SOL 14/31: Celebrating Numbers on Pi Day!

It's Pi Day! When I was teaching, the students always celebrated this day with pie in math class. And sometimes, they would bring me pie from their celebrations. While I'm not a math person (I know we're not supposed to give ourselves labels like this), I definitely am a numbers person. I especially love double digit years and ages. I'm currently one of those double digit ages.

So today in honor of Pi Day, I bring you my version of 3.14: a look forward to three trips that I'm anticipating and a look back to fourteen significant dates in my family history that occurred in years with double digits.

Three trips I'm currently anticipating:

• A "three sleep" getaway with Sara's family
• A "three sleep" trip to visit Blake's family
• A "longer than three sleeps" trip to visit my sister in TX  (She would never forgive me if I only came for three sleeps.)

Fourteen significant family events that happened in years with two repeating digits:

• 1822 - My great grandfather, William Pete Buck Young (father to Martha Ada Young, my paternal grandmother) is born
  
• 1855 - My paternal great-grandparents Hezekiah Scifres (38) and Mary Elizabeth Harrison (19) are married. 
• 1899 - My paternal great grandfather Hezekiah Scifres dies at the age of 81.
  
• 1899 - My paternal grandparents, Andrew T. Scifres (43) & Martha Ada Young (24) are married in Kaufman, TX. 
• 1899 - My maternal grandfather is born in Celeste, TX.
• 1900 - "Uncle Lee", my dad's brother, is born in Royse City, TX.
  
• 1922 - My mother is born.
• 1944 - My father is captured during the Battle of the Bulge near Bastogne and becomes a German POW during World War II. 
  
• 1955 -  I am born.
• 1977 - I begin my mission to Hong Kong at the Provo, UT Language Training Mission  on 7/7/77.
  
• 1988 - We purchase a home in Houston, TX. 
• 1988 - Aunt Ruby Dee, my mom's sister, dies in November.
• 1999 - My sister, Velma Ann, and her husband Tom come to Seattle to celebrate their 40th anniversary and my 44th birthday. (Yes, my sister got married on my 4th birthday). They visit Mount Ranier National Park where it's still cold and snowpacked.
• 2011 - I begin my blog, Pleasures from the Page, so I can participate in a 48 Hour Book Challenge..
  

This is year 11 (there's that repeating digit again) for me to participate in the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. This year I'll be mining my memories for stories to share. 

SOL 13/31: After Midnight Musings

 It's a given that I have some sleep issues every year during this challenge. Some years when I have fewer outside commitments, I give in and write posts during the middle-of-the-night awake hours. But I've really tried to avoid that inclination this year. Messing with my hard won, better sleep patterns is something I'd rather not do this year. 

But I give in on Friday night. Grandsons are here for two sleeps. One of them, Mr. Drippy Nose, awakens me from a deep sleep at 1:30 am. I wander in, tuck him back into his cozy brown blanket, and rub his back so he can settle back into sleep. I return to bed, determined to fall back to sleep. But there's a persistent sound from a neighborhood noisemaker keeping me awake. It's almost melodic (give it a listen here). 

I find it impossible to drift back into sleep. And so I read a few slices and post some comments. And that's when it happens. I grab my nightstand notepad and begin jotting ideas for future slices. I'm a pantser, a fly by the seat of my pants blogger. But this moment always arrives when suddenly I have a list of possibilities for future slices. I cross the line between between being a pantser and a planner and emerge triumphant on the other side as a plantser!

 It took me until day 11 this year, but now I have a reference for when I sit down to write and wonder, "What the heck will I write about today?"

This is my eleventh year of participating in the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. This year I'll be mining my memories for stories to share.

SOL12/31: Sisters and Brothers and Birthday Pie!

Daughter-in-law shared this side by side of her girls modeling the same outfit she wore 30+ years ago. No, they're not twins, just photos snapped around the same age.

Giant strawberries from Costco were weekend stars with visiting grandsons!

Scooter delivery boys with treasures for Grandpa.

Someone celebrated his birthday with pecan pie!

SOL11/31: Love Left on my Pillow

 Grandson and his brother are here for two sleeps.

When he decreed that his stuffed cat

is friends with the cat we used to have

(there are pics of Hadley all over the house),

he decided that I could sleep with Shadow last night.

SOL 10/31: What's the scariest thing that ever happened to you?

When I was dating Lance, I often traveled to Tulsa (about two hours from McAlester) for the weekend. I stayed with my BFF Jan in her apartment which was about twenty minutes from L’s place. On this particular weekend Jan was out of town, but I had a key to her place. I went from four years of living in a college dorm surrounded by friends to a year and a half of living in missionary apartments in Hong Kong with three and sometimes five additional missionaries. When I started teaching, I shared an apartment with my brother. My dad died the summer my brother Karl got married, so I moved home to be with Mom and help her transition to this new stage in her life. In case you haven’t noticed, I had never lived alone!

I’ve always been a fraidy-cat. I used to go to my grandmother’s to spend the night and keep watch over her when I was in junior high. She lived across the street and down two houses. I would ask my dad to watch me as I made the quick dash after dark to her house. But I was no longer that frightened teen! I was sure I could stay at Jan’s house by myself. I gathered my courage, parked Spunky (my trusty Plymouth Volare), and ran to Jan’s second story apartment. I inserted the key, opened the door, and slammed the door shut behind me. And I was comforted by the metallic click of the deadbolt. I was safely ensconced in Jan’s domicile. I grabbed a magazine to read and waited for my pounding heart to calm down, convinced that the scariest part of my evening was over..

I’d only been reading for a few moments when I heard footsteps on the landing. Oh well, that’s what happens when you live in an apartment. Other people come and go at all hours. But then, I heard a key being inserted in Jan’s door and watched as the bottom lock popped up. I pulled my feet up on the couch, heart pounding, convinced that I was about to meet a burglar! But the intruder was unable to get past the deadbolt.

As the footsteps receded. I breathed a prayer of gratitude for that chunk of metal standing guard over met. Just about the time that my normal breathing patterns resumed, the telephone rang. This was the 80s and we did not have caller ID. Tentatively, I answered the phone. It was Wayne, my best friend’s newly acquired boyfriend. I still hadn’t met him, but apparently he already had a key to Jan’s place. He apologized profusely for scaring me to death and said he had forgotten that I was there.

I had a husband and two children by the time that Wayne married my best friend, but I never let him forget the night he scared the living daylights out of me! 

This is my eleventh year participating in the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. This year I'll be mining my memories for stories to share. 

SOL9/31: Snowmen and Bunnies and Books and Words

What do you collect?

If you read Monday's post, then you know that I collect snow people and bunnies. I also collect books, far too many of them, and even though I buy fewer books than I used to, I can't resist scanning the shelves of our local library's Friends of the Library Book Sale. Recently, I found Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, our book club's read for April. And the cost? A mere $2! When I finish reading it, I'll donate it to one of the Little Free Libraries I frequent.

But my favorite thing to collect is words! I have several blank books that I've used to collect inspiring words and some of those words come from fellow slicers. My favorite book is one that I won as part of the 2014 SOL Writing Challenge. It's a handmade book from fellow slicer, Girl Griot who blogs at If you want kin, your must plant kin. (I saw her at our Zoom slicer gathering this past Sunday morning. If you can sign up for the next one, you should! It's a delight to meet other slicers and see faces to go with blog names.)

I've decided to share some favorite words that I've collected in this book. Because it's our ninth day of slicing, I limited myself to nine shares. It was tough to choose because I love all the entries in this book.

In order of their appearance in the book:

 

(Quotes from two different bloggers on this one page - Carol Varsalona was also at our Zoom gathering of slicer friends on Sunday morning.)

 

What do you collect and where does your collection live?

SOL 8/31: First plane trip at nineteen leads to a love of travel

 What is the farthest you have ever traveled?

My immediate answer to this question was Hong Kong, where I served an 18 month mission for the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints beginning in July, 1977 after I graduated from college. Distance from my hometown to Hong Kong was 8,016 miles. I flew from Oklahoma to Salt Lake City, Utah and then attended language training for two months in Provo, Utah before boarding another plane with six elders (young men missionaries who had been in my group in Provo) to fly to Hong Kong via San Francisco and Guam.

When I discussed this question with Lance, he pointed out that I should check the mileage from Santiago, Chile to Punta Arenas in the south of Chile. We traveled to Santiago in the fall of 2007 to meet our daughter Sara after her study abroad in Chile. We flew to Punta Arenas so we could see the penguins and visit the Torres Del Paine National Park. The distance from Seattle to Santiago and then to Punta Arenas (not counting the time spent traveling around in a van after we arrived) combined to exceed the mileage of my trip to Hong Kong. I was surprised by this!

And then I started wondering about my trip to Italy. We flew from Seattle to Rome where we spent the next three days and then spent the next six days in Sorrento, the Isle of Capri, San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, Pisa, Carrara, and then Florence before returning to Rome for our return trip home. When I’m not racing against the slicer’s deadline, I’ll figure out the mileage for that trip. I think it will come in third place.

So, the farthest I’ve ever traveled was to Punta Arenas on the southern tip of Chile with Lance and Sara, followed by my travel to Hong Kong where I lived for sixteen months, and finally to Italy where I toured many sites with my good friends Leslie, Nancy, and Teri. Two other long trips I’ve made were to Paris with the entire family to meet up with our son after his study abroad in Madrid and to London, before Blake’s study abroad at Oxford. Thank goodness my children have had study abroad experiences. They served to broaden my horizons and get their dad to travel (not one of his favorite activities), but he'll do it for the kids.

Those are some trips for a girl from Oklahoma who took her first plane trip from Tulsa to Portland in 1974 to join a boyfriend’s family for a camping trip to Idaho and the Spokane World’s Fair (the first environmentally themed world’s fair). The thing I remember about the World’s Fair was that we had matching shirts for the days we were there so we could spot each other more easily. I remember that one day’s shirts were red gingham. I can’t remember the other day’s shirt design. I wonder now how many of us were in the family group. Too bad that was before I began my first journal in the summer of 1975. I came back from that trip engaged, but that engagement was short lived. However, that travel did provide me with my first ever plane trip and began a lifelong love of travel.