Sunny September day

We are still getting smoke at times from the fires in California and the East coast is bracing for a hurricane and I cried my way through watching CNN 10 this morning.  It was all about another sunny September day 17 years ago.

One clear memory I have of that day is talking to my dad on the phone.  I told him I didn't know how I was going to raise my children (Braeden was 4 and Emma was 2) in such a dark and scary world.  He said he had felt the same way sometimes when I was little.

So the world can be a dark and scary place but what really makes me cry the most when I watch remembrances of September 11 are the heroes.

Just everyday heroes who started their sunny September day thinking it was going to just be a typical day and then everything turned on its head.

Thinking about the vast ways life can be turned on its head makes me grateful for the simple and mundane, silly and sweet things in my life today.

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I finally had a chance to catch up with Braeden on the phone.  I have been missing that kid.  He had a great trip to Colorado although he got food poisoning from either a sandwich he ate that had been sitting in the car for too long or some grocery store sushi he ate.  I feel sick just typing those things.  He's 21.  He'll learn.

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I know the barest minimum about the Kardashians but that didn't stop Emma and me from sending Kardashian jokes via text throughout yesterday.  They didn't 100% make sense to me (because I know the barest minimum about the Kardashians) but Emma is a funny wordsmith and her plays on words delight me.

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Mark is nicer to me than I deserve.  This is from yesterday afternoon:

I had a head-ache (again, still) and he sat on the couch and had me put my head on his lap while he rubbed my temples and told me that the temples are the thinnest part of the skull so that means our brains can feel it more when rubbed there.  I don't know if that made me feel better or not.

But Mark makes me feel better.

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Yesterday, since I wasn't at work, I did housework and laundry and read and it was nice to be home.  I did look at the clock a little wistfully at times and think about my students a few times though.  I like it at home and I like it at school.

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It was a beautiful evening and I took this picture off the deck.

I laid on the deck couch and took this picture of the sky.  It looked like a marble.

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After a short family home evening around the kitchen table, I went to take a bath and Adam and Mark went to mow the lawn.

The new lawn mower has headlights.  Adam texted this picture:

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This morning Adam and Mark and some of the stalwarts got up before the sun and put flags on the lawns of our neighborhood.  I drove Mark to school down streets of fluttering flags.

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Little bits of things have been floating in my head, unarticulated thoughts about Grace and the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ in my life.

I can't really explain (clearly) but it is real and I feel grateful for the things I know.

Even when the world feels dark and scary, there is always Light.

Mr. Mark

Mr. Mark is what Titi who cut Mark's hair in Washington used to call him.  Mark loved her and would climb into her chair and talk her ear off while she cut his red curls.

I think it was the last time he was happy about getting a haircut.

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Adam finally pulled the trigger on a new lawn mower that he and Mark had been eyeing for a few years.  Adam is not what you would call an impulse shopper.  Our old lawn mower is about as old as Mark and duct taped together and threatens to pull your arm off when you try to start it.

So you could say maybe it was time for a new one.

Mark was thrilled and when we got home Friday night with the purchase, he and Adam immediately took it out of the box and started mowing.

Saturday morning, Adam was out early, mowing some more (we have had peak lawn growing conditions around here).  I asked Mark why he wasn't out mowing the lawn and he said incredulously, "Dad's mowing!?!"  The new mower is electric and very quiet.  Mark hightailed it outside to take over.

Meanwhile Braeden and FOB showed up, needing a ride to Salt Lake City.  They had concocted a sort of crazy trip to Denver to be at a friend's mission farewell.  (The friend is a girl, which according to my mom explains everything.)  Emma needed Loki for work so they were renting a car.  Sam's car couldn't limp its way to Salt Lake so they stopped here and needed a ride.  Mark knew one of us was going to go, but we ended up both going and leaving him mowing.  Later I tried to call him but (surprise surprise) he didn't answer his phone.  We texted him and ran an errand in Salt Lake and were gone about 3 hours.

Mark was in the basement when we got home and came up sort of bewildered because he hadn't realized we were gone.  Never checking his phone, he'd mown then gone downstairs to shower and just assumed I was upstairs the whole time.

This is what comes of introverts, uniting.  Separately.

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When I took down the bookworms from our summer reading program (that didn't exactly achieve its purpose--Mark read five books in one week and that's it for the entire summer, I had clearly read more than anyone else.  Mark asked me what my reward was and I said, "A new car!"  (I said it in the exciting Price is Right way.)

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The fact that we're car shopping may or may not have anything to do with Worm Joe, but since we were going to a car dealership, Mark decided to do our Saturday errands with us.  Usually it is just Adam and me because we can't even bribe Mark to come with us with the promise of buying him food.

With Mark aboard, gone was the freedom of saying what I wanted without some recrimination. At one point he said, "OK, Professor of Sweeping Statements...."

Before we went into the car wash, Mark said, "Remind me to tell you my business idea after this."  Mark's two great loves:  business ideas and cars.  Maybe he has three loves, because also food.  (Between every errand he wondered where/when we were going to get food.  The answer was we are eating at home until he wore us down and he got a sandwich at WinCo.)

After vacuuming and running the floor mats through the machine that is kind of fun when it comes down to it, we were again on the road and Mark said, "The danger of lightning can be avoided if you could be grounded at all times.  That's why I would like to introduce Thunderwear."

"How does it work?" I asked.

"Well," he said, "I just have the idea.  R&D is still working on the details.  Also, we are between banks right now, so if you'd like to invest, we'd welcome cash."

At the dealership, Mark knew more about the cars than the salesman (you have a website, right?).  The salesman wanted to talk about our monthly budget and whether or not we had a trade in and I wanted to talk about features.  For example:  heated steering wheel?  Shut up and take my money.  Our salesman went to get his "friend" who was the "Jeep expert" but he was really the higher pressure sales guy.

Here's what I realized though.  The older I get and the closer car salesmen get to Braeden's age, their pushy tactics aren't all that pushy (this is why we were so grateful to have Linn along when we bought our first few cars).  The salesman asked what it would take to get us in a car today and we both laughed a little and said, "This is our first day shopping."  His face fell and he probably walked into the dealership cursing all the old people that are impervious to his charms.

Mark was quiet and watchful at the dealership.  I think he was soaking up what he could learn about cars and business deals.

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Music fits in somewhere in the list of things about Mark.  I think if he hadn't been distracted by car shopping he would have made us a playlist for the errands.  He loves a good playlist.  He told us about his history test.  He'd received extra credit points because during the test, the teacher was playing music and Mark recognized one song as being from The Truman Show and one as being from Interstellar.  He's the kid who sang before he talked and knows more 80s music than I do but won't sing in front of people if you ask him to.

Mr. Mark, complicated and curmudgeonly and very, very funny.

Errand day is more fun with him.

Connectedness

I love those connections that make this big old world feel like a little village.

Gina Bellman

Yesterday was kind of a banner day around here phone-wise.  I talked to Braeden and Emma on the phone.  Usually we subsist on text messages and it was nice to just talk.

Also, Marianne, Olivia and Enoch each called me (and Tabor called me a few days ago).  I don't talk to any of them nearly enough in all the busyness of everything but it was great to catch up, to feel loved.  They wanted to know how I was.  They asked about our kids and I asked about theirs.  Marianne made me cry by telling me a sweet story and then I cried even more because I told her about a student I purely love who I also worry about.  When I talked to my siblings, I feel understood.  I feel cared about.

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Last night we had a Relief Society meeting.  I'm on the committee and I'm usually a little grudging.  Even though I truly enjoy being with the other women on the committee, I usually feel like it's one more thing I don't want to make time for.  But since I'm Coralee Dahl's daughter, I saddle up and go help anyway.  Last night our activity was a "Not So Young Girls' Camp."  We met in a backyard and had a fire.  I was kind of dreading it as it mostly fell into the category of out of my comfort zone.  The committee performed a skit and sang a silly song and then I led everyone in camp songs and we had s'mores.  (Fancy s'mores--and the s'mores weren't the part I was dreading.)

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For our skit, Cortney pulled out marshmallows and said she wanted to roast them.  She said we needed sticks.  Terri was whittling and Cortney asked for her sticks.  Terri grudgingly gave them.  Then they decided they needed graham crackers.  Terri said, "Hey, Susan has crackers."  Susan didn't want to give them.  She said she was going to use them for a craft--making birdhouses out of them.  She finally gave them up though.  Next Susan said she'd spied some chocolate in my bag.  I admitted I had chocolate but I said it was my favorite kind and I was saving it for later.  But they finally convinced me.  S'mores are a gooey mess and we didn't have napkins so I asked Debbie for a page or two from her notebook to use as napkins.  She didn't want to share but finally did.  Then Michelle stepped in.  She said, "Oh no!  You have to use these!" and gave us each a cloth napkin.  She said she'd been saving them for a lesson on etiquette but would share them.

Our small sacrifices turned into s'mores for everyone.

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At the end of the evening, some people streamed away back to their houses, but some people lingered.  We chatted in the darkening evening.  I had a few conversations that felt real.  Somehow it seems easier to share vulnerabilities when you've just had chocolate and are cozy in a pretty backyard.

It was time to clean up and the committee gathered things and helped take loads to each others' cars.  Michelle and I were laughing and loading her truck and she said, "I just love you, Thelma."

And I love her too.

We finished loading Susan's car and she turned and gave us each a hug.  Then we all hugged each other.  It just felt like that kind of a night.

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As I was driving home, I was thinking about the evening.  I realized that the skit pretty much exactly reflected real life for me.  I hadn't really wanted to share.  After what felt like a busy week--a series of busy weeks--what I really wanted to do was stay home with Adam and Mark.  But I reluctantly went. I did what was asked.  And I was rewarded.  Just like in the skit, the small sacrifice I made in time and energy turned into something as warm and delicious as a s'more:  feeling connected.

Mark Dahl's daughter

Last week Mark had a particularly questionable mole removed.  (I got the biopsy results back and it was benign.  That is always welcome news.)

He needed a few stitches after the procedure and we were supposed to go back yesterday and get the stitches removed.

Well, I'm Mark Dahl's daughter.

My dad removed my stitches, and my siblings stitches, including but not limited to my wisdom teeth--and that's something.

It seemed ridiculous to take Mark back to the doctor's office and wait an interminable amount of time when I'm Mark Dahl's daughter.

So I grabbed scissors and a pair of tweezers and went to work.  I talked Mark through it in soothing tones like I knew exactly what I was doing, which I didn't.

But I'm Mark Dahl's daughter.

(by the way, it worked just fine)

Friends

We spent the first few years of life here feeling like we didn't have friends, not really.  But last summer the Porters moved in across the street and this summer the Misbachs moved in across the street and over one house.

Last night we hosted a neighborhood BBQ in our backyard for our street and the street perpendicular to our street.  We had over 30 people over (including Braeden and his five roommates).  Dave Porter called them all FOB (friends of Braeden).  It was just nice.  We visited and ate the delicious food everyone had brought to share.

People started leaving but the Porters and Misbachs stayed and I realized, hey, we have friends.  We kept talking even thought it was dark--we were on the patio below our deck and now realize we could use better lighting down there.  Before leaving, everyone stacked up chairs and cleared up garbage and everything was put to rights.  I walked across the street with some folding chairs we had borrowed from the Porters and we all chatted a little more in their driveway and then I made my way back across the street.  I was tired but happy.

Because it's good to have friends.

A last summer hoorah

Adam has had four tickets to a Salt Lake Bees and we haven't used them.  Sunday night he realized yesterday was their last game of the season.

We asked Mark if he wanted to go.

We asked Emma if she wanted to go.

We asked Braeden if he wanted to go.

They each had other things they'd rather do.

There were years--probably about 10 or 15 years--that Adam and I wished we had time for dates with just the two of us and now we can't get these monkeys to join us.  I guess that's how it goes, but I'm never going to complain about a day with Adam.

We scurried around doing chores because we're hosting a neighborhood party at our house tonight then Mark rode his bike to meet his friends and Adam and I headed to Salt Lake City.

It was hot and sunny but we found a shady place to sit.

Bees vs. Grizzlies--Adam called it a Honey War

Being at a baseball field is always a pretty place to be.

The Bees were ahead for most of the game and then it all sort of fell apart.

I texted a distress call to our kids and Braeden and Emma sent their best help.

That is only a tiny bit of Emma's text because she sent the entire Bee Movie script.  Yes, she did.

The game went into ten innings but the Grizzlies ended up winning.

After the game, we stopped by to see my grandma.  Seeing her always makes me feel so good.  She embodies unconditional love.  She was telling us a story and while I was listening, I thought, "I love her so much!"  I'm grateful she is in my life and I need to make more time to visit.

We came home to a driveway full of boys.  Braeden and roommates were here to shoot up on the mountain.  (Braeden refuses to kill spiders but when your roommates are into guns, you go shooting apparently.)  After their hike into the mountain they all came in and drank big glasses of cold water then we sat on the deck in the waning light.

It felt like a good way to end the summer.

Weekends

I appreciate the pace of weekends even more since I started working (although it is a holiday today and I was wide awake at 5:30 AM--that's not my favorite).

Anyway.

Friday is sort of a blur because I had a migraine.  I wish I knew what caused it so I could avoid that at all costs.  Mark was very kind and nurturing to me and I started to feel better in the evening.  We went to Emma's new apartment and set up the shelves that Adam bought her at IKEA.  He went a little overboard, including things she doesn't really need but he's a good daddy who loves his little girl.  Both kids seem happy in their new apartments and that is happy for me.

Saturday was a nice mix of productivity and a slower pace.  And a tiny bit of drama.  I made apple pies--using apples from our little tree.  I had the pies in the oven and was cleaning up.  The bowl that had had the peels in it slipped out of my hands and fell into the bowl that had had the apple slices in it.  It shattered into a million pieces--seriously, just shards.  I immediately started bleeding on three fingers.  I don't know if glass shards bounced up and cut me or what.  Mark flew to my rescue with bandaids and lots of conciliatory words.  He's a nice one to nurse his mother's ailments.  I was mostly really happy the pies were already in the oven.

Adam and I went back to IKEA that night for more stuff for Emma and Mark went to a swim party his school was having at the PG pool.  We stopped by on the way home to pick him up.  Imagine this scene.  It's dark and a huge pool is filled with teenagers and all the boys are approximately the same size and coloring of Mark.  It took me awhile to find that kid.  Since it was dark the red hair didn't even help.

Yesterday we had the BYU kids over.  Emma decided (after some deliberation via text with me) that she would stay in Provo and attend a ward function so she could get to know her ward/roommates.  Braeden, Liberty, Leif and Freja came.  It was so fun to have them.  I wanted to quiz them all about all the everything but Adam made me wait until he was done at the BBQ because he wanted to hear too.  We had dinner (and pie) and played Codenames.  It was girls and Adam against the boys.  There were a hilarious number of misassumptions about each other.  For example, when Freja gave clues about Hamlet and we were kind of adrift, Braeden said, "Freja, the drama kids are over here." There was also the time Braeden died a little inside when Leif and Mark missed his Cicero hint.

These two goofballs.  Emma said it pretty accurately:  Leif is Braeden if Braeden had been raised by Janet.

I know how lucky I am to have these people in my life.