For years a very regular question, about an hour before mealtime was, “What do you want to eat?” I’d usually answer, “What’s on the menu?” That answer wasn’t quite what Nina was looking for.

Then we spent a couple of weeks in Arizona with our daughter Jaelene. It turns out she makes up a weekly menu. It was a great idea. The idea came home and is now in practice in our house! Once a week Nina makes up the menu, taking my opinion into account as well, and posts it on the fridge. I’m loving this! Now we both know what’s on the menu!

The assisted living center in Soda Springs where mother is currently living publishes a monthly newsletter and sends us a copy each month. She was the featured resident for the month of January. The writeup is mostly correct … she was born in Ophir, Utah. She was actually married on D Day, which was June 6, 1944.

She has come to rather enjoy the assisted living center. They treat her well. She has a nice room (well decorated thanks to my sisters!) and as much privacy as she wishes. Church is held each Sunday morning (a short meeting) along with Relief Society and Family Home Evening during the week, so she has good Church activity in her life. The only downside is that she has no transportation at all. The only way she can get uptown to do any shopping or other business (like voting!) is to ask someone to take her. She’s quite independent and doesn’t like having to ask anyone for anything.

Her eyesight has badly deteriorated and she can no longer read much of anything unless it is in very large print. This is difficult for a woman who has loved to read her entire life. She spend a delightful week in Green River, Wyoming with my favorite brother over Christmas and spent New Years with my sister Eileen in Sandy. She does get quite a few visitors … but would happily have many more visitors. She’s doing very well for an 89-year-old woman!

Click the picture for a larger image.

 

Amazon wasn’t very much help, actually. I got on a chat with customer service and gave them all the information that I had:

• The tracking number
• The name address it should have gone to
• The phone number at the address it should have gone to

But they weren’t able to figure out who should have received the boots. So, I called the number and talked with the woman in Arkansas. Yup, she had ordered the boots. She was wondering where they were as she had gotten a notice that they had shipped. She was particularly surprised to find that they had gone to Pocatello, Idaho!

So, I wrapped them up and Nina put them in the mail this morning. I sent that information to Amazon and they replied that they’d give me a credit for the postage on the package.

In the end, all is well. I do like my new slippers, though.

I shopped the after-Christmas sales for new slippers. Not much to be had. So, I ordered a pair online from Amazon. They, of course, had exactly what I was looking for.

Two packages arrived today, both shipped from the same fulfillment center. One had my new slippers. The other had a pair of might fine looking female boots.

It looks like the fulfillment center put two address stickers on the boot package … one with my address, one with the correct address. Of course, they came to me. Tomorrow I get the opportunity to check out Amazon’s supposedly amazing customer service. And, I’m sure the other person is rather interested in getting her boots….

On Saturday morning January 4, 11, and 18th we’ve been working with people interested in getting their amateur radio Technician Class license. About ten people have been attending the class and struggling through learning Ohms Law and the related mathematics.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to get ready to take the Extra class exam. And I’m also struggling through the mathematics! This time it has to do with figuring out phase angles, polar and planar coordinates, reactance, capacitance, admittance and some other kind if “ense”. I was hoping to be ready for the exam this past Saturday. I’m not even close. Online classes may be a help. Two that I’ve found include:

http://www.hamradiolicenseexam.com/ and http://www.hamclass.net/

The Ham Test Online costs $34.95 for a two-year subscription. The On Line Ham Radio Class is $99 … an almost 3x difference. Which is better? I don’t know. For now, I’ll start with the $34.95 price tag and see how that works. Maybe from there I’ll learn why phase angles for inductors is important.

While we were in Arizona over Christmas, we drove to Mesa to see the renowned Mesa Temple Christmas Lights. These are some of my pictures from that visit.

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I flew back last Sunday. Nina’s schedule had her coming back on the 9th. We had set it up that way in case the new baby was late arriving! I needed to be back to work on the 6th, so that dictated my schedule. On Allegiant, lots of options are available (at a price), including the ability to pay for the right to change a flight at no additional charge. We set Nina’s flight up to be changeable just in case the baby wasn’t here by January 9th. In hindsight, we should have set her up to come home the same time as I came, but still with the ability to reschedule her flight.

Allegiant worked well for us. We would do it again. I need, however, to total up all that we paid and see how the total price compares to flying Delta to Phoenix. I might do that calculation … maybe.

I subscribe to the Caribou County Sun just to kind of keep track of what’s going on in that part of Idaho. One section I look at in every issue is the “Pages From the Past”, particularly the 50-years-ago segment. At that time I was a senior at Soda Springs High School and occasionally I’ll see items about the sports teams, bands, or drama presentations back then. In the January 2, 2014 edition I was surprised to see my mother mentioned in the 20-years-ago happenings. The picture below has the entire article. Her part read:

… The musical program this year, for the second time, was in the form of a pageant… Arlene Smith was accompanist.

At that time twenty years ago, Nina and I were living in Pleasant View, Utah and I was working on a contract for the State of Utah. Mother is now in an assisted living center and not able to play the piano much any more. Times, they are a changin’….