Oh, what do you do in the winter time when all the skies are blue?
For Christmas, a daughter shared a course called “Get Your House Back.”
This daughter is gangbusters about changing pantries and bedrooms from confusion to clarity and the rest of us are catching up!
We learned this morning about building lovely things with what is in front of you.
What is in front of you?
Our daughter cleared a closet, attached owl feathers to keys, and crafted a gingerbread replica to match our summer Paris House, the childhood home to my father’s mother.
(Perhaps views of before and after will give someone courage!)
(Thanks Spencer and Patrick M. for a fun scout stick game!)
Paring of storage spots are undergoing still, to offer spill-over for “time will tell” (undecided overflow.) 
Autumn painting of an upstairs bedroom offered a happy space
to invite Val’s mom, our wonderful 94-year-old example of optimism, to rehabilitate after the replacement of her pacemaker battery. Interestingly, two days prior, Verla learned her twin underwent close to the same procedure -- same doctor, same facility.
Who accompanies your life challenges?
Shadows changes in your heart?
A friend this week asked a teen son to “Tell me about Your Jesus!”
"How close is He when you turn around after walking away?"
His answer: “He is right next to me --
He followed me!”
Highlights of our last few weeks include: dodging drops in a rain storm to parry puddles, on wet sidewalks of Salt Lake to hear Linda Margetts, Tabernacle Choir organist, entertain us with 100 years of musical expression.
Similar to our grandson, who watched our 10-year-old friend’s self-taught performance of Canon in D to burst out with a “Wow Wee!” The next words were, “I want to do that!”
We are grateful to read about a strong Book of Mormon captain
and his friends who were no less serviceable.”
A grandson, working to gather resources to travel for a Science Olympiad National event in the spring, has been calming cobwebs and dissipating dust for another Great Grandma whom he is trying to pass up in height. Coding, sledding, choir, piano teaching and organ ventures beckon this grandson. His siblings and far away cousins talk about robotics, drama, water color painting, Valentines, and preparation for a midwinter family vacation and summer mission trip possibilities, while Grandpa Val prunes fruit trees for future autumn offerings.
(Note: we are learning that branches that rise straight up do not bear fruit.
The branches that reach outward -- they will bear!
We are learning also that as we clear away the bad, the good can grow!)
It is a privilege to participate in processes that invite us
to do our part to make things prettier, more pleasing, purposeful, peaceable. “Wow Wee!
I want to do that!”
Tell us all about your pleasant past times!
Words we heard yesterday from a young wife celebrating her spouse’s graduating from 14 years of higher education, “Optimism looks good on you!”
Another neighbor mentioned, when she can’t find happiness, she looks instead for peace and joy. 
We heard recently we can foster restful sleep patterns by discovering reasons for daytime belly laughs!
What tickles YOUR funny bone?
What do peace, joy and happiness
look like in your neck of the woods? 
Grandpa’s best wit for this week: “What do you call a small
Valentine?
A Valentiny!
May February be filled with small and simple things that lift you!
Love, Laurene and Val
