Category: Life according to Angela

Gratitude in May

I am able to keep windows open all day lately, and the sounds of the breeze swirling our great cottonwood trees and the fresh air somehow dispel the busy feelings and replace them with grateful feelings. Consistently, I feel grateful for trees and green and warmer air.

May 7-13

  • grilled hamburgers and a lovely salad
  • clean sheets and bathrooms
  • Elder Kearon’s devotional
  • time to read on Tuesday
  • my neighbor was able to come over and hear her daughter perform a violin piece
  • Taste of Home chicken pot pie
  • passport work finished
  • the quilting ladies
  • the trees we had to cut down: Thank you for the beauty.
  • productive days
  • a quilt for Morgan
  • our bishop’s miraculous recovery
  • piano duets played by our sons
  • Mother’s Day magnets from Daniel

May 14-20

  • Paige’s Mother’s Day card
  • open windows and fresh air
  • Charlene Kettle
  • Excedrin
  • Sunday evening walk with Richard
  • 2 days outdoors at a tournament
  • NYC tickets ready
  • Mediterranean salad at Wendy’s
  • Mark is twelve.
  • Sunday night gathering of my boys on the bed to talk to me
  • Mark singing in the choir
  • Mark playing Uptown Funk and Indiana Jones on the trumpet
  • Tim’s jazz band recordings from Richard
  • passport arrived
  • dinner from my counselors when I was sick

Jazz, Art, Band, Choir, Twelve, AP

Richard and I had plans to go to Timothy’s jazz band dinner dance this week, but I was sick and had to miss it. Mark went in my place. I really missed out on a great evening! Timothy was able to play with some seasoned jazz musicians and play some of my favorite big band music. He is the trombone player on the second row in the video.

Today is Mark’s 12th birthday. I am happy for him, and a little sad for me. This week he displayed some work in an art show, played trumpet in a band concert, and sang in a choir concert. I couldn’t get a good photo of him in the back of the band. However, I bet you can spot him easily in the choir. He is ambivalent about the choir experience for many reasons, one being his section.

It’s the Fathers and Sons campout tonight, so we will celebrate Mark tomorrow night with all the good things.

Each day but one this week Daniel or Timothy took AP tests. I tried to warn them, but they took the classes and tests anyway. 😉

 

 

Old, Last, and New

Losing trees is one of the saddest things. The previous owners’ daughters called this grove and the stepping stone path through the periwinkle “the beautiful.” I will miss the flicker of light filtering through the leaves. It hurt my heart to see two trees go, but aspens don’t live forever. The trees really called to me when we looked at this house the first time, and I feel some nostalgia for the days when there were tall aspens lining the path.

Speaking of moving to Utah, that was almost six years ago. Leaving Tucson meant leaving the incredible piano ensemble experiences our kids had every spring, where they played duets on a stage with twelve grand pianos. There is nothing on this scale here, but there are “monster concerts” the kids play in the mall with five pianos. It was nice to hear the boys perform duets together one last time before Daniel leaves.

We came home from the monster concert to discover that the corsage Daniel ordered for prom was the wrong color and the flowers were wilting, so I made my first wrist corsage on Saturday. I felt more stress about this corsage than I thought was possible over some flowers and glue. Daniel went to prom with McKenna and I just hoped the flowers would stay on that wrist corsage all evening. I probably should have hoped he would have fun, but that was a given since he was with McKenna and happy friends.

Good Things from Last Week

Paige was accepted into the Illustration BFA program at BYU and things are moving forward with her internship in New York this summer.

Mark was awarded three ranks in Scouting. He achieved the rank of First Class, just in time to turn twelve.

Paige and I drove to Cedar City for lunch with Richard’s female relatives to celebrate his mom’s birthday. I didn’t capture everyone in this picture. With so many schedules it was amazing that so many could make it.

Dessert in Beaver

Daniel learned he is Valedictorian of his class and received the Heritage scholarship at BYU.

Not pictured: Timothy in his tux playing at the State Band competition, winning Frisbee points at the tournament on Saturday, and the electric guitar he is making in his woods class.

Richard and I celebrated our 23rd anniversary.

 

Not every week is a harvest, and I am thankful when one comes along.

To Myself

To myself:

Take these tender experiences and allow them to take a flight with you in your soul. Above the winds and the pull of distractions and Earth, examine each, and ask, “Does this provide a lesson for the mind or heart?” Lessons of the heart require more time aloft.

Avoid the tendency to land too early in your assessment of the big lessons. “I can’t do it,” and “Why?” are things we say when we have landed too soon.  Trust that as you fly, your heart will grow into lessons too big for you right now in your current state.

And the ugly lessons, the ones that tear the heart and torture the mind? The longer you fly, the softer the lesson will seem when you land, aged and wise. What burdened you once will seem like a light thing, perhaps even a sweet thing then. So keep flying.

Fifteen is when…

You need a ride home from a friend’s house, but the back seat is full of old junk. And since it is almost midnight, you hold that enormous television or light fixture on your lap because you are out of options to get home.

You get shuffled from driver to driver.

You can drive, but your mom has to be with you.

You might not get a ride at all because your mom forgets to turn up her phone.

(I am feeling sorry today for Timothy and the realities of being fifteen.)

 

 

Gift

Two of the most beautiful passages of War and Peace happen when Prince Andrew is wounded in different battles. He has clarity in these moments about others and himself, feeling compassion and love instead of his usual contempt and ambition. Fame reveals itself as the small thing it is. He remembers how it felt to be a child.

I think of these scenes, and they remind me of the goal: to experience life in a more welcoming, childlike way. If I did, I could enjoy warmth, comfort, compassion, companionship, and love more easily. There would be no room for grudges or worries. A child trusts; a child seeks joy; a child accepts the gifts around him as reality.

In another War and Peace passage, Pierre, the restless seeker, realizes,

God is here and everywhere… He felt like a man who after straining his eyes to see into the far distance finds what he sought at his very feet. All his life he had looked over the heads of men around him, when he should have merely looked in front of him without straining his eyes.

-War and Peace, ch XII

I sat in a concert about a month ago I had a War and Peace moment. It was neither sought-for nor earned; I was actually tired and a little frustrated that I couldn’t find a good seat. During the long concert, I looked around me at the families who had come to support their children. I felt how they loved each other. I smiled at the grandmother who hugged her tough son and grandchildren. I noticed a middle school aged boy sitting alone, holding a bouquet of flowers carefully in his hands during the whole concert. I strained to watch him give the gift after the concert, but lost him in the crowd. He was love. I loved him. He loved someone enough to sit alone and bring her flowers. I was love. I could see beyond my usual categorization of people and just see their goodness. This was a welcome rest. This was happiness.

These moments of pure love are rare, so I am writing it to remind myself it’s always there. I just need to develop a capacity to receive it when it is revealed to me.

“I was then wiser and had more insight than at any other time, and understood all that is worth understanding in life. because…because I was happy.”

Pierre’s insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to discover personal attributes which he termed “good qualities” in people before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving them.

-War and Peace, ch XIX

Nine years old

Yesterday this blog turned nine years old. I didn’t think of it until this morning. Instead of commemmorating, I spent some time installing a plug-in to make the blog private. I think Richard has talked me out of closing off the blog to most visitors. As I contemplate a tenth year of blogging, I realize the main reasons for beginning a blog are gone. My parents returned from their mission. We live closer to family and can see them more often. I am no longer home schooling and needing validation for it. The kids are much older now, and there are no more cute baseball pictures and ballet recitals to share. Milestones such as graduation, a mission, an internship, driving, and our baby turning twelve are coming, and I don’t feel the clarity to write something worthy of these moments. I look at my first posts, the kids eating a treat and playing baseball in Arizona, and feel the difference in our situation deeply. We are not here to stay the same, as these years have shown. But Paige is still the one that inspires us to pull together for traditional meals and activities and she is still creating art. Daniel continues to inspire awe with his creations and surprise us with his mature insights. Timothy still disarms me with his smile and shows steady excellence in all he does. Mark remains affectionate and is a bright, entertaining companion. Richard sits at the same desk and works in the yard. I fuss about the house and carve out time to read and write between driving people places. In some things, we are what we have always been, just more full in the expression of them. Thank you for checking in on us.

My words

Someone asked us at church to come up with a word that described our individual focus for the year. It was just an exercise and she wasn’t saying that a theme word should have to be a thing we do. But it is a good exercise to get you thinking. Some examples women came up with: acceptance, kindness, patience, love, and joy.

I couldn’t think of one word, so I chose this phrase from Alma. This has been in my head this year, and some good has come from it. Unfortunately, it hasn’t had an effect on my exercise habits.

And this little letterboard makes me really, really happy.