Dear Kids,
           This was going to be my last week at the cabin, and then my lungs were going to be healed, and I was going to take up my life back in West Valley again. Sadly, that isn’t going to happen. I’m fine here, but when I go down there, it isn’t long before I’m gasping for breath and reaching for my inhaler. I’m not very sad about having to stay here, but it’s so dang quiet! Sometimes I go two days without seeing anybody at all! Every morning I hike up to Rocky Point, and I follow the same tracks in the snow that I followed the day before. (All the tracks are mine, except for some smaller ones that Jacob and Aaron made last Saturday.) At the top, I don’t even look at the view, because it’s the same as the day before. But the air is clean, and I love breathing it! And Dad comes on Friday night, so I have somebody to talk to for 2 days. I’m still going to West Valley Tuesday afternoons, and staying till after chess club on Wednesday. I used to teach piano to Angela Pham on Wednesday night, but now I’ve dropped everybody but Elise and Spencer Fulton and Kara McGettigan. I fit them in on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
           Dad and I are making a long-term plan that when he retires in May of 2012, we’ll sell the house in West Valley and buy a house or a condo in Heber Valley. We can’t live permanently at the cabin because there’s no storage space, no place for our computer stuff, no place for my library, and no place for my grand piano. So we have to have a house, and of course, the cabin has to stay a cabin. Last Sunday we drove around Midway and looked at some of the places Donna had showed me on Friday. There are some great possibilities there!
           I’m sorry I’m not cooking Sunday dinner this weekend, but our demolition is going full-scale, and we’re sealing off our construction area with plastic. Right now the construction area is around the fireplace, so it’s going to be cold this weekend. Plus, there’s grit everywhere. I’m hoping I can do dinner in March.
           In case any of you didn’t hear, Steven Allen is engaged to a young lady named Christie Peterson. They’re getting married May 26th in the Houston Temple. She’s working on a PhD in British Lit at the University of Michigan, where Steven is also a graduate student. We’re very happy for them!
           Life is good! I love you all! Mom