So as my two older kids are getting ready for the anime’ convention where they are playing in a cos-play chess game, my teenage boy starts asking about the etiquette of glomping. Seems my 14 year old is concerned about the proper reaction when strange girls grab him unexpectedly.

The big problem was how to stay in character of Light Yagami. It seems DS#1 has a tendency to smile instead of looking serious and it wouldn’t do for the god of Death to smile as people glomped him.

This morning I dropped off my items for the Utah State Fair. I wasn’t thrilled with the quality of my stitching so for on more year, I entered in the amateur category. Next year though, I will have the confidence to move up to the advanced amateur, but then that’s what I say every year.

So, do I wait until the 9th when I’m working the booth for the Division of Wildlife Resources to see how I did or do I ditch work early on the 6th and do the $2 fair enterance just to see how I did?

(Well, I was able to call in and get it changed. I’m competing in Advanced Amateur).

is what my friend Cat said to her daughter as we left today. The look of shock was incredible but was it shock that her mom had friends or shock that mom was taking time to go play with her friends?
We had a wonderful day “playing” today. The whole purpose was to have someone with me on the long drive to Ogden to pick up my framed cranes from Jill Rensel. If I ever need inspiration to work on any of my Works in Process, a trip to Jill’s workroom is definitely high on the list. We were amazed at the work that she had finished and in process. There are some incredible stitchers and some incredible pieces. She has a Mirabilia Petal Fairy there from Australia that is on the most incredible fabric, and there is a Berlin Sampler that is almost a life’s work; it’s absolutely huge! I wish I knew where to get it but it’s absolutely huge and gorgeous and the more I think about it, I think it’s one of the books that I recently gave away.
Anyway, it’s dangerous to follow a trip to Jill’s shop by a visit to Shepherd’s Bush. Cat and I were both in the mood to stitch again but I’m in a challenge that involves buying no new patterns and Cat has always been cautious with her money but we were both a bit reckless and ended up gifting each other since that is legal during a challenge. I gave her the Shepherd’s Bush The Promise and she gave me Be A Witch and The Bent Creek Red Thread Snapper. Okay, so it’s probably more of a grey area but she had seen The Promise being framed at Jill’s shop and she does collect Noah’s Ark stuff…
After Shepherd’s Bush and Needlepoint Joint, we hit Threads of Time where they were having an open house and I found the perfect fabric to finish off the ANG challenge piece as a pillow and the perfect fabric to make a pillow that won’t have any stitching on it but will be a companion to the stitched pillow.
All in all it was a great day playing with my friend.

Wednesday when I got home from the hospital, DH took me to football practice as the photographer’s assistant and as we were ready to leave, he asked me what comfort food I wanted for dinner (I had a Big Bacon Classic with the french fries and a Frosty).

Thursday, my middle son brings me up a Godiva chocolates bag. Inside is a Tin of Godiva biscuits (with the sale tag on it since he knows I would panic at the cost – this was a reasonable amount with the sale price).

Last night, when I got home from school, he had my stitching area ready and Fellowship of the Ring queued up on the DVD. I got in 3 hours on Fairy Tale Sampler.

He always knows just what I need. LaVon was right to tell me to keep this one.

My father started a business when I was 10. He started it with a partner and a woman whom he brought from his previous office to do the administrative work. I did a little filing that first year just a day or two but from the age of 11 until I left for college, I spent my summers working for LaVon. Technically I was working for Dad but I reported to LaVon. The company moved from 11th East to 7th East, the partner left, we moved to a bigger building on Highland Drive and LaVon got an office almost as large as Dad’s, decorated the way she wanted it.
At 16, I expanded from the summers to after school as well, I had moved from being a file clerk, to the mailroom, to data entry and that year LaVon taught me to process claims. The funny thing is my dad doesn’t remember me spending every summer of my childhood at the office. LaVon remembers though.
When I got married and tried to leave the family company, LaVon was the one who told me I was selling myself short by taking a $6.00 an hour reception job (minimum was $3.65 back then) and offered me better wages than my dad had ever offered me to come back and be a processor. LaVon fought for me and gave me my breaks, promoting me to auditor, workers’ comp processor and telling me that I needed to learn everything I could about claims manager from her so I could take over when she retired.
She’s also the one who later told me that my father and brother would always undervalue me and that I was not imagining it when I felt they weren’t listening to a word I said. She taught me how to use other people to promote my ideas which would benefit the business when it became clear that if I proposed it they would ignore it.
As a teenager, I spent more time talking to her than I did my biological mother. But I’ve been a remiss adoptive daughter and not visited her as much as I should after she retired. Her grand-daughter is closer to me than my own sisters (we have more in common and are only a few years apart compared to the decade that separates me from my blood sisters) but I haven’t visited them as often as I should have.

LaVon has always been a force to be reckoned with, an unstoppable power, a woman with a style all her own. She speaks her mind and people listen and obey. She stands up for what she thinks is right and doesn’t let anyone push her around.

And in the last year, she became old. I don’t know how it happened but somehow, overnight, she got old. During the last 2 days, I’ve spent several hours at the hospital with my 2nd family watching her trying to breathe, knowing that if she wakes up she won’t be the same person that we know and love. Like Dylan Thomas wrote though- she will not go gentle into that good night, she is raging and it is painful to watch and I cannot bring myself to say good-bye or good-night.
The doctors keep saying it is moments away, she’s outlasted them as if to say, it’s my time and my choice just as she would if she were awake. After all, as a claims manager she knew how to get what she wanted out of any doctor, why should she stop negotiating now?

I thank the Lord for my husband who realizes I’m losing my other mother. He’s been pampering me and doing what he can to lessen the stress. It takes me back to when I first got engaged and while my biological mother acted as if she hated my choice, LaVon told me I had chosen well and would be a fool to let him get away. 20 years have proven she was right as always. LaVon, I’m sorry that I never fully learned how to stand up for myself and what I deserve the way you tried to teach me. DH often listens to me talk of work situations and he asks me, “What would LaVon do in that situation?” I just don’t have the spine. I will take the advice that you gave me the last time we talked before you slipped away like this though. I will have the courage, I won’t let you down this time.

Edited to add: LaVon passed away Aug 22 around 10 pm, an hour after all the kids left for the evening. Just like everything in her life, it was at her timing on her terms.

and knew that she was still the same person I knew from college when her bookshelf contained The Treasury of Children’s Golden Books next to “Stalking” and “The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers.”

It was great to catch up and find out that her ex-boyfriend has published two Dragonlance youth novels.

The best part was pictures of us from the 80’s. It inspired me to go find a new stylist and cut my hair shorter than I have been wearing it.

I forget who it was who told me they did some of their best work in airports. I now understand, but only if you are one of the early ones who gets a spot by the outlet. I think the people glaring at me would be grateful for someone with a powerstrip so we could all plug in. I only have 3 hours of battery so with 2 hours until the scheduled departure, I happened to be the lucky one to get the slot when the last user left. It’s fairly easy to see where the outlets are in the terminal. Look for two laptop users together who don’t seem to know each other like the guy in the 3 piece suit sitting with the goth chick. Okay, so that could be an NCIS episode but I highly doubt they would film in Boise. I’m sharing my outlet with a nicely dressed gentleman with salt and pepper hair who has been cruising male on male sites for the last 15 minutes, he’s updated at least three of the profiles and not one of the pictures looks like him. Frankly, he’s better looking than any of the profile pictures. All of them are younger than he looks though. Personally I like the salt and pepper in both the hair and the neatly trimmed beard, but I’m not what he’s looking for.
The profile pictures just reminded me that it’s time for another warning: Do not trust what you read on the internet. Make sure you can corroborate it and never, never meet people that you only know online in private places.

Now who was it that needed a place to stay so they could visit the needlework Mecca that I live in?

I really do need her (and possibly the chiroprator too!)

After sitting in a week of classes and having no ultrasound, no massage and no manipulation. I’ve had the worst headaches and I’m in constant pain. There is no way I would have missed school for therapy (it was bad enough taking off an hour early one night to have my annual review) but oh, do I miss it.

Thank goodness that the therapist was smart enough to schedule me for first thing tomorrow morning! Okay well maybe not first thing, I’m going to be giving a benefits meeting first, then going to her office.

Yes, I’ve been taking more than one Flexiril a day this week.

through with the Executive MBA program. We just wrapped up the Global Tycoon competition. It’s amazing how failing to ship product during the Christmas buying season can destroy your company. We did finish in the black but in the process I learned that I am not an outside sales person. I am too nice and want to give the client everything they ask for whether or not it is in my best interest or in the best interest of the company.

Oh, and I’m very glad that the first class this semester is Negotiation.

And last night my kids saw another band from the list of “Before They Die.”

Rush was in concert at the Usana Ampitheatre and we took the kids. Unfortunately we got the tickets late so DH and I had seats and the kids had general admission. It worked out well. The kids ended up sitting with a cousin of mine and his wife (due on Christmas). I couldn’t believe how many people I knew at the concert. I ran into some friends from high school who brought their kids, a kid I used to baby sit who is now old enough to buy beer, the aforementioned cousin, and my son’s drum teacher and her husband (well, DUH!! of course the drummers would be there!)

http://www.sltrib.com//ci_6563516?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com

Anyway, there’s the official review from the paper.