What shall we then say…

I have decided to not get scared at the thought of performing in the ward talent show tonight.  I’m just not ‘going there,’ to the fear, that is.   I just remembered something from my past where I literally ‘didn’t go there.’  It was back when I was a teenager and I had been asked to play a saxophone solo at MIA opening exercises.  Well I got talked into it–I thought it would be so embarrassing.  I remember there was a boy I liked who would be there.    The night came and I just didn’t show up.  I just couldn’t do it!   All I remember is there were people who were disappointed in me–I was disappointed in me, too.  Oh well. 

But tonight I will be playing my bassoon with a cool CD accompaniment from Warner Bros.  Last year, my first year performing an instrumental solo since high school days, I played “Hedwig’s Theme.”  I was pretty nervous but it turned out fairly well.  It was exhilarating! 

I was hoping to play “In Dreams” this year but there’s this high F# that I have only recently learned the fingering to and I’m (I almost used the word “afraid”) concerned  that in the excitement of it all, I would falter.  I absolutely love that song from Lord of the Rings and I want it to be as perfect as I am capable of so I will wait til next year.  I’m pretty sure I will be playing “Theme from Jurassic Park” tonight.   I had good intentions to practice on a regular basis and especially to get all ready for the talent night when it came again, but it just didn’t happen.

Yeh, I have a lot more to say on the subject of music.  I love good music!!  I can’t even imagine what my life would be like if it weren’t for music.  It seems like my teenage life would have been a disaster had it not been for music! 

Back to the ward, actually, neighborhood talent night, Holly is going to display some pictures she took of her niece last summer.  Maddie is spraying herself in the face with a nozzle on the hose.  She got three really good shots.  They are so fun!   

Okay, that’s it for now.    Time to get out the bassoon and have a morning practice and make sure I have at least one back-up reed that works well and pray that I will be in tune tonight and that my favorite reed won’t give out because I really don’t think any of my others will do as well…Oh, yeh, and don’t worry!   

I’ve been working in the yard a lot lately and got the idea today that I would just plant all the seeds I have in various containers out in the garage.   There were some seeds saved in envelopes with no date on them, some seeds without even a name, many seeds in the packages they came in, either unopened or opened and half gone.  

All of the official packages of seeds had dates, “Best used by ___” but I know from experience that they still grow.  How old they can be, I’m not sure but will find out, unless some other factor messes up the experiment, like forgetting to water them.     Actually the packages say, “Packed for ____.”   The years 2003 and 2004 were especially years of “good intentions.”  I have nine and 12 packages respectively.  My seeds range in age from the year 2000 (asparagus seeds, of all things–roots are better) to the present year with no seeds at all from 2005. 

Well anyway, they’re all going into the soil.  In some cases, there will be flower seeds mixed in with the vegetables–already did that today.  Also, I planted pole beans along the north fence and a short east fence, carrots  and beets on the south side of the house with some flowers mixed in, cilantro by the north fence, spinach has already been planted and is coming up by the south fence.  

I have a lot of peas and I feel like just planting them even though I know they don’t like hot weather.  Hey, maybe we’ll have a cold summer… My granddaughter, Madalin and I did plant some peas much earlier this year, like March, way out in the official garden–we have .69 acre–but I wanted Mother Nature to just take care of them because the irrigation turns hadn’t come yet and I did not feel like dragging a hose all the way out there.   They didn’t make it, I guess.  Don’t feel like going all the way out there to see if there are still traces of them.   I had this idea to let the peas climb on the old cornstalks from last year and then after the peas got done and put nitrogen back into the soil, I was going to plant corn there again.  I do have about five packages of corn seeds from last year and the year before, some partially used.   I always have good intentions for corn on the cob…Mmm.   Well we’ll have to see.  The trouble with the official garden is that it is totally covered with weeds except where we planted about 18 tomatoe plants last month.   We’ve at least weeded around the plants themselves. 

I just wanted to take a rest after working outside most of the day so far and I wanted to finally do a blog again so that’s my multi-tasking for today.   My goal is to do it quickly, too, so hopefully it won’t suffer too much from that.  I’m thinking I’ll file it under humor, as well as gardening, but that’s kind of scarey because I’m not being very funny.   

I just thought of when my son, Brenden, was going to the U of U to get his pre-dental schooling taken care of and for some reason he took a class in gardening, probably called Horticulture or something official like that and  the teacher remarked that the way you can spot a good gardener is that they will have rhubarb and asparagus in their gardens.    It was so funny because that was the only two things I had in my garden at the time. 

Now we don’t have those anymore as of last year, I am sad to say.  But the good news is that last year when I admitted that I needed help back there to get it all under control,  my former stake president–80-years old–came on his tractor and tilled it all up and shortly after that, my neighbor at the end of my long yard wondered if I would consider selling the part of my land that went straight out from his backyard.   Boy, would I!   Well there were delays since he got laid off his job as truck driver, but we’re pursuing it now, and hopefully before too long, we will only have .51 acres to take care of!  Then I will replant asparagus and rhubarb and put in some more fruit trees!  

Actually, I should have prefaced that paragraph with what I just remembered.  My son, Merritt, who is somewhat handicapped, went and talked to the Bishop of our ward and said that we had weeds that were against the law–they can only be so high before they are considered a crime.  Ours had exceeded that–yeh, that’s when we got the help.  Okay on to the conclusion of this story. 

Work is fun!  I’m not a great gardener but I sure do love getting out there and working.  I just need to work smarter and progress is being made. I do love our big lawn.  Last year with the help of my son, Ray and family, we made it even bigger because lawn is easier to take care of than a huge garden area with most of it ‘unused.’  I enjoy mowing it with our self-propelled mulching mower.  I do the outer parts going around the fruit trees, etc.  and Merritt, mows all the inner part.  It thrives on the irrigation water from good old Utah Lake.  

Oooh, this is kind of long–oh well.  It was nice to rest my overworked fingers–well, give them a change of activity anyway–tapping keys instead of gripping weeds!  I think I’d better stop!!

Holly wrote a post a couple nights ago, “Like a child at home.” I looked at it with her briefly after she sent it off  and we both noticed “…I could really understood.”  I said she could still edit it even though it had already been sent.  She knew that of course, without me saying it, but she basically said, “No I’m just going to leave it for now.”  I knew she was tired so I left it at that. 

So yesterday morning, while Holly was at work, I thought I would comment on it.  I liked the ideas she had expressed.   As I spent some time with it, I started discovering multiple little errors that I hadn’t picked up on the night before.  I thought, “Wow, she really was in a hurry or something.”  

We had busy schedules yesterday and so it was around 9:00 p.m. before we were both home at the same time.  It is usually pretty hard for me to point out someone’s mistakes including my own grown-up kids,  but I got up my courage and asked her if I could  give her a little constructive criticism on her post because I had noticed a need for some proofreading on some punctuation, capitalization, and so on.   She smiled and said, “Sure.” I added, “There were a lot.”

I then said something to the effect that even though it’s been out there for a whole day for ‘the world’ to see, wouldn’t she like to just get it all fixed up?  As we proceeded to my computer she said, “You can show me but I’m not going to change it because I need to learn to live with imperfections.”    I could deal with that. 

So we went through and had some good laughs, finding between 13 and 15 little ‘imperfections.’   It is a lesson for me to take to heart.  I worry about my mistakes too much.  There will be some in this.  I do not know nearly all the writing rules there are.  I’m just ‘playing by ear’ on a lot of this. 

I told Holly my idea for this post and she somewhat apprehensively said, “Okay.”  At least it’s a very small world of viewers we have.