Symphony with Mom

Mom and I went to the final concert of the Spokane Symphony Pops season tonight: The Brubeck Brothers. They played a few numbers such as "Take Five" that their father, Dave, made famous. He was known for playing with non-traditional timing such as 5/4 or 7/8 time. They also played some traditional jazz numbers and then some eclectic type jazz numbers. It was a nice evening - thanks mom!

Date Night with John

John and I went downtown for a date night. We ate dinner at the Davenport Hotel. John had the braised short ribs and I had the grilled salmon. Our meal came with a salad, bread and dessert (Davenport Sundae drizzled with fudge sauce and sprinkled with their peanut brittle). After dinner we walked over to the Fox Theatre to watch a special showing of The Sound of Music movie. Later that evening while walking to our car the cathedral bells started pealing. Seemed so appropriate after seeing Maria at the Abbey!

Administrative Week

After a wonderful week of nice comments, flowers and gift cards from my managers at work, I brought everything home for my family to enjoy. Kitty loves this time of year as she turns into "Jungle Cat" and sits amongst the floral arrangements and plants.

Mom Featured in the LDS Sentinal

By Craig Howard, News EditorShare: April 25, 2011 — Jacquie Gramlow has always paid attention to detail, going back to the days when she was a junior at Mead High School and began working as a bookkeeper for a local housepainting company.

Over five decades later, Gramlow still maintains a meticulous approach to numbers as the owner/operator of Grannie's Bookkeeping Service.

"I appreciate bookkeeping as an exact science," Gramlow said. "You know that two and two will equal four, not five."

Gramlow took subjects like typing, shorthand and bookkeeping in high school before receiving a scholarship to Kenman Business College in Spokane to study bookkeeping. Over the years, she has monitored the books for a variety of companies, including those run by her late husband, David, who passed away in 2008.


Jacquie Gramlow brings over five decades of experience to her self-owned company, Grannie's Bookkeeping Service. A longtime resident of the Bigelow Gulch area, Gramlow is a public notary and specializes in programs like Quickbooks, Peachtree, Microsoft Excel, Access and Word. Photo by Craig Howard.

Whether maintaining a carrot crop on 180 acres in the Bigelow Gulch area of north Spokane or selling pellet stoves through an original venture called Techniflame (which now specializes in RV and boat storage), David and Jacquie made a stellar team. The couple was married for 47 years. Their family includes four children and seven grandchildren.

Jacquie was born in southern Idaho and lived in Utah with her family for a short time before they moved to the Spokane area when she was 5. Along with a series of vast transitions to the local landscape, Gramlow has seen numerous changes to her career field, beginning with dramatic improvements in technology.

From the pre-carbon copy days of maintaining a bookkeeping ledger by hand to working with contemporary programs like Quickbooks, Gramlow said her work has become easier and more efficient over time. With a grasp of the latest in high-tech systems, she now specializes in helping companies as a bookkeeping consultant.

"It's really changed a lot," she said. "I remember a time when everything was done in ink."

Gramlow recalls the first computer her husband brought home in the mid-1980s. The device may have made bookkeeping easier but it was not about to win any awards for aesthetic value.

"It wasn't quite as big as the original IBM computers, but it was a monster," Gramlow said.

The stereotypical stress of tax season is something that Gramlow anticipates and deals with - pragmatically - each year. Part of her secret to dealing with anxiety is typical of her business strategy - remaining cool and calm while addressing tasks with a step-by-step approach.

"It's work that has to be done," she said. "I've been handed a shoebox of receipts before and told someone has an audit coming up. My job is to get things on the right track."

A public notary, Gramlow specializes in what is known as "full charge bookkeeping," including payroll, bank reconciliation and financial reports. She also organizes prevailing and non-prevailing state and federal reports on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis.

A member of the 15th Ward in the Spokane Valley Stake, Gramlow recalls a time when the Spokane Stake encompassed a sprawling region that included parts of Idaho and Montana and areas north to the Canadian border. Decades before the Spokane - or Seattle - Temples, church members would travel to the Cardston, Alberta Temple.

"I think sometimes people take the growth of the Church here for granted," Gramlow said. "It's really been amazing."

Easter

After spending so much time preparing for the Easter Cantata, we decided to take Easter Sunday a little slower and just enjoy a small meal at home after church. We made Ham Buns, Ambrosia Salad, Deviled Eggs and Texas Roadhouse Green Beans. Since we have not been to a Texas Roadhouse, cannot tell you if these beans taste like theirs, but they were mighty tasty:


TEXAS ROADHOUSE-STYLE GREEN BEANS
2 (16 ounce) cans of green beans, drained
2 cups water
1 TBSP sugar
1/2 tsp pepper
5-6 strips bacon
Onion, diced

Directions:
Place uncooked bacon into a skillet on the stove and cook on medium heat. Once bacon is cooked, add the onions and cook until tender. Add the drained beans, water, sugar and pepper to the pan. Bring mixture to a boil and then return the heat to simmer. Simmer until ready to serve.

Easter Cantata 4/22-4/23

For the last 4 months I have been attending practices for the Easter Cantata as I was asked to play the synthesizer. Since I had never played one before and I did not own one, it was a little out of my comfort zone! The choir practiced every Sunday for about 2 hours and the pianist, director and I got together a couple times for 3 & 1/2 hour practices too. Jackie Halversen did a wonderful job of directing the choir, writing the script, preparing the pictures for the slide show that played during the performance and arranging some of the numbers. There were a number of others that made the event go off so well, included my daughter. She was my official page turner and synthesizer-programmer. Some numbers had "voice" changes 3 or 4 times. Sometimes the synthesizer was a Guitar sound or Violin or Chapel Organ. Many of the times the "voice" changes happened when I was busy playing a measure of song. So Audrey had to follow where we were in the music and be ready for all these changes. She was also very helpful in the technical department. Not only setting up my equipment and speakers, but helping to figure out some issues we were having at dress rehearsal. It was an honor to be part of this wonderful program!!

The songs were: Let There Be Songs of Great Gladness; Jesus Once of Humble Birth; Behold Thy Handmaiden; Baby, What You Goin' to Be; Can This Be God's Son?; Jesus Was No Ordinary Man; Let the Children Come; A Child's Prayer / I Feel My Savior's Love; The Light of Christ; Take Your Rest, Dear Jesus; He is Not Here; He Lives!; and Jesus Paid it All.

Cupcakes from Ann

Aren't these the cutest you have ever seen? My friend Ann and her kids made them using marshmallow fondant. They were almost too cute to eat...almost!