Good luck Ashley

Last fall, my daughter KristiAnne asked if we could help out Ashley, a friend of hers (she had met in the Church's Young Single Adult program) who would soon be homeless, due to the circumstances of the family she was living with previously as a nanny.

Ashley came to live with us until she could find another more permanent place to live, hopefully by getting a job and supporting herself. Given our wonderful economy, this did not happen, despite Ashley's fairly consistent attempts to become employed.

Given that Kristi is coming home from BYU Idaho in a few weeks, and would need the room Ashley was using, Ashley arranged to move in with her father in Tacoma WA. Her father brought a trailer down yesterday, and we spent a few hours loading her storage unit and the belongings she had at our home.

I was touched by Ashley's parting comments. She (and her father) sincerely thanked us for taking her in and caring for her. Ashley said the thing she would miss most about not living with us was the 7:20 AM family prayer.

As when Chelsa moved out, I feel like I'm sending off another daughter (so that makes four now). It hasn't been all roses, but she is already missed. It felt strange going to church today without her in the Suburban. Johnny was the first to voice his feelings, after our morning prayer, dedicating our fast to a father in need, saying "I miss Ashley"

She has truely blessed our lives during her stay at the Atkinson home. Since Ash was a fairly new member of the church, the Elder's were still doing follow up visits with her, teaching her more of the gospel on Tuesday night visits. The Elders also came over and helped with the move. We even had three Elder's quorum members show up at the appointed time to help out. Our kids have attended some of these discussions, and learned even more of the gospel. Its amazing the questions new members have that don't occur to life-long members to ask.

Good luck Ashley - we look forward to your weekend visits when you need to see your doctors here, or visit with James. Remember Amtrack has a low fare from Tacoma to Vancouver.

Neighbors and chain saws

Now, that's a gripping title, don't ya think.

That others may learn from my mistakes . . .

It all started as an effort to deal with complaints from John, our backfence neighbor, who thought our trees needed a little trimming. After a major facelift to the NE corner of our yard, we had a whole driveway filled with tree branches, blackberry vines, and greenwaste. I decided to use the chainsaw to make short work of the pile, get a little firewood for campouts and backyard firepit cookouts, etc.

Now, I'm recovering from yet another dumb injury. I'm feeling a lot like Tim Taylor lately. I trimmed the fingernail (and a bit of the finger), using my chainsaw. Turns out chainsaws slice through pine like a hot knife through butter, but bite into and pull birch like a vaacum beater brush too close to a powercord. Picture holding the homelite chainsaw in the right hand, holding the tree branch to be cut into firewood in the left. The branch was pulled under the chainsaw (with my hand attached, pulled in from more that a couple of feet to the left) within a split second.

The doctor I visited (at Misti's insistence) the following Monday said I was dang lucky to only have lost as much flesh and nail as I had, and that this would be painful for a while. They took x-rays to make sure I hadn't knicked the bone (yeah, the cuts were that deep). They did a cleansing soak and gave me a fancy bandaid and homecare instructions, oh, and a tentanus booster. Its a little painful even now, two weeks later, typing this blog entry. It's still bandaided, but mostly just to keep the nail fragments from snagging on things until they grow out.

I have a whole new respect for chainsaw safety now, and will no longer "hold" anything I am cutting with such a saw; probably common sense for most of you, but for a big macho dude, who sometimes gets a Superman complex, thinking the ordinary laws of physics don't really apply to me, well . . ., you get the point.