Last Week

Last week was a wrestle. I wrestled with church dilemmas, the clock, illnesses, and expectations. But there was a three-tiered cake one night, and clean surfaces everywhere, evidence that when I am doing mental work, physical work goes right along with it.

Last week, there was so much calling me to stay home with the family. They needed my skills, my advice, my health, my early mornings, late nights, afternoon errands, and my touch.

Last week’s lessons:

Don’t bury concerns. Express them.
BYU application essay editing is a good way to spend a LOT of time with your senior. BYU requires six, people. Six!
You can’t wash your hands too often during flu season.
The boost in morale will come.
It’s ok to choose the less time-consuming option.
Conversations happen away from screens.
I experienced a miracle.
Everyone’s faith is a little different, even within the same church, and that is ok.
God knows ahead of time when I will fail to act, whether from laziness or pulls from different directions. He prepared a contingency plan or two last week so people were still cared for.
Life is long. I don’t have to do it all at once.
To write is to be vulnerable.
The sacrament is so precious to me.

Bubbles and Words

Feelings of achievement are like bubbles. They rise above everything else and give an ethereal feeling of ascent. For months, my growing book was my secret delight, something that made me smile as I straightened a room or drove around town. The night in December when I compiled all of the essays and learned that I had more than 64,000 words felt like one of the biggest triumphs of my life. I’m talking about big bubble triumphant feelings. Foolishly, I mentioned my achievement on social media, inviting others to celebrate with me. Friends and acquaintances took my cue and offered unreserved praise, never mind they hadn’t read the words. After a few hours, I felt ashamed for advertising my feat. “Look at me!” was never a common phrase in my vernacular. I deleted the post, and along with it, the kind, encouraging comments. I knew then that I only want to hear from the people who actually read my words. Still, there were now 65,000 words to celebrate, and I celebrated alone as I printed copies for our children for Christmas.

After a few weeks, my bubbly feelings of achievement have melted back into the tepid water of the everyday. I wish the feelings had lasted a little longer. All well. I have learned that is the way it goes with bubbles and feelings. That’s why words matter to me. They are still here, even when the euphoria of achievement and popularity goes away. The words will be here for generations.

Memoir Project: Summer of the Toads

Sahuarita, AZ, 2008

Summer of the Toads

During July and August, Arizona enjoys a monsoon season, with thunderstorms almost every day. With the storms came puddles, thunder so loud it would set off our smoke alarms, and flooding on the road. After a storm, the cactus blossoms would erupt in brilliant colors, and the Colorado River toads would make their annual appearance.

Pea soup green, bloated, ground-hugging, with rufous lumps, these toads would emerge from hibernation in the rains. We found them in the roads at night during the rains and sometimes they were flattened like pancakes in front of our house, run over by a passing car. The largest ones were the size of a large man’s fist, and when flattened, were a spectacular 8-10 inches in diameter. We also found them on our front porch at night, attracted by the porch light, hunkered down in corners, waiting for bugs. They have poison glands, so we kept the dog away and didn’t handle them.

The summer of 2008 was an especially good year for toads. We noticed the same toads came out each evening. The kids learned their sizes and markings and named some of them. Camouflage, Jumping Jack, Mongo, Toady, Spot, Camouflage Jr., and Teeny were some of their names. Sometimes the kids would catch insects and place them right in front of the toads. Zap! The ponderous toads’ tongues were quick to capture them.

There was a perpetual puddle on the west side of our house in July which teemed with baby toads, smaller than the size of dimes. We let the kids scoop them up and put them in Timothy’s screened insect carrier. Climbing and hopping with tiny legs, these toads were a delight to all of the neighbor children. One neighbor, however, was not thrilled to have so many poisonous toads near his house, and watched our kids and his daughter collect baby toads one night and convinced the boys to walk up the street with him to release them at the park.

We never saw a summer with toads quite like this one again. We traveled and had other adventures that season, but the simple memories of the little boys with their flashlights playing with their toads are clearer in my mind. It fits the familiar pattern of family memory; the tiny memories rise up over the bigger occasions to mean the most.

Navigating

The report card for Mark’s first semester came in the mail the other day, a reminder that I have had around 100 days on my own. (Mark is thriving in public school.)

How is it going at home?

I still hate the goodbyes every morning with my high school kids and Mark. I don’t think this will change. I love the quiet, and rarely listen to music or turn on the TV. But music and movies help when I get lonely.

I have so much to do, but enjoy not being so pressed for time. I could spend all day working on house projects if I chose to. There are always Relief Society dilemmas and demands. I have a stack of books I am reading, music I should play, fabric I am stitching, and goals I am working on. Some days I wonder how I home schooled, then I remember that I could do it because we needed to do it. It’s like anyone’s life. You do what you feel you need to do.

House work and even service in Relief Society weren’t enough during my transition to being alone. Writing was what got me through the first semester. After some time off from writing, I think I need to get back to it. The old restlessness is back.

Sometimes our pathway is blocked

This is how the snow pile looks about a week after the plow pushed snow from the street across our sidewalk. What do you see in this picture?

Do you see a dead end?

I see an insurmountable task.

Or is there more here?

Sun and shadow!

A hill to sled upon!

Something to chuckle about!

Evidence of prayers answered for snow.

We have control over how we view a situation. Today I choose to see only beautiful snow.

Screentime

We had ten fun minutes playing with this app as a family. Richard’s fine art doppleganger was very handsome. This was my most complimentary. We are not talking about the gentleman with a powdered wig which was also my match.

I enjoyed watching all of the hearts that floated on the side of my phone screen as the new First Presidency did their press conference.

I watched a PBS series about the Bronte sisters. It was probably the most depressing thing I have seen in a long time. And for a film supposedly about the sisters, there was an awful lot about the brother who spiraled into despair and ruin. I still call Jane Eyre my favorite book.

When I mentioned that I was disappointed that there wasn’t more in the series about their writing process, someone told me that it’s common for people to focus on the lives of women artists, not their art. I am still thinking about that statement.

I streamed a movie called Dr. Thorne on Amazon. It was really good. And the actor who plays Dr. Thorne is one of my favorites.

The 2002 version of Nicholas Nickleby was another good one I watched.

I am disappointed by Masterpiece’s season two of Victoria so far. We turned it off last week, mid-episode.

Most of my screentime is when the family is skiing or when I am doing laundry or other housework. The boys scatter quickly when I turn on the television.

A Post in Several Parts

The Part about Family

Woodworker, Ultimate Frisbee player, jazz band member, campaign manager, and the friend who takes people to the movies to celebrate a victory: Timothy.

Recipient of several full-ride scholarships to colleges, melodica master, member of the robotics team, and someone who gives very detailed and sincere compliments: Daniel.

Science and history wiz, a cook and artist with a ready wit, he says, “I love you” at least twice before he says goodbye each morning: Mark.

Painter of portraits, student, and the woman who finally bought some pizza from the place that is literally three feet from her front door: Paige.

The Part where I Reflect on Writing

I feel a latent energy to write, but when I sit down, the words are elusive and inadequate. I have flashes of ideas as I do the dishes, and I hurry to find a post-it note and write down a few ideas with soapy fingers. Later, when I have a minute to write, the words I jotted down earlier have lost their allure. I seem to have forgotten how to write good sentences and my ideas collapse as I try to express them.

I must be in a planting season, not a harvest.

The Part about the Snow and the Soup

The boys and Richard were finally able to go skiing, and they had a great time.

They spent most of the day Saturday moving snow from one place to another. In the end, we had nearly a foot and a half of snow fall in our yard. After shoveling the front walk a couple of times, the snow plow came and pushed the snow from the street so hard into our curb that it buried our sidewalk. People will need to walk a different way around our cul-de-sac. We can’t face trying to move that mountain of snow.

I made the menu for the week, and it included five days of soups and stews and lots of breads, berries, and brownies.

The Part where I Ask, “Are you still reading?”

Yes, this was a boring one. I know.

The Big Three

I bought a new planner for 2018 which provides space for daily tasks and schedules, but also has a space to list the three most important tasks for the week. Last week the big three were mostly about Relief Society. This week, my big three include quilting and and a focus on housework. I love having an overall vision for the week.

Here is my quilting progress for the week:

I am working on a group exchange for next Christmas. I tried English paper piecing to make this wreath. It is probably too time consuming to do enough of these in time, but I am happy with the result. The green pieces, sewn individually and then together, probably took me 6 or 7 hours over the summer.

I added a bow, and liked it so much better. The bow took probably 2-3 hours.

Everything is hand-sewn on this quilt block and hand-appliqued to a white square.

I really like this orientation for the square, too. As you can see, the pins are still there and I have yet to finish a single block. Lots of work.

I won’t focus on quilting every week, but the time I have spent stitching has felt wonderful.

Hellooooo!

Helloooo regular life. (My niece says it best.)

The house is empty for the first time since December 20th. There is a stray candy cane leftover from Christmas, and one caramel remaining in the kitchen. I wash towels and wipe down counter tops, pull old food from the refrigerator, and mail the thank you notes. I feel the silence. I light my candles and begin a new week. Mondays are the best. And Christmas 2017 was over much too quickly.

But helloooo, it’s going to be a great year.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, cherish, and lift

After Apple Picking

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

-Robert Frost

I have mentioned this before, but since I was called to be a R.S. president I write down the names of the sisters I visit or interact with each day on my calendar. It is my reminder that the work is about individuals, not activities, lessons, and cookbooks. It reminds me that I didn’t fail *these* sisters today, even if I am concerned about so many. Most of the time, it is incredibly helpful to me to keep this record.

In December, I gave up writing down the names. I was looking at life through a distorted lens, as through ice over water. Despite my efforts, the problems multiplied in my mind. There are a lot of reasons for my discouragement, some obvious, some subtle, some avoidable, and others unavoidable. I am not beating myself up about this. It is OK to be tired sometimes, and I don’t resent or regret anything I did for others.

I played a musical number with Daniel on Christmas Eve for the ward and hurried away from church because with this last service of giving music, I had given my all. Everything. I was dry. I couldn’t even face compliments. When Richard came home ready to tell me all the positive things people had to say about our music, I simply told him, “I don’t want to talk about it,” and made my way out the door for one last visit to a sister before Christmas.

Instead of coming home after the visit, I drove to the temple and sat in my car in the parking lot for a long time. I remembered the impression from the Spirit that I had during the sacrament a few hours before. It was simply, “I love you. Don’t worry about working on anything else for now,” and I drove home with that thought.

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is giv’n,

Still God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heav’n.

-O Little Town of Bethlehem

I have rested, I have rededicated myself to habits that bring me strength, and I am being gentle with myself. I know it IS enough to simply love someone through their problems, for this is the pattern that Heavenly Father showed me on Christmas Eve. I took some needed and worthy time for rest, and this included not keeping a catalog of my efforts. I take comfort that “all things are written by the Father” (3 Nephi 27:26) and no detail of my silent and private service is lost to Him.

On January 2, I started writing down the names again. When I awoke to the news on January 3 that President Monson had passed away, I couldn’t think of a better way to honor President Thomas S. Monson on his last day on earth than to make those visits and keep a record of their precious names, even though I know that angels are doing the same on the other side. This day, writing the names didn’t deplete any energy, it invigorated me.

You are, of course, surrounded by opportunities for service. No doubt at times you recognize so many such opportunities that you may feel somewhat overwhelmed. Where do you begin? How can you do it all? How do you choose, from all the needs you observe, where and how to serve?

Often small acts of service are all that is required to lift and bless another: a question concerning a person’s family, quick words of encouragement, a sincere compliment, a small note of thanks, a brief telephone call.

If we are observant and aware, and if we act on the promptings which come to us, we can accomplish much good.

-President Thomas S. Monson