Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Fashion and Fun

posted Tuesday, 31 August 2004
A friend wrote to me about her adventures in back to school shopping which got me thinking - Back to school shopping! Another thing I like about home schooling!

But even before home schooling, we have always done most of our shopping at the Thrift Stores. Underwear and shoes sometimes from Target. I have never in my life been able to afford to follow the styles, nor is it much in my nature.

I wish I could say that I am one of those people with such a great sense of style or personal flare that I can look great no matter where I shop. I am however, more the opposite, I would be a fashion disaster no matter where I shopped. Probably even if I had a personal shopper to help me. Possibly, even if I had a dresser to dress me. One of my gifts. Being less young and considerably less slim doesn't help, but is not the whole problem by far.

My girls are more talented that way, especially one. She has such a lovely, slender, graceful little body and terrific personality, that whatever she puts on looks great, simply because she is wearing it. She has some special indefinable personal flare. The other girls are just as pretty, have good taste, and look very good in lots of things, but she has that extra something. She even looks good in outrageous things which don't seem at all outrageous on her. On anyone else, they may well be ridiculous. One went through a period where she would not wear clothes from the thrift store. I didn’t buy her anything at all. couldn’t anyway. She was earning a little money, so once in awhile she got something for herself. Then she and a friend got a Bishop’s order to go to DI and get clothes for another girl. They had so much fun and found some cute stuff for so cheap, they both became thrift store shoppers. I don't know if she still shops thrifts, but she would look classy no matter where she shopped.

My children are basically humble and lovable. They trust that I do the best I can and know that money is a constant struggle. They don’t ask for much. For a while, one of my kids was duct taping his shoes to wear to church without saying a word about needing shoes. It took me a little while to notice, in fact, I think one of the other kids brought it to my attention. I was mortified. Poor kid. They shouldn’t be afraid to ask, just not too upset if it takes me a while to get it together.

Shopping for school clothes is one of the reasons I opposed school uniforms. “They” said it would make it easier and more equitable for poor families, but I didn’t see it that way. First of all, it would be at least a year or more before uniforms started showing up in the thrifts, so the poor people would have to buy new. Also, rich people can afford more, better fitting, better made clothes and even get them washed more easily, perhaps even pressed professionally, and so even in uniform, the rich kids and the poor kids do not look the same. Sacramento mostly went to school uniforms years ago, but you don’t see much in the thrift stores yet.


I love it when kids are happy and uninhibited. As long as they are not too loud, or rude, or demanding everyone’s attention. I am not easily embarrassed by children. I have walked a child-puppy to school, had my grocery cart propelled by a child under the basket pulling along with her hands (I know, not very safe), and only smiled when my daughters complained that a brother was practicing swing dance steps at the bus stop. I think people in society are a little too uptight. Relax, be happy, have fun. Share. We don’t need to scowl or have a poker face all the time. I don’t think we should be intrusive, but we could stand to be a little less inhibited. I wish I had more nerve. How many times have I been stuck in a long line and thought "Wouldn't it be fun to start a sing-a-long?" But I don't. Coward. Maybe someday I will. Of course, I cannot carry a tune in a bucket, so that's a slight problem. One time a couple of the boys and I were going out to the car at the fairgrounds singing The Song That Never Ends (Lamb Chop and Shari Lewis). We saw people laughing and smiling at us and that was ok. What was great was we heard a couple of groups pick it up and go on their way singing too!

Friday, August 27, 2004

Temple Hill - Joseph and I start a picture history

This morning Joseph and I spent a couple of hours up on Mormon Hill by Aerojet, the site of the future Sacramento Temple. We want to go every week and keep a photo journal of the construction. Joseph is doing serious photography and I am playing around with my Sony Mavica wishing I were as cool as my talented children. The site is a large area on top of a hill where there is a meetinghouse, known as Mormon Center. The temple will be built next to Mormon Center.

The site now has various recreation facilities

incuding baseball diamonds,
picnic areas (see the wild turkey?)
and (somewhat dilapidated) tennis courts. (sorry no picture, yet, ahhh)
I don't know what will happen to the picnic and play areas. I hear that the baseball diamonds will be taken out. At least one of them. It is a little too close to the temple.

This is a picture of the site from the building in front of and between the two diamonds.


Joseph visited with the construction superintendent and the architect who were glad to answer questions. The superintendent went over some of the plans with Joseph.


The superintendent showed us the centerline he marked in the parking lot which will be in the middle of a long walk way down the center of the parking lot right to the temple doors in the middle of the temple.


This is a picture of the temple site taken from that marking.

The big tree on the left will stay, the others straight through, will pretty much all be gone. Where there is now the exit road going down around the hill to the right will be built up as part of the building site. The baptismal font will be about where you see the low grey stone wall on the right.

From the big old oak


The temple site seen from where you come around on top of the hill via the current entrance road. If the entrance (no doubt widened and improved, and maybe made two way?) is in about the same place, we will drive up and around the hill and be looking straight at the temple when we reach the top.


If this all wasn't enough for you, go to Photobucket.com, album barbarar, then Sacramento Temple.

Monday, August 23, 2004

Church breaks temple ground- Sacramento Bee

Church breaks temple ground- Sacramento Bee

posted Monday, 23 August 2004

Church breaks temple ground The Mormon facility in Rancho Cordova will be the seventh in California.
By Laurel Rosen -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, August 23, 2004

If his human spokesman provides an accurate representation, God must have a good sense of humor.

Gordon B. Hinckley, the 94-year-old man Mormons call their "prophet, seer and revelator," was in Rancho Cordova on Sunday afternoon to dedicate a new Mormon temple. Along with his prayers, he made a few jokes.

"We ordinarily don't break ground for a temple on the Sabbath day," Hinckley said. "I hope the ground is soft, so we don't have to labor on the Sabbath."



The comment spawned a wave of laughter from the 2,000 people gathered in the Mormon Center, adjacent to the land where a 17,000-square-foot temple is to be built.

Once it's completed in about a year and a half, the Sacramento California Temple will be the seventh Mormon temple in the state, making California second only to Utah in the number of Mormon temples. The temple will probably become the 123rd Mormon temple in the world, Hinckley said, "depending on how conscientious the contractor is."

More giggles from the crowd.

Mormon temples are sacred spaces used for certain religious ceremonies, but not for routine worship. For day-to-day church activities and prayer, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints go to a meetinghouse in their neighborhood.

But for ceremonies in which Mormons baptize dead family members, or seal their marriages for time beyond life on earth, they must attend a sacred temple. The closest one is in Oakland, and some people at Sunday's groundbreaking said the commute has been a deterrent.

"The traffic is terrible," said Tona Wood of Fair Oaks.

"Living six minutes away (from the new temple), I won't have any excuse not to be here as often as possible."

For now, Wood travels to the temple in Oakland about once a month. It's worth the trip, she said, because inside the temple, "You feel like you're next to heaven. A peaceful, loving feeling comes over you, and you feel like you're next to the angels."

Only the most devout Mormons are allowed to enter temples. In order to be granted entry, they must come recommended by a church leader.

Church officials say they have about 80,000 followers from Stockton to Red Bluff - the area expected to use the new temple - and many were watching Sunday's groundbreaking on satellite feeds in their neighborhood meetinghouses.

Eric Hill, who traveled from Monterey to join his Citrus Heights parents at Sunday's dedication, said the new temple reflects the region's growing number of Mormon believers.

"It acts as a symbol of the strength of the Mormon Church in the area," Hill said. "It's a unifying symbol for all of us."

After a ceremony of singing, prayer and speeches in the chapel of the Mormon Center, church leaders followed Hinckley, president of the church, outside for the groundbreaking. Local Mormon politicians - including Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, and F.C. "Rocky" Rockholm, the mayor of Roseville - stood before a row of golden shovels.

Hinckley grabbed one, took a look at the tilled earth and remarked: "The ground has been broken up, so we won't break the Sabbath if we take a shovel to it."

Once again, the prophet's followers broke into laughter.