Friday, February 20, 2009

A Beautiful New Diamond Ring

Daddy brought me Nana's diamond a few weeks ago--I blogged about it. Well, today I went to a re-style show at Zale's and had it set! The setting is beautiful. It's a yellow gold band --wide like my wedding band--with a cathedral structure on the side. That means that the gold slopes upward toward the top of the diamond on the sides. The diamond is set down into the setting in a platinum 6-pronged crown. When the jeweler saw it, she exclaimed, "Oh, it's really old". Bobby says, yeah millions of years, I think. What she meant was that the particular cut of this stone is how they used to cut diamonds at the turn of the last century. Nowadays they put a bigger flat facet on the top--she said she thinks the cut of this diamond has much more fire. I'm going to post a picture on MyFamily so go there and look! I think it's really beautiful, and I think all would approve--Ma, Nana and Mother. When I look at it, I am struck at how many years it has been since I saw this beautiful diamond on Nana's finger when I was very little and taking piano lessons from her. I'm also struck that I'm at the top of the women in our family--ok, ok--the oldest. It's truly a bittersweet feeling. Of course, I would have preferred to see Mother's ring on her own finger--but, that's just not the way life is. I am really thankful that I have this wonderful heirloom from so many of my loved ones now gone--and I'll be the last one who knew all of them.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

A New Valentine's Day

When Hunky Bob and I were little, our mother, Grammy, made us breakfast every day. One of my favorite things was hot cereal, which she made alot. The one I liked best was Wheathearts, a cereal that I can't find anymore. You know how mothers say the same thing over and over again? Well, Grammy -- every single time she cooked Wheathearts for us -- said, I'm cooking Wheathearts for my Sweethearts! every time. I liked that, and loved the cereal, so it was fine with me. Valentine's Day was celebrated by making a heart-shaped cake and frosting it pink, or a regular cake and putting little candy hearts on it--something like that, and we knew we were her valentines. That's what Valentine's Day was for us. Until I had children, we didn't "do" Valentine's Day celebrations, but after they came along, I did the wheathearts for my sweethearts thing--until I couldn't find Wheathearts any longer. I also did the cakes with little candy hearts on them. They were my valentines. I hope they knew it. They also made me darling little valentines, and I loved them all. Bobby brings me cards, flowers, and silky things on Valentine's Day! It was a wonderful surprise the first time he did that. Now I know I have someone to share this day with even though my children have all moved on and started their own lives with their own valentines. What a terrific prospect! So, this year, my little valentine, Calysta, and I went to LA Nails and got our nails done, then my big valentine and I went to PeiWei for lunch. This evening I'm going to fix him a cold shrimp platter, a warm slaw salad and hot crescent rolls. It's small things, on a small day, but my heart is warm and feeling loved. Happy Valentine's Day to all my valentines.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Estelle

When I was about 9 or 10 my Nana took me to downtown San Diego to the apartment of a friend of hers named Estelle. It was in a high-rise apartment building (high-rise for the 50's) and I was very excited to go with her. Estelle gave me a book--it was a paperback book about astronomy and she had written "To little Linda with stars in her eyes". I loved that book and had it for many years--and I began a lifelong love of astronomy--heavenly objects in general. In fact I took astronomy many years later as a general education requirement, and nearly changed my major--I still loved it--I really had a knack for it--I had a high 90's average! I was taking evening classes at BYU during the fall semester in 1975 when Scott died--I took Eric to class with me one evening when we were going up to the observatory. I was VERY pregnant (it was just a few weeks before Jared was born) and the whole class held its collective breath while I climbed up the ladder and onto the roof. Eric looked at the moon and proceeded to go to every person in the class and told them, "Have you seen the moon? You need to look at the moon, you think it's smooth, but it's rough--you need to look at it!" He was so excited--everyone thought he was very cute (well he was, of course.) Back to Estelle--it turned out she was the mother of "Bill", the guy who started Alcoholics Anonymous, and quite acomplished in her own right. Nana really liked that lady. I remember a few years later when she died, Nana told me about it and wondered if I remembered her. I showed her the book--by then very worn and bent up--it made her happy--Nana was very big on self-improvement, studying whatever she was interested in, and felt that it was the duty of people to keep learning all their life--she believed way back then that if you keep your brain really active, you can put off "getting senile". The funny thing is, first we become our mother--I have gone past that and am actually becoming my grandmother. Daddy brought me a picture of Grammy taken when she was about 44 --wow! About the age of Amy (dubdub). Amazing. As soon as I get to it, I'll scan and post on MyFamily, and also photoshop.com.