This week

The light quality has been different because the air has been smoky, especially in the morning and evening.

The sun, before it sets is blood red.

It's pretty + dramatic but I can't 100% enjoy it because I know that it is because of smoke and smoke means fire and destruction.  I feel for the people who are in the fire's path.

Other things are a bit off too though.

Our van went to scout camp this week and I'm driving Adam's car.  The radio presets are all on the wrong stations and the gas tank is on the opposite side.  My mason jar didn't fit in the cup holder.

It's all a little off.

Mark's room is silent and I haven't heard his laugh all day or heard him rummaging around in the kitchen or asking me "when and what is for dinner?"  His questions on the daily.

There was no happy shift in the day when Adam came home from work last night and even though I tell myself I will go to bed early, I usually don't because it feels different when Adam is gone.

They just left yesterday but I miss Adam and Mark.

I'm glad for Braeden and Emma.  Yesterday I determined to do all the nagging sort of errands that I've been putting off and Emma went with me.

We stopped by DI to drop off a trunkload and dropped off dry cleaning.  I felt noble.

Braeden should be at EFY this week but he's home nursing his terrible cold.  He's been sick for a few weeks and I'm taking matters in hand and bossing him around and forcing him to rest.

The three of us are going to a play later this week. (I've decided Braeden will be sufficiently rested to handle it.)

While we were planning our week, Braeden looked from Emma to me and said, "It's nice to be home with my girls."

Some weeks are a little off but it doesn't mean they're bad weeks.

Emma Jayne

Emma and Braeden recently love the band First Aid Kit.  Emma listens to their songs, then plays them on her guitar and she and Braeden sing harmony.

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Last night Emma asked us all for suggestions for her playlist for her solo road trip she is taking later this week.  (Independence, thy name is Emma.)

Mark (of course) picked Careless Whisper by Wham! because that kid lives and breathes 80s music.

Emma started slowly prancing around the kitchen, singing, "I'm never going to prance again."

I said, "But you're prancing right now."

She said, "For the last time though."

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Emma showed me this texted short story (is that what we're calling it?) that she sent to Vanessa one night.

All of this is to say, I really like that girl.  

Grateful Friday

I've been thinking all week about something I heard in Relief Society on Sunday.  A woman who by any measure has had a tough time lately, said something about how she is trying to be happy every day.  "I am happy in the joy of the gospel," she said.

Amazing.

Being happy is a choice.  That's true.  Sometimes it's a really hard choice but this helps:

It is not happiness that makes us grateful.  It't gratefulness that makes us happy.

David Steindl-Rast

Here are a few of the things I'm grateful for today:

1. This past week is the climatologically hottest week of the year around here (you know, according to a weather blog I read like it's my job).  And the week is about over!

2. I finished the last of my online courses this week!  And they were really pretty interesting.  (I'm excited to be a teacher.)

3. When Stephanie and I were talking earlier this week, I marveled, "Aren't older kids the best?"  She agreed.  I keep liking every stage of parenting more than the last.  This bodes well for my future. (As long as they continue to live within 30 minutes of me.  Is that asking a lot?)

4. I refilled my prescription for my eye medicine this week.  Modern medicine has saved me from going blind.  And also saved Adam from dying that one time.  So thank you, modern medicine.

5. I had the song Moon River in my head all week and Mark played Mexican Radio by Wall of Voodoo for me (because he's a believer in playing another song to replace the one stuck) and now I have that song in my head.  So while I don't necessarily appreciate any song playing over and over in my brain, I appreciate that Mark is something of a music doctor for me.

6. Speaking of Mark, he takes a walk with me nearly every morning.  Even when he doesn't particularly want to.

7. I've been trying (trying!) to translate a birth record from the 1880s which was written in Italian.  I'm grateful for Google Translate.  Technology is amazing.  I'm sitting at my little desk, looking at someone's handwriting and typing the words that mean nothing to me into Google Translate and English emerges!  Miracles!

I'm not great at reading the handwriting and Google Translate isn't perfect.  Also, I have realized the spelling of some words (like January) have changed slightly.  Still.  It's incredible to me that I'm able to get any of it.  And kind of exciting which might sound weird but this is for a man in my ward who I am helping with family history.  And family history research is fun.  Even if it is in Italian cursive from the 1880s.

8. Last night we went to IKEA and bought Emma some stuff for her kitchen in her new apartment this fall.  I love checking things off my to do list.  Check, check, check!

Friends

Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words. 

George Eliot

Braeden told me, "I think it's really nice the way you and Stephanie make an effort to let Mark and Gavin see each other."

It was nice of him to say but I had to tell him that it was hardly altruistic of me.

I want to see Stephanie.  And also, I love Gavin and want nothing more than his goodness to rub off on Mark.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon with Stephanie and Gavin.  It was easy like Sunday morning (an easy Sunday morning when you have 1:00 church and don't have to go to ward council...you know what I mean).  We threw some ideas around via text of where to eat lunch and ultimately let the teenage boys decide so it was Pizza Pie Cafe.  And let me reassure you, you get your money's worth at all-you-can-eat places like that when you take Mark and Gavin.

We sat there for almost two hours, two parallel conversations going on.  Stephanie and me.  Gavin and Mark.

From there we decided to take the boys bowling but then Paisley, Stephanie's basketball star daughter, called.  We decided to leave the boys bowling and go get pedicures.

In Washington, Stephanie and I got pedicures together a few times.  I've only had one pedicure since I've moved here and I think I learned something about myself.  For me, pedicures are a social occasion.  More fun with a friend.

We chatted the day away just like always.  And I know I've said it before but how I value my friends!  I don't have a lot of really close friends in my neighborhood now and I miss it.  I'm grateful for intermittent happy visits with Stephanie and texts and phone calls with Janet (and I'll see them both in August).

They'll likely never know how much they mean to me.

I didn't take any pictures of yesterday but I have bright pink toenails and every time I see them, I smile and remember.

A difference between men and women

Olivia is the stake YW president.  They do a stake girls' camp every year that she is heavily involved with.  The other day she was telling me about the meetings they had already had planning girls' camp next summer.  She is already making strides in her preparation.

Adam is the ward YM president.  The priests and teachers are going on a high adventure campout next week.  Last night he asked me if I'd sit down with him and talk about the food plans.  He and the other leaders have some loose plans for what they're doing each day that they've come up with in the last few weeks.

He sent out an email to parents with information about the camp and said that they were car camping so bring all the regular things you need for sleeping, hiking, swimming and working (they're doing service too).

It's all so simple.

When I went to girls' camp we made cutesy packing lists, we assigned secret sisters with cutesy pages of instructions, we made cutesy pillow treats for each night.  Every day had a carefully orchestrated topic, every tent had a theme.

It was all so much work.

As much as I'm a planner and as much as I don't like camping, I think I would make a better YM leader than YW leader.

Like I told my counselor back then, I think I'm allergic to cutesy.

Feeling sentimental

Adam's sister, Whitney, posted these pictures on Facebook of Linn, their dad.

Mark looks so much like him!

super blurry not all that great picture of Mark but without glasses, he really looks like Linn

I've been thinking about Mark and Linn.  Linn and Mark.  Mark was a grandpa's boy from the start.  In every picture I have of the two of them, it seems Linn's arms are looped around Mark.

Mark gravitated to his grandpa and always wanted to be nearby.  Whenever he saw Linn, Mark would run at him at full speed, yelling, "Grandpa!"  He'd practically knock him over in his zeal.

Linn was the kind of grandpa any child would love.  Our kids were supremely fortunate to have him while they did.

He was the right blend of loving and fun and gentle and kind.

He left us way too soon.  This is Mark at Linn's funeral and I'm astounded by how little Mark was.

He was so young and has far fewer memories of Linn than the other kids do.  I love the pictures we have of Mark and Linn though.  I love the proof in color.  I can show Mark:  look how much you two loved each other!



I love that Mark at fifteen looks so much like Linn at fifteen.  Mark has steady hands and is good at fixing things, just like his grandpa (like both grandpas).  He is gentle and kind.  He has the same red hair.

I wonder what Linn would think now of this tall boy with the deep voice.  I think Mark would still gravitate to him and Linn would still loop his arms around Mark.

I like to think he is still watching.  I like to picture him cheering on his grandchildren and chuckling at their nonsense and smiling proudly at their successes.

I know someday Mark will run into his grandpa's arms again with a force that will about knock him over.

"Grandpa!"

Utah County, that's where

At church on Sunday, a 15 year old girl spoke in sacrament meeting.  She said that she is on the cheer team at Timpanogos High School.  She said that their cheer squad set a goal to go to the temple for baptisms every month together to promote unity.

Adam leaned over to me and asked, "Where do we live?"

Living here has all the ups and downs of living anywhere, but seriously.  This is quite a unique place.