enjoy the first quarter of 2008 by having one new and fulfilling experience in January, February, and March

I love, love, love writing in pink ink. It’s one of those comfort things with memories that run deep. Therefore, I have been searching (but alas, in vain) high and low for pens that write pink.

Today, I FOUND some! They have the perfect color ink and are cool looking pens with a good weight.

This makes me very happy.=D

I’m on the front page of 43T today.

It only took a little over a year.

hm.

But yay!

I read a lot, but a whole book in one day is new for me. It was 185 pages of light fiction, called “The Woman in the Wall,” by Patrice Kindl.

Took about 4 hours, which is a lot of time to be sitting, for me, but it was a page turner, so I just kept turning those pages!

My real entry about it is here

It was new because yesterday was my first anniversary here.

It was fulfilling because it gave me a chance to ponder this past year and how profoundly my life has been affected, directly and indirectly, because of being part of this world-wide community.

This marks my 615th entry on 43Things. About myself, anyway. I have no idea how many comments I have given and received, but I know there has been much support passing through my computer, going in both directions, and I have been LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!!!

And I’m not talking about the weather… although it was a definite benefit – so beautiful, in the 60’s and it rained a bunch of times… OK, I am ALSO talking about the gorgeous Arizona weather.

But no, really what made my February absolutely fabulous was something that has gone largely unnoticed in the day-to-day of raising wonderful children for the past couple of decades and paying bills and cleaning house and cooking over 7000 dinners and building a life and sending those same wonderful children off to college—being married.

We are doing stuff together now, the Dearest and I and it’s nice. Really nice. Comfortable nice.

He rebuilt our pantry just because I came up with a good plan for it. He keeps saying, “Whoever thought of this is a genius” and stuff like that every time he sets foot in the kitchen. Both the pantry and the praise are new and both very fulfilling.

At the end of January, our friend the piano teacher offered to trade my husband for his handyman skills and give me free piano lessons, so all of February, I have been taking piano. These are my very first private lessons so that’s new and fulfilling.

AND: Today we traveled nearly 100 miles round trip to purchase a piano! This is a lifelong dream of mine that I haven’t really ever bothered to make known because I never thought it would ever REALLY come to fruition, but now I have a piano. Whoa. That’s weird. I have a piano. YAY!!!!!

That’s the name of my facepainting business.

I have done facepainting for a long time, but sharing my talent with the local school community at their annual “Town Fair” (aka: school carnival) is fairly new. This was only the 2nd year.

So last Saturday, I spent four and a half hours straddling a cafeteria bench, leaning slightly forward, painting faces for hudreds of children. Boy, was I sore the next day!

It was fun, though, and very fulfilling. I love to see the big smiles when I hold up the mirror for them to see my art on their faces.

• _{the scanned picture shows a few examples from my “standing in line” book.}

At Church.

A committee of at least 25 people worked on this dance. It was wonderful! 1950’s theme. Decorations you would not believe. A whole soda fountain with waitstaff and little busgirls on rollerskates!

We ate hotdogs and ice cream sundaes and drank IBC root beer out of the bottles… And danced. It was so much fun!

Since I was not alive in the 1950’s, it was definitely new, and the whole experience – especially dancing with my husband – was very, very fulfilling!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

It was my turn to teach the women’s class at church today. The lesson, although highly interesting, was a little dry for my taste and I wondered how to liven it up without departing from the prescribed materials. I found out about a beautifully captivating Church video on the subject (the Restoration of the Gospel) that followed the lesson outline perfectly, so I decided to show it for 19 of the 30 minutes I would be in charge of the class.

I had the TV all set up and the video ready to slide into the DVD player. Pushed the power button … nothing. What?! Tried another outlet … nothing. Tried another TV ... nothing. AAARGGGGHHHH!!! The breaker must have blown, but there was no time for fixing electricty, so I had to wing it. (The NEW part)

The lessons I teach are outlined for me, so at least I had a book, but it turned out to be more of a prop than a tool, since I hadn’t highlighted anything once I decided to show the video.

I ended up asking a bunch of leading questions about how the subject pertains to each of our personal lives and several people shared their thoughts and some related touching stories. It was great!

Afterwards, I received tons of compliments on how well I kept my composure in such stressful circumstances. One lady told me I was incredible and said that even though she wouldn’t wish what happened on anyone, she was actually glad the class worked out the way it did. So am I.

I was on Cloud 9 when I left church because I knew I had been guided from above. (The FULFILLING part!)

Plus, every one of those women were glad they weren’t me today, and I must admit I got a kick out of that! =]

As per my last entry, we got the girls a new car a few weeks ago, but they had flown home for Christmas because the other car wasn’t even running at the time. We drove the new one up to Utah and the Dearest spent two days in the SIXTEEN DEGREE weather rebuilding the engine of the old one so we could drive it home. He was so cold after the first couple of hours that he had to stop for the day and we got out the electric blanket to help him stop shivering. I bought him a heater and made him wear a hat the second day and he finished it. We drove it home and it ran perfectly!

I guess that was really my husband’s new and fulfilling experience, since he got it done, but I’m pretty sure he’s never had to do mechanic work in sub-freezing temperatures before.

The great part of this trip for me was (of course) spending more time with my girls. But not only that. The fact that I could just pick up and go was amazing! I did not have to get off work because all the stuff I do, I do on my own time now. I did not have anyone to drop off or pick up from school, either.

For the first time in 23 years, I could just go.

NICE!!!!

Don’t anyone call me emptynester. My life is too full to be empty anything!

Well… January has been slow.

I am thankful for that. Hey! One new and very fulfilling experience has been a little time to recoup after several months of going at full steam.

I had all my girls home from college over the break, most of which we spent car shopping for the older two. They have had my very favorite vehicle with them for the past two and a half years and now it is 12 years old has 147,000 miles on it. Time for them to have something that we don’t have to worry about.

The “new” car is a 2002 Isuzu Axiom. The daughter who will do the most driving of it said that she loves the car and if it was a boy, she’d marry it. Hah!

So, car shopping for Christmas Vacation. Hmmm. New, yes. Fulfilling? Yes, I think so. The whole family spent days on end together, eating free car dealer crap and nit-picking perfectly good cars just to annoy people. Yeah, it was pretty fun at that!