Tonight we went to the America's Cowboy concert put on the Kevin McNiven and family.  I had a sneaking suspician that we may be witnessing more than a concert. 

Tyler McNiven showed up again in my daughter, Lisa's life last September.  She had known him briefly during her under-grad years.  He was a sound technician/singer and she was instrumentalist.  Their paths crossed occasionally.  Then Lisa graduated and moved to Cincinnati for 2 years where she earned her Master's degree in Viola Performance.  She was offered a 1-year position back at her alma mater BYU-Idaho.  She accepted gladly.  Getting teaching experience was invaluable.  Many doctoral students are unable to find positions because they have no teaching experience.  Last August Lisa moved back to her home town. 

A couple of weeks later I went with Lisa to a store where she was greeted and hugged by an "old friend".  I didn't think too much about it, but then less than a week later the romance began. 

Tyler finished school in December and moved back to Lander, Wyoming.  He is helping his family make the transition to Branson, Missouri where they will perform.  Tyler and Lisa made the drive every weekend, sometimes she going there, and sometimes he came here. 

3 weeks ago Lisa said the McNiven family decided to come to our town to do a concert.  They said they needed to film some promotional materials here for the Branson press, but I had a little idea pop in my head that there was more to it than that.

Tonight, after the intermission when the show started back up, Kevin said that they would now have a drawing for a free CD.  They asked Lisa to bring up the ticket stubs.  She did and tried to set it down and get off stage, but they asked her to sit down and help with the drawing.  They had cue cards made out with her lines on  and she became part of the show. They did the drawing and then asked her to help with the next song.  I could see she was very nervous when they handed her 2 spoons.  She was to play spoons while Tyler sang.  She had no idea how to play spoons and ended up with one in each hand and just tapped them together to the beat of the song.  (Now, if they had given her a viola...)Tyler proceeded to sing a love ballad asking her to spend "from now and  forever with me".  He then knealt and asked her to marry him and when she said yes he put the ring on her finger.  It was very romantic and brought a tear to my eye, my mom's eye, my sister's eye and my niece's eye.  That's a lot of soggy eyes, and those are just the one's I know about. 

We're very happy for Lisa and Tyler.  We feel like he's already a member of our family. 

T

Warning: This blog may put you to sleep! I took Great Pretender’s challenge and recorded my thoughts every 30 minutes for a whole entire day. It was kind of enlightening. I discovered some things about myself, like I didn’t have a lot of positive thoughts, at least yesterday I didn’t. I thought I was a pretty upbeat person, but it didn’t really show in my recorded thoughts. Oh, wait a minute, I remember having those kinds of things running through my head from 10 minutes to until 10 minutes after every hour. Yeah, that’s the ticket. J Anyway, I promise I won’t be offended if you skip this blog.

For those of you still reading, here goes nothing……..

8:15 – Oh, morning already? Mr. Burns you big fatty, move over! Okay that massage feels pretty good…ouch, ouch, stop using your claws. Fine! I’ll get up!

8:45 – Look at all that snow. I better hurry. I’ve got to leave early enough that I can drop by the computer store before work and with all this snow the roads may be slick. Why is Mr. Burns being so friendly today? My gosh, go find a rabbit.

9:15 – Okay, after work I need to get home and clean! I think if I vacuum, and mop the tile it should be pretty good. Things didn’t get too messed up over the weekend. I hope Tyler’s family like eating here to morrow night. I wonder what they’re like. I’m sure if they are anything like Tyler we’ll all get along just fine.

9:45 – Are those drifts in my garage? There’s so much snow! My car is in the garage and it’s covered with snow. I guess I should have shut the garage door last night. And I should have worn boots today instead of pumps. I love my Explorer. I probably would have gotten stuck in those drifts in my van.

10:15 – I need to remind the guys of their interviews with Max the academic V.P. I sure hope Dan shows up. With him being on sabbatical I never know when he’s going to be here. But he’s so on the ball I’m sure he will be here early, ready and waiting to go.

10:45 – OH…MY….GOSH!!!! Mr. Burns was hungry! That’s why he wouldn’t leave me alone this morning. I remember now that his dish was empty last night. Poor cat! Now he’s got to wait until I get home, unless he DOES go and find a rabbit. Oh yuck. I’ll probably come home to a half-eaten dead rabbit in my house. And we have company tomorrow. AAGHHH!

11:15 – I better tell Robb that Max is ahead of schedule, but he’s still not out of class yet. Max will be ready for him any minute. Hurry, hurry, hurry, Oh good, his class is out.

11:45 – Our interviews ended 15 minutes early. Yeah! This test that one of the T.A.’s brought in doesn’t match any names in class. Would someone just show up and randomly take a test even though they aren’t registered. I think not! I’ll bet she got married and is now using her married name instead of the name she had when she registered. There IS one person with that same first name. I’ll bet that’s her. I’ll have to just hold onto this and see if there are any other Amy’s taking the test today.

12:15 – Kind of quiet right now. Maybe I’ll go online and see what my blogging buddies are up to.

12:45 – I’m getting hungry. Joni just cleaned me out of my protein bars. Do I run up and get some soup now, or wait til 2 when Ana gets here. Ana was sick on Friday. I hope she’s feeling better. She sounded miserable on the phone when she called. I would sure hate to get sick right now. I can’t take any germs over to dad until his blood counts are back up. I’d better wait until 2 to eat.

1:15 – Everybody keeps missing that question in online quiz #12. The Blackboard online service is just not giving them points for correct answers. I need to change the choices to one correct answer and 3 very wrong answers. Let’s see….

How can you identify the location of a fault?

A. aligned vegetation, springs, linear scarps and features

B. with a GPS unit

C. look in the yellow pages

D. ask your friends.

That should take care of that one. The quiz isn’t meant to be a real test anyway, just a way for them to become familiar with the material before they come to class. Now I have to change the answers in the other 14 sections.

1:45 – Okay, I’m getting really hungry now. I hope Ana’s not still sick. If she doesn’t come to work I’ll have to leave anyway to grab some food. I’d better water my plant…oh, it’s so sunny outside. Maybe all the snow will melt.

2:15 – Whoa! It’s really cold out here. It looks sunny and warm but I bet with the wind chill it’s close to zero. Those Chinese veggies and noodles were good. I wish they hadn’t run out of soup, though. I love their soup. I wish I could take lunch earlier than 2:00. They always run out of soup before I get there!

2:45 – That’s so funny. Ana lives next door to Tyler’s sister. She saw the poster in her window and knew she was from Wyoming, but didn’t connect the two until his sister announced that her dad was coming to perform his show this week. What a small world.

3:15 – Forty-five minutes until phase two of my day begins. I have to meet Andy at Les Schwab so they can align my tires. I hope they can figure out what’s wrong with my battery connection, too. I don’t want any car problems when we go to Boise this week.

3:45 – I almost forgot to schedule the room for Wednesday night’s rock test. That would have been awkward if some group showed up to use it and it was all laid out for the test. Sometimes I think I’m losing it. I never used to forget anything! I was like an elephant. I could see someone briefly and later remember where I’d seen them before. It was a source of pride. I guess maybe I was getting a little too proud and needed to be humbled a bit. Hmmm.

4:15 – Back at work. I don’t mind covering for Ana today because I know how important her appointment is. Why do those students have rock samples from the lab? They’re not supposed to have access to those on test day. Who got them out? They said they didn’t know the T.A.’s name but that it was a guy. I’ll have to find out who it was and have a talk with them.

4:45 – My eyes are getting tired. I’ve only tallied survey results from one class. I’ve still got 7 more to go. I’ll have to work on it hard tomorrow so that I can turn them in to the dean.

5:15 – Les Schwab is so nice – no charge. They’ve always been so great to us. I hope Andy gets here soon to pick me up. I’m getting cold standing out here. That snow looks like cotton batting. I bet its soft. I want to step on it without my shoe. YEP – It’s soft and cold!

5:45 – Oscar loves his car rides. I’m glad Andy brought him. He wants me to open my window, though. Sorry puppy, too cold for that. I really want a pop. I haven’t had one yet today. That’s got to be some kind of a record for me. Wow! Andy really did get stuck in the driveway drift. No wonder he took so long to come.

6:15 – I’m going to walk. Walk or die, walk or die, walk or die. Should I wake Joni up yet? No, too soon. 5 more minutes. Okay, I’m going to walk right now for 30 minutes.

6:45 – Almost done. This is a faster pace than I am used to. It is definitely warming me up. Overheating more like. I don’t think I’ll make a fire after all.

7:15 – I feel wiped out. I’m glad I worked out with the treadmill and the bo-flex, and the ping pong games with Andy were fun, too, but now I don’t want to do anything. I’ll just take it easy for a while and then start on my cleaning.

7:45 – Okay – must stop blogwalking and start cleaning. Oscar! Stop chewing on Mr. Burn’s ears.

8:15 – I keep thinking about Pretender’s little blood-sucking student. It reminds me (kind of) of a conversation that Mike overheard with his juvie probationers. I’ll have to write that one up in a blog sometime.

8:45 – I’m so tired. I can really tell I haven’t worked out for a few days. Andy is trying to humiliate me by playing ping pong with his paddle packwards and hitting it behind his back. Show off.

9:15 – Living room done. I still need to do the tile. I bet the laundry’s ready to be shifted over. I’m glad Andy and Abby helped me. Okay enough sitting. Back to work.

9:45 – Mike’s still not home. I wonder how many more grades he has to put in before he can quit. Only 3 more days until the end of the trimester. I think I’ll play a quick game on the computer then back to cleaning. I’ve got to go with dad to the doctor tomorrow. I hope the news is good.

10:15 - A-mazing what caffeine will do. Thank you caffeine. I love my tile. It looks so nice.

10:45 – Thank you David, for showing up and playing ping-pong with Andy. I really didn’t want to and it’s so fun for him to spend time with his big brother. They really do get along pretty well even though they are 10 years apart in age. I’d get done a lot faster if I didn’t have to keep stopping and doing laundry. I should have done more this weekend, instead I chose to play. Oh well. Dumb dog, why does he take his food, one morsel at a time over to eat on the carpet?

11:15 – I can’t wait to soak in a hot bath. I wonder how much longer Mike is going to be.

11:45 – What a lovely relaxing bath, even though the “off-balance” washer buzzed through the whole thing. Where’s Mike? Oh, finally he’s home. I’m going to bed.

I really do enjoy my Saturday mornings.

When I wake up everyone is gone. 

      My work-a-holic husband is working for the city recreation this morning

                  making sure 3 gymns are running their basketball games smoothly,

      and for county juvenile probation this afternoon

                  making sure all those juvie offenders do their community service.

      Andy and Abby are at one of the gymns keeping score and doing the timeclock.

It's the one morning a week that I wake up and have NO COMMITMENTS!!!

I don't know how I did it when I had five children all needing something all the time.

I have to admit that my baby, Andy (16) is still very needy.

Sometimes I wish he would just go find some friends, but it's kind of nice having him want me

to play ping pong, or billiards, or Zilch, or watch a movie, and on and on and on.

Only I'm not that great at ping pong, so he keeps saying, "I wish dad would come and play",

until dad does come, and then I watch.

And it's just as much fun to watch them.

I've had a pretty good week.

Definitely some ups and downs in there, but overall a pretty good week.

I was able to watch Joni (20) play basketball.  She was on fire!  She's the tallest on the team at 5' 11" so the other team was a bit surprised when she started shooting 3 pointers.  Out of 7 attempts she made 5 of them to end up with 29 points.  It was fun to see the smile on her face.  She has another game at noon, so I'll get to go watch her again.  Fun!

I finally have high-speed internet in my house!  For years we have suffered along with dial-up.  I feel ungrateful for even saying this because how fortunate we are to have internet at all!  I grew up in an era when you didn't even phone call the next town because long distance was too expensive. I remember once my dad bought one of the first 4 function calculators.  He was so proud of it and it only cost him $100.00. (No I did not get the decimal in the wrong place.) Now days technology is relatively cheap and is so awesome that I don't want to seem spoiled when I say that I was getting pretty impatient to have high speed.  Whenever I wanted to blog or comment I would have to drive into my computer at work, an inconvenience, but not one I wasn't willing to live with.  I tried almost every high speed service that I could think of, AOL, Quest, Earthlink, and on and on.  No one offered service in my area. "What?  I have friends who live farther out of town than I do who have it. Sorry, but we do not support high speed on your road. "

I feel SO lucky now to have a fast connection.

My daughter Abby has been accepted into the local University where I work.  Hurray.  She wanted to go to Utah State, but maybe now she will stay here and I can have her close to me for a while longer.  She also finally quit her job last night.  She has worked for a local fast food place for about 7 months earning money for the high school choir trip to New York City.  Her choir was selected, along with 3 other choirs nationally to perform at Carnegie Hall in March.  They are singing a Latin cantata, very high brow.  In one of the pieces Abby has the solo.  I told her that's definitely something she should put on her resume', ("Sang a solo at Carnegie Hall in New York City") But her job was so demeaning.  The boss continually yelled at her and told her all the things she was doing wrong.  He paid her less than everyone else because she was a high school student and the rest were college even though she had worked there the longest.  But the worst thing about it was that her paychecks kept bouncing!  She was too timid to go back to the boss and tell him untill I threatened to do it for her. (I know the boss personally having gone to high school with him.) He would always pay her cash in exchange for the rubber check.  I hope she gets her last check okay, and that's it good.

My daughter Joni was accepted into nursing school, a very highly competitive program. There are so many applicants that they have strict criteria for entrance.  One of those was that you must have less than 30 college credits before you apply.  Joni had 45, but her 4.0 GPA and 27 ACT spoke well for her.  She was personally called by the head of the nursing program and told she could apply because their applicant numbers were down.  It was a relief when she received the letter making her acceptance official. 

On the down side, Abby auditioned for a music scholarship and received a letter telling her that she did not get one.

David has received 3 letters from grad schools turning him down.  He still has a few left to hear from and says he's not above begging to be admitted.  David is a very smart man, in some ways.  He easily gets high scores on tests. He is very articulate and savy.  He has just not been diligent in homework assignments or class attendance, and his grades reflect that. I think he's learned his lesson the hard way. And now that he has a family to support he's feeling the pressure more than he would have if he'd still been single. I hope he is able to find a program that will accept him.

I know next week is going to be good. Our boys high school basketball team won districts, so we are headed to Boise on Thursday.  We'll spend 3 days playing around.  On Wednesday night Lisa's boyfriend's family (americascowboy.com) is coming to town to perform.  THAT should be interesting.  I'll have to report on that one next week.

I hope you all enjoy your weekends as much as I am.  Cheers!

We dance round in a ring and suppose,

But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

                          -Robert Frost

Perhaps a frantic searching for life's meaning or purpose  is not the way to find it.

To feel more centered, more content

Perhaps, just perhaps

We should stop and just be.

-While driving in the car turn off your radio

and listen to your thoughts.

-Turn off the tv while cleaning your house, and hum,

              or whistle,

-Look into a baby's eyes

          You can find a lot in there.

And spend a little more time smiling

once you find your own secret. 

A voice said, Look  me in the stars

And tell me truly, men of earth,

If all the soul-and-body scars

Were not too much to pay for birth.

               - Robert Frost

       This week my boss' father died.  He was in a nursing home for over a year and was in failing health.  I watched my boss make emergency trips, one after another to his father's side because of a medication reaction, or a fall out of a chair, or extremely low oxygen levels in his blood.  I've watched a devoted son struggle to maintain his composure as he watched his father decline farther and farther down a spiral to death.  He confided in me one day that it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion - you know what's going to happen, yet you're powerless to do anything but watch the wreckage pile up. 

I've looked at many sunsets.

~While driving home from work I've gazed at the sky, maybe longer than is safe, and thought, "Wow, look at that!"

~While walking through the house I've glanced out the window.  "Quick, where's my camera?" and then made a mad dash out to the front yard to get the best shot.

~While taking out the trash I've stopped for a moment to just gaze at the beauty in the skies above me.

        I've even sat outside to watch the sun actually set.  At least that's what I thought I was doing; but I had my dog with me - and we played, or I had a friend with me - and we talked.

        A couple of days ago I decided to watch the sun set.  I could feel a good one coming on.  There were some interesting clouds in the western sky.  The weather had warmed up in the last few days, from negative 15 to 30 above.  It almost felt balmy.

        I took my camera with me and walked out onto my driveway.  It was the only spot in my yard I could stand without either sinking in the mud or having my shoes fill up with the icy cold slush left from two feet of melting snow. 

        I just stood there - facing west.

        The sky was a somber tone of grey - a few of the clouds just above the western horizon were still rimmed with white.  As I quietly stood gazing I began to detect subtle changes.  The sky above me shifted in tiny increments darker and darker.  I could actually see the shifts.

        medium grey - {shift}

        midnight blue/medium grey - {shift}

        darker still

        tiny twinges of orange began to kiss the edges of certain clouds - {shift}

        now, on more clouds - {shift}

        I was watching for the sunset - the one worthy of a picture.  Surely this must be the best it’s going to be - {shutter snap}

        a few minutes pass.......

        Oh, the colors are richer, the hues more vivid.   - {shutter snap}

        The sun was just the tiniest sliver still peeking over the horizon.  The clouds subtly shift, revealing an interesting blend of sky, clouds, and distant hills in an equally interesting blend of orange, pink and cerlean blue. I take the picture.

        I am inspired, renewed and feeling contented.  I retreat to my house and get caught up in waiting tasks.  I almost forget the sunset.....

        and then I pass a window.

        Surely this can't be the same sky, the same day, the same setting sun.  What was only a short while ago a pretty sky has magically transformed into gorgeous richness and beauty magnified many times.   I am awestruck.  I am glad that I didn't miss seeing this.  I am grateful for the gift in the sky.

        And I start to think. 

        about my boss and his father, and death.

        We see the decline.  But some of the inner beauty starts to  glow.  If we stop and stand and just enjoy the moments we have

         we will feel inspired, renewed and contented.

        And when that day comes when we think they are gone for good

         we will go back to the waiting tasks, and maybe

        that's when we'll pass a window and see

        that they aren't really gone.

        The memories we have of them

        and the influences they've had on us

        will magically transform into gorgeous richness and beauty,

        magnified many times over.

        And we can be grateful for the gift of life.