this icicle forming on the TV cable outside my kitchen window has an underlying story. Something along the lines of not holding tight to the iron rod or something. I just haven't figured it out yet.

So, I try hard not to go outside . . .where it's cold. So, on Thursday as I was on line watching Drew fly from Salt Lake to the Dominican Republic - pathetic, I know - I discovered a new passion. www.swaptree.com where you can enter books that you have to trade, and enter books that you want to read, and they, the swaptree people, will match you up with someone who has the book you want to read, and wants the book you have already read and don't need anymore, or a threesome combination therein, and you swap! You just stick your book in a bubble envelope and drop it in the mail and a few days later, you GET a book in return. It's SO easy!! You can even print a mailing/postage label from their website so you don't have to go into the post office. On Thursday, my first day, I traded Breaking Dawn (Stephenie Meyer) for The Sea (John Banville), Pirate Latitudes (Michael Crichton) for Water For Elephants (Sara Gruen) , and Three Weeks With My Brother (Nicholas Sparks) for The Westing Game (Ellen Raskin). By Friday morning, my already read books were in the mail and now I am waiting for my new books to come. And let me tell you, ANY package coming in the mail in January is something to be excited about. So check it out! Because the more swap people there are out there, the more packages I will have to look forward to. And believe me, I need something to look forward to, because baby, it's cold here in the deserts of Moab.

Drew On A Mission

I realized today that I have never posted this picture, taken at the Monticello Temple with Kimbrey's camera by a nice Temple worker from Grand Junction. This is our family's contribution to divirsity. This was the day Drew went through the Temple, and it was cold and snowy in Monticello, as you can see.

And in the spirit of Drew being on a mission, I thought I would share the cute letter we got from him in the mail today. He says:
Happy New Year Familia! 'K, so first things first I got more shots today. I don't know if I told you about the first ones, but the grand total for today is $93.00. Today's shot was the final HEP series, and the other two were a typhoid vaccine and a tetanus and diphtheria booster.
So, I went to the RC (call center) today and I didn't get any calls, but I'm definitely going back. I don't know how Brennan thought it was so bad. Maybe I'll find out. So today I met a Brian Bigalow? He says he knows people in Moab and he is friends with Kandace Hugentobler and Kyle Cannon. He said his Mom knows Mom - mine. (Me, Carri. I don't know who he's talking about. )
This letter has been continued to the following day. O.K., for real now Happy New Year. But really I don't think the RC is that bad. What is bad, though, is early morning service and having to clean all of the sinks in a residence hall. That is horrible. Trust me, I know. Also bad is not having gym for three days in a row. Ask me about it, I dare you.
By the way, thanks for all the "food" everyone, I'm gonna be really fat now. But it really was nice to be able to have all that stuff again. They don't sell anything good in the bookstore.
I should go now, so talk to you again on Wednesday! Love, Elder Cozzens

Missionary Letters . . .Ahhhhhh. Balm for an Empty Nester Mother's broken heart :)

The Place Where I Work

I accidentally took my camera to work today. It was part of an armload of "stuff" I was putting away on my way out the door but apparently the camera felt way too natural in my hand because when I got to work it was still there. And it was too cold to leave it in the car all day. Because I live in a frozen wasteland now. So I took my camera to work, and a co-worker snapped this picture of me . . . working. This is where I work. It's a cold place as you can tell by the fleece lined jacket I wear all day, but there are good people there, including the one who is holding a bundle of papers in front of her face. She's camera shy.

This is Danny . . . not working. He just sits at his desk all day with a pen in hand staring at a pile of papers and drinking his soda. He took the blurry picture of me working above. He is the most technologically illiterate person I know.

When he's not sitting at his desk pretending to work, you'll find him hangin' out with one of the other guys I work with. Today it was Travis. I'm pretty sure they were looking at hunting videos on youtube. Or shopping at Cabella's on line. What they were NOT doing was working. They work pretty hard and expend a lot of energy NOT working. If we could only harness that . . .

The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done . .

was to let this kid walk out of my house, get in his car, and head back to school.

Isn't he cute standing there in his little Converse tennis shoes and jacket that is "the goat!"? Oh . . . my heart hurts, my head hurts, my stomach hurts.

Before he left, Dave cooked steamed lobster for dinner. I don't like lobster. I ate left-over pizza.

But Brennan and Dave ate the lobster, and only lobster, nothing else. And that is because Dave thought he was cooking up some instant potatoes to go with the lobster. Yummy instant potato pearls that turned out to be a big ol' pan full of instant milk. But the lobster was the hardest, and he got THAT right. Good job Dave. Good Bye Brennan.

The After Christmas Funk . . .

it's knocking hard at the door. It came while I was taking down the Christmas tree - the one Drew helped me put up and I had to stop! So I did this instead . . .

I finish TWO projects, both of which had been waiting at least three years to come to fruition. The quilt, one I was quilting to take to the cabin, has been on the quilting frames through two cabin summers. The tile picture I actually designed my bathroom around. Picked out the tile and picked out the paint based on the colors in the picture and it has taken me an untold number of years to grout and hang the thing. And now she's done :)

By the way, does anyone else out there have a husband who hangs their pictures using a level? Hangs pictures, places furniture, plants the garden. If so, you might be married to an engineer.
He makes me smile, and it kind of lifts the funk :)

A New Year, An Empty Nest

There, I said it out loud . . . sort of. I've been whispering it in my mind for weeks now, friends have been nodding, smiling and saying it to me for months. With all the extra people we've had around our house the past year I had secretly convinced myself it would never happen. A wish unfulfilled, for Brennan told me today that he's leaving on Sunday to head back to school and when he leaves, our nest is empty. What is a mother who's whole world is centered around caring and nurturing to do when there's no one left to care for or nurture? She grasps at straws, that's what. And that is what I did today, the first day of 2010. And those straws I grasped at today were called "mending".

This is Brennan's new jacket. He describes is as "the goat!!" (The goat is good, by the way, really, really good) But the pretty fabric lining the pockets of the jacket are too delicate for the cold hands that have been stuffed into said pockets, and one pocket was torn. So I took this jacket apart to get to the inside lining of the pocket and I fixed it.
Now, you have to know that I don't mend. I've explained to Dave many times that my sewing ability is creatively rooted, there is really nothing functional about it. But today I was hanging on to a thread, so to speak, so I mended. Not only Brennan's jacket, but his belt, his backpack and his jeans, which he wanted patched to look like he had bought them that way. But since my sewing ability is creatively rooted, I couldn't remember how to change my machine to the stitch that looks like you bought those jeans from the store looking that way, so this he what he got. (It looks better close up, don't you think?)

I haven't seen these in the stores yet, but I think if Brennan wears them around campus enough, they are going to catch on. And if not, at least it might ratify the fact that my sewing ability is rooted in creativity. There is nothing functional about it.