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?

So like all good remodel projects this one hasnt been without its setbacks. Aside from it being impossible to get someone from the flooring retailer (from whom I am resigned to purchase my   carpet because their bid came in at about half of the one I got from RC Willey for the same carpet) to come and measure for the carpet, things had been going fairly well until yesterday afternoon. When I had a panic attack. Im trying to invest a bit more time and money to do this the right way. Which means Im sanding everything before I paint, painting one coat, sanding again, then painting a second coat. But yesterday while I was sanding a little chunk of paint came off and I more or less stopped breathing.  What if I had just painted Latex over oil-based paint and the entire room would peel off much like one would peel a banana ? YIKES! I was fairly certain this wasnt the case because a friend of mine who does faux painting professionally painted my daughters room over a year ago a...

The Little Red Hen (known heretoafter simply as LRH, but not to be confused with  Lucky Red Hen  whose presence is sorely missed in these parts) decided she was tired of worn and dirty carpet and ill-painted walls and she needed to update her look. So she ordered some new flooring and chose some new paint and jumped into the project with both feet. Who will help me put things away? LRH asked. Not I, said each of her four chickadees all at the same time. Then I will, said the LRH. And so she did. Who will help me move the furniture? asked LRH. Not I, came the unified reply. And so it went. No one wanted to do the boring stuff so LRH was left to do it all herself.  OK, well a lot of it anyway. Who will prep the room(s) because even I dont want to do that? said LRH, but in spite of her bad habits of usually skipping that part she resigned herself to do this job the right way. Now who will help me paint the walls? whispered LRH a bit sarcastically. I will! ...

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Preface: As many of you know, it has been a life-long  challenge  for me to discover the  zen in the art  of  homemaking . Sooooo… Yesterday when they got to the part in  Relief Society  meeting in which the sisters shared good news I turned to my friend and admitted the following: “I can’t say this out loud, but my good news is I finally got  all  the laundry folded and put away.” Trust me, the washing is the easy part For those of you who have it together (that would probably mean all the rest of you), that may be a daily or weekly occurrence. But not chez moi. I’m really good at washing it, but then it just piles up waiting for attention. It had spilled out of the laundry room an into the family room in the form of a mountain of mostly folded towels sheets, odd socks and hand-me-downs gathering dust on our second-hand pool table. My goal for the weekend was to clean it off entirely, find a place for everything and put everything in ...

my kids attended with various levels of enthusiasm. or not it's always fun to hone in on someone else's photo shoot and that was a photo op not to be resisted

f you’d been a fly on the wall (well, technically somewhere over the VoIP) this is what you would’ve overheard the other day while I was at work: Ring. Me:  Hello. Burgundy London; this is Dalene, may I help you? Caller X:  Hello, I’m calling from Lackawanna. I just want to let you know blah blah blah blah blah. Me ( thinking I’m ending the call ):  Sure. I’ll be happy to take care of that for you. Thank you for calling. Caller X:  Dalene. That’s an unusual name. Me ( still thinking I’m ending the call ):  Yes it is. My parents made it up. Thanks for…( read: end of story. ) Caller X:  Irish. “Lene” is Irish. You’re not Irish are you? Me ( still trying to end the call and figuring there is no point in explaining it’s not Irish; it’s Intermountain West. All the other offices of my company already think we’re weird here because we are sober. ):  Nope. I was firstborn; my dad’s name was Dale. Dalene is simply Dale with an “n-e” tacked on. ...

I interrupt this program to bring you urgent  breaking news  of the very best kind. Then you may return to this regularly scheduled programming. ( My apologies. I realize this makes two memes in a row and indicates a complete lack of original thought. But I couldn’t resist the complete randomness of this one, so I gave it a go: ) My roommate and I once… used to frequent Punk Night at The Palace. (Hey, I could Rebel Yell with the best of them.) Never in my life have I… been to the opera, a Justin Timberlake concert or a clam bake. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything, do you? High school was… so long ago! But so much fun. I had friends in every crowd, which made it easy to have a good time. I also have lots of stories. I probably shouldn’t mention any names when I mention one of our teachers who tried to hit on a couple of us (not at the same time). Ewww! When I’m nervous… I feel like I’m going to throw up. I also forget people’s names just a tad more than I u...

Recently I was tagged by the lovely  café johnsonia  to participate in a marriage meme. As you know, I can’t resist a good meme, so here it goes: Where did you meet your husband? BYU 122nd ward, comprised of one-half of Centennial Apartments. And, you guessed it, twice we served together as counterparts in various church auxiliaries. But we didn’t really want to have anything to do with one another. Does it get any more cliché than that? What was the first thing you said to your husband? I truly have no idea. But according to him it was the third week in April, 1983. I was sitting on the floor in a lower floor apartment on the outside of the complex, at the home of Jay Jorgensen, whose little sister Janelle was my roommate. Shane came over to tell Jay’s apartment about an upcoming softball game. We all exchanged casual “Hi’s” and that was it. He doesn’t believe me, but as he was recounting the details it did all come back to me. What I remember best was that 4th of ...