Our Growing Garden Part I

Our Growing Garden Part II

We've had garden success! It's been fun watching the plants grow. So far we've eaten parsley, chives, spinach, arugula, broccoli, and even strawberries!

We picked some broccoli, but I didn't cook it in time and it flowered!

Even our flowers are growing! We have mini pansies (I heard someone call them Johnny Jump-ups) that are right outside my door and it makes me happy to see them every morning when I see Whit off to work.

And our huge geraniums that JMom gave us are blossoming so big - I love it!

A Hendleday...

My mom called me the other day and told me how excited she was because she found a xylophone at a yard sale.

"Why did you buy a xylophone," I asked. None of us play the xylophone.

"To go with the lute!" she said.

"When did you get a lute? Why do you even have a lute?" I asked.

"Because you need more than a hand drum," she said.

"What? Why do you have all these instruments?" I asked.

"Well, I've been getting them when I see them so we can all play them when we're together on our Sundays! I have a drum, a lute, a xylophone, one, no two sets of maracas, a couple tambourines, a zither, and a train whistle!"

"What?!"

"Yeah! I'm so excited! I know it will be so much fun. Your dad thinks I'm crazy."

"Everyone thinks you're crazy."

But there are two things I love most about my family: 1. whatever happened, they're on my side, and 2. days like this:

Unofficial Best Aunt of the Year Award

I got this letter in the mail from Ellie (Whit's sister, Brook's, oldest daughter):

It says:

Dear Aunt Meg,

You are my hero. Really, honest! I don't think if I had that accident I would be able to wake up every day with a smile on my face. And I wouldn't be able to draw as good as you. And I would not be brave enough to bring Ms. Wheelchair to Utah. I think if there was an aunt of the year award you would win it. You are the best aunt I could ever have

YOU ROCK!!

Love,

Ellie

When I read it, my heart went bling :)

Duplex - a work in progress

The duplex is coming along really well. Whit has had a lot of help from our families to do the work - and there is so, so much work. Everyone has come to help - Tom, Hendlemom and Hendledad, John, Tawnee, and even Ian (he painted the doors!). Jared came for a few hours and did some major sanding on the wood floors; I'll post some pictures in a day or so when I show you all just how gorgous it is. Whit still has some small stuff to do like fix all the sinks (they leak), paint base boards, put the light switch covers back on, etc. It looks so gorgeous that the first potential rennters from the KSL ad took it and will move in sometime during July. We are so grateful for everyone!

Here are some working pictures for you! Kaila helped a lot with painting. Whit got a paint gun from Paige and couldn't quite figure it out at first...

see it squirt?

it was squirt, paint, squiet, paint...

good thing the carpets are coming out!

Kaila kept going back to our house to research the gun online. They figured it out :)

So, it didn't really save a lot of time. But Whit had fun using it.

Lots of fun!!

Haircut

Before:
During:
After:

Head wars

I had this pounding feeling like I should visit my neighbor from across the street. Her husband had left her and I am her visiting teacher, even though she's inactive. It went on for a couple days and I never acted on it. (In my defense, it's not like I can go knock on her door, I have to just sit at the bottom of her stairs and throw rocks until someone hears me - or I just wait until I see her outside already...which is rare). Anyway, an easy opportunity never came and late Friday night I baked some cookies to take to her Saturday morning (why do we always need a reason to visit?) Anyway, Saturday morning I was getting ready to take her the cookies and Whit was putting on his grubby work clothes because he had to go help someone move (since he's been in the Elder's Quorum presidency, he's had to do a bunch of stuff for the members of the ward). He called the president to find out the address of where to go and guess what - it was my neighbor across the street. She was moving away and I didn't even know. Sigh. I'm the worst visiting teacher ever.

Too bad that backwards isn't an option.

I decided then that whenever I get a nagging feeling like that, I'm going to act (whatever it is). Since then, I've done some weird things, but it's always turned out sucessful - and not just for others, but for me.

Like, I was driving through my neighborhood and I saw a nice looking black lady lady on a motorized scooter and a feeling came that I needed to stop and ask her to be in the Ms. Wheelchair Utah pageant. I was like, no way! And I sped up my car to drive faster. First of all, it's awkward in anycase to invite someone to be in the pageant, every time I'd done that, they get offended (not joking), so I only do it through referrals now. Second, she was in a scooter, not a wheelchair. Scooters have a bad rep in the real wheelchair world, they're reserved for older people (which is good, they sometimes need that kind of help) and fat or lazy people (am I letting too much of my awful self show thru this post?). But as I sped away, I remembered that I'd PROMISED myself I'd act on those feelings. So I rolled my eyes and turned my car around to go ask her (really though, what was I going to say? "Hey, I can see you're not walking. I can't wak either. We have tons in common. Let's be friends.")

I'm so sure.

But I did and said something not unlike what's above. But it was weird - she was so excited about the pageant and said she would definitely do it (that was a first for me). Even more though, she was excited that I'd stopped to talk to her. She asked about my car. She was really nice. When I was ready to leave she grabbed my hand and said in a very born-again Christian way that she was sure God had sent me.

I like it when stuff works out :)