Noting Cliff

John and I both served missions to Italy. And yes, we were there at the same time. Just never in the same place. Well, technically we were in the same place twice, but only briefly. We each remember separate meetings and have absolutely no recollection of the other. Weird.

I started my mission in Milan. For the first two months I shared an apartment with five other sister missionaries, including my friend from the MTC, Miriam Horne. Then she was transferred to Torino and I eventually left Milano for Genova. A few months later she was transferred to Genova and we became companions. As we compared notes about our experiences, two recurring players in her funniest stories were Anziani (Elders) Cliff and Fuller, with whom she'd served in Torino. Who were these guys?

Sometime after Christmas I was transferred to Torino, but by that time Cliff and Fuller had been transferred elsewhere and I was not to meet the intriguing duo whose exploits had so amused one of my favorite companions. So it was with some surprise when, during a P-day excursion to the Shroud of Turin church, I turned to see an unfamiliar elder with a nametag that identified him as Anziano Cliff.

The encounter I remember, lasting perhaps 5 seconds, went something like this:

What are you doing here?

Questura.

Oh...


Ta dah!!! Sorry to disappoint you, folks, but that's all there was.

A Mind Is A Terrible Thing

This afternoon Anna's teacher sends homework for the parents. Her class is working on an autobiography project that requires us to provide all the usual stats. I fill in date, time, place, etc., working from memory and fudging the parts I am not sure of. The most egregious response, for time of birth, is "dinnertime." I'm completely unrepentant.

After the basics are covered, feeling as though I've contributed enough, I pass the survey over to John so he can share an anecdote about the day Anna was born. He starts with, "Your mom looked at the calendar several months before you were born and decided May 1st looked like a good day to have a baby."

AWESOME.

But no way. I remember my mantra "38 weeks" worked. But fixing an exact date? C'mon, John...

He insists. Says my friend Amanda will remember. Amazingly, I get her on the first try and she vigorously corroborates the story. She says when she found out she was expecting her third, I encouraged her to pick a date and give it a try. How obnoxious. No wonder I've blotted it out of my mind.

But now that I think about it, I remember my sister Kristin telling me how she shared my plan with her visiting teachers, who laughed, "you can't just pick when you have your baby!" and how she said something like, "If anyone can do it, Sharon can." Which, apparently, I did. And then forgot about it.

How could I forget such a triumph? I remember the name of my kindergarten room mom (Mrs. Case) the first several lines of the "Wham Rap" (be afraid) and the tune of the theme from the Rockford Files... but not this?!

What a waste.

Keepin' It Real

Remember the insomnia-fueled list of things I wanted done before our recent guests came for Anna's baptism weekend? And the follow-up list that mentioned closets and cleaning? Yeah, I didn't get it all done. In fact, I only finished the cleaning because one of my friends, who wishes to remain monogamous, showed up to help me out the day everyone arrived.

I was just stocking the guests' rooms with chocolate as my parents pulled up around 5:30pm. The girls got the door and I greeted them in tardy, sweaty glory, served dinner from the crockpot wisely set earlier in the day, cleaned up the kitchen and excused myself to shower before John 's parents arrived. For them, I was clean. And in pajamas.

Impressed yet?

The wingback chair still sits in the playroom, awaiting in tattered expectation its fresh new green upholstery. (The wicker dresser was sold in a garage sale.)

My closet purge, scheduled weeks ago, got put off until today. It took me four hours to pull dry cleaning plastic and weed out hangers from John's side, sort his wardrobe and mine. I removed winter items and replaced them with summer items, segregating piles for CCA and my friend Karen.

An entire section on the left holds the clothes I can neither fit nor bear to give away. Maybe seeing all the cute things I could be wearing will help me get back into them? Way back out of view are two dresses from another lifetime -- hot pink linen from our engagement party and lapis blue from our wedding day. A girl can dream...

My friend Amanda pointed out I can do stuff like clean out my closet for four hours because I don't have a two-year-old. True. So if you are a stay-at-home-mom whose kids still stay at home with you, give yourself a break. And remember that I welcomed my in-laws to our home in pjs.

Did I mention that the closet got done because my sis Karen is coming this week? Think how amazing this place would be with more regular visits.

Fantastic Handyman Steve

That's what I think Steve Yocum's business cards should read. But for some reason, that's not the way he went.


Some of the work he's done around here:

Removed and replaced the trim on two sides of the garage doors and beneath the kitchen bay window. This was John's favorite project. I think because the rotten wood out front was visible to passers by. Didn't get a photo of it (boring) but stop by and we can play "which side is the original?" Another little repair involving the whacked-by-friends'-kid-seven-years-ago stairway spindle was John's second favorite.

Laundry room overhaul. This involved manufacturing a double door to fit in the space where the dysfunctional laundry room door used to be -- the one that opened into the room, so you had to shimmy around it to go out the garage door, which it hit if you didn't catch in time -- and finding an acceptable way to install handles never meant for that purpose. I'd say he MacGyver-ed it, but that implies a lack of finesse. See how pretty?


Next, he hung a closet rod for drying clothes in the random air space next to the cabinet above the washer and dryer and installed wood rails with coat and backpack hooks. Fabulous! Functional! This was my favorite project.





The Big One: ripping out the hurts-my-eyes-in-more-ways-than-one flourescent lighting box above the kitchen island and replacing it with can lights.


The Twister board on the ceiling was to help me visualize where I wanted the lights to go. I rearranged them several times. Fantastic Handyman Steve did not get annoyed. Ugly old lights came out, stuff got wired, gaping hole was filled in, new holes were added, then mudding and texturing and retexturing and painting until the ceiling looks like it's always been that way.

LOVE the new look, but not gonna lie: even with ET plastic sheeting dust kept settling for days.




So worth it.



Now check out this beauty. This is where John was rocked as a baby. And where I rocked my babies, if only symbolically (antique = beautiful and small).

The left arm had split and broken off. Several of the spindles beneath the arm had broken off, and the whole thing was creaky and coming apart. Steve carefully dismantled the arms, built up the spindle ends, drilled out holes for the newly improved spindles, repaired the arm (not sure exactly how, but it involved about 11 clamps of various shapes and sizes) and put it all together again. All the kings horses and men couldn't have done a better job.

He also fixed the garden gate (boring, no picture) put up the garage organizer system (come see it) and fixed two of my kitchen desk drawers held together with duct tape. He is coming back this week to replace worn and stripped doornobs with functional new levers.

So my projects are just about done and this is my report. If you've got projects around your house, give Steve a call. Just don't call him MacGyver.

Guests Coming

Sometime this afternoon or evening my mom and dad will arrive. Sometime this evening John's mom and dad will arrive -- unless they don't come until tomorrow.

I am mostly prepared. I only have to finish the vacuuming, mop the floors, make the guest beds, and clean their bathrooms. Anna has school at 8, Relief Society luncheon is at 11:30, and Costco is my only other stop.

It's 5:38 am. So I'm good.