Weekend

Friday evening Emma and I went to see Janelle in her holiday review.  While we were in our seats, waiting for the show to start, I told Emma about how I had felt pretty lousy all day.  I kept trying to be productive, but then I felt sick and I would try to remind myself it was OK to rest.

Emma said, "You need to remember you're an apex predator."

What now?

Emma explained to me that humans, like lions, are apex predators.  She said, "You aren't a drone.  There's no queen bee. You don't need to work all the time."

She said, "Big cats hunt, but then they lie in the sun."

It kind of blew my mind.

It was like when she told me that she was taking care of today Emma instead of future Emma.

My default is to think future Thelma is incompetent and that I'm a drone, working away for that queen bee.

I told Emma it had blown my mind and she said, "I'm happy any time I can get you to not work so hard." (And I am probably the least hard worker among my siblings.  We were raised this way.)

There is still stuff to do, but I am going to try to be an apex predator every once in a while.

We enjoyed the show and it was fun to congratulate and hug Janelle after it was over.  I love the euphoric energy of someone who has just performed.  I think it's the drama mama in me.

Saturday we did all the things including going to two library book sales (Adam stayed in the car and made appointments).  The Orem library was woefully picked over but at the PG library, I texted Adam and asked him to come in and help me carry books.

I got some for my classroom, a fat stack for QE and an even fatter stack for me.  

A tip of the hat to my apex predator self.

And it's exciting when you buy more books than you can carry and it only costs $15.

Don't sleep on the library holiday sales!

Our original plan was to have Pikkujoulu on Saturday.  I had been feeling sad about having Braeden and Anna and QE miss it.  I realized that the great thing about a made up holiday like Pikkujoulu is that you can have it whenever you want, so we are celebrating after Christmas.

So last night, since we already had our children for the evening, we had pre-Pikkujoulu.  Emma and Mark both called it Prekujoulu.  Mark had had a problem with his pump so his blood sugar was sky high and he didn't feel great.  He drank a lot of water and we did a music night, which is another made up activity we've been doing since our kids were little.  Everyone picks a song that goes with a theme and we listen to them in the dark.  Last night Emma instructed us to pick songs about holidays other than Christmas.  We turned off all the lights except the Christmas tree and it was lovely.

I was going to make some GF party bark, but didn't because of Mark's blood sugar.  We had little smokies and Chinese pork and kale salad and apples and oranges and jalapeño poppers (except not Mark) so it was a pretty festive but also low carb dinner.

He finally started to stabilize and I'm so grateful for insulin and his ability to take things in stride and make it work.

I taught Sunday School on Sunday and Adam helped me create a slide show.  He is a perfectionist and good at stuff like that and I am neither so I was grateful for his help.  While he worked on the slide show, I taught myself how to make these stars which is either being a worker bee or an apex predator with leisure time.

I don't know anymore.

I have a 100% survival rate for those Sunday School lessons, so I feel pretty positive about that.

Mark came over and we ate dinner and talked to QE.  I read to her.  

In the evening we went to a concert at our stake center.  A BYU piano performance professor, Jared Pierce, is in our stake and he created a pretty amazing lineup of performers.  He is friends with Dallyn Bayles who is a broadway performer so he sang some songs and did some recitation.  There was a mens chorus of BYU singers which was amazing.  Our neighbor, Louisa, who is a BYU vocal performance major sang and a quintet of people in our stake performed. Jared's son, Noah, plays the saxophone and he and his dad performed a jazzy rendition of It Came Upon a Midnight clear and stole the show!

It was a packed house and I love the way people pause to rejoice at Christmas time. 

I have a celebratory and chaotic week of school ahead of me.  I'm looking forward to it!