from the mixed-up files of a middle-aged mind

So you try directing 700 teenagers from all over the state of Utah and performing in front of a packed house. Last night I sat on the 4th row of the acoustically perfect Salt Lake Tabernacle to listen to the Grand Festival Concert of the Utah All-State Choir . The choir was directed by the delightful and talented  Ann Howard Jones . The kids had spent most all of their fall break rehearsing and it was absolutely fabulous. Hey, even my eight-year-old was interested. No, this isn’t them, but, see the middle and largest pipe in the set of foremost and largest pipes right of center? Luke stood right below it. I bet he had the best seat in the house when  Linda Margetts  pulled out all the stops on  Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor . Anyway, the concert was amazing. I sat there and thought, Wow! How cool is this that that’s my kid up there having this experience of a lifetime and I get to watch and listen. So if you enjoy choral and chamber music  (I didn...

The other day I bumped into a neighbor at the local grocery store. Her delightfully precocious daughter chatted my ears off. She was especially excited to tell me about her pumpkin patch. She was selling her pumpkins to earn some money. “For college?” I asked. “Oh no,” she replied, “but maybe for a trip to Disneyland.” The very next evening the little girl and her mother appeared at my door, with a wagon load of pumpins trailing behind her. She wanted to know if I wanted to buy one. “How much?” I asked. “Whatever it’s worth to you,” she replied. Not wanting to take advantage I pointed out one of the smaller pumpkins and put the bid back in her court. “How much is that one worth to you?” “Five dollars,” she said firmly. “Sheesh–I’m involved in a bidding war with a five-year-old over pumpkins!” I thought to myself. She then pointed to an even bigger one and assured me that one was worth at least $10! Wanting to be generous, but also knowing I’m not made out of money, I told her I ...

So most of you are too young to even know what I meant by that. Except I didn’t really mean that anyway. I just really wanted to be able to write that. I found our pet rabbit, Cookie (short for Cookie Dough, because as a baby she looked just like Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream), dead this morning and it broke my heart. We bought her on a whim just over five years ago. I’d run out to Vineyard Garden Center for some mulch. I must have gone in the back way, because it was only as I was leaving with my purchase in hand that I noticed the bunny cage. Bunnies for sale, $3, the sign read. I’d always wanted a lop-eared bunny and these were too cute to resist. Cookie was the runt of the litter and had been chewed up a bit by her siblings. But she thrived on all the attention and extra calories we tried to give her. As far as pets go she’s probably one of the best we’ve ever had. Sweet disposition, warm and cuddly and a kick to watch when she hopped around the yar...

This old house table – October 3, 2007 I’m quite sure by now you are all sick and tired of reading about my remodel. But let me tell you, you’re probably not quite so sick of hearing about it as I am of doing it! You write what you know and right now this is all I know. Tonight, after painstakingly masking off the upstairs with yards and yards of blue tape (and I’ve only just begun) and just as I was thinking about how nice it would be to be able to afford to hire out this type of grunt work, I went into to do one last wipe-down of my soon-to-be refinished dining room table (yes, silly me. I figured it was already in pieces and with the room empty until Friday now was as good a time as any). As I was running my hand–the one that’s still reverberating from too much time holding the power sander–across the smooth wood I realized that is exactly what I would miss if I paid someone else to do it. Sure the DIY series make it all look sooooo much easier than it is IRL. (And no, mos...

After an 30 minutes of almost incessant fighting between my two youngest I found the following escaping from my lips: You and your sister are not allowed in the same hemisphere! Haven’t yet figured out the logistics of that one. Suggestions?