Riley at the speed limit

Riley is 55 today. I met him when he was 23. He was kind of skinny, kind of nerdy and wore Chukkah boots. Within 10 months of meeting Riley, I married him. That was not the plan when I moved to Logan in the fall of 1979 but Heavenly Father had other ideas. He knew Riley would be my perfect match. Thirty-two years later I wholeheartedly agree. I told him the other day I could probably count on one hand (OK, maybe one hand and a couple more fingers) how many times I've been mad at him. We just get along. We value each other's perspective. We trust each other. We allow each other to be and do whatever we choose, a part of that trust. We don't keep score. If something needs to be done, it gets done. Sometimes he unloads the dishwasher or mends a shirt. Sometimes I take the trash cans to the curb or fix a loose hinge. Yet we know we can ask each other for help and we'll get it.

Today I'm thankful for Winston and Aileen Nelson, Riley's parents. Thank you for bringing Riley into the world. Thank you Heavenly Father for setting us up (it's a long story but He really did). Thank you Riley for the best 32 years. I gave Riley a pair of Chukkah boots for his birthday today. I hope he wanders the earth in them for the next 32 years. And we have all of eternity after that.

Randomness

Random things that have made my life interesting lately:

1) I love Riley. I decided to give him a word puzzle to figure out for Valentine's. Each day for 10 days in his lunch I gave him a word on a purple heart. The words were "of," "heart," "my," "only," etc. On the 10th day he had all the words. I had taped a big white paper in his office that said "Dear Riley" at the top and "Love, Kaye" at the bottom. He had to put the purple hearts in the middle and figure it out. After a bit of figuring he got it: "Of all people on earth, only you hold my heart." We also just celebrated our engagement anniversary - 31 years ago on Feb. 7 Riley asked me to marry him. I usually work on Monday nights but I switched so I could fix us a nice dinner which we ate by candlelight in the sunroom. Our tradition is that I hand him my rings, he asks me to marry him, I say yes and he slips my rings back on. Then we watched a movie together. I like keeping our love alive by doing crazy, thoughtful things.

2) My niece Loni and her husband Matt had twins - a boy and a girl - Chase and Chloe. I haven't seen them yet but it starts an adventure for them that I experienced firsthand. I love being a twin. Kelly and I had such a fun childhood - we never lacked for a friend. I hope Chase and Chloe will be as close as we were.

3) My great-aunt Madge died last week. I probably knew her when I was a little kid but I hadn't had any contact with her for years. About four years ago I was interested in hearing stories about my Wheeler grandparents and great-grandparents. My uncle Kent Wheeler, my dad's brother, told me to talk to Bea, Madge and Shirley, my great-aunts. My mom, Kent, Shirley and I drove to Salt Lake and picked up Bea, then drove to Madge's in Ogden where we had a nice lunch and spent the afternoon listening to them talk about childhood memories. I used a recorder to record their stories and took pictures. I've kept in touch with these wonderful ladies and love them dearly. Bea is now 100, almost 101. Madge was 97 and Shirley is about 88. I'm so glad I was able to connect with them, hear stories of my ancestors and have them in my life right now.

4) We have tickets for Hawaii! Riley has meetings on the big island the end of March and I'm going with. We hope to see lava from volcanoes, waterfalls and whales off the coast. It will be a welcome break in the middle of winter, although by then it might even be spring.

5) We have new members of the family - the Smith family. Todd's mom Debby, siblings and others are quickly becoming part of us and we already love them, as we do Todd. Amy picked an amazing guy and he comes with a wonderful family. We were strangers just a few months ago and now we are knitting our families together.

6) Our bishop said something on Sunday that was helpful to me. He said adversity and happiness are not mutually exclusive. We can have both. I have to compartmentalize the things that cause me grief and deal with them when I can, probably because I'd rather focus on what brings happiness to my life. I'm glad the good outweighs the bad.

New Year's resolutions

I only have two:

1) Waste less food. That means cooking less, eating up leftovers before they go bad and making use of things like the ends of celery.
2) Write one thank-you note every week. Find someone during the week who has touched me in some way and thank them in a hand-written, snail mail note.

OK, one more. I want to add pictures to my blog. We'll see how that goes.

A good approach to Christmas

So, I'm 50 years old. I've learned a few things in my trips around the block and some of them involve Christmas. There were years I got caught up in the madness, made innumerable plates of goodies for neighbors, started shopping in July - hiding presents all over the house and then buying more because I didn't write down everything on my never-ending list, made sure my three kids had the same number of presents to open, sometimes hovering around 20-25, sent hundreds of Christmas cards, all with a hand-written greetings on them and decorated every corner of the house with some Christmas-y knickknack, all of which had to be boxed up and put away just days after Christmas.

Over the years I got smart. Here are ways I enjoy Christmas without all the hassle:

1) I don't start buying until after Thanksgiving. No, I don't shop on Black Friday. That's part of the madness and I want no part of it. I shop online or in stores gradually collecting items before Dec. 24.
2) I don't buy tons of stuff. I think about a few things each of my kids and Riley would like and buy them. Think about it. If you give your kids 20 items to open (or even 10, 15 ...) they are really only going to remember maybe 2-3 of their favorite gifts. So give them 2-3 things. Then they'll remember all of them. (And the byproduct is less stress, less bills, less wrapping, less stuff to store, break, step over, pick up, etc. PLUS being able to reinforce the real meaning of Christmas which has nothing to do with piles of stuff!) C'mon - are underwear or socks really a "gift"?
3) My Christmas greetings are sent online, except for about 15 to people who don't have internet. They are all over 80. It took me about 30 minutes to send 157 emails yesterday with a letter attached that I had written a couple of weeks ago.
4) Neighbor gifts. Hmmm. I still like to give these but to a select few. And I don't think that just because someone brings a goodie or gift to your door you MUST reciprocate. It's not a contest and it doesn't have to be fair - tit for tat. If anyone is keeping score and you don't get a treat the next year, oh well. Less sugary treats.
5) I also don't get out all the Christmas decor. Some years we have just a Wizard of Oz tree. Those ornaments are in their own box so they are easy to get out. Some years I put all the family salt dough ornaments on (like this year). And there are select items around the house that are familiar and I love. But there are way more full boxes of Christmas stuff in storage during the holidays than there are empty ones. The one thing that must be set up is the nativity scene. It was my grandparents and I inherited it when they both died. It's wonderful and I should really keep it out all year.

So the past few days, in between stops to pick up a few last minute items, I've read, soaked in the hot tub, watched the birds in the bird feeder, had breakfast with friends, taken stuff to DI, helped a sub-for-Santa family, watched several movies, had long phone calls with family and friends and slept. I spent the entire day in my pajamas a couple days ago! Yes, this is Christmas. Christ gave us the gifts of family, time on earth and His gospel. He is the gift.

A special day

Amy has a beautiful ring on her finger. More importantly she has a wonderful fiance! These two characters are quite the match. They met in one of Amy's classes last January where Todd Smith was a TA. They became friends but couldn't date because he was grading students' work. So they waited until class was over in April. Or almost. They quickly became inseparable and on Nov. 11 he asked if he could come and talk to Riley. I loved hearing him say he had "fallen" in love with Amy and wanted to marry her. The fun part was, she didn't know he was talking to Riley and led her to believe, for a few days, that he still needed to do that so a proposal wasn't imminent.

They had picked out a ring together but she didn't think he had picked it up. He hadn't. Because he was so busy he had his mom in Bountiful pick it up from Salt Lake for him and drive it down for a hand off in American Fork. On Monday, Nov. 15, amidst all the craziness of classes, projects and work, he led her on a scavenger hunt for "dinner" because she had done that for him in the summer. She was oblivious there was more to the evening than just dinner because he surprised her with a song and a down-on-one knee proposal. She texted me, "YOU ARE SO SNEAKY!"

She might be walking on clouds but this mom is too. Prayers have been answered for sweet Amy. And we couldn't have picked a better man for her to marry. He's the real deal.

10 years

My dad died 10 years ago today at 9:10 a.m. I was with him when he died. So was my mom. She sang, "there is sunshine in your soul today," changing the words a bit here and there. It was a peaceful, spiritual moment to see him pass. He had suffered for 19 months, paralyzed from a snowmobile accident April 12, 2009. He didn't like life much during those 19 months but in the last day or two of his life, he told me he had to just be ok with what he could do and not be so upset about what he couldn't. I believe once he showed he had learned that he was then allowed to leave his earthly existence.

I love my dad. He was a great man. He taught me many wonderful things like how to work - weed the garden, mow the lawn, fix things using any kind of tool and problem solve. He taught me how to play - snowmobile, waterski, play HORSE (basketball), put together jigsaw puzzles, play nertz. He knew a lot and was an authority on many things. He was an avid reader. He created beautiful wood-carved treasures. He got tickled at himself when he surprised someone with something he'd made and saw their reaction.

While things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to with my dad (I moved here from Texas thinking we'd build things, snowmobile, etc. but he got hurt before we got here), I had some treasured moments with him in his last 19 months. We had conversations we would never have had because we were thrown together, me caring for him. There were no work or play distractions, just talking.

I'm thankful for my dad. I'm thankful I was with him when he died. I'm thankful for everything he taught me. I miss you dad.

Happy Birthday Aileen

Today is a lovely woman's birthday - Aileen Larsen Nelson, my mother-in-law. She's been gone for 24 years and I only knew her for about seven years but I will be eternally grateful she and Winston brought my wonderful husband Riley into the world. He, like I, is the baby of his family - Randy, Rick and Riley - the three boys. He had a wonderful childhood. So did I. He treasures the gospel. So do I. He has a crazy streak. I am very quiet and shy. Heh heh. We have the same work ethic, sense of adventure and love of life. A match made in Logan. Or Brigham City.

My first memory of Aileen came several weeks after Riley and I started dating. It was the first weekend of October 1979. Riley and I were living in Logan, he in the downstairs apartment of a duplex, me upstairs. We met the first day I drove into the complex on Darwin Avenue in my red CJ5 Jeep with white pinstripes, two gas tanks and an 8-track player (I loved that jeep). We soon started hanging out a lot and he invited me to go stay at his house in Brigham City for the weekend. The weekend's activities would include going to his mission reunion and dinner Friday night, duck hunting Saturday (oh, joy) and going to general conference Sunday where he would translate conference talks into Tahitian. We pulled up in front of the Nelson house at 211 North 300 West in Brigham City that Friday afternoon. We went in and I met his mom: tiny woman, big smile, gray hair piled in a bun on her head and big ball hangy earrings. We chatted a bit, then Riley's dad got home and we met. He was probably dressed in a jumpsuit (his standard outfit), had gray hair and '50s style men's glasses - you know, the ones with the heavy black frames. They were both happy to meet me and I them.

Riley took off to talk tools or ducks or whatever with his dad. I was left with Aileen. I'm not sure how long we were downstairs before she said something like, "come upstairs and I'll show you some things ..." Those "things" were kept in a hope chest (her hope, I think) and were baby booties she'd made for Riley's future children and a temple apron for Riley's future wife. While I was a little shocked she was showing me these things the first time I met her, the wheels were already turning in my head that he just might be the one. Anyway, I ended up with them about ten months later. The bigger prize, of course, was Riley, but I got a pretty good deal in the end, apron, booties, mother- and father-in-law, the Nelson name, and now, at this point, 30 years of fun and happiness.

Thanks Aileen and Happy Birthday. I love you. I'm glad you didn't scare me off.