A miraculous blessing

I am now a temple volunteer gardener! Just typing that makes me want to pinch myself. It happened in the most normal way possible. Our ward was asked to provide 3 sisters to help one random Tuesday this month. I quickly signed up. After that day was over the head gardener could see how excited I was to be there and asked if I would be coming again. So, I've been going ever since. It's combining two of my greatest loves - gardening and the temple. This past week I must have "passed the newbie test" because I received an official gardening volunteer t-shirt. I don't think I deserve it, but I am beyond thrilled to have it.

On my first time I learned about the styrofoam they have beneath all the flower beds at the temple. I found that out because I found a lot of it in one of the beds and asked. The next week I found a miniature Daniel Tiger on the south west lawn. They are going to make him a mascot and attach him to the 4 wheeler mule they have. LOL. 

This past Tuesday I just found a whole lot of cigarette butts and a Mountain Dew bottle. I am very vigilant about picking up anything that shouldn't belong on the temple grounds while I am there. I am shocked at how many little pieces of plastic find their way in. It's weird. Anyway.....here are a few fun pictures I've taken over the past three weeks. 

Also, this past week the Linden trees were blooming and they smelled so, so good. I also got to do the thing I've always wanted to do at the gardens - deadhead the peony's and roses. Wahoo! I can't wait to see what I'll be doing next week. I'm really hoping I can work in the north east plaza (every garden bed has a name). I also went underneath the temple to the gardening office. SO COOL!!! They have a giant map of the temple grounds with all the flowers/bushes/trees and sprinklers marked. It's an organized persons dream. I totally felt like a VIP while I was there. I so don't deserve this blessing.

Great Grandma Ramona

Recently, I've been working on a lot of projects related to my maternal great-grandmother. I think I feel an deep connection to her because I knew her, and loved her deeply. She was a great lover of flowers and I think part of the reason I love flowers so much is because of her. A few months ago my great-aunt allowed me to borrow Great-Grandmas recipes. I used my scanner to scan them into my computer. I then uploaded them into FamilySearch so my entire extended family can appreciate and enjoy them. It was such an amazing project to work on. 

I have slowly been trying to making her recipes. It's been a lot of fun. Sometimes steps are skipped or the recipe name is missing. It's always a great adventure to try and figure out if I'm making the recipe correctly. This month I made one, of the many, bread recipes she had. It is such a yummy recipe! I've never known a bread recipe to include molasses, but my neighbor said it's a pretty common ingredient. I guess I'm just ignorant. Anyway, here is the recipe and the finished product. I only wish Great-Gma was here so she could tell me if I made it the right way.

Orderville

I've been working on some family history stuff the past couple of months. My great-aunt let me borrow a bunch of recipes from my Great-Gma Chamberlain. It has been a very sacred experience scanning all of them into the computer and uploading them into familysearch. Before getting the recipes I worked on digitizing audio tapes Great-Gma and Great-Gpa had recorded and also uploading them to familysearch. 

While I was doing these projects I heard some much about the town of Orderville. It's where Great-Gpa was born and raised and where he and Gma raised their kids. In my heart I just knew I needed to go down and visit. It's a 4 hour trip so I made a weekend out of it. Going to this city filled up my heart in a very intense way. It was also delightful to go to the cemetery and visit so many of my Chamberlain ancestors (there are 45 buried here). The funny thing is I also have ancestors here from the Heaton side of the family too. It is a very beautiful tiny town (about 500 people). Next time I would like to visit for even longer. I think Great-Gma must have been smiling and laughing at me while I was there. She was such a wonderful lady that loved genealogy work. 

They have this tiny grocery store there, so I picked up picnic food at ate in the back of my car. It was so much fun.