THE TREE OF LIFE

Two years ago Diane presented us with her painting of The Tree of Life. It tends to grow on me, and I have actually become quite enamored with it. It really made a wonderful Christmas gift. I have shown a picture of it with this blog because the lesson I teach next Sunday in Gospel Doctrine class is titled The Vision of the Tree of Life. Right now it is my plan to take the picture with me to class as a visual aid as I talk about the symbolic meanings of the tree, the great and spacious building, the rod of iron, the filthy river and other things that may come to mind. The concepts for the lesson are wonderful. I hope I can present them in a worthy way.

Our weather seems to be moderating ever so slightly. Even so the lake is frozen quite solidly once again. I can tell the amount of daylight is increasing. You can tell that I am ready for spring. Tomorrow we are talking of going to the swimming pool in Tooele for exercise and general well being.

Friday morning we had nearly two inches of snow. Before I was hardly up and about, my good neighbor had come by and pushed the snow from the driveway with his ATV and blade. Clarine makes for him whole wheat bread which he says that he enjoys immensely. The exercise of pushing the snow myself would likely be good for me, but, ALAS! he gets there before I do. gwh

Mishap - 2008

We had a grand holiday time with Diane here. Storms delayed her departure for Tacna, Arizona to 6 January 2008. It stormed that day too, but she had a deadline for the restart of school to meet, so with a blessing and our prayers she left about 7:30 AM. To alleviate our anxiety, she called us from Hendersen, Nevada, letting us know that she had passed through the brunt of the storms and would likely see no more snow as she finished her journey on into Tacna. That was most pleasing.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that one of the things Diane gave us at Christmas was a mobile made from range wire found in the desert. She designed the wire into different appearing fish that represented every member of this clan from my generation to the great grand children. It was sort of like a pedigree chart laid out horizontally. Under each fish Diane identified the person represented with their first name twisted in script from soft copper wire. It was not complete on Christmas morning, and Diane worked feverishly much of the time she was here to get it completed. She got every individual completed and attempted to string them together to hang in space as a mobile. This takes lots of fine tuning and adjustments. Saturday night before she left, she got it precariously strung together. Clarine and I got to see it all together on Sunday morning before she left. Later that day as we went down to the lower level where she had assembled it, it had collapsed and was strung all the way from the top of the wide door where it was originally constructed to the bottom of the door where much of it was lying in a heap. Diane had predicted that just might be what would happen. She said that the finality of it might have to take place while she is visiting this summer. So be it. We did get one shining glimpse of what to expect. NICE! The top three fish pretty well stayed in place. They represent Carol, George and Clarine. The copper names can be seen. I have to say that I am ready for it all to be reassembled into a permanent state and to be on display. It will take a little care to keep all of the pieces secure. Thank you Diane. It is a most superb creation!

Clarine was to the podiatrist yesterday. Her fractured foot is 90% healed. Her pneumonia has stayed under control. So we are happy to start the new year in quite a nice state of well-being.

I am toying with the idea of getting started on filing my income tax. There is a lot of information to accumulate and prepare before filing. I will do it myself. I am not of a mind to pay someone to do it when the most difficult part of it is collecting the data for the filer to use any way.

I am quite happy to see the amount of daylight increase with each passing day. I haven't noticed any moderating of temperatures yet, but I think that can not be too far off. Just like "the signs of the times" are all around us, the harbingers of spring will soon become plentiful. (I want the flowers to come out and bloom in all of their wonderful colors.) I don't even mind mowing the lawn and edging it all that much.

I shall post another blog in due time. gwh.

Miscellanea

Diane is still feverishly working on her art work that will become a mobile representing this clan. It is being forged from range wire that she has collected from the dessert in Arizona. She only has one or two more days here before she departs back to the Arizona south lands to resume her role as an art teacher in Antelope Valley High School.

The other photo goes back to the last of June when we were traveling in the midlands. This photo happens to be in front of the Winter Quarters Temple in Omaha, Nebraska. I was just searching through some photos and thought this was a significant picture to represent the departure of the year, 2007.

We celebrated the new year without hardly causing a ripple. I was in bed by ten o'clock. Fireworks exploding out side awakened me at mid night. I just stayed in my nice warm bed. On New Year's Day Lisa, Phil, Sheridan, Zach and Max came out. We ate and grazed, played games, and the children and I took the two slingshots that are part of the family repertoire now (The Allred's sent me another for Christmas.) and went out onto the dock and shot pebbles into the snow and ice on the lake. Sheridan and Zach tired first. Max was enjoying the activity so much that I nearly froze before he decided that we should go in. Slingshot shooting is just such fun for old men and kids! Thanks to Dan Allred for getting me started at it once more.

Phil came back again the next day (The rest of his family had school and work.) because he heard that Dan, Jalayne, Kim and Elliott were coming. Phil came and the others arrived, and we ate and visited. Diane had a luncheon appointment with friends in Salt Lake, but she was able to return before the others had to leave, so she was part of the visiting for a nice period of time before the visitors departed for their respective residences.

Diane, Clarine and I visited the Tooele swimming pool two times this week - Wednesday and Thursday. It is an activity that all three of us like, and we get lots of good benefit from it. The weather is very cold outside - starting in the very low digits early in the morning and warming to almost the freezing point at its warmest, but it is nice in the pool. So the ice is getting very hard once more. I expect skaters on the lake if this cold weather continues.

The computer will date this blog so I will not get to write 2008 yet this year.

The Canadian geese have been flying around and honking as if they were lost, but they most likely aren't. A few days ago I went to a car wash and let it wash all of the accumulated salt off my car. The owner was there and I joshed him about recycling the salt from all of the automobiles that were being washed.

I believe I made it through the holiday season without laying on any weight to speak of. Of course that isn't unusual as we most always choose to not "speak of" weight gain when ever it happens. Clarine's foot is getting stronger all of the time and she seems to be free of the pneumonia for the present. Just hang in there; something spectacular to post will happen one of these first days. Love, gwh.