Four Great Girl Generations

Most families like to take pictures of their posterity. They help us remember one another and the good times we spend together. It's fun to remember what we looked like at a certain age in our life. How amazing it is to see the resemblances we have with one another and the traits we acquire.

It is especially fun to see four generations showing great-grandparents, grandparents, parents & their child in photos. Here is one of mine showing my eldest daughter with her youngest and only girl, my mother and me.

Parting With My Piles

I must like piles because they are everywhere in the house. Piles of valuable hand-me-downs, abandoned crap, excessive purchases, memorable bric-a-brac and miscellaneous what-nots hang out in most rooms. There either isn't a perfect place or isn't room to fit it in. Maybe it's that I can't decide what to do with each sentimental piece.

Mostly ignored until company is coming, then this unclassified clutter has to be dealt with. Rooms that guests don't enter get piled higher and higher of these so called 'must keeps'. When the offspring come home to visit I'll say the classic, "One of these days, this will get tossed." It never happens.

How to convince myself to let it go. The best cure is to have someone else do the deed, where the attachment doesn't exist. Having friends clean out each others homes might work, but would the relationship endure. Imagine the accusations. "You threw out my special Valentine card from third grade!"

Why not hire a maid service? Is it the money or letting them see you at your worst? Probably both. I could muster the courage to 'Do-it' my self. I dream of the biggest garage sale ever with dollar signs in my eyes. Like that will ever happen, but think of all the money to be made. My biggest fear is that when no one is looking, I would haul half of it back to the house.

Shall my kids conspire while hubby and I go on a weekend getaway? More than a dozen times my siblings and I attempted dumping my own mom's crap, but to no avail. She would drag it out of the trash saying, she needed it.

A clean break is the only way to part with my piles. This is a perilous situation.

Help, I'm Hyper-sensitive

On occasion I go through a hyper-sensitive frame of mind, where absolutely everything bugs me. I can't even stand myself during this period. It’s not easy to reign in these feelings, that cause me to react to common stimuli so negatively. Often, I resort to slamming doors, verbal innuendos and throwing things. Normally, the same irritants are ignored or unseen. You could say my 'annoyance radar' is fairly low most of the time.

When I'm 'hyper-so-sensitive' little scraps of paper/string etc. on the floor, the common counter clutter, a caller that talks slowly on the phone, my mother repeating the same phrase for the fourth time and so on make me crazy. Driving becomes more frustrating, if the car I’m following isn’t going fast enough, its a clunker or an old style, I'll change lanes. I want it out of my sight. My mild mannered hubby can irritate me, if he doesn’t remember to do his chores, forgets to help out more or does some other minor infraction.

What causes this 'Out of my mind' feeling? Stress, temporary depression, lack of or disrupted sleep, trying to do more than is humanly possible. Having guests over also removes the blinders I have of my home's condition. It opens my eyes to every ugly detail, thus become keen to distractions.

It only lasts for a few days. Deep breathing, exercise, sleeping pills and self-talk get me out of this funk. I'm little Miss 'Go With the Flow' the rest of the time, or not! It all depends on the external forces.

Temple in the Tiny @Temple Square

Miniature building representations are becoming very popular. It was just a matter of time until a tiny replica was made of the interior of the Salt Lake Temple. Recently the unveiling of this look-alike structure down to the minutest detail was celebrated. (Notice the unique view of the 'real deal' in the background of the photo.

Opened 360 days of the year and boasting over a million visitors, Temple Square probably has more than a few hundred thousand people wondering what the interior of its gemstone, The Salt Lake Temple, looks like on the inside. Stop by to take a peek at it in the South Visitors Center on Temple Square. It's open until 9pm.

While there, take in a free concert at the Assembly Hall (Saturdays @7:30pm) or the Brigham Young Park (Tues & Fridays @7:30pm). You will put your wonderings to rest after you see the Salt Lake Temple in its tiniest form.