All Mark all the time

this is Mark 5 years ago when I still made him practice the piano and when we lived in a place where the sun shone so seldom that it burned his little eyes--at least he thought so

The other day Mark told me that he wanted to have an anonymous online presence.  He said, "I want to live off the grid."

Where does he even get that stuff?

Then he went on to say, "It's kind of hard to do, since your blog is entirely about me."

To which I can only say, "I've got to write about someone."

He is such a Mark.  There's no other word for it.  I don't know where I got these kids with their full sized personalities.  I guess heaven was fresh out of the shy, quiet, compliant types.

Sunday afternoon we took a walk along the Provo River which is my favorite walk--as long as we walk west of Geneva Road rather than east.  With Braeden the conversation naturally evolves to history (he's confessed that in the absence of his history books he has read the chronology of events way too many times in the Bible dictionary since he's been on his mission).  With Mark, the conversation somehow turns to money.  For some reason when we drove home, we started talking about the stock market.  Awhile ago, Adam gave each kid 10,000 pretend dollars and they pretended to invest in different stocks.  When we returned home, Adam checked in to see how their investments were doing.  Mark had earned $10,000 pretend dollars and Braeden had lost $1,000.

Until I made him stop talking (I do that sometimes), Mark talked animatedly and loudly about stocks.  He loves the stock market.  It makes no kind of sense where we got that kid from but he's a keeper and if you want to invest in the stock market, you may want to ask his opinion.

Finally, the last Mark anecdote (for now...if my blog is indeed entirely about him, I am sure there will be more in the future), Mark went trick or treating which is against my arbitrary family rule of once you are twelve you can no longer trick or treat.

(I've sort of given up.  On most things.)

Among his spoils, he got a lighter.

Seriously.  In Pleasant Grove, UT.  What?

Adam took this picture:

I told them both it was not funny but then I'm posting the picture here so that's sort of a mixed message.

Come fly with me

Last night we had out Young Women In Excellence which is kind of a year in review celebration.  We went with an airline theme.

In a big way.

It all started with Pinterest. (doesn't everything?)  Then the Young Women leaders sort of ran. With. It.

We had the Relief Society room set up like baggage claim and the Young Women room was set up like an airplane.  Complete with windows, an emergency exit, seat pockets with safety instructions.  We had a cart to push down the aisle, with water bottles and "flotation devices" which were tiny donuts. 

It was adorable and I didn't take any pictures so you'll have to take my word for it.

I decided I wanted music for the beginning, Frank Sinatra, Come Fly With Me type music.  I texted Adam, "What are some other songs like that?"

A few minutes later he texted me back a playlist he'd created.

Adam.

That guy never disappoints.

The bishopric was the team of pilots:

And I should add they were very good sports!

(And you don't know how hard we tried to get the broken curtains to close!)

Here are the flight attendants.  It's blurry, but you get the idea:

It was the first big activity that we have done that wasn't us scrambling to carry out the plans of the previous leaders.  It was all ours and it felt good. 

A few of us spent most of the day preparing and decorating.  It was exhausting and afterward, Adam was cleaning up and loading all of our cars with all of our stuff and moving furniture and being his normal Adam self.

When we got home, I told Mark, "Do you know how awesome your dad is?"  Then I outlined all the help he was to me.

Mark said, "Isn't that what dads do?"

And maybe that's the best compliment Mark could give his dad.  Because as far as Mark knows, dads are always helpful and selfless and the go to person when you need anything.

(And Adam learned it from his dad.)

Fun with math

Have you ever tried to contend with a stubborn ginger?

Mark likes to get an accusing tone and tell me what his math teacher said and point out how it implicates me as a bad teacher.

Things like, "Mr. Francom said that he wasn't going to teach us how to do the distributive property because we learned it in 6th grade."

"You learned it in 6th grade too," I told him.

"Nope."

"Remember?" I said, "It's like dealing cards?  You distribute the number to everyone?"

"Hmmm." I could tell it sounded familiar but he's not one to concede anything.

Ever.

So we sat down and I showed him again.  Then we had a full fledged battle.

I told him how to do a problem and he refused to accept the answer.  Refused. 
He said, "Mr. Francom said you do it a different way."

I said, "I promise this is the right way to do it."

And we sized each other up like duelers in a Western.

It was early on a Saturday morning and Emma and Adam were still sleeping.  (My sons and me--we don't have sleeping in skills.)  I said, "You can ask Dad or Emma when they get up."

"OK," he said, sliding the graphite back into his mechanical pencil.  He was done with me and my shoddy math skills.  "I'll wait for them."

Which is his way of saying that he knew they were smarter than me.  (They are both smarter than me but they occasionally need my help with Word Bubbles, so there's that.)

When Adam came downstairs, I happily handed over the math homework question to him.

He sat down with Mark and said, "Your mom is right.  This is how it is."

Mark started to argue but then Adam restated his position in that convincing Dad Way that no one in the history of ever has been able to refute.

"OK?" Adam said.

"OK," Mark said morosely.  And he completed his assignment.

I need a Dad Voice.  I'm waiting for one to show up on Zulily and I will buy it immediately.

Saved for a rainy day

You know how sometimes people will put a $10 bill in a jacket pocket to find later?  It makes for a happy surprise.

Last December I made myself a photo calendar.  Knowing what was on my horizon, I made this the November page:

And yes, it's like finding money in my pocket.

Books I read in October 2015

First, I read this last month but I forgot to include it:



Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth **

This was the book my book club read in September.  It was OK.  I try to like memoir more than I really do.  It's about midwives in the East End of London in the '50s.  There's a PBS series with the same name.  I haven't seen the series but I can see how this book would lend itself to a TV series.  It's more of a stream of anecdotes than anything else. There wasn't much of a plot but historically it was interesting.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr ****

This was our October book club book and I loved it.  So good!  Some in my book club did not like it much, which surprised me.  They thought it was long.  It is long, but I enjoyed every page.  It's set during WW II like most books I've read recently!  It's about a young blind French girl and a young German soldier.  It's mostly a parallel story without a lot of intersection between the characters.  I loved getting a better look at maybe what it was like to be German during WW II and catching a glimpse of how someone could become a Nazi.

Crooked Little Lies by Barbara Taylor Sissel *

I didn't really like this book but read it on my Kindle while I was waiting for other books from the library.  The lies weren't so very little and the characters were whiny and the story was at the same time far fetched and predictable.

So no, I don't really recommend it.

Thriving

I have been reading and loving the book Girl Meets Change by Kristen Strong.

I feel like change and I have been introduced and I could use a little help with the relationship, so I bought this book.

Yesterday, I read a part that has stuck with me.  She pointed out that a definition for thrive means to grow well.

Thriving, according to Kristen Strong, "doesn't mean we are running sunny-faced, skippy-dippy through life with our head filled with Pollyanna cliches.  No, to thrive means to grow well.  And a big part of growing well is seeing change with the eyes of heaven and knowing that God will always, always use it for us."

I needed to read these words; I need to read this book.  Because I don't always feel like I'm thriving.

I certainly don't feel sunny-faced and skippy-dippy all the time.

Sometimes I'm just plain sad.  Sometimes this is just plain hard.  Sometimes I wonder why we uprooted our kids from their happy and comfortable friendships.  (And my own happy and comfortable friendships.)

At such times, I remember that moving felt like the right answer when we prayed.  OK, but I didn't sign up for this.  Crashing on the heels of that thought is that this is exactly what I did sign up for.

This is life.  This is what will make us learn and grow.  How can you ever learn to forgive if no one ever wrongs you?  How can you learn empathy if you're always happy and comfortable?  How can you understand loneliness until you're lonely?

I read an article in the Ensign by Hillary Olsen.  It was about patience which is a whole other topic I need to work on.  She wrote, "When it comes to serving the Lord, He cares about the instrument as much as He does the task at hand."

We are the instruments.  We need change.  We need hard.  We need discomfort.  We need to learn.

Because then, we'll thrive.

Tiny notes

Dear Smoke Detector,

In the middle of the night when you are beeping because you need a new battery, it is hard to appreciate the value you bring to the table.  In the future, work on needing a new battery at more convenient times.  Thank you for your consideration.

Me

Dear Furnace,

I tried to hold out and wait until November.  Couldn't do it.  Welcome back.

Me

Dear Musical Auditions my Children are Involved In,

You are killing me.  Two auditions at two schools for two different shows in the same week.  Just wake me up when the cast lists are posted.

Me

Dear School Room/Office,

You are also killing me.  I have got to get in there and organize you but you get kicked to the bottom of my to do list routinely.  Sorry about that.  And thanks for waiting so patiently.

Me