Mare's Tail

We had one of those warm winter days today (read- 40*, but it's amazing how warm that feels!) I went on a little walkie at about 4:30 this afternoon. It was one of those lovely windless days! I could feel the sun baking through my charcoal-colored pants... Ah, lovely sun!

I hadn't gone far before the glorious clouds claimed my attention. Mare's tails- I love them.

Not 20 paces further and I NEEDED to capture this tree, I think it is a catalpa tree, hoping for warmer days... just like me!

Cream of Asparagus Soup

I LOVE soup! Even in summer I can be tempted with a luscious bowl of tasty broth. Recently the Temple cafeteria served cream of asparagus soup- always right at the top of my list! My friend, Kaye, commented that she had a wonderful recipe for cream of asparagus soup which she brought to me the next week.

Yeah, that was the week before Spencer and family arrived and I put it in a nice safe place! HA! ) and now I couldn't find it! (My Mom used to say that!

Fortunately Kaye worked this extra President's Day Temple day (the Temple was open until 2pm for the holiday) so she gave me her phone number so I could get the recipe again.

I made it tonight for Stuart and I and it did NOT disappoint! (Gordon and green soup? Ermmm, not so much!) It was wonderfully yummy and it was lots better than the soup served at the Temple... Kaye was right.

Cream of Asparagus Soup

4 T butter
1 onion, chopped
1 lb asparagus, cut into 1” pieces
2 T flour
2 c chicken broth
2 c half and half
1/2 t salt
Pepper to taste

Cook onion in butter until tender, about 8 minutes. Stir in flour. Cook 2 minutes. Gradually stir in chicken broth and asparagus. Bring to a boil then simmer until asparagus is very tender, about 25 minutes. Puree mixture in the blender. Return to pan, add half and half, salt and pepper.  Heat to serving temperature.  Makes 6 servings.

Worthy Music- Inspiring Thoughts

I remember this wonderful life changing advice from Boyd K Packer delivered at General Conference October 1973.

(Let's put that into perspective- I'd just turned 21. I had 18 month old Tony and 1 month old Rebekah. we lived in the little house we rented from Norbergs across the street and up the hill from Cheney's Sawmill. Life was pretty good at that point!)

It wasn't long before some pretty heavy-duty trials appeared on the scene and I needed something, ANYTHING!, to help me try to stay afloat! I remembered Elder Packer's advice... it was such good commonsense advise; especially for me, who'd grown up singing around the piano with my sisters!

I have a vivid recollection of propping the hymnal up on the kitchen windowsill at our house in Baker Oregon singing "I Need the Every Hour" and washing dishes.

This wonderful inspired counsel has served me well for 40 years. I have a whole repertoire of hymns that "buoy me up and strengthen me". I am a hummer. And just as President Packer says, I find myself humming a hymn and then go into a rewind-mode and realize that a discouraging thought had tried to invade my peace and I cast it out with a song in my heart.

All of this has become relevant again to me: I have family members who struggle with difficult situations, and this week I am teaching my Sunday school class  How can I use Church music to learn about the plan of salvation?  



I have such a wonderful, abiding testimony that, indeed, Worthy Music can lift the suffering, sorrowing soul and replace it with the beautiful Light of Christ.

Text from Elder Packer's talk:

I had been told a hundred times or more as I grew up that thoughts must be controlled. But no one told me how.

I want to tell you young people about one way you can learn to control your thoughts, and it has to do with music.

The mind is like a stage. Except when we are asleep the curtain is always up. There is always some act being performed on that stage. It may be a comedy, a tragedy, interesting or dull, good or bad; but always there is some act playing on the stage of the mind.

Have you noticed that without any real intent on your part, in the middle of almost any performance, a shady little thought may creep in from the wings and attract your attention? These delinquent thoughts will try to upstage everybody.

If you permit them to go on, all thoughts of any virtue will leave the stage. You will be left, because you consented to it, to the influence of unrighteous thoughts.

If you yield to them, they will enact for you on the stage of your mind anything to the limits of your toleration. They may enact a theme of bitterness, jealousy, or hatred. It may be vulgar, immoral, even depraved.

When they have the stage, if you let them, they will devise the most clever persuasions to hold your attention. They can make it interesting all right, even convince you that it is innocent—for they are but thoughts.

What do you do at a time like that, when the stage of your mind is commandeered by the imps of unclean thinking?—whether they be the gray ones that seem almost clean or the filthy ones which leave no room for doubt.

If you can control your thoughts, you can overcome habits, even degrading personal habits. If you can learn to master them you will have a happy life.

This is what I would teach you. Choose from among the sacred music of the Church a favorite hymn, one with words that are uplifting and music that is reverent, one that makes you feel something akin to inspiration. Remember President Lee’s counsel; perhaps “I Am A Child of God” would do. Go over it in your mind carefully. Memorize it. Even though you have had no musical training, you can think through a hymn.

Now, use this hymn as the place for your thoughts to go. Make it your emergency channel. Whenever you find these shady actors have slipped from the sidelines of your thinking onto the stage of your mind, put on this record, as it were.

As the music begins and as the words form in your thoughts, the unworthy ones will slip shamefully away. It will change the whole mood on the stage of your mind. Because it is uplifting and clean, the baser thoughts will disappear. For while virtue, by choice, will not associate with filth, evil cannot tolerate the presence of light.

In due time you will find yourself, on occasion, humming the music inwardly. As you retrace your thoughts, you discover some influence from the world about you encouraged an unworthy thought to move on stage in your mind, and the music almost automatically began.

“Music,” said Gladstone, “is one of the most forceful instruments for governing the mind and spirit of man.”

I am so grateful for music that is worthy and uplifting and inspiring.

Snow Overcometh Fernando...

(This is a post that should have been written last month, but alas... you get it now instead!)

Fernando, our new/old truck, lives at the curb and in the snowy nether-reaches of Utah that can be perilous! When Gordon's Contour had to live at the curb we got a parking ticket because we left it, snowed in, for a couple of weeks. I didn't want to repeat that with Fernando so every time it snows I go clean off the snow and then drive him around a little, knocking down the snow so our local law enforcement can see that he hasn't just been abandoned at the curb.

That worked fairly well until this time about a month ago. I did my normal clean-off-the-windows with the snow brush, but since Fernando's wipers were old they didn't wipe too well. My normal routine is to drive back and forth through the parking spot, from both directions, to knock the snow down. On my third or fourth pass I decided to include the mailbox as well so the mail-lady could get to the mail box.

Ahhhh! It wasn't until too late, looking through a badly wiped windshield, that I saw I was headed for a HUGE berm of snow in front of Kidd's house. Well, no matter! I will just dig a little and back out...Famous last words!

I dug and rocked and salted, all in vain! This was on Friday afternoon. When Pam got home she said to Brad, "I see you missed the truck so much you bought it back!" I called and had to admit my silliness and told them we'd get Fernando moved on Monday. It took a tow-truck to pull Fernando out of this mess.

No wonder he wouldn't budge! He was totally high centered on ice and snow!

It was so bitterly cold that day; just standing on the sidewalk, all bundled up, I got chilled to the bone. It made me reflect on those pioneers from the Martin and Willie handcart companies who were stuck in similar circumstances! I don't know how any of them survived that harsh, bone-chilling cold!

On Thursday of that week (1/17) the sun came out bright and clear. Even though the temperature was still in the low teens the sun was a welcome relief. I went out and shoveled not one but two parking spots at the curb for Fernando and an extra space for company. It felt so good to be outside working!