Personal growth

1)

When Olivia was here for breakfast, she asked me which milk to get out of the fridge.  I said, "It's all the same."

She said, "What about this?" and indicated a half gallon, buried on the top shelf.

"That's egg nog," I said.  "And it's expired.  I'm waiting for Adam to get rid of it"

Olivia gave me a sideways look.

It's a true thing that I get queasy about past its prime food and leave it for Adam to deal with.  Why am I admitting that I had egg nog in my fridge in late January?

I don't know.

I will have you know that I got up all my courage and threw it away the next day.  I texted Olivia and told her the good news.

2)

Adam used my laptop to present a really great video he created at our mini mission kick off on Sunday.  The problem with him using my laptop is that my desktop is a crazy cluttered mess.  And here's another true thing.  People judge you when you have a crazy cluttered mess for a laptop desktop.  (Mind your own business, I say.)

When Adam connected my laptop to the TV screen, one guy in our ward said, "Adam!  How can you handle having that for a desktop?!?"

Adam said, "This is Thelma's laptop."

Then all accusing judgey eyes were on me.

I said, "Shhhh.  Leave me alone.  I need all that stuff."

Emma was sitting next to me.  She said, "Most parts of your life are so organized.  Why is your desktop like that?"

(My children are the top judgemental people in this situation.)

I said, "It's like my junk drawer."  Doesn't everyone need a junk drawer?  "Besides," I said, "If I could only pick one, I'd rather have the rest of my life organized than just my desktop organized."

(Because Emma's room looks like a tornado struck, but her desktop is in mint condition.  Two can play at the judgemental game.)

Emma said, "Well, the difference is, you can get your desktop cleaned in 3 seconds and keeping everything else organized takes forever."

Well, I will have you know, yesterday during my email time with Braeden, while I was waiting for his email to come in, I deleted stuff off my desktop.  I'm going to take it to church and show people.  Well, maybe.  That might be weird.

3)

The other night, I had a dream that I went to France and didn't have jet lag!  Not a bit of it.  It was sort of amazing.  When I told Adam, he said, "What's the opposite of an anxiety dream?"

I decided it's a confidence dream.

Yay me.  I'm pretty much improving in every way, am I right?

Everyone still has their fingers and toes

Friday night our young men and young women went tubing at Soldier Hollow.  This was the temperature at the beginning of the evening.  (It got colder!)

I managed to keep my happy face on though, because we weren't camping! (The original plan--which I had not been a part of making--was that we would camp, in marginally heated cabins.  When I did learn of the plans, I made a desperate plea on behalf of sane people everywhere that we not camp.  And it worked!)

The camping bullet had been dodged narrowly enough that my gratitude remained intact, no matter how cold it got.

Here are some of us, bundled up to the hilt.

You will notice in the picture, I am mid putting on my mittens.  They were a gift from Geri.  Between those and my base layer (also a gift), Geri pretty much kept me alive.  Later, Cortney asked me to take pictures.  I said 1) I am not staying out here that long (notice the nice warm lodge behind us) and 2) there is NO WAY I am taking off my mittens.

I stayed outside until I could no longer feel my face then I went into the lodge where there was a fireplace and hot chocolate.

It was a beautiful spot and had I been able to feel my face, I definitely would have stayed outside longer.

This picture shows the rope tow.  As a survival strategy, sometimes people would walk up the hill to get a little bit warmer.

My job became receiving frozen kids in the lodge and giving them hot chocolate and granola bars.  After they were sufficiently thawed, they would usually bundle back up and go back for more.  One girl (maybe one of my favorites, but shhhhh, I shouldn't have said that) came to me with FROZEN hands.  I rubbed her hands and got her back among the living and when her friend wanted to go back out, Rachel said, "There is no way you could get me to go back out there."

And no one blamed her.

Some of the boys came in and their faces were too frozen to make complete expressions.  One boy was touching his face with his fingers.  He said, "I can feel my face but my face can't feel my fingers."

I guess the moral of this story is that I was very grateful for the warm lodge, our warm cars and our warm houses.  We are very fortunate people.

And, we WEREN'T CAMPING.

That night, all the young women slept over at my house.  (It was the ace in the hole I offered to dissuade the camping nonsense.)  The younger girls made beds on the main floor.  They fished their toothbrushes out of their bags and patiently waited in line to use the bathroom.

The older girls were in the basement and were pretty much maniacs.  I think they were up until 3:30 AM and I've never been more grateful for a basement.  (Because I eventually retreated to my bedroom upstairs.)  The next morning I fed them Costco muffins and poured juice and milk.  One of them commented on how nice it was of me to spend hours making them breakfast.  Such cheekiness!  Actually, it was really good to just hand them a muffin on a napkin and sit around the table together, chatting.

Eventually the girls from the basement emerged.  Bleary eyed doesn't begin to describe their state.

Emma had gone to her room at some point.  Rose, the last basement girl to emerge asked, "Where's Emma?"  I told her she was still asleep.  "Well, I'm waking her up!"

I wished Rose luck as she bounded up the stairs to Emma's room.

She's a brave girl.

I took a van load of girls home and left the rest in the care of Adam and Emma until they were ready to leave.  (The conversation went like this:  "Do you want a ride home?"  "No, I want to stay longer."  and what was I going to do?) Julie Beck was speaking at our stake center.  She is probably one of the top three women I would like to meet/be neighbors with/follow around like a puppy.  I sat in the front row and soaked in every word.  It was wonderful and enough to wash away any weariness I felt from the raucous night before.

When I got home, our basement looked like a frat house and I gathered up cups and candy wrappers and swept and vacuumed popcorn remnants.  I folded blankets and collected pillows. I filled a bin with lost and found items.  The whole time, I thought, "I'm so glad I didn't have to camp!"

The day was wrecked anyway

I spent the entire morning talking on the phone, texting and emailing, trying to do triage on a youth activity that is happening this weekend.  It had sort of imploded.  At one point, I texted Adam for help on a sort of confrontational text message I needed to send someone else.  "Save me from myself," I pleaded.

Adam is wise with words and emotions and I knew he was my guy to correct my tone but still get the message across.

When he saw my text, he texted back, "I'm going to call you."

Yep, I needed his help and he knew it.

He texted me an alternative message and then he texted that their office was being evacuated because of a strong natural gas smell.

It was that sort of morning.

At 11:30, I was still in my pajamas and hadn't really done any of the tasks I'd planned for the day.

I decided in favor of ignoring the laundry and cleaning and what not and got myself ready for the day and went to Target.

Sometimes you just need to.

It was not the respite from power struggles and negotiations and whining that I was hoping for.  (And yes, a portion of the morning's whining had been from me.)  It's not so much that the toddlers and preschoolers around here are any more disagreeable than toddlers and preschoolers anywhere, there's just so many of them.

Why do I keep forgetting that?

In a nod to incompetent parents everywhere, a kid was screaming and flailing like he was being tortured.  "I want a toy I want a toy I want a toy," he gasped between sobs.

At the same time, the dad said, "Maybe I'll get you a toy.  I said maybe.  I said maybe.  OK. I'll get you a toy."

The child ceased the tantrum immediately and sat sedately in the cart.

And the Oscar for most effective performance in manipulating his parent goes to the child in aisle 12.

It's possible I've achieved a new level of crankiness but nothing makes you appreciate your teenage and young adult children more than a trip to Target in American Fork in the middle of the day.

(The Target trip wasn't a total loss.  I bought Working Hands hand cream which Tabor recommended...after excessive whining about my hands.  Those kids at Target have nothing on me when it comes to whining.)

Feeling loved

Enoch called me yesterday just to check in.  We chatted about basketball and referees.  He's a coach and I'm married to a referee.  It's the closest thing to sports I've got in my life.  We laughed about the ways we are the same.  He listened to me pour my heart out about a few things.  He didn't mind when I cried a little.  He has my back and he's big and strong so that means something.  I'm glad he's my brother.

Marianne and Olivia came and spoke at my Young Women New Beginnings.  I needed a speaker and thought, "I don't know anyone better than my sisters."  I asked them on the off chance one of them would come.  They both said they'd come.  When I call, they answer.  When I need them, they're here.  I'm glad they're my sisters.

My mom tagged along for the girl party.  She went around with my sisters chatting with everyone after New Beginnings.  They're all way more friendly than I am.  She also pitched in like she does cleaning and putting away and the like.  She traversed the icy church parking lot with the garbage to wrestle with the frozen shut dumpster.  I'm glad she's my mom.

Clarissa and Desi joined us too.  The more the merrier I say.  We all had dinner together first and then it was nice to have them at the meeting.  Marianne and Olivia both spoke really well (like I knew they would).  When Marianne mentioned in her talk that Olivia and I had convinced her to give Robert a chance even though he's shorter than she is, Desi tapped my shoulder and said, "Thank you!"  Those girls know how good they have it with their parents. 

We convened at our house.  We all explored the possibilities of the body back buddy:

Chiropractic-ally (new word of my own invention) speaking and otherwise, don't let anyone ever tell you we don't know how to have a fun time.  I enjoyed the buoyant spirit Clarissa and Desi bring to a room and I enjoyed listening to Emma and Clarissa sit at the piano and sing.  I'm glad they're my nieces.

It's good to have a family.

Great Aunt Thelma

Yesterday Mark was not feeling well so I went to check him out of school.  You have to show your ID (since people are always trying to steal junior high kids?).  The lady said, "I had a great aunt named Thelma."

With a big smile on her face, she said, "She was one of my favorite people in all the world.  Every time I see you, I think of her."  (She knows my name because every time I see her, I need to show her my ID.)

Then she told me all about how she used to go stay with her in the summer.  Great Aunt Thelma had never married and she took her out to breakfast and they had all kinds of fun.  "My family never went out to eat," she said, "so it was a real treat to go out to breakfast."

Having been named after my own grandma, I often hear other people say, "My grandma is named Thelma too."  It's sort of an old name.  Never has anyone spoken so glowingly about another Thelma.

I considered as I left the school, what would it be like for someone's eye to light up like that at the memory of you?

It's something I aspire to.  I want to be someone's Great Aunt Thelma.

The pendulum

Yesterday, in a snowstorm, I was driving to go get Mark from school and sliding all over the road.  (The roads down by the school had been plowed and were just fine.  The roads by our house, not so much.)  My fingers and toes are perpetually cold.  I am tired of dodgy roads.  Enough with the snow and ice. I found myself longing for summer.

And that is when I realized the pendulum had swung.

Summers are hot.  (And last summer was awful in lots of awful ways.)  In the summer we have to weed the yard and I have to go to camp (!).  I can't wear sweaters and I love to wear sweaters.  In the summer I don't want to use the oven.  The sun beats down relentlessly on the deck and I can't go out there barefoot in the heat of the day because it would burn my feet.  Our house heats up even after the sun goes down because it's been baking all day.

In the summer, winter seems ideal.  I love hot soup and dressing in comfy layers.  I love leaving the blinds open all day and snow is pretty!  Six months from now, I'll be longing for winter.

Right now, I am remembering that summers are also filled with sunshine.  I love sunshine and blue skies.  I like cool mornings and watching brightly painted sunsets on the deck.  I love being barefoot.  I love playing silly games on the grass in the waning light.  I like striking out on adventures on long evenings.

Instead of longing for 6 months from now, I'm going to try to enjoy now.  I'm going to light a candle and sit by the fire and just relish the season.

The one we're in right now.

 

Tiny notes

Dear Snapfish,

Thank you for tricking me into being productive.  I made four photo books so I could get a better price. Then it turned out I couldn't use multiple discounts on the same order.  But I still made four books.  I call that winning.

Dear everyone on Facebook,

Shhhh.  I don't care what you thought about the inauguration.

Dear Facebook,

I don't know why I keep going back to you.

Dear Facebook,

Yes, I do.  It's mostly for the funny memes.

Dear Emma's and Mark's schools,

Sorry I let my kids stay home to watch the inauguration.  I know the entire thing could have been watched later.  I know.  But I used to home school and I miss my kids and they know it.  They'll use any excuse to sleep in and I'll use any excuse to let them skip school. 

Dear truancy,

Sorry about that.  But blame my dad.  He used to say, "You'd better stay home.  Let the other kids catch up."

Dear Mark,

When I tell you (at 10:45 PM) that it's time for bed and you say, "OK. I'm just going to have a sandwich first," I'm grateful.    You amaze and sort of horrify me with your insatiable hunger, but I'm grateful everyday that I have the food to give you.  My heart breaks for women whose children are really hungry.

Dear Mark,

Thanks for shoveling and blowing snow and carrying the groceries and reaching stuff off the top shelf and for fixing stuff and replacing lightbulbs.  You keep on eating all the sandwiches you want.

Dear Emma,

Someday when you have a beautiful daughter who you just want to keep safe, remember the disdain in your voice when I asked you if you wanted me to drive you to work in the Subaru.  (Because of the, you know, blizzard that was happening.)  When you remember that disdain, you can call and tell me you're sorry.  I'll be waiting. (Ha.)