Valentines, Snow and Vaccines!

For the past couple of weeks,  I have been trying to get an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine.  I checked clinics and pharmacies multiple times a day but never had any success.  Friday night about 10:30, I tried one more time and scored an appointment at the Fred Meyer Pharmacy!  Yeah!  Now I just hope that they don't run out of vaccine before then!

In other news, my prayers for snow finally were heard and we had a beautiful storm!  Why do I love the snow so much?  It is just so peaceful, well peaceful as long as I can stay home and watch it fall.

"I find myself mesmerized by the falling flakes again.  A snowfall is like a fresh start, or a cover for past problems. Sometimes both."

Favorite quote from a novel I just finished that was set in South Dakota. 

While Johnny and Monica enjoyed a Valentine's Day dinner out, George and I had fun entertaining Isabella.   Do Johnny and I look alike?  Facebook facial recognition software thinks so!  Every time Monica posts a photo of Johnny, I get an alert that she may have posted a photo of me.

Isabella and I had fun practicing cutting and gluing to make a Valentine for her Mommy and Daddy.

I think  they turned out pretty cute!  I tried to talk George into taking the one I made into work and hanging it in his cubicle but nothing doing there.

I do love my family to 'pieces'!

This was from last March in Dubai when we thought mask wearing was a novelty!  Little did we know that we wouldn't be leaving the house without a mask for months and months and months with no end in sight!

A last photo of my little Valentine and wild child Isabella enjoying the snow and a crazy sled ride!  She loves to go fast and has no fear!

Ground Hog Day

Remember the old movie with Bill Murray, "Groundhog Day"?  That is kind of how my life feels right now.

You know it's bad when a trip to the dentist or the eye doctor is exciting. Or when you get dressed up to drive to the restaurant for a curb side delivery of your dinner!  Sometimes I want to chat with the Amazon delivery guy but I haven't yet wanted to engage in conversation with the telemarketers who call.

We have tried our very best to avoid Covid-19 and that has definitely changed how I live my life.  I miss going out to eat.  I miss spending time with friends.  I really miss Sunday family dinners.  I miss traveling.  I miss in-person church.  I miss going to the movie and shopping in person.

I have had 6 friends from my age group in 3 different states have Covid recently.  Five of them had mild cases and recovered quickly but the 6th is in the ICU fighting for his life.  The worrisome thing is that you have no way of knowing if you might be the ONE who gets hit hard.  So I wear my mask and social distance and avoid crowds.  My 'people circle' is small these days.

I try to keep my complaining to a minimum and carry on....hoping that the end is in sight.

We start back to in-person sacrament meeting tomorrow and word is that we will be back to the 2 hour church schedule by the beginning of March.  As George's Dad was prone to say, "Happy Day!!!"

On Monday those of us who are over 65 in Idaho, can schedule a vaccine appointment!  They have asked that we 'younger' elderly wait for the 'more' elderly to get theirs first and I will do that but I really look forward to my turn.

I shared this way back at the beginning of the pandemic.  It is still meaningful today.  I fully understand that I have merely been inconvenienced.

Jake Gates Montgomery

My Daddy, Jake Gates Montgomery was born on January 31, 1916. Tomorrow is his 105th birthday!

He died on 27 May, 1979 at age 63, which is 4 years younger than I am now.

I was only 25 years old when he died so I have spent a lot more years without Daddy than with him yet he had a profound influence on the person I am today.

When he died Moma and Daddy had celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary a few months before. My mother was a widow for almost 30 years.

I look forward to seeing them both again.

A Table Full of Memories

To anyone else this just looks like a table full of Christmas ornaments.  

To me it is a walk down memory lane.

I feel nostalgic thinking of the ornament my Grandma Boyle made

Of trips to Hawaii - Mele Kalikimaka       

I remember good friends who have given us ornaments over the years

And the seminary students and Young Women who have made me ornaments

I marvel that the gingerbread ornaments we bought in 1999 are not in crumbles

I picture the tiny little lady in China from whom I bought a whole box of small ornaments

I see all the shops in the Baltics when I look at my 'amber' ornaments

I smile thinking of our beloved pets and the ornaments that honor them

And of 39 foster dogs from Guide Dogs For the Blind whose names are on two ornaments

I'm impressed with the ornaments our family has made on recent Christmas Eves.

I picture the blue tiles and handmade paper of Uzbekistan

And the white lace of Brugge, Belgium

My heart strings are tugged as I look at the ornaments that were once my mother's

And remember the generosity of her friend, Mrs. Lyons who gave us so many ornaments.

I am impressed with skills of handicapped people in Kenya who make angels out of recycled aluminum

The ornaments from Oman and Dubai make me think of that trip just as the pandemic started.

Norway, Crater Lake, Oregon Coast, Monticello, Washington DC, Annapolis, Philadelphia, San Francisco, The White House, Madagascar, Williamsburg, Palmyra, Nauvoo, Reagan Library, Zanzibar 

Ah, the joy of memories!

"Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it"

L. M. Montgomery 

Books 2020

For the Goodreads Reading Challenge 2020, I surpassed my goal of reading 45 books.  With one day left, I have finished 47 and am closing in on 48!  Would you believe that 5,368,755 people participated in this challenge, pledging to read 322,552,719 books during the year.  The average books pledged per person was 61.  I think that is very impressive.

2020 had lots of difficulties, as the whole world knows, but I often escaped into some of the best books I've read in a long time.  Here are a few of them:

If you enjoy historical fiction, I highly recommend Ruta Sepetys.  I have loved every book of hers that I've read.  Salt to the Sea is about the sinking of the German ship ‘Wilhelm Gustloff’ with 9,000 people on board; some were soldiers but many were refugees who had fled from the Baltic countries as the Russian troops advanced.   Her intertwining of the stories of several people kept me interested.  I really cared about each character

The Fountain of Silence  is set in Madrid and blends a modern story with one set during the Spanish Civil War.

I am not a frequent reader of non-fiction but I really did enjoy both of these books.  The Moment Of Lift confirmed so much that I had learned during my trips to Africa with Kenya Keys.  And Born a Crime taught and entertained while telling of Trevor Noah's early life in South Africa. 

Three books about family...The Honey Bus is a heart wrenching story of neglect and eventual abuse but the main take away from the story is what a powerful influence one person can be in a child's life. 

Millicent Glenn's Last Wish was especially interesting to me because Jane, the daughter, was born about when I was and was also an only child. My mother also worked outside the home and wasn't a 'stereotypical' 50's housewife. 

The Invisible Bridge What a great book! I loved the characters and felt their joys and sorrows. Even some of the minor characters were memorable. I loved Andras's mother.  One of my favorite historical fiction books about World War II.  

The Dreamers and The Pull of the Stars were both set during a pandemic.  The first during a mysterious, fictitious illness  and the 2nd during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 2018.  Both felt very timely as we grappled with COVID-19 in 2020.

Both of these were re-reads.  Wuthering Heights was a revisit from my high school days.  My clearest memory of reading it then was the quote 'He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.' To my teenaged self this was so terribly romantic. Reading it again as an adult, it didn't seem like a romance at all but a tragedy because what their souls were made of was not anything virtuous or lovely. 

The Shell Seekers was one I loved when I was a young wife and mom and I loved it just as much this year.  Strange that now I am the age of the 'elderly' main characters.

These two were high on my list of favorites -  Lost Autumn and The Giver of Stars.  Totally different settings, rural Tennessee and Australia/England but both were rich in character development and story line.  

Christmas Masterpieces

 Let me brag a little here!  

Matt and George created this fruit Christmas tree masterpiece.  George was the structural engineer and Matt the artistic director and architect.  

It added so much to our Christmas brunch table....and a little nutrition to our menu!

During the pandemic, I've done a lot of baking but usually it has been types of bread and cookies.  For Christmas I decided to make the cake I'd learned about from @cakesbycourtney.  Turned out pretty great, if I do say so myself!

It's a gingerbread cake with a lemon curd filling and a whipped lemon mascarpone frosting.  Totally yummy! And looks quite festive!

Making a cake was something new to try, but my other masterpiece was a tried and true skill - photo book making.  One of my gifts for Isabella was a book entitled "Isabella - Her First Five Years".

Her very favorite books are the ones that feature 'Isabella' as the star. The book I made of her first year of life and the one from our trip to Hawaii are always her picks when we sit down to read. Every photo in this book is of her so I thought she would love it!  And she did!

Christmas Day 2020

What a great Christmas Day!

Delicious food - breakfast pizza, cinnamon rolls, killer hot chocolate, sparkling cider and fruit!

Surrounded by some of the people I love the very most in the world

 A perfect day, even if we did have to wear masks! At least they were cute Christmas themed masks!!

My friend Pam says we looks like we were going to rob a bank!