Familial Research and Development

I believe I was in Junior High school when this event happened. Although our home was such a pretty bright yellow on the outside mom and dad had gotten it into their heads that they should paint the inside walls gold. It was a dark gold. It darkened in time. It made our home feel and look more like a cave than a home. The side of the house facing the street had NO windows to the front room. There were two bedroom windows facing the street. The one window for the living/family room was a glass sliding patio door with a curtain on it and a smaller window over the dining area table. That was it for natural lighting into our home. Fewer curtains. Fewer windows. Less heat loss. Lower maintenance. You get the picture. Mom and dad were both smokers. At one point in their lives they were very heavy smokers. I'm talking a full pack a day, each. Needless to say the smoke particles go somewhere--not just into their and our lungs. I don't know how many years (literally-not joking-mom had t...

Last Saturday, October 11th and the ‘exciting’ event of the day. It had turned winter cold-lows in the low 30’s and highs in the mid 40’s with a bitter cold north wind and a lot of clouds spewing forth sporadic snow flurries. Knowing the weather was going to turn bad, I had decided several days earlier that I would get the flower beds taken down for the winter. So Saturday morning when we got back from the Temple, I got my clothes changed and outside fairly quickly to begin the task. Since Ruth was in the house (David was preparing to come outside and mow the front lawn) I felt I didn’t need to lock my office door. Ah yes, you see where this is going I suspect! I grabbed the wheel barrow to put the trimmings and clippings and pullings into, trimmed the peonies down, the ‘Just Joey’ rose in the center of the yard, the miniature roses by the front porch and pulled every errant weed I could find as I went along. Well, just as I was beginning on the front porch flower bed out popped Ruth t...