For this past week’s Come Follow Christ study we were asked to read some of the Psalms, 49-86. I especially love Psalm 66:5, which says “Come see what the Lord hath done.” Here is what the Lord has done for me in my life lately. This is basically another “Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real and Smart” post which I haven’t done in over 18 months.
A sunflower in my front yard flower bed! Every spring I think I’m going to plant some flowers in my flower bed, as well as in my window boxes, and then do some haybale gardening in the backyard, since I don’t have a garden plot any more in this Bungalow house after moving from the Cottage on the Corner. At the Cottage, I did plant a garden, but for two years in a row I haven’t gotten to it. I feel like such a slacker in not gardening, but I also don’t want to “run faster than I have strength.” (That’s a phrase from the Book of Mormon that has guided me well for decades, Mosiah 4:27). I’ve had a heavy load of other stuff consuming my time and energy. So to have a wild sunflower pop up in my front flower bed as a random volunteer plant is so sweet. It is a lovely reminder to me that God knows I love flowers in my own yard and delights to surprise me with one.
Lovely views on morning walks. I am getting better and better at going walking in the morning. I know it’s so good for me to have my eyes exposed to early morning sunlight and feel the fresh air and get movement. I love seeing the flowers and trees and plants and landscaping of my neighbors.
Earlier this summer, I was blessed with a walking buddy. I’ve known a girlfriend, Melanie, for around 15 years, through homeschooling on the Wasatch Front. She is an old school TJEder and LEMI philosophy believer. (TJEd is explained here, LEMI philosophy is here.) We each have seven children around the same ages. It is just so grand to have her move into my neighborhood in June so I can go walking with her. Who would have thought we would ever live in the same vicinity? When we first met we lived about 45 minutes apart. It just does my soul so good to have a walking buddy, to have a kindred spirit, another homeschooling mom of a large family who shares my same religious and educational philosophies. Included in our shared culture is a bunch of mutual friends as well. She really gets me! I have no doubt that God orchestrated both of us moving to live within walking distance of each other for His own reasons, including being able to go walking together and support each other in these last years of homeschooling the youngest of our children her two youngest and my one.
The Clarence and Etta May Jensen Hansen Family Reunion. This is held the first Saturday of August every year, ever since I was 12 or so. This year it was at the Orem UT Golden Corral of all places. Not very many people came this year. I was late in arriving. My aunt saw me walking over to our family group, saw that I needed a place to sit, and offered me her chair. That was so kind of her! I was able to then talk to some of my dad’s cousins. I sat by one of his cousin’s husbands. It was so wonderful to meet him and talk to him. It’s a second marriage for both him and my dad’s cousin. I had never met him before. He was just so kind and easy to talk to. Sometimes you just meet people and even though you barely met you feel like you have known them forever and can get trust them and be friends with them for the rest of your life.
Seeing my nephew hug his mom, my sister, after getting off the plane from his mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Austin TX. Besides the temples, and our homes, I can’t think of a happier place on earth than the SLC international airport where such a concentration of missionaries get to walk into loving embraces of family members who haven’t seen them in person for 18 months to 2 years. My nephew had 21 other missionaries on the plane coming home with him from that mission in Texas! On that beautiful Thursday summer morning, a huge crowd of families waited to welcome these 22 missionaries. The family vibe was so grand, I just loved feeling surrounded by it.
Blackberries!
My ministeree sister/friend invited people to come pick her blackberries. These are so yummy, as long as you pick the ripe, dark black ones. She’s the same friend who let me come pick two years ago here. I am always amazed at God’s bountiful world with fruit of the vine and bush, free for the picking. Despite my carnivore tendencies, I’m not ready to say that all plants are evil.
Being able to see cabbage in a garden, still growing. You might think this is dumb. I don’t care, it’s exciting for me! I have only ever seen pictures of cabbage in gardens, like in the Peter Rabbit stories. It was just so cool to go to a friend’s home for a political meeting, and see her gorgeous cabbages, rooted in the ground, in the space between the sidewalk and the curb, what some people call the “park strip.” These are just so beautiful, I feel like channeling Beatrix Potter and painting pictures of them!
Meeting Grandpa and Grandma Beck at BYU’s Education Week! These are the people behind Grandpa Beck games. I got to talk to them at their vendor table at the BYU Store. They are both super personable and talked to me for a long time. I’ve played some of their games, Cover Their Assets and Skull King. My grandson loves Skull King. I was thrilled to realize that if I got the Expansion Pack for Skull King, that would make a unique and thoughtful gift for my grandson’s upcoming birthday since he loves Skull King. He’s been playing it since he was 6 and seems to have a knack for the strategy that I haven’t even grasped. So I’m super excited to give it to surprise him with it next month! Grandpa Beck told me that games are better for family time than movies, because you are interacting more. I totally agree with him! It was fun to talk to him and find out how he got started making games. More on that later.
Thrift hauls! I’ve been blessed to find a a handful of pretty clothes and lovely books. I even got to go thrifting with my sister, Emily, from Maine, my married daughter, my youngest son, a nephew, and three nieces. How delightful to spend a random Monday morning going through picture books at the American Fork DI (Deseret Industries) chatting about whatever memories and ideas the books stirred up, with my sister and daughter. I found some grand goodies. More on that later! The books above are what I found that magical thrifting morning. Another Reader’s Digest Songbook, hooray! Then the stuff below is what I found the previous week at the Provo DI.
Much needed bigger clothes. Unfortunately, despite my efforts at eating intuitively, mostly keto, since I stopped being strict carnivore in May 2023, and walking 20 miles or more every week when this past summer started, AND doing strength training usually 2-4 times a week, since mid June, I have gotten bigger and can’t fit into most of my much loved clothing anymore. Arrgh. This is the third time since I lost 70 lbs in 2015 that I’ve gained half the weight back. I’m about to embark on a strict protocol again to get back down again. I had a day where I was wondering what I would wear the next morning because none of my pants were available to be worn and life was too hectic to wash more. I have a sister who lost weight (80 lbs or so) over a year ago. The same day I was thinking of that, she got a prompting to clean out her closet and get rid of her “fat clothes.” She said she had no plans to do it that day, and then she found herself cleaning out her closet and didn’t know why. She texted me and offered me some clothes and of course I took her up on the offer. I really wanted some black capris and those were in the big bag she brought over! I had found some last May for a thrift haul but they didn’t quite fit but these ones from my sister fit perfectly! What a great blessing from my dear sister! It’s just SOOOO interesting and maddening how the two of us got the fat genes of the family tree (my dad’s side) and my other sister doesn’t have to think about what she eats AT all EVER and stays as thin as a runway fashion model, because she got the thin genes on my mom’s side. Same with my mom. (I’m not jealous at all, LOL.) Let’s just say there is such a thing as genetics and insulin insensitivity and more at play than meets the eye.
Seeing interesting books to read to add to my TBR list. See to the right and below.
Celebrating my wedding anniversary at a restaurant my husband and I dined at when we dated, over 35 years ago. This date in March 1991 involved going to a Cinderella Ball after dinner, at La Dolce Vita in Provo UT. That date has a providential story behind it, which I’ll have to blog about another time. The restaurant we returned to wasn’t the actual building, but next door. It’s Utah County’s best Italian restaurant. If only we had just watched the movie Solo Mio that night, it would have felt so harmoniously perfect. We saw that one back when it came out last spring.
We celebrated our anniversary over three days. Other years we’ve done more activities in 3 days (like here), but this year with time and money restraints this is what we could fit in this year:
Day 1: we had a party with my children who were currently living in town, eating pizza and reading books together. I brought a gift of a new book for each family member who was there. This was a reading-in night which I used to attempt every week when more kids lived at home. (See point #4 from my list over here.)
Day 2: we attended church in the morning and had a family zoom birthday party to include the out-of-towners. Go here to see how we did it.
Day 3: We saw the new movie The Brink of War from Angel Studios in the movie theater. Of course it’s romantic to sit in a dark room and hold hands with your husband, but the topic of the movie itself was not super romantic. It was still interesting, though, especially since we both like to study history and politics and were alive in the 80s. There was a tiny bit of romance in it showing the marriages of the Gorbachevs and the Reagans. I enjoyed the actor who portrayed Raisa. She was fun to watch. The one who played Nancy didn’t get to have any fun with her role, although she did a good job. The most interesting thing she got to do was talk to Ronnie on the phone while in bed, then read a horoscope article in the newspaper. I kept hoping she would fly out to Rejkjavik to be part of the drama and show up Raisa but it never happened.
It was cool that the movie used real dialogue from the actual event. Anyway, after the movie we went out to eat at La Dolce Vita.
I loved wearing my pretty, summery new dress, shown above, that I got at the Provo DI back in July for only $6. (See July’s thrift haul here.) It is Old Navy brand. I have noticed a recent pattern in that all the super cute clothes I have found thrifting in the past year have been Old Navy. I am loving those clothes! So now I’m on the lookout for more. The pineapple top and the flowery dress in the thrift haul photo a few photos above are some examples.
I listened to the Power of 8 book in July and August and did the seed experiment at the end with my new Power of 8 prayer group. It worked! Seed A grew 6 inches and the Control Seed B did not grow at all! Amazing confirmation of the power of words and intention!
For the Shumway Sisters’ Book Club I listened to this fun book above. It was so delightful. Kudos to Courtney Walsh for writing such a fun, clean rom-com that is also not complete brain cotton candy. It does have some brain meat to it.
Losing my glasses and then finding a surprise new identical pair which I have no memory of buying or storing away. I lost a pair of glasses and looked and looked for them. I couldn’t find them. Then another day I was looking for something else and found an identical pair that I had forgotten about in a place I have no memory of placing them. So hooray for that! It’s almost like God just put a new pair for me in that nook under my bedside table. Maybe He did. I have no memory of buying two identical pairs. This is possibly a miracle!
Being able to play Huggermugger with my sister, niece and nephew! Almost every time I see sister Emily in person we get to play Huggermugger. It’s a fun word game from the 80s that I found thrifting, which we both adore. It was fun to see my nephew’s sketching on his paper after he played the game. He’s an animation student at BYU. He’ll graduate in spring of 2027 so hey that’s another reason for Emily to come to Utah so we can play Huggermugger again!
Helping my mom dejunk. Another thing that often happens when Emily visits is dejunking for our mom. Emily turned it into a full-blown family project with her husband and children helping. I helped my mom let go of a bunch of old calendars, papers, and address labels and masking tape that is impossible to use. I took two boxes of stuff to DI for her. While all the females left to do the activity below, my amazing brother-in-law, Em’s husband, stayed behind to clean up the mess. Bless that man!
A Pride and Prejudice movie party with my sisters, nieces, daughter and son-in-law. This was my son-in-law’s first time experiencing any form of Pride and Prejudice, book or movie. We watched the Kiera Knightley version. He and my daughter, named Virtue on this blog, got a movie projector last month to use in their huge basement rec room. They show the movie on the blank wall. So that’s how we watched it for this party. We started watching it early in the evening at 5:15 even though not everyone was there, because Emily had a commitment to get to at 8 PM. When my other sister arrived, we three sisters sat out from the movie to catch up on our news. It was so great to be with both of my sisters, first time in over a year, and chat with them. Then another niece came late after the movie was over. I got to talk with her, my daughter and son-in-law about which P&P version is best. Virtue and I prefer the BBC version, niece prefers the Kiera Knightley one. My son-in-law made an interesting point that I had never thought of before, which is, was Darcy really being noble in paying for the wedding of Lydia, or was he doing it just to get Elizabeth to like him? After all, he does say, “I did it all for you,” to Elizabeth. Now I want to read the book to examine all the details in the book.
It was also my grandson’s birthday that very day. We had already celebrated a few days before with his uncle and cousin, and then we would celebrate again at a party later just for him. Even though we didn’t have cake or ice cream that night, my daughter gifted my grandson his main present, the ball tower below. She said she got a ball tower for him because she remembers that her younger brother, Venture, got a ball tower when he turned one 25 years ago. I just love hearing that my children remember little things about their childhood involving joyful things like birthdays, wholesome toys, free play, and books. They don’t talk about these things all the time so when they do I treasure it up as a joyful memory. This was also the day Dolly Parton died so I’ll always remember that. I had just been talking about Dolly Parton the Sunday before with some of my in-laws. They said if she were to be in a concert they would go to it. Anyway, It’s fun to see my daughter’s crunchy mom puristy principles come forth in getting a wooden ball tower instead of the Fisher Price plastic one I got 25 years ago.
Speaking of Venture, I felt extremely blessed that he traveled safely from Kentucky back to Utah two Sundays ago. He had been in Kentucky on an internship studying exercise science and is now back in town to attend BYU for fall semester. He drove that long road trip in two days! I was thrilled that he thought to call us in the evening on Saturday while we he was visiting Adam ondi Ahman on the way. He then drove more until late at night before he found a place to sleep in Nebraska. Then he drove to Utah the next day. Such long days driving makes me worried that he might fall asleep at the wheel. I’m so grateful he arrived with daylight still left, the next day, on Sunday, after a safe trip, to see my parents, some of my siblings and some of their posterity at the family dinner and birthday party for his brother, cousin, and nephew. They each have a birthday on three successive days in row in August. My son, nicknamed Bugsy, turned 17, my niece turned 13, and my grandbaby turned one. So we sang happy birthday to all three with one candle for each in a tub of ice cream. My birthday boy requested chicken enchiladas, for his birthday meal, which we made together after church earlier that day. It was a big hit at the family dinner! Thanks to the Pioneer Woman for the recipe in her red cookbook.
At the party above I found out one of my nieces, Sarah, shown below, has a business selling cloaks and other fun stuff for medieval cosplay and role-playing. She quit her previous job and does this full-time with her amazing husband, Scott, also shown below. Check out their site here and get some fabulous birthday and Christmas gifts for the LOTR and D&D fans in your life!
Jury duty got canceled! I got a notice in July that I was being summoned to jury duty for August and September. So I filled out the online form, then got notice that I was to report in SLC on 8/31. I was gearing up for the grim task of having to get up early, miss out on a day of normal work and play, driving up to SLC and back with all that traffic, having to hear about stuff I don’t want to hear about it, and being gone all day. Then I got notice that the hearing was canceled so I didn’t have to come. Whew! Much as I am willing to fulfill my civic duty, it’s nice that I didn’t have to. I am still on call for September so we shall see. Why is it that my husband who has a legal brain and training never gets called for jury duty and it’s happened to me twice now?
Virtue hosted a Peter Rabbit birthday party for her baby who turned one. It was just another little God wink/surprise that He blessed me to find these Beatrix Potter mini board books in my neighborhood Little Free Library the week before the party. I traded in books to get them and gave them to my daughter to use as decorations. Her party would have looked beautiful without them, but it was just fun to have more Beatrix books.
Especially since I had just been wondering, a few days before, where the four Beatrix Potter board books had gone that I had bought for my firstborn over 30 years ago. I guess I gave them to DI during one of our moves. So this was just a little nod to me of God saying, “I heard your wondering in your heart about those books, so here you go…here are some to replace them and your grandsons can now enjoy them.”
I totally enjoyed this birthday party, talking to different family members and friends of my daughter’s little family. It did my heart such good. When I first got invited to it, it looked I wasn’t going to be able to go because I had a prior commitment. I’m so grateful I was able to shift things around and go.
Just like with her Winnie-the-Pooh baby shower that she had last year, Virtue had darling themed signs that detailed the food being served at the party, courtesy of an etsy shop.
The lavender lemon tea in the drink dispenser below was so yummy, without any sweetener. I’m going to get her recipe.
She had the cutest birthday cake: a cheesecake with a blackberry topping. She also used a cake topper that she bought for her wedding over 8 years ago.
It’s really wonderful to see my daughter excelling at things that I yearned to do but never did well. I remember wanting to do a nice birthday party with decorations for my children but never felt like I had the time and money to do it.
I was doing well just to get a cake baked, gifts bought, and string a “Happy Birthday” banner across the living room window, and maybe some balloons. It’s so marvelous that my fantasies get fulfilled in succeeding generations! (If the book A Lantern in Her Hand were a movie, I would cue that soundtrack right now.) Baby Grandson looked so adorable in his blue short-sleeved sweater outfit and his sun hat tied around his neck. My daughter is living up the old-fashioned Little Lord Fauntleroy clothing aesthetic as much as she can before he asserts the desire to wear other stuff, like his older brothers have already done.
To top off the month, the same day as darling grandson’s darling birthday party, I watched the closing ceremonies that Bugsy was in for the Heroic Youth Quest and Summit. Our family has been part of this since he was born. One of his older brothers, Honor, attended right after Bugsy’s birth. I remember babywearing Bugsy in a sling when we went the following year as his older siblings participated. Hopefully next year my grandson will participate as he will be 8 years old, the minimum age. Then we will have two generations of Shumways there.
This past summer has been a mixture of laughter and tears. I’ve dealt with some heavy things. So all these wonderful things I’ve detailed above have helped to ease the pain and bring more light into my life. I know the Lord numbers our days. He lends me breath and strength to arise out of bed, to work and to play, to bless others and to be blessed. See Mosiah 2:21. I remember hearing from a young mom in a church meeting her story. She said she had a period of time when she was so sick she couldn’t get out of bed and walk, for weeks. She treasures her ability to walk more than ever now after getting better, to get out of bed and get to work. That story helped me too feel so grateful for my ordinary life of work and play, despite my burdens. I keep reminding myself, it could be worse!
I also give praise to God and gratitude that a huge blessing I desire is on its way, as one manifestation of the greatest power of Christ that has yet to be revealed. As President Nelson has said in this talk, “In coming days, we will see the greatest manifestations of the Savior’s power that the world has ever seen. Between now and the time He returns ‘with power and great glory, He will bestow countless privileges, blessings, and miracles upon the faithful.” I so look forward to these privileges, blessings, and miracles!
That is what the Lord has done in my life for August 2026. Praise God for whom all blessings flow!
