Looking back with Lot's Wife

Green acres is the place for me, Farm livin’ is the life for me! So a couple of years ago my sister and I inherited a little money from my dad and she and her husband went in with some friends and built a house in Mexico a half block from the beach. We just bought an alfalfa field outside of Duchesne. My husband is over the moon. I’m available, on this side of the moon, but still happy for him. After all, he’s given me thirty years of paychecks with nary a boo, so it’s his turn. And I knew when I married him he was a workaholic. I kind of like that he’s that way, it keeps him busy and out of my hair. This is going to mean spending summer Saturdays for the rest of my life up in Salt Lake shopping with my daughter, not the worst news I’ve ever had. But man! Do I ever envy him his joy in this field! Today, by a fluke, he was home for lunch and so I made him sausage and eggs and toast, a favorite, and as he was mopping up his plate I said, “You happy?” Meaning

Been There, Done That Writing for the Provo Herald is a bit different than writing for the Springville Herald because I knew a lot of the people who read my column and I got regular feedback. I’m a sixty-something woman married to a seventy-something man who still works full time as a contractor and is planning to buy some land and work on the weekends as a farmer. Our ages are several years apart, but we’ll probably both die at the same time only I’ll be in my eighties and he’ll be playing around with the nineties. We can probably have my funeral and his 100 th birthday party on the same day. Or at least save the balloons from one to use for the other. I think about the things people my age think about, and one of those subjects is death. It’s not that I’m necessarily worried about it or sad, it’s more like I realize that if I’ve always wanted to learn French or hike the Great Wall of China, I probably better get on it because who knows what my memory or my or my

Went shopping at Gateway with Angie, Ben's wife, for five! hours Saturday. A blatant attempt at buying love. Had the best time ever, got cute stuff, and talked our heads off. Really a great day. Yesterday, Sunday, was my two-class day--Relief Society lesson on honesty and Sunday School lesson on Christ feeding Gentiles. Watched British TV shows right up to almost time to leave for church and started right in when I got home. So tired in my brain, Britain's a great way to shut off your mind. Started the new Upstairs, Downstairs last night though with Billy and Clay--loved it loved it loved it. Yea, Masterpiece Theater again!

Went to a ward gardening class last night at Tammy’s house. Her family room is filled with sprouts for her vegetable garden. Tammy Tips: Under-plant vines in taller plants like corn and tomatoes. “You have to move them over because they don’t just go there naturally.” The hairs along tomato plant stems are tiny roots. Pinch off all the leaves except the very top bunch, and put the plants deep in the ground. The root hairs will grow and speed your harvest and yield. Build a wire cage about 4 feet wide by 4 feet tall. At the bottom put a couple of inches of soil, a layer of potato starts, and a layer of straw. Add more straw as the plants grow, keeping the tops open to the sun. As the plant develops there will be potatoes all along the stem and when you open the cage it will be filled with clean potatoes grown in straw. The roots will get enough from the soil at the bottom.

I’m calling a friend in Germany, or trying to anyway. It’s eight hours ahead there and she feels better in the morning. She has cancer. I called at 2 am Tuesday night and last night I tried at 4:30 am and now I’m sort of running out of “do-gooder” steam. And wondering why she wants me to call her. This isn’t someone I know well; I knew her when I was a teacher at a school where she brought a bunch of kids when she was teaching. She stayed at our house a few nights. Doesn’t she have better things to think about? It’s nice that she feels good about that time. She and her group were a big deal to us. I don’t think of the things I’ve done as a employee/volunteer pleasantly when I think back on my life. I think about how dumb I was. I decided in her honor I was going to think about times when I felt successful about myself. It’s a good list, you know, not overwhelming, need to broadcast good, but it’s longer than I thought it was going to be. I think there’s a possibility t

Yesterday I went to Provo bakery to buy congratulation donuts for a friend who had succeeded in life, and to deter myself, an admitted sugarholic, from the donuts I got a dozen of these great buttery fluffy dinner rolls. And we just ate rolls for dinner. We sat there and covered each bite with butter, and had some chocolate milk. Actually, it would have probably been perfect if we would have had donuts, but you can’t eat as many of those as you can rolls. And there’s always jam.

I love big fat juicy artichokes, the kind with pointy leaves that prick your fingers when you pull them off, and a little bowl of real butter with a big shot of fresh lemon juice. Then the choke, I love the choke. I have to fight myself to keep my hands off my husband’s. He eats too slowly. Spring artichokes were my mom’s favorite. I don’t know how she found them in a Denver grocery store in the fifties. But she’d get them and one April afternoon we’d sit at the long tin-topped kitchen table and work our way down to that choke, that magic moment when we cut off the dangerous fuzz, “don’t let it get caught in your throat!” and scrape up the last of the butter. The second thing I’m afraid I might like is the continuous battle with dog hair. Our lab sheds her yellow white coat like dandelion fluff. She plonks down in the car seat and the air is filled with floaters. I should keep her out of the car but we’re joined at the hip. Now she’s had a bath and her under

I need new knees. Two. Grateful I'm not a spider or a millipede. Yes, I am. But I'm supposed to be the person who says to cheer up, can I get you a glass of water? Do you want me to call someone? I say that to other people who are having surgery. Three weeks ago I had to have a colonoscopy. That terrified me. I don't like anything going on with my bod. Five kids and appendicitis is my limit. I need to have two knee surgeries before I can do something that resembles what a few years ago I casually called taking a walk. But who on earth are all these people around me telling me things are going to come out all right? I'm the mom here. I decide who's going to cheer up and who's not. I have gone through this a hundred times with my kids. Pull the Band-Aid off fast, honey, it won't hurt. Don't worry this is just going to be a little pinch. It won't hurt. Don't cry, honey, don't think about it. It's going to be okay. Just get it over with. And