Books I read July 2015

Is it possible I only read two books in July?  I've been busy elsewhere I guess.  The good news is, I liked both of them.

A Small Hotel ****
by Robert Olen Butler

This was a good one!

My only hesitation in recommending this book is that I know my sisters wouldn't like it.  It's not G rated.  Fair warning.

It was an excellent book though.  The writing was beautiful and up until the last page, I was holding my breath, unsure of what was going to happen and hoping against hope for a happy ending.

I won't tell you what happened.

It's about a divorce.  And a marriage.  It starts on the day of a divorce with lots of memories and flashbacks of each person.

So good.

A Patchwork Planet ***
by Anne Tyler

I always like Anne Tyler.  Her characters are impeccable.  I remember when I picked one of her books for book club and no one really liked it much.  It surprised me.  I guess she's not everyone's flavor.

This is about a guy who's kind of a loser (much like most of Anne Tyler's characters) but he's also very likable and he made strides and it made me think a lot.

What more can I want?

In progress

This is one of those projects that feels like it is never going to be finished.

The basement!

The good news is that it is painted.  I couldn't do the little bit at a time method.  It was making me crazy.  For one thing, it was very inefficient to get stuff out and clean it up every day.  For another thing, I just wanted. To. Be. Done.

Saturday Emma and Adam helped me.  Mark was just getting home from scout camp and unpacking and recuperating from that.  Braeden?  We gave him less dangerous jobs like going to get us lunch and mowing the lawn.

That kid and a paintbrush don't mix.

Here's a picture that really shows off how truly ugly that paint was.  (Emma wears an old referee shirt of Adam's to paint.)

Much better...

But then there's a problem, and it's called We Have Too Many Books.

Way too many.  We are trying to go through them and get rid of some and it is a long and slow process.  Also, I want them organized in a way that makes sense.  (Not by color...remember that disaster?)

The other day we were moving furniture back and Mark was maneuvering bookshelves and had a mishap:

This is the wall in the toy room...happily the holes are underneath a Canadian flag Mark has hanging on the wall--see the red shadow on the top of the picture?  Mark was mortified and disconsolate after the accident and Emma assured him that Canada had him covered.

So yeah, getting the basement rearranged has been all sorts of fun.  We may be at it for the rest of our lives...

In the meantime, there's one and only one part of the basement that is perfectly finished: the stairwell.

It's the small victories.

Remembering

Last Friday night we drove into Spanish Fork Canyon for family night at Mark's scout camp.  (Mark had a sunburned neck and nose and arms and legs.  He got zero sympathy from his mother who sent him with a hat and sunscreen.  Mark remember that part where you are super white and have red hair?)

It was great to see that kid though.  I think he grew while he was there.  Can a sunburn prompt growth?

When we were driving into camp, I saw Amy, who I knew in college, sitting on the grass.  I pointed her out to Adam and he agreed that was her.  Then I doubted myself because she looked so young.  Then I kept seeing her from a distance while we were getting the dinner ready (Adam and I lucked out and were on the food committee...don't be jealous!) and I was convinced it was her.  Finally, everyone was served and I went and found Amy.

I said, "Are you Amy Kondris?"

She stared at me, trying to figure out who I was, recognizing me, but trying to place me in the chronology of someone who would know her maiden name.

It all came tumbling back to her and we talked and talked and talked.  We reported on college friends who are still connected with us.  We tried to remember the names of people.  I met her husband and kids and introduced her to our kids.  She gawked at the size and age of Braeden and said he reminded her of Adam.  We had a marvelous time reconnecting.  We live in the same stake!

We told each other a brief synopsis of our lives.  We've both have had little blips of unemployment and heartache in life.  She told me about some of the friends she still is in touch with and about some of the good and hard times they've had.

It made me happy to see her, to reconnect and remember.

Later I was thinking about the old friends she mentioned, people I hadn't thought about in years.  I thought about the college friends I am still in touch with.  They also have had hard things happen at times.

Last weekend when Enoch and his family were in town, we all met up with Ammon and his family at a restaurant that is managed by one of Enoch's high school classmates.  It was fun to see him.  I was catching up with him and I asked him about his older sister.  A shadow passed over his face and he told me that his sister had passed away a year and a half earlier.

I felt terrible.

I guess what it all makes me realize and remember is that life can be hard.  The older we get, the more battered we can become.   There are no guarantees in life and if you think someone else has a perfect life, you don't know them well enough.  For that reason, I want to be kinder.  I want to worry less about myself and give everyone around me a break.

Mostly I want to get to the point where I don't have to keep reminding myself of that.

A tale to tell

My apologies to the heroes of the story if I get the details wrong, this story was told to me and I want to keep it and remember it and I want my children to go back and read and remember.

So hence the blog post.

Friday night and into Saturday morning, the young men in the stake where a lot of my family live did a 50/20.  They walked fifty miles in twenty hours.

Yes, you read that right.

They left at 2:00 in the afternoon and walked through the night.  At 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning they were going to be done, whether or not the fifty miles were accomplished.

You can imagine the motherly trepidation as Marianne and Jennifer sent their 12 and 13 year old boys.

Marianne went to bed on Friday night and at 1:00 a.m., Deseret called her.  She had been at a leadership camp and it was time to go meet the bus because they were home.

After picking Desi up, they talked about the boys (and Robert) out doing their walk.  Desi, who was somehow wired and energetic at 1:00 a.m., said, "We should go see them!"

Marianne declined, but Desi talked her into it.  Desi can pretty much talk her mother into anything but Marianne sort of deserves that because she was a very similar kind of teenager.

They stopped off at home to change shoes and drove out into the night, to find the walkers.

They met them at mile 36.  At mile 35, Morgan had called it quits.  And that is amazing.  He pushed himself to the end of his limit and Marianne was exceedingly proud of him.  (So am I.)

Robert and Hyrum and Isaiah and some others were sojourning along.  Desi aimed all of her considerable enthusiasm at them and it was perfect timing.  They needed the boost.  She encouraged them and lifted their spirits and walked happily alongside them.  Marianne was getting ready to head back home (after walking with them for 4 miles!) and Robert said, "You can't take Desi.  We need her.  She has to stay."

Desi, of course agreed.  She was just coming off a leadership camp (in the history of teenagers I  think kids always come home from something like that exhausted), but they needed her and Desi is as tough as nails.

Probably tougher.

Marianne left them in Desi's capable hands.  Early in the morning, she heard from Robert.  He and Hyrum had made it; Isaiah and Desi were still on their way.

Marianne later heard more about their adventure.  As they walked together, Desi told Isaiah about every date she'd ever been on.  She told him about other adventures she'd had including when she'd been at Philmont scout camp earlier in the summer and a chicken had relieved itself on her head.  Isaiah told her a detailed description of the plot of Jurassic World.

And they walked.

The going was slow and Desi was worried they wouldn't reach the end before the 10:00 a.m. cutoff.  At that point it was mental strength and mental strength alone that was keeping them going.  Desi knew that, so she reminded Isaiah what a waste it would be if they didn't finish after all the huge effort he had already put it.

She convinced him to run.

How on earth Desi even considered running when she'd been at a camp, been up all night, and just walked nearly fourteen miles is beyond me.

How on earth Desi could convince a twelve year old boy to run after he had walked nearly 50 miles is beyond me.

How on earth Isaiah mustered the strength to run after walking nearly 50 miles is beyond me.

How on earth I could be related to such kids is beyond me.

They made it!

I am incredibly proud of them:  Robert, Hyrum, Morgan, Isaiah and Desi.  They are heroes.  For the rest of their lives, those boys will know they can do hard things.

For the rest of his life Isaiah will know something else too.  He will know he has a cousin who has. His. Back.

We were sitting around the kitchen table when I told this story to my family.  I started crying when I described the hand held radio report that Robert overheard, "Some boy and his sister are running!" and so did Braeden and Emma because that's the kind of sops we are.

Adam looked up at the clock.  "What time is it?" he asked.  "I want to drive there right now and see them."

We didn't drive there. We were halfway done painting our basement and we had responsibilities around here on Sunday.

We all felt it though.

These people are amazing and we want to see them and hug them and tell them they're amazing.

We would like some of that amazing dust to rub off on us.

She doesn't deserve us

one of my favorite pictures in the world:  a goldfish funeral

My mom is only minimally cheeky.  We all get it from my dad.  I'm pretty sure of that.

I emailed my siblings, telling them Braeden would be speaking in church on August 31.

That's the date our bishop gave us, so I forwarded it on.

Turns out that day is a Monday.  And I know that because of the barrage of cheeky emails my siblings sent.

Olivia said she didn't know how we did it in Utah, but in Nevada, Sunday was still the sabbath.

Ammon said we were doing a pilot program, having missionaries speak on Monday rather than Sunday because they take up too much time during sacrament meeting.

It went on and on.

Then my mom sent us some emails.  There are a few things that belonged to our grandma and grandpa Dahl that are up for grabs.  We are not very cutthroat about such things, although there are a few things more than one of us would like.  My mom is the epitome of fairness and wants to make sure that everyone has an equal chance to end up with something they like.  So the emails.  She included pictures.

More cheekiness ensued.  Including but not limited to me threatening to tie Enoch up on the front porch with jump ropes like we used to do when we babysat him.  (I would need my sisters' help, possibly my sisters in law too.  I'm pretty sure I can count on their assistance.)

Upon hearing that, and remembering the conversation we had at Ammon's birthday party where we talked about how I used to hold him over the banister of the stairs when he was a baby, just to terrorize him, Emma said, "I used to think I did mean things to Mark but when I hear about things you did to your brothers, I think I have always been very nice to him."

In my defense, Ammon said that I wasn't the only one that held him over the banister like that.

He was our real live action toy we could get an impressive reaction out of.

(I'm not sure that's really a good defense.)

I was reading the stream of emails to Braeden because he appreciates the humor (few would appreciate it--it's a bit...obscure...at times). 

At one point, Braeden shook his head.  "Your poor mom," he said.

And I agree.  She deserves better.  As for me, my siblings are pretty much a delight.

I don't know what to title this post, but the point is that I miss Mark

I haven't made dinner since Mark's been at scout camp and looking at the rest of the week, I realize I won't be making dinner once while Mark is at scout camp.

Braeden asked, "Is that Ginger the only thing holding this family together?  Good thing he's not going on a mission."

"Yeah," I said, "We won't even notice you're gone.  Braeden?  Braeden who?"

Except I will.  Because my boys are alike in many ways and one of them is their talking.  They talk.  And talk.  They remind and harass and talk.  And talk.

The crazy thing is that as much as they talk, Emma doesn't.

Emma had some friends over on Tuesday night.  She'd asked me over a month ago if that would work and I told her yes and then she didn't bring it up again until I wondered about our Tuesday night plans.

"I'm having friends over," she said.

"Wait, what?"

So she reminded me and I had a shaky recollection and if it had been the boys, we'd have talked about it at great length every day.

I asked Emma about food for dinner and snacks and we bought some provisions.  Then she told me something she had to do Wednesday morning (a neighborhood plant watering and chicken taking care of gig).  She said, "I'll have to let my friends know."

Wait, what?

"You are going over to water/take care of chickens Tuesday night?"

"No, my friends and I are sleeping in the backyard so they'll be here Wednesday morning."

Wait, what?

"We talked about this."

Yeah, a month ago.  Vaguely.  I think I need the daily hashing things out that my boys provide.

So Emma doesn't communicate much but she got up early and made pancakes and eggs for her friends and then she cleaned the kitchen.  I think I'll keep her.

Maybe I'll talk her into making dinner.

Since I can't seem to without Mark around.

Holes

Braeden got his first checkbook.  He's had a debit card (that he's fairly fast and loose with) for awhile but he wanted checks to make it easier to pay tithing.  I was explaining to him about the duplicate check feature.  I showed him the check register.  He looked at me blankly.  "I don't know why you would need to do that."

I was grateful neither of his accountant grandmas were here to see my failings as a mother.

I explained it again.

"Still," he said, "Why do you need to keep track?"

"So you don't, you know, spend more money than you have?"

There are holes in my parenting.  Some big ones.

In my mind, Braeden is still this age:

Braeden's twelve in that picture.  Mark, currently twelve, is at scout camp right now, using that backpack!

If Braeden's still twelve, I have time to teach him all the things he needs to know before he goes out in the world.

But then I remember he's not twelve.

I have shown him how to iron a shirt, but I don't know if he can actually do it.  Same goes for sewing on a button.  We have our lapse in money management instruction.  Does he know how to cook enough food to keep himself alive?

Yesterday he made a fried egg sandwich for lunch and declared it perfection.  He said he would make one every morning while on his mission.  He didn't however, clean up after himself. 

Braeden is confident and personable and has a strong sense of purpose when it comes to why he wants to serve a mission.  He knows that following Jesus Christ will make people happy and he wants to share that message with them.  I feel pretty good about Braeden's readiness to go in some ways.

In the meantime, I'll be here frantically trying to patch up parental holes.

Now that we have an expiration date

I feel a heightened sense of gratitude for the small and simple moments in time.  It's not going to last.

Yesterday I had lunch with these two (Mark is at scout camp).

My life with these kids?  I like it here (despite their inability to pose naturally for a picture).

Big news

All week we'd been checking the mail--sometimes multiple times because we weren't exactly sure what time our mail was delivered (when have we much cared?).

Saturday when we checked, IT was there.

The big white envelope we'd been waiting for.

Braeden started shaking, he was so excited and nervous.  He stashed the envelope way up high on the top of the kitchen cupboards where no one could reach it (I don't know why).  He started texting his friends to see when they could come over to watch him open it.  His fingers couldn't function and he was sort of a whirling dervish.  Finally Adam sat him down and spoke to him in the calm firm tones he usually reserves for me when I am in freak out mode.  Adam made him breathe for a few minutes then he took an assessment of who had been contacted and who had not.  Then we set about contacting people.

Adam for the win.  He is always the cooler head that prevails.

When Braeden had contacted the people he needed to, he had way more nervous energy than he knew what to do with so he went to the temple, which is luckily very close.  He came back home with a smile on his face.

At 7:00, our bishop and his wife, Ammon and Melanee and family and a few friends started arriving.  A few more were on their way.  They slowly trickled in and one friend finally texted he was 7 minutes away.  I think Braeden's friend Brian could sense that my patience was waning.  He asked me, as his second mother, whether or not we could wait for Nate.

That kid is manipulative!

But I said, yes, of course.

Finally.

Finally.



I learned my lesson from when Clarissa opened her call and I stayed out of the picture.  The only words he tripped over when reading it was the part about him teaching in English.  He was reading ahead because he was really desperately hoping he would be teaching in English.

I felt immediate peace about the Virginia Chesapeake mission.  It feels just perfect.  Braeden is thrilled.  He has looked at maps and read a lot.  He is really hoping he can go to the Great Dismal Swamp and Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina.  The names have captured his imagination.

As for me, I've realized something.  I am not sad he's going.  Not a teeny tiny bit.  He makes me feel grateful and proud and happy with his decision to serve.

What does break my heart is that we are at this point.  He's eighteen and ready to fly from the nest.

I'm not ready to be done with him.

Also, I have a LOT to do before September 2 to get that kid ready!

Guests

This was the view out my kitchen window this morning:

They are welcome to visit.  I saw the small antlers on one of them and wondered if they were a young couple just starting out.  Is this their honeymoon?

Or maybe that's the mama deer with her teenage son?  She's keeping him close by before she sends him off into the world because she wants to remember every inch of his face? (Like she could forget.)

Maybe I'm just projecting here.

Then they got a little closer:

I felt a little less welcoming because don't eat my flowers.

We are having actual guests tonight that we are happy about.  Enoch and family.  They have things to do in the area, one of them being buy a milk cow.  Enoch had milk cows while we were growing up and I guess he hasn't gotten it out of his system.  I'm pretty happy with my Costco milk arrangement. 

I asked him if he was bringing his kids. (I love those kids!)  He said, "Yes, and they are excited to come.  They love your house."

Now, wait a minute.

I am not afraid to lecture my brothers when needed.  I was born to do it.  It's my duty as their older sister.

I said, "Don't you mean to say they love me?"

He quickly back peddled (as he's learned to do with a life time of nagging older sisters).  "Of course," he said, "They love YOU.  And also where you've chosen to live."

I'll take it.

I'm excited to see them.

Commencing

I have started a big project.  I have decided to paint our basement.  It's an ugly place.  In addition to the barbecue sauce hue that was in the laundry room and graces a few other walls, there is another color that I have come to name maple bar.  You know the color of the frosting on maple bars?  That's the color.  I love maple bars.  But not on my walls.

Usually when I paint, I just dive in.  Often I run out of tape partway through because of my dive in nature, I didn't think to check.  I immerse myself in the project and let the rest of the world crumble around me until I'm done.

Painting an entire basement can't be like that.  I have to do it slowly and deliberately and I don't really know how to do that.  Yesterday I enlisted Emma and Mark and we painted two walls.  It was hard to stop but I had all the Young Women coming over last night for an activity so I sort of had to.  I'm just going to have to squeeze in painting time here and there and my basement is going to be in disarray for the foreseeable future.  I. Might. Just. Go. Crazy.

But, no more ugly paint.

So there's that.

Here's a finished wall. 

It doesn't look like much of anything in this picture but the new color is Silver Woodlawn Brook which is the same color I painted our living room--both in our last house and our current one.  It suits me.

 

You're going to be OK

I talk to my plants.  Not long conversations or anything but I often tell them, when I've subjected them to some sort of trauma or another, "You're going to be OK."

My basil plant that lives in my kitchen window was just starting to recover from the grief I put it through by going to New England for a week.  The leaves were starting to get darker green and fuller.  "You're going to be OK," I told it when I could see it starting to revive.

When we went to Washington, I moved it and some other plants to outside locations where they would get watered every night by the automatic sprinklers.  It sort of worked.  The basil is looking pretty rough again.  Lots of leaves turned brown.  I moved it back inside and trimmed away some of the brown leaves and left some of them because I didn't want to completely strip the little guy.  I gave it a good long drink.

"You're going to be OK."

I checked on Bethany, who is my hydrangea.  She's beautiful but I noticed she's struggling.  The drip hose fell out of the big barrel she calls home.  I put it back in and gave her an extra drink.  "You're going to be OK," I told her.

Walking in the front door, I noticed a spider plant I've probably had for ten years.  It was thriving and doing fine but really outgrowing its pot.  I took it outside and sure enough, it was completely root bound.  I cut the roots in half and divided it into two pots.  I carefully filled up dirt around the two smaller plants.  If plants could talk, I'd assume they wouldn't be too happy with me.  I was watering the smaller one, the one in the new pot.  "You're going to be OK."

My life has been changed.  Uprooted.  I felt like I was thriving, maybe I was root bound?  I don't know.  My life in a new state, no more home schooling, a soon to be missionary son, far away friends, it hardly resembles the life I used to have.

Sometimes when my leaves feel battered, I'm in a new unfamiliar pot of earth, and I'm not sure what just happened, I imagine a loving Heavenly Father looking down on me.

Have some water.  Relax.  This is good new dirt.  You're going to be OK.

Back together

Jackson, Mark, Braeden, Talia and Raelyn...missing Emma and Kain

The Davis cousins are a diverse group.  They have varying interests and personalities but they grew up together and there are only seven of them so they are pretty tightly knit together too.

We went to Seattle on Friday: these kids, Adam, Geri and me.  Geri paid for the kids to ride the Great Wheel which is the huge ferris wheel on the water front.

They loved it.  Here's Mark on top of the world.

Next we went to Pike Place Market for all the local flavor and then you feel like you need to take a shower afterward because it's kind of icky too.

Mark is standing on the curb.  I promise he is not taller than I am...for now.

Our next stop was the Ballard Locks.  I've seen salmon in the fish ladders there on multiple occasions.  This is the first time there were so many fish that you could watch them leap out of the water.  I was completely enamored!  I'd never seen anything like it.  It was hard to take a picture because there's no way to predict when they'll jump but Adam did manage this shot:

The next chapter in the adventure was called Trying to Get to the Freeway.  Oh yeeeaaaaahhh, Seattle traffic.  What a delight.

It took us two hours to go a little over 20 miles.

That night Adam and I went to dinner with Janet and Eric.  We chatted all through dinner.  Then we reconvened for frozen yogurt.  We talked and talked and talked.  The guy at the frozen yogurt place started to give us subtle cues that it was nearing closing time.  We walked outside and talked some more.  Janet and I sat on a bench and chatted.  Eventually the guy came out to retrieve the cushions we were sitting on.  We sat back down.  He turned off all the lights, locked the doors, drove away.

We stayed and talked.

We thought maybe it was time to go.  We said our good-byes and hugged.

And talked some more.

Reluctantly we finally parted.  It's bittersweet to leave such friends.  We miss them but it is wonderful to know they're in the world and we are connected, now and always.

Stored up

You know how spaceships glow on reentry to the atmosphere because there is so much friction?  I feel a little like that.  Out of the frying pan, into the fire.  We're home and my to do list runneth over.  There's all the typical reentry type stuff--unpack, put stuff away, laundry, grocery shopping, go through the mail.  Then there are the Young Women responsibilities that are lined up and waiting for me (a meeting here today and an activity here Wednesday to name a few).  Last night, we were barely home (seriously, not even five minutes) when Braeden's friend Brian called.  He asked for me.  He is filming a movie and wanted to shoot some scenes in our house.  Today.

I can't resist that kid and I think he knows it.

So on top of all the other stuff, our house has to be movie ready.

I still have pictures from our trip.  I'll post those instead of thinking about today.

We had such a great time gathering little gems of things we love and seeing people we love.

It was all very self indulgent.

Thursday we went to Mukilteo beach to soak up the sights.

Adam took me to Mukilteo the very first time I visited Washington when we were in college.  I have loved it ever since.

Mark convinced Adam and Geri and Braeden to spin around on a contraption on the playground I can't even watch without getting dizzy.

I gathered little pieces of driftwood for an unspecified art project.

The heart wants what the heart wants.

I dropped Braeden off to meet his friends because they were going on a hike. The rest of us hit Blazing Onion for burgers because that was high on Mark's list.  Next we went to my favorite stores in Snohomish so I could get my fill of the eye candy that is in those stores.

I squeezed in a quick frozen yogurt stop with Lisa (where we got all caught up on our children's comings and goings and our next chapters in life) and then we joined up with Geri who had taken Mark, Talia and Jackson bowling.  It was fun to see them.

Jackson didn't fall over after this picture was taken:

And I didn't fall over after this picture was taken. 

So we're both, you know, athletes.

Later Kain came over to Geri's and we visited and watched the Mariners game.  Kain had been working out with some teammates and Braeden got home from hiking Mt. Pilchuck.

Here's a picture he texted me from the top:

They were two hungry boys.  Geri fixed them each a big plate.  She asked them if they wanted more.  They both said, "Um...yeah." So she loaded them up again.  Then Mark came in from riding his scooter with some boys that live across the street.  Even though he had had a substantial dinner, he said, "Hey, can I have more?"

Of course!  Geri sprung into action getting him more.

I think the moral to the story is, get a grandma that already raised three sons and knows how to feed teenage boys.  It's not her first rodeo and her grandsons love her for it.

Lake time

The boys and I spent some time at Janet's.  She fed us an amazing lunch and we sat around the kitchen table and visited and Mark played with the little girls (who aren't as little as they used to be!).

It was lovely and restorative. Adam asked what we had talked about.  I couldn't remember.  Everything?

After, we went to Lake Goodwin.  I sat in a chair on the beach and read my book.  My favorite.  They rode Geri's waverunner and swam which is their favorite.

Everyone was happy.

In case you're wondering if Adam can still hold Mark on his shoulders, yes he can:

In case you're wondering if Adam can still hold both boys on his shoulders, he kind of can:

Those are some big boys.

We miss Emma.  Hopefully she is having fun at Girls' Camp but we keep looking around for her because we wish she were here too.

Just another night in paradise

We went to Safeco Field to watch a Mariners game.  Throughout the game, they showed Twitter posts on the big screen.  One of them had a picture from the game and the caption, "Just another night in paradise."

Just about sums it up.

Seattle knows how to do summer.

We were at the game with Geri and Megan and Scott and Raelyn.  Baseball affords time for selfies.

sometimes quite blurry selfies...

And time for a few posed shots as well:

Braeden, Scott and Mark climbed to the far top corner of the stadium just because:

Do you see them?

Here's a closeup: (quite a zoom on my iphone) (not really)

They were on the top of the world:

The best part was either:

1) the Mariners won (and in eleven innings!  We got our money's worth!)

2) Adam with his app to check the strike zone.  Sometimes my husband is so nerdy/adorable.

or, 3)