Are you on THE LIST?

List?  What list?  I am sure you are asking yourself if perhaps you missed a good opportunity to sign up for something special.
Oh, it's a special list, but you don't just sign up, you have to earn your place on this list.  The name, you ask? It is :
DID YOU GET MONO FROM BARB?  How many people can be on it?  Well, way more people than want to be on it!  Here it is, broken into two catagories :

DIRECTLY             INDIRECTLY

Jenny                  James
Cindy                  Connie(Cindy's sister)
Brent

As this is a new list, we are just gathering names, so, if you think you should be listed, or would like to be, please let me know.

OLD FRIENDS

I was able to meet up with two old and, well, dear? friends this week.  It felt amazing and joyful to be with them again, as it has been many months since I have had any close contact with them.  They have been around but I have been too exhausted to have anything to do with them.
Their names, you ask?  Mr. Mop and Ms. Vacuum.  Now, you may ask how it is possible that I have not been in contact with them?  Not by choice, it has been a irritating, depressing, and tired time.  Which is why I actually felt joy in using them again to clean my floors.  Don't worry, other people have helped out, so I did not have to clean a 6 month mess!  But to be able to do it my way, to feel a tiredness from working, was so wonderful!  I even had a short visit with Mrs. dust rag.
You never realize how much satisfaction you get out of daily chores until you can't do them, and I am grateful for this past week, no matter what next week brings.

Look Laura, I am posting!!
Here are a few pictures that I have taken in the past (gasp!)
2 months since my last visit here. I will post more as soon
as I figure out what new and difficult things they have added.




I love this picture, matching daddy/son clothes, and Bryce is
actually clapping in rhythm to his mommy's drumming!

We have discovered a wonderful way to include the entire family
during our Family Home Evenings. I LOVE seeing the Allreds. I think
that's Kyler on the screen. . .






Stef invited us to one last "business" lunch at Mango's,
Bryce apparently is like his Aunt Laura, and loves guacamole.(And sour cream)






My "sister" Cindy shared a fun, hilarious really, afternoon with me,
finishing the cleaning of the attics at my Dad's. We got our exercise that day just from laughing,
we found so many unique and special treasures, most of which we passed on to D. I.
I wish for everyone the chance to clean out an attic.

Jenny had a birthday and ate a pizza. Well, it was a girl's lunch and we all helped.

Prose and musings to follow soon, I promise!

Birthday dreams

February is a wonderful time for a birthday, and this year was no exception. It was a good day, I did what I wanted, (mostly) and I received SO many Happy Birthdays that the warm fuzzies were overflowing. I was told that the party was me themed, and after looking at the pictures, I am resisting being offended! (But it was a sweet day, thanks dear ones!)

The party games were, well, different. Bryce was not feeling the love, not at all.

But he did try Grandpa's party game. . .

The excitement was infectious.

And to all a good night.

Alive and Walking

Yes, It has been a very long time since I have written anything! Life happened, as it does, and writing, and other things, went way down on the List. My Morning Walk, something I have done for years, became almost an impossible task. I missed it, I missed the movement, the morning newness, the fresh air, the "therapy" my friend Michelle and I gave to one another.

I never quit entirely, but it had been months and months since I had made it out 5 days in a row. Notice I said had, because last week I did it! All five days, the entire route, and it felt great!

Photographs, Fishing lures, and Frogs

The title pretty much describes what is stacked in my Az. room/my computer space. It also represents the "last" of the tangible items from my parent's home. It has made me think, what will be left after I am gone from here? What will be the last things my children will let go of, memory makers, items that connect me to them? What do I want them to care about?
The three items in the title are, generally speaking, the things that most represent my parents. I could add a stuffed elk to the list, but I drew the line at dead animals laying around and it is stored at Brent's office.
My Mom loved pictures, she took pictures from teenage years on, but I think they are an extension of her love for people, family. She loved doing things, going places, and remembering them with photos. I am very much like that, even so far as her storage system, which was put them in a big box. Period.
My Dad was a lover of outdoors, woods, and told me once that he should have been a forest ranger. I never liked fishing or hunting, but I cherish the lures sitting next to me.
So, what would my family have to go through? Photographs, cookbooks, travel folders, waterglobes are not going away anytime soon, so they will be on the list. I hope that, like my mother before me, they remember me for my love of people and places. (Thank goodness for son-in-laws who have a love of fishing and hunting.)

Okay, So I have figured out that I am officially BAD at keeping up with blog writing, not reading other peoples, just writing. I am also a failure at returning emails, posting things on Facebook, writing in a journal, and labelling pictures. What does this mean? You might think that it means I don't like to write. Ha!! I LOVE to write, especially family things,so what's the problem? Yes, I am asking YOU, cause I don't know the answer! Why do my eyelids droop uncontrollably when I sit down at the computer to write? I need someone to invent a lovely tool that could take what I write in my head and put it on paper/computer.

Beyond that, life in the Allen household is moving along steadily. I am bringing more boxes down from my Dad's that I can set in the Az. room and look at as I pass by everyday. Brent is bringing home more things to take to the boats in Mexico and placing them in the garage.

I did find something interesting in another box of pictures I found of my Mom's, out of all the comic books my brother and I read as children, she saved 5 that I guess she felt was noteworthy.

I don't remember reading these, I only remember a lot of Archie comics! It has been very interesting, taking out the emotional equation, going through the things they thought enough of to keep. I am going to try my hardest to weed out the garbage and only keep the items that mean something to me, hopefully with something written down explaining why I kept them.. Now we are back to the writing thing again. . .