What I Learned From....

What I Learned From....Being Hypocritical

        I know that i was the one who told everyone to be sure to keep up their blogs , because my dad (Grandpa Asay) really relies on them.  I'm exempt because I live here with him, but I know that doesn't help you all does it?  Sorry to you all, I just don't see anything interesting happening in my world.

        Of course a few weeks ago Tiel gave us a new Grand-daughter Bridget Janae.  She is just a little sweetheart.  That is a real blessing for Tiel since Annicka is just beginning to express her independence(loosely termed terrible twos).  Bridget pretty much only fusses when she is hungry or messy, and she has those same Lynch eyes that her sisters and brother have.  Don't misinterpret this to say that Annicka is anything less than adorable because she is only just too cute.

        You've probably heard me mention my To Do list.  Lesli thinks it is funny that she does not have to give me a honeydo because I keep it myself.  Anyway I've found that unless I write it down I never accomplish anything.  Like the Missionary handbook says "A goal not written is only a wish"  I never seem to accomplish as much as I would like to, but I guess any progress is at least moving in the right direction.  I sit at work all day and in the lulls think about what I want to work on when I get home, but it just never seems to actually happens.  I only accomplish on Saturdays, unless I work that day then nothing gets done.  No wonder I feel like I am always falling farther behind.

        Oh well poor me, I've got a great life with a good job, (PS Please pray for that to continue I do work for a GM dealer), I've got a beautiful kind and loving woman for my wife, and wonderful kids and grandkids. LG  Lifes good

What I learned from....too much technology

        So Lesli and a couple of my friends convinced me that I needed to start a Facebook account to stay in touch better.  I did it and now I'm expected to keep up with that as well as do posts here.  What was I thinking.  Then Lesli tells me I spend too much time on my computer.

        So how is everyone doing on their NCAA brackets? Go Tarheels.

        March 29 and we are expecting 8-10 inches of snow over the next 3 days. Good thing it's officially spring, any more winter could kill us.

        I guess I'm learning that I need to control my temper with the neighborhood dogs.  A couple of months ago I caught a neighbors dog in our garbage can making a mess so I chased it as hard as I could across the yard, only to pull a hamstring in my leg. I limped for a week. Yesterday, I caught a different dog in the garbage so I reached down and grabbed a piece of wood from the ground as I chased him. I let that wood fly with all I had and promptly hurt my shoulder. I've had the heating pad on it since then. Guess I just control my temper from now on.

What I LearnedFrom...Relaxing and Letting Go

First of all can anyone tell me where February went?  It was just here and now I seem to have mis-placed it. Oh well whatcha gonna do?   

When I was growing up I don't remember doing much traveling for the sake of travel or relaxing.  It was pretty much just to go visit family. There is nothing wrong with that, I did enjoy those visits and I appreciate the time with my family.  Consequently that is what my kids got.  We never really had family vacations, sorry girls.

Several years ago Lesli and I started hanging out with people who became our good friends Chris and Tony.  They believe in vacations for the sake of personal relaxation.  What a novel idea.  Anyway since September 2006 the four of us have taken three big vacations together and several short weekend trips.  (our girls were a little put out that we went to both Disneyland and Disney World without them.)  On these trips I have found collector pins for my hat so I wanted to to share my pins with you.  

The Disney pins are very obvious being the Grumpy pin from California and the guitar pick is for the Aerosmith rockin roller coaster in Florida.  There is a pin for the Seattle Seahawks (my team) bought at the stadium in Seattle.

Two weeks ago we visited Mount Rushmore so there is that pin and of course the wolf pin is from Yellowstone Park. Oh yeah there are my two A.S.E. recertification pins, not a trip but still important to me.

  My favorite pin though is the bat holding a guitar that is from The House of Blues Halloween 2008, that was the night Tony and I saw Joe Satriani. 

 

My first hat was from Disneyland and I found one in Seattle that I liked better, but I left it on Expedition Everest roller coaster in Florida, so I am on hat number three, but I really like my "Grumpy" hat.  I guess it goes with my Grumpy pin, tee shirt and Grumpy Miners baseball jersey.  I guess people assume I am grumpy because when I don't smile they assume my expression is a scowl.  Always worked great for keeping the guys away from my daughters.

What I Learned From....Joining the Weight Loss BandWagon

    I haven't said anything yet but I have been going to Weight Watchers with Lesli for the last four weeks.  It's nice to have a companion to support you and educate you.  In three weeks(four meetings) we have each reached our 5% goals.  I have to say it is much easier with that support, Lesli was out of town all week this last week so it really disrupts your routine.  When we are together I get a little more variety, without her I tend to just eat the same old things over and over.  Now she is going to be gone for another week.  I am so proud of her for doing so well while being away from home, she planned out what she could have and bought some stuff to put in her fridge in her room.  All this so she wasn't just eating junk and she stuck with it.  I find myself going in to the store to get a diet soda and looking around at what snacks I could buy, I didn't get them but it was still there.  Since Lesli wasn't there I pretty much went to work to the gym and came home to my room. Next week when she gets home I have to work that Saturday.  Too much time apart.  Anyway 17 pounds in three weeks yay me.  My goal is to get my blood pressure under control and to be around for my grandkids.    Love you all sorry for the pity party, just a long two weeks.

What I Learned From............Random Thoughts

        I have to say that it is so annoying to go check on the family blogs and see that some of them just seem to stay the same, no updates for days and weeks and end.  Then just at the height of my judgementalism (not really a word) I realize that I am a major offender.  So my apologies both for my frustrations and my own blog sloth.

        Last week we had a special stake meeting and they re-drew ward boundaries, and created a new ward.  Friends that we live a block away from,(the house that the Perkins used last June) are now in another ward.  The building that is less than half a mile from us is no longer our home building.  I mentioned to some friends from the newly created ward that we would be driving right past that building on our way to our new building,(the stake center where Grandma's funeral was), and he said they would smile and wave and they passed doing the same.  The best part though is that now Lesli and I are in the same ward as Grandpa, and Tiel and her family.

        Yesterday as I was pulling a couple of customer orders at work I got a phone call from Brittanny.  When I answered I could barely understand her she was crying so hard, knowing she was moving her stuff out of our house I was scared she had hurt herself.  When she calmed enough to explain that she was wearing a jacket that Grandpa had given her that had been Grandma's.  When she put her hand in the pocket she found a packet of the little tissues that Grandma always had and she just suddenly missed her Grandma.  Then she said, "I feel sorry for you Dad", when i asked why she said, "all the women in your life are so emotional."  So she was quickly under control and back to business.

        Well the next two weeks are going to suck. Lesli has to go to Wyoming for a week at a time.  She leaves Monday for Rock Springs, wont be back until Friday.  Then she leaves the next Monday for Cheyenne and wont be back til that Friday.  We have been doing Weight Watchers together for the past few weeks, so this will be a challenge for both of us, her to eat right while traveling and me to eat right while baching it.  Wish us luck. Bye til the next time I realize I have waited too long.

What I Learned From......Merry Christmas

    For Christmas this year I decided to do a stained glass for each of my sisters.  Each piece had an oval center with an etched design.  Nancy's has an iris with a bevel oval then purple and green accent pieces surrounded by beveled rectangles to frame the whole piece. I chose the iris because I can remember dad and mom having irises in the front flower beds when we were growing up.  The purple and green were to represent the color of the flowers and stems.

    Gails piece has a hummingbird in the center oval. I ringed the oval bevels with a yellow oval representing the color of a humming bird. Then the lower corners have a green streaked glass symbolizing grass and clear glass with white streaks in the upper corners representing the sky.  I chose the hummingbird for Gail because of the ones she has in Blanding but also I can remember them sometimes at the four o'clock flowers along mom and dad's driveway.

    Laura's ended up being square rather than rectangular.  The etched oval is a rose.  The fill around the center is all a deep red, obviously for the red roses that dad has always had in the front yard.  Plus Laura just did that post  about "Rose Town."

    I just wanted to thank my sisters for giving me the incentive to get back to doing some glass cutting and piecing it is fun to create. I hope that they enjoy them as much as I enjoy making them.

What I Learned from......Scottish Hospitality

       This post is mostly for my brother and sisters but the rest of you will learn a little about the woman who raised your Grandma Asay.  She was left a widow with 3 young daughters and then her sister died and so she took her children too.  My Grandma Wilson was from Scotland and kept her Scottish Brogue til the end.  She definitely would have qualified for assistance but she was not a lazy woman and made her own way.

       One of her later money makers was to lease and run the Clark Hotel in downtown Billings. A few days ago I was looking through the Billings Gazette and found a series of pictures of Billings businesses through time and one of them was the Clark Building.  The first floor was a hardware store but the second and third floors were the hotel.  She maintained an apartment on the second floor and had more long term renters on that floor as well.  Grandpa Asay also tells me that if the local bishop would ask she would aid people who needed it for a short term.  She started this all in about 1945 and kept at it until probably mid-to late 1950's. when she bought properties to rent out.  So that was the end of that. I can remember seeing the building when Nancy used to take us (Bob, Me and sometimes Laura) to the old library, now the Western Heritage Center. Then in the late sixties or early seventies the building was torn down and is now a pay parking lot.  Here are the before and after pictures.  Thanks for sharing this moment in family history.

What I Learned From..... the American Political Process

    Well another election is behind us and I would like to thank you all for all your support.  Even though my bid was unsuccessful (see the attached link) http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=370743&altf=Ebwje&altl=Btbz
I thank you all.  Even though I've read on some of your blogs about who you voted for I'm sure that I had your full support.  Seriously after I sent this link to some friends one of them told me they thought it was for real.

    Any way just wanted a little lightness, hope you enjoy it.  I try to stop by all of your blogs and am glad to see even the kids getting in on it.  I try to leave comments when I feel it appropriate and I enjoy your comments.

What I Learned From....Relaxing and Enjoying

        As most of you know from past posts and from Lesli's blog we recently returned from vacation at Disney World-Florida.  You can't imagine the reactions from some of my friends and associates when they find out we went to Disney with no kids. Let me tell you there is plenty to do there for all ages.  It was wonderful to see Lesli just relax and have fun.  She takes her work so serious that she forgets to have fun.

    Anyway just a few ramblings from the past couple of weeks.  We spent eight days "park hopping"  between the four Disney parks down there. Each park has it's thrill ride and we tried all the big ones, "Test Track" @ EPCOT, "Big Thunder Mountain", "Splash Mountain", and "Space Mountain" @ Magic Kingdom,"Hollywood Tower of Terror", and "Rockin Roller Coaster" @ Hollywood Studios, and our favorite "Expedition Everest" @ Animal Kingdom.  Most of them we did more than once. After the Tower of Terror another rider asked Lesli how she could scream that long without taking a breath.

    One of my personal favorite events was the concert that Tony and I got to go to Fri Halloween night.
On Mon Oct 27 we all had dinner at The House of Blues restaurant when I happened to look at their schedule of events and see that Joe Satriani was playing on Fri at the House of Blues Club.  Tony and I went to concert and were thoroughly impressed. If you haven't heard of him look him up, he is an incredible guitarist. I think one of the things that made it all so enjoyable to me was that since it was in a club I was close enough to see his face and he just had the biggest grin on his face the whole time like he was truly enjoying himself.  Nearly two hours of solid rock without a single lyric being sung. Trust me playing is his forte not singing.  That was after "Mountain" played for about an hour to open the show.  If you don't know who that is go to your "Rock Band", or "Guitar Hero" game and listen to "Mississippi Queen".  I consider myself lucky now to have seen 3 of my guitar heroes live in the last few years, Johnny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepard, and now Joe Satriani, and none of them disappointed.

Well now you get a glimpse of what I get excited about.

What I learned from....Wife says I need to post

        I had considered closing down the blog, just didn't know if anyone was paying attention.  So how about just a few random thoughts.

       This Friday we have inventory at work and when we go in on Saturday that will make my fourth straight week of six day work weeks.  I am tired and ready for a break but guess what, only nine days til we leave for Disneyworld.  I cant wait I need the break.  Sales have been slow lately and that makes for some long days.

        Yesterday was Lesli's birthday and she has already said that she wants to get her present in Disney, so I talked to our girls and had them each write a letter to their mother.  I asked them to just tell her what it meant to them for her to be their mother and maybe relate a favorite memory.  My girls did a marvelous job.  Lesli knows now just how much her girls love her and how much influence she has had on them.  When things would get rough she would doubt, but know she knows that she is loved and needed.

        This last weekend we had an early winter storm, started with a light rainy drizzle Friday night, heavier rain with some snow on Saturday and finally almost 2 feet of snow by Sunday morning.  Now here it is Wednesday night and the snow is gone except where it was plowed into piles.  My Dad takes credit for the snow.  He said that on his previous day in the Temple he had prayed for enough moisture to end the drought, so here it was.( I think that he was only half kidding, he has that kind of faith)

        Anyway it doesnt get much more random than this, til the next time Good Bye