Glimpses of Some Happy Moments (Despite the Pandemic)

Happy "Mother's Day Visits:  Because Gary had had a fever, we dropped our gifts off on Monday instead of Sunday.  It was nice to have a visit on the back porch with Gary's mom and share the books we had made from our European trip and Jena's drawing of the Nauvoo Temple for her.  (My pictures of Mom Hall's whole face were blurry, but that is her holding the picture.)

Then I made a quick trip to Midvale to drop off a gift for Karla and see my dad for a couple of minutes.  It was good to see him again and have a short conversation.  I think I will be able to make an actual visit by the end of the month if things don't go crazy in Utah over the next few weeks with the virus and moving to being more opened.

Happy:  Monday evening was spent with Jena "attending"  FHE with her Provo Ward 72nd YSA.  Her previous roommates often attend and she enjoys conversations with them at the end of the Zoom activity.  This past week, they each brought their favorite children's book and read it outloud to each other.  Jena had picked a book, but we hadn't practiced reading it outloud (I didn't read the whole post apparently) so we made a last minute switch to the BYU ABC book which was a big hit with BYU students away from their college due to the pandemic or the end of the semester.

Happy Moment:  Gary, who has the service which emails you a photo of the letters you will receive that day. told me early in the morning that I was getting a letter from Washington.  At first, I shrugged it off--due to approaching the age of 65, I am getting lots of mail from "Washington" and every where else about Medicare or campaign literature.  Then he said, No, a grandma letter."  Then I was excited and was happy to get my letter from Tosha and the kids.  The pictures are now hanging on our refrigerator.

Letters and pictures are the best. 

Happy Moment on a Walk:  Often over the past few weeks, I have seen this crane--in the air, in the grass, and by the pond.  One morning I got this picture of him along the side of the Jensen Pond.  His colors match the sand on the shore so well.

"Out the Window" Moment:  As I have mentioned before, I love looking out my windows and seeing plants.  I planted bushes, specifically for that purpose--how they would look out of the windows of our house.  Here is the view out my bedroom window where finally the blooms turned from light green to white--earning the name of SnowBall bush.  I hear it smells amazing as well during this time of the year.

Near sunset time

Happy "Work Done" Moment:  Mostly Gary's work--and the planting was ALL him.  I was a bit of a slug yesterday.

We had removed two trees last year and removing the roots left a far bigger mess than was expected.  So this spring we added new top soil and yesterday, Gary seeded the areas.  (The small one in the front of the photo is where our basketball goal used to sit.  Gary has decided to keep it on the side of the yard and roll it out when we want to play with it.  It fell on Tosha's car last summer and he wants to avoid that happening again.)

Happy "Walk in the Garden":  Have I mentioned that I love purple, white and yellow flowers?

The first are my May flowers which will lose their blooms by June---

These roses and this wispy bush bloom all summer into the fall---

And these are passing the torch on.  As bulb plants, they follow the tulips but don't make it too much past mid-May.

And waiting to take center stage are my hollyhocks which are some of my favorite flowers--

I want to be a gardener some day--a person who every morning is out and about for a few minutes or an hour or so tending the garden.  I am not there yet, but I am slowly getting flowers blooming in an order that matches the changing of the seasons--I love the pattern and feel of it.  What a beautiful world we share even if it is just in our back yard.

There were other happy moments tucked into this week.  A joke Jena made, movies we shared together, a yummy Subway sandwich Gary brought me for dinner while I was working, beautiful skies of blue or interesting clouds of white and grey, books I read, little tasks that I completed, saying goodbye to a client as she completed therapy, and cheesecake (more about that in a different post).  Even during a pandemic, life is filled with these little moments--at least for us.  We are the lucky ones in so many ways.