Dear Family and dear friends,
Happy Autumn!
(This particular picture lent itself only for four young men and our red haired friend--Lunch near Davis High is ever interesting on Tuesday.. And leaves us lower on pickles than when our day began!)
"With what kind of victory do you begin your day?" This question could invite you in to a comfortable conversation with nine hungry high school juniors pooling heads atop teal and brown placemats at our oak table, piling turkey and pickles on whole wheat slices slathered with mustard and mayo mingled with cantaloupe, grapes, oranges or apple slices. Emma, the lone female classmate, resonates with the question referencing Admiral William H. McCraven’s, speech asserting that the simple act of something like making one’s bed, could make a “profound impact” of starting a day with a simple completed task: "If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed."
How do you connect with your WHY? Another question offers thoughts from Greg McKeown, Essentialism, suggesting simple efforts at the gates of day of personal reflection, priority, and choice can leverage a helpful habit. Some people meditate, some people pray, some people connect with timeless literature or exercise or journal. What gives basis and foundation and a trusted vector to YOUR day? How could doing a quick “look around” to possibilities prior to leaving the pillow, help leave this planet a better place than you found it?
Autumn has combined cycles of school terms for grandchildren with civic duty for adults, inviting meaningful growth. Our visitors for Tuesday lunch became "added upon" with a Fall Break invite from granddaughters to spruce a garden finding fluorescent purple roly-poly, 
generally organizing typing tools and stitching center
and preparing photos to place with poetry penned by Laurene's sister who died last January. “Less and better” is the goal in yard and home. Less weeds, less clutter, easier access of useful items. Temple time. General Conference.
Fixing the back door: how did we get here? During a wind storm (not to point fingers, HOWEVER, a certain door HAPPENED to open directly after a certain Mrs. McGregor told a child NOT to go outside during the wind storm. The door promptly blew off its hinges.) Months and months and a chunk of change afterward, we have a NEW door on our back porch AND last week, our contracting neighbor’s favorite painter sprayed it bright white. Sparkling, sealed, and ready for winter just before temperatures plummet. Grateful!!!
Pondering John 10:9 “I am the door…” Are each of us not a door to help those we love open vistas, and unveil pastures to nourishing the soul? "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." [1]
Val opened some pasture last Saturday afternoon in a drive to look for changing colors on mountains surrounding East Canyon Reservoir: “Lovely appear, over the mountains!”
(Pictured: High school grandson accompanying high school jazz band; helpful neighbor young men earning organ shoes)
Music can whisper through our caverns and canyons amid efforts to capture, collect and cleave to beauty and truth.
We are learning from Mad Eye Moody and repeated memory of Grammy’s 7th grade civics teacher that the price of liberty is “constant vigilance.”
Not a simple task. Utah Supreme Court justice, presently religious leader recently encouraged each of us to “be knowledgeable citizens…active in making our influence felt
in civic affairs.” As a small school
girl, Laurene watched parents help a presidential candidate begin his campaign
on a snowy day from a residence in a 5 Paul Street, Somersworth, New
Hampshire, sleepy town of 9500.
(Pictured above opening of Governor Romney's 1968 presidential bid, and an aerial view of Somersworth, New Hampshire apparently near the Salmon Falls River that acts as the border to Berwick, Maine)
