Adam (and Mark) to the rescue

My purpose in being on the Relief Society meeting committee is to be pushed out of my comfort zone.  That is all.

I got a phone call asking me to teach a 10 minute segment on home organization.  For the girl who preferred sorting and organizing the Legos to building the set, that wasn't a problem.  I love to organize.  (I love the topic more than the act of presenting but still.)

Then I got another phone call a few days later.  This time, I was supposed to make a video to email out and post on Facebook "advertising" our upcoming Relief Society meeting, particularly my segment.  "Make it humorous," she said.

Um.

I felt the familiar dread I feel when I'm confronted with something I don't want to do and feel ill equipped to do.  Adam walked in the door on the heels of the phone call.  I told him my tale of woe and in 20 seconds, he had an idea.  "I don't want to be in the video," I said.

He said OK (although my hand ended up being in it).

And then he called Mark.

They are my knights in shining armor and here is the video they created:

You should know we didn't alter Mark's room in any way for this video.  That's how it looks.  Organization isn't genetic and bedroom doors are there for a reason.

Not for the faint of heart

That's a picture of a boy with a driver's license.  (But he's not driving because it was snowing and we had Joan and I'm not going to let any of these children drive Joan.)

It is a specific kind of terrifying to have a newly minted teenage driver.  Especially when you consider he'll be driving in the scariest place I know:  the high school parking lot.

Another terrifying thought?  The car insurance.

I will calm my fears with rosy thoughts of not having to be his personal taxi driver.  (Although I will miss that time when he is captive and tells me about his day.)

I never know if he's my sidekick or I'm his, but Mark and me?  We have history together.  I love that kid.

Dolls and freckles

Little girls with dolls and freckles.  That's what we were once upon a time.  It blessed my life to be born between the two powerhouses that are my sisters and it continues to bless my life.

They were my best friends growing up, the ones I told my secrets to and the ones who told me frankly when what I was wearing didn't work.  At. All.  They never minced words.

They have also always been my biggest champions and supporters and comforters.

What I didn't anticipate is how their husbands would bless my life too.  They both married stellar men whom I love.

Yesterday Robert, fresh off his trip to Hawaii where he broke a finger and had emergency surgery in addition to seeing his eldest daughter married, got up early early to drive here so he could ordain Adam to the office of a high priest.

Despite the similarities between Marianne and me, when we were all newly married and living in the same ward in Provo, someone asked if Adam and Robert were brothers.  And they are brothers in every way that matters.

After church we sent Robert on his way in a blizzard with a sandwich and our gratitude.  Back when I was borrowing Marianne's clothes and holding the steering wheel on the way to seminary while she was applying her mascara, I never could have imagined what a blessing her someday husband would be to our family.

Grateful Friday

I created a little space with a jar, pen and paper so people can record what they're grateful for.  I asked Adam what I should write on the jar and he said, "Thank Bank."

I went with "Be Grateful" in a nod to President Hinckley and his 6 B's

I thought I would be the only one to write anything but I haven't been.  So that makes me happy.

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This was the temperature yesterday morning, about an hour after traffic duty (so it had warmed up a little).

What am I grateful about?  Canceled recess.

Everyone had to stay inside.  Including me.

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I was also grateful to stay inside when this ENORMOUS bird was behind our house earlier this week.  I thought it was a golden eagle but I had never seen one up close so I wasn't sure.

The picture doesn't really give you a sense of how huge it was!  I googled golden eagles to see if I was correct and there were pictures of golden eagles hunting deer and mountain goats.

So yeah, they're big guys.

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Braeden and Mark declared the living room their favorite room in the house after I hung up the black squares and rearranged the furniture.

That means this:

It 25% annoys me because I had the pillows and blankets nicely arranged and you don't have to literally throw the throw pillows to sit on the couch or chair.

(But my offspring don't know that.)

It 75% makes me happy though.  Houses and pillows and blankets are meant to be used and I am glad to have my people here.

All good things must come to an end

I have all the Christmas things put away and all the house back to rights except the basement.  (I might do it after Braeden goes back to school because it is sort of a scary boys' domain down there and I maybe should wait until the odds are more in my favor.)

I brought Trayvion to the living room (he's been rehabilitating in my office upstairs but I decided it was time to let him try the living room again).  I rearranged furniture because I felt like it and hung up these black squares that I haven't hung since we lived in Washington.

It made the kids happy to see them.

That sunshine makes me happy.  Every day.

Mark is back to school and I am back to work today.  I'm looking forward to seeing smiles from some cute kids but my phone says the temperature when I get to school for my little traffic duty will be 15 degrees.

My mom said, "Dress warmly!"

But there are only so many layers one can don.  I'll try.

I don't mind going back to school, but I am a homebody and have delighted in being home. We've had a nice vacation and it seems like it has gone by too too fast.  I've enjoyed the easy pace and quiet mornings and raucous evenings.

Time marches on.

Books I read in December 2018

Between starting to listen to books and Christmas break, I read more books in December and I'm glad.

The Dry by Jane Harper ****

I may pick this one for bookclub.  It was good.  It's a murder mystery set in a small town in Australia and it kept me guessing and kept me intrigued.

The Secret of the India Orchid by Nancy Campbell Allen ***

I mostly read this one because it was immediately available to listen to.  I did like it though.  I liked it more at first but it's a romance (a "proper romance" which means it's G rated) and it started to feel a little repetitive and swoon-y.  It was also a murder mystery and it was pretty compelling too.

High Tide Club by Mary Kay Andrews ***

This book is about four friends and then decades later, about some of their grand-daughters/grand-nieces and how the stories all intersect.  It dragged sometimes but I liked the characters and it entertained me.

Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin *

This book was interesting at first.  Then, ugh.  I listened to about half of it for bookclub and then I was DONE.  I think it made it worse because I was listening and couldn't skim.  Here's the thing, Gretchen Rubin is annoying.  She is the queen of unsolicited advice (unsolicited advice = the worst) and then she brags about how she gave unsolicited advice to hapless friends and family members. She   is so self satisfied with her good habits that it reminded me of the kids who had perfect attendance in school.  I always sort of pitied them for their lack of imagination.  She is smug and condescending though so my pity turned quickly into gratitude that I could quit reading the book.

The White Stag by Kate Seredy ***

This is a Newbery winner and gift from Braeden.  It's about how Genghis Kahn became Genghis Kahn I read it in one sitting and at first was sort of shocked by how brutal it was, considering it was a book for children, but then I recognized the genre. It is a myth and those are brutal, even for children.  I liked it.

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamilla ***

Another Newbery winner.  This is a book I thought I'd read but then realized I hadn't.  I liked it a lot.  It's about a brave little mouse, a princess, a sad servant girl and a rat who is sort of lovable but also loathsome.

The Cozy Minimalist Home by Myquillyn Smith ****

(four stars don't feel like enough)

I loved this book!  I had to read it in smallish doses because it gave me so much to think about and it wasn't a good thing to read when I couldn't sleep because it made my mind whirl.  I love thinking about my home.  I love tweaking it and taking care of it and trying to make it better.  So it was a good book.

New Year's Eve in Greenland

I'm not going to say I feel about New Year's Eve like I feel about Halloween, but it's not my favorite.

I am an early bird, always have been (my mom used to hate it when I went to sleepovers because I was such a hot mess the next day) and it's only getting more pronounced as time passes.

Staying up until midnight seems arbitrary and weird and I know this makes me curmudgeonly and weird.  But still.

Emma had to work the midnight/New Year's show at the theater so she had to leave early anyway so we celebrated New Year's Eve in Greenland (at 8:00 PM).

Instead of watching the ball drop in NYC, we drop our gingerbread houses.  I have to think it's more satisfying.

I went first and here was my target:

I completely missed.

Mark sent his with the house down and it landed perfectly.

Braeden did the same.  Besides having better aim, Mark knew that would work better to have the heavy part go first.

He's smarter than me a lot of the time.

Adam let me try his chalet house too--as Emma told me, "Make the chalet pay."

I missed it too.

I have other talents (for example, I'm the one who swept and vacuumed up afterward).

Emma went to work and the rest of us finished up our Lego set.  I'm also not very good at those Lego sets.  I'm a whiz at separating the pieces and my mind loves to come up with the categories to sort to make them easy to find.  I'm really bad at following the intricate directions.  Too many details and too short of attention span.  Adam kept saying, "Wait, you're getting ahead...you haven't finished step 3 billion here."  (There were a lot of steps.)

I did love the finished product though.  Here is where we added it to the other sets we had from previous years:

The whole thing, which is almost as long as the table, is impressive but we are all delighted by the details:

It's fun for me to hear the kids name everyone and come up with back stories for the people but also watching Mark build with Legos is poetry in motion.  He's logged the 10,000 hours needed to become an expert and he implicitly knows with a quick glance which pieces he needs (and what original set they come from--he'd say, oh, that's a Bionicle piece).

On a scale of me to Mark, mostly everyone else is closer to Mark so we were able to build the set.

I went to bed around 11:00 so the New Year came without me.  I like New Year's Day.  I love the fresh clean slate of a new year.  It feels like a blank notebook and a sharp pencil.

Happy New Year!