It gets complicated

It does indeed get more complicated.  So I shall back up and share how I met Jeff, my husband.

There was a really fun place for a all the kids to meet and dance in Mt Vernon, a few miles away.  Kids from all the smaller towns in the area would be there, it was safe back then in 1965! A bunch of girl friends and I loved to dance and scope out all the cute guys! I was 15 almost 16.  Well there He was the cutest boy I had ever seen❣ He even had long bangs like The Beatles, be still my heart!
I hoped with all my heart he would ask me to dance, there were at least a couple of hundred kids there so it was wasn't clear how this was to happen. Guys kept asking me to dance, friends, and finally the next to the last dance he asked me!  I was entirely too nervous but really relieved.  The last dance was the proverbial slow dance and that clinched it, I was in love! How all this fits into a inspired moment, you will just have to wait and see!  But looking back both Jeff and I and our adopted daughters know that Heavenly Father had his help in this.

We went steady for a year and a half, Jeff graduated and joined the Navy while I was a senior in high school.  Jeff's family had been attending the Mormon Church for a few years,and then his parents divorced and their attendance stopped. We eventually drifted apart life rushed on ahead for both of us.

I attended the University of Hawaii for a year in the late sixties.  When people say how cool the sixties were they must not have been there.  The Vietnam war, politics, drugs, free love etc. I knew kids that were killed in Vietnam, kids that ended up in mental health criseses, pregnancies, and all really nice kids too. It's like the world just went crazy for a while. It was a sad time for so many. So are there some things I regret, for sure, and that is why the repentance process was such a blessing for me when I did join the Church. I won't go into any more detail but know this I did have to do some soul searching and a lot of praying.

Moving right along I want to thank all of you that have made such nice comments and I treasure our times together.  I am so grateful for the influence you have had in my life. I love you!

More on the morrow. Xxxxx

a little explanation needed

It was rather late when I wrote last night and a wee bit tired, so shall try a little earlier this evening.

I would like to expand on the title of my blog.  When I was investigating the Church and having the missionaries over, they mentioned a fireside at the stake center. 'What's this about steak and a fireside, how cozy and food too'!  What a surprise to find out that the stake not steak center was actually a chapel where the different wards would meet at different times.  And then expecting to find a fireplace there, well there wasn't one!  Well that was my first exposure to a new set of Mormon vocabulary!

I grew up in an occasional church attending family, you know Easter and Christmas and a few other times. We attended a beautiful Episcopalian Cathedral, St. John's in Spokane. Wonderful stained glass rose windows, lots of candles, very formal and the Christmas Eve midnight service were so special to me as a little girl.  I was baptized there when I was around 6 or 7.

We then moved to Skagit Valley and as a teen took confirmation classes at the Episcopal Church here.
Always being a rather curious sort, I kept asking unanswerable questions!  I had always had a strong belief in Jesus Christ but couldn't get the definitions for God, they didn't make sense. Around 19 I even was going to be enter a cloistered convent, with the vow of silence, and become an Episcopal nun!  My heart was searching for a true connection to God and thought that that might give me that relationship I so strongly needed. Now I may be a gabby person so that would have been a real struggle, so tomorrow I will continue my journey with you.

Steaks and Firesides, what?

Well here goes, my second attempt at writing a blog.  My short attention span will hopefully not get in the way of my continued venture this time.

A little explaining might be of help in the who, what, where, when, and whys of this.

The who: my name is Mary Anne Komar
The what: wife, mom, grandmother, sister, floral arranger, painter, etc. and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and lover of all things in nature❣!
The where: Skagit County, Washington, USA and my imagination
The when: well right now with reflections of the past and insight into the future, and of course the present!

The whys: I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 'Mormon', but not a representative of the Mormon Church. I just want to share my thoughts of what that means to me and Have some fun too!

Please come and join me on this funny, sometimes poignant, spiritual journey, buckle up buttercups!