Ker-Plunk...

Ok, blame it on Pinterest, but I've finally made an executive decision to clean my house. And I've gotten quite a bit done this weekend actually! All of my one-of-a-kind (meaning the only one of their kind in my cupboard) glasses and dishes have finally and mercifully been tossed out. Along with the bay leaves circa 1989...

Kitchen shelves have all been re-lined with (omg) contact paper but it seriously looks a lot better and cleaner than the particle board. I had planned to re-paint all the cabinets as well, however once the first one was painted I realized that I need to go back to the hardware store and dull up my pure white paint a bit. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that my next project would have to be completely replacing my dingy kitchen floor...

Anyway, today it's the pantry cupboard which seriously needs repainting but I'm at a total standstill. Because I just don't know how I'm ever going to cover up THIS...



Moving on...

As some of you know I've been collecting piles of stuff in my basement for years for that eventual garage sale. I've held a couple of those in the past and to be quite honest the thought of having another one completely makes me shudder. All those people tromping through my yard and handling all my um, wonderful stuff. So as I was dumping my bag full of one-of-a-kind treasures into the basement corner yesterday I made yet another executive decision.

No more garage sales for me!

Tomorrow I will sort through the storage closet at work for boxes which I will then label "Trash", "Goodwill" and "Kindling/Firewood." The dumpster stuff will have to remain in the garage for the time being...


Just one of my corners...

My only dilemmas are first,... what to do with all the Beanie Babies:



And next, the waterbeds:


Daryn's old bed looks a ton nicer with the lush down comforter, but it just seems to work better, with only the cats around, when I cover it with this ugly, I mean cute old thing.


I always loved Whitney's green/pink room. But I should probably wash the cat barf off of the bedspread before I try to sell it...

Unfortunately my camera batteries seem to have suddenly gone well, Ker-Plunk...

But fortunately PhotoShop has a way of forgiving a multitude of sins...


There... All clean!


And Voila! Switch-a-roo!!!...

Down comforter courtesy of decorlinen.com with a little help from PS...



lol!

Craig's List... here I come!

Who Ever Knew It Could Be This Easy? (PhotoShop Tutorials...)

I can seriously remember trying to follow along with some of them back in the day and not even having a clue when they'd say something like "Ok, now change the layer blend to screen or multiply..." etc.

But its amazing just how much an ungodly number of "having absolutely no idea what you're doing" hours can eventually teach you... Because today this one went pretty smoothly.

Transparent, suspended letters...

I just chose a string of random ones for this exercise...



And now I've got exactly 2,427 more tutorials saved to my bucket list...

A Snow Day For Grownups Revisited...

Exactly one year ago today my work shut down completely for the first time ever since I'd started working there 18 years ago!

And for no apparent reason...

*kidding*

But no seriously, we all woke up to two feet of snow that morning... and that's a lot of snow even if you're tall! But still, let's rephrase that. Some of us were "awakened" (at 6:30 am) to two feet of snow that morning, because you see, at least one of us already had a scheduled vacation day off that day but that still didn't stop the phone from ringing... What's that song? "Isn't It Ironic?"

But anyway, we just have this simply marvelous Business Continuity Management Team at my place of business and they were simply doing their job...

And so why I was just sleeping like a log and then and majorly annoyed when abruptly awakened?..

Fast forward to one year later...

Today is Groundhog's Day 2012 and the temperature is about 45 degrees (which has nothing to do with anything about this blog really.) But tomorrow I'm entering this video I made about this day last year into our campus's "SuperBowl Commercial Contest" wherein each department has a chance to compete in the fun by submitting a commercial depicting "the things we do." And so, since Business Continuity Management is essentially my department afterall, I thought I'd take one for the team and do something for once...



I know... too cute!

"Happy Birthday Two You... Happy Birthday You Too"...

I can't believe it's been a year already!

And I still can't tell them apart!...


1 Day


1 Month


2 Months


3 Months


4 Months


5 Months


6 Months


7 Months


8 Months


9 Months






10 Months


11 Months

Ok, well I can sorta tell them apart... at least when they're both together and staring at me like deers in headlights. But when they're on opposite sides of the room, or in individual photos, and one or the other of them is either laughing or crying... forget it. I think that's the hardest part of being a long distance Grammy.

The second hardest part is the gift buying and trying to keep things all sorts of even but not the same. And trying to buy coordinating clothes? That's the worst! Because as soon as you FINALLY find two outfits that will look cute together but that won't be exactly identical, the other pair of pants in the size you need, doesn't ever exist on the rack...

I'm looking forward to the day when they can just tell me what they want.

Really??? All you really want is for me to move to Idaho? Ok well trust me, that will SO be in the works, just as soon as I can figure it out...


Birthday Cake!!

Love you GUYS! Happy Birthdays!!!

Travel Well in 2012...

Time flies by so quickly! It's amazing and somehow sad even. I realized today how much time and how many years. months, weeks, days of my life have been devoted not so much to enjoying, but to either anticipating or remembering. And let's not forget worrying endlessly about everything... Yes, that's a big one. Not sure how to fix that.

Being honest here... I'm not one for adventure so much any more. Though there was a time when my life was full of it. But I think I eventually found the solitude and warmth of my own home to be considerably much more to my liking, though agreeably at times a little boring... (Except for the 40+ hours a week that I get to go to work.. :)

Resolutions are funny things, and I'm not sure I really have any, except to maybe think of myself a bit less and to think of others a bit more and also to stop and smell the roses a little more often while I'm out there pulling the weeds and mowing that big yard all summer. And also to take just a couple of more walks or drives just for the fun of it...

But while sequestered at my computer in my dank and dark basement on this very, very cold first day of 2012 I was still able to finish this....

Finally a video montage to one of my favorite 'Daryn' vocals from back in... like 2004.



I think I'm going to at least put on some really warm clothes and try to take in just an itty bitty walk now... We'll save the driving part for later...

P.S. I skipped church this morning...

First Christmas In Heaven...

David left in Sept. as you all know
I was surely not ready to let him go.
He had to go 'cause he was old
And that's God's plan, as we've been told.
At age 93, he'd had a good life
But he sure didn't want to leave his wife.

If a death could be perfect, then David's was
He just slipped away with no obvious cause.
He'd seen all his kin in the last week or two
But to see them together, just woudn't do.
To his room they all went, one or two at a time
They visited and talked, (just can't make this rhyme)

For a week, he'd' been talking 'bout traveling on
But I just never thought that so soon he'd be gone.
He wanted to talk about things and such
But to talk about death was a little much.
So I wrote him a note just two days before,
I told him my love went right to the core.

I said if his time should come before mine,
He should just go in peace and that I would be fine.
"We have good kids who will take care of me,
So don't you fret, and don't you worry!
When Father is ready he'll call you back home,
Where you'll be safe and sound, no more to roam."

He felt funny and different, he said that day
But I took him out for a drive anyway.
He wanted to spend some time just with me
His legs were painful below the knee.
To the farm we went on that sunny day,
Saw horses and cows and then some hay.

A ride in the country was David's delight
He'd go any time without a fight.
I drove the car at a very slow pace
It wasn't as if we were running a race.
Driving home very slow, we laughed and we cried,
and when we got home, he just up and died.

There wasn't a struggle, there wasn't a pain,
With a smile on his face, leaning onto his cane.
Holding on to me, holding onto the door,
He just slowly went down and laid on the floor.
He didn't suffer at all, for which we give thanks,
He was anxious to go join the Heavenly ranks.

When the ambulance came, there was no sign of life.
He'd gone past the veil, leaving friend, love and wife.
We'd been a great team for thirty-four years,
So that when he left, I shed many tears.
But because of our covenants, I know that we'll be
Together forever through Eternity.

What a reunion in Heaven he must have had,
There was Marge, Lucy, Ann, and then his Dad.
To say nothing of his Mother, "Auntie Mame"
Who was known the town over for "Nephi" fame.
Now they all work together, some souls to save,
They'd all been waiting for their dear Dave.

In this very special month, David's no longer here,
He's now with our Saviour, whose birth we revere.
May this knowledge give us assurance and peace,
So that much of our mourning will certainly cease.
By God's own voice and God's own word,
Our loved ones are now in the arms of our Lord.

Written by my mom (Lois Peterson H. Salisbury)


The New Headstone...
I think it's beautiful.

But to be perfectly honest, the other side of it freaks me out a little bit... I mean, wouldn't it you?


And I SO want to change the "my" to "our"... But I guess it's already "cemented in stone"... And being joined at the hip as they were... I guess that "my" sort of makes complete sense anyway.

Oh, haha I just realized that that is a scripture quote... Ok then, well, alrighty, um, nevermind...

Seriously, Mom... David... thank you so much for this wonderful legacy! It's absolutely perfect.

A Stolen Life

A Memoir...

At age 29...

I'm not exactly sure why I'm sharing this here, except that since I read this book, this girl has completely and utterly touched me and completely changed my faith in human resiliance. Not only with her story, because it was horrible... and certainly not always easy to read. I'm sure it must have been even considerably harder for her to write. And I'm not even recommending her book unless you really like true reality kind of stuff... and yet, on second thought, this wasn't true reality kind of stuff so much anyway... really. True nightmare stuff is more like it.

And so why did I read it? Because I am a complete sucker for survivor stories and happy endings... And because I sort of knew how it was going to end to begin with... And also maybe because as a mom and a grandma I think that losing a child would be a heartbreak so huge that it would certainly never, ever mend.

I'll never forget the day Whitney called me and told me that Elizabeth Smart had been found! And of course, though I didn't even know her, I still remember that day as being one of the best of my life. Seriously.

So anyway, this is the story of a girl who was abducted at age of only 11 and spent the next 18 years being held captive in a tent in her abductors backyard. She was finally rescued at the age of 29 along with her two daughters (who were also born and raised in that tent and yet somehow she still managed to raise to be healthy and well adjusted teenagers)...

I remember hearing of their rescue.. but could only imagine what all those years must have done to her...them. I was seriously imagining a much different outcome.

And so I guess this is where all that survivor love kicks in....

Because she is amazing! And due to this I don't think that anyone one should ever again be allowed to blame who they are today on any of their past circumstances. I especially love how she gives credit to all those years of lacking sunshine for the perfect skin she has today...

Her story was horrific and heatbreaking, yet at the same time sweet, inspiring and triumphant!

Anyway, if you want to watch the Diane Sawyer interviews, I warn you they're pretty long, but totally worth it. Though, trust me, you won't be able to fast forward through the commercials...

Diane Sawyer Interview Part One

Diane Sawyer Interview Part Two

What can I say? I tend to read a lot...