greaterthansparrows

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of our signing the lease here and getting the keys.  We had waited on pins and needles for an extra week for the confirmation that our application was accepted.  We still didn't know what would happen with our house, we didn't know how we were going to make it, but we knew that the Lord had answered our prayers and opened it up. The sale of the house closed two weeks ago when the lease option was exercised by the parents of the mom of the couple living in it.  (Got that?)  The contract provided that they could be substituted if the young, resident couple couldn't get the financing they wanted.  (Well, the contract simply provided that they could be substituted, and we understood why that would be what happened, and then the grandparent couple will sell it to their kids when they get that worked out.)  The house is theirs. I drove through the block yesterday to see if the trees are out yet.  The cherry blossom...

I have to put these away, and I've promised that they will be organized and stored in the space waiting for them.  It's been a lift to my spirits to come in and sit down and see them spread around me.  But I have to get back to business, sadly. This one is very sweet, Geoff not quite three giving a kiss to his new baby sister Carole.  It softens my heart every time I come in and sit down and see it.  It was one that hadn't seen the light of day for a while. My column for the Nauvoo Times this week is about this whole experience of gathering photos .  It's called A Book of Remembering and you can read it here. The two pictures with my Grandmother Jeppson that are mentioned in it are here: and here: sitting out in the garden at Aunt Elizabeth's at our reception. When I was in college, I used to write letters.  Back in the day, we wrote letters on special paper called stationery, made to be pretty, and sent them off in envelopes with stamps....

I saw the caller ID on the phone, and recognized my second daughter.  She doesn't call often, so I picked up and said hello.  Happily.  She said, "Hi, mom, would you like to have lunch with me today?"  See title to this post.  I couldn't immediately process that question, since she lives almost across the country. "Where are you? Of course!" "Sea-Tac.  I'll explain when I see you, it's been completely crazy, I had this conference and was so slammed that the date suddenly arrived before I realized it."  She explained when we met why she had been so slammed, and I could understand.  She mentioned that she had said something about this coming up later, when we had talked at Christmas, but with no details it didn't stick to my mind two months ago. So yes, the only thing that couldn't be rearranged was at 4 p.m. and lunch wouldn't mess it up.  She said she realized as she went to the airport that she hadn't talked to us yet...