Life according to Angela – Page 86

Family Update

The final weeks of this less than halfhearted winter signal the end and beginning of many things.

Paige has decided to attend BYU. So ends the up-and-down anticipation and insecurity in that area of her life. She is intensely busy with her classes, but beautiful sketches and paintings continue to emerge from her bedroom studio as do A’s on calculus tests and English papers from her classrooms. This end of high school stress has an overlay of fresh excitement for a new life in college.

Daniel and Timothy skied on Saturday and missed their bus ride home. I got to see where they ski for the first time when we picked them up. It was a sunny and warm ski day and the slopes were busy with little figures. These brightly clad skiers, Alpine lodges, trees, and sparkling snow were absolutely the most beautiful things I have seen all winter.

Daniel and I have been watching old musicals that I unpacked from storage. He is busy with an AP class and a research project. He has a busy social calendar which includes church dances, movie and game nights, and last week, an afternoon of sledding with a crowd of friends. We have had some late night talks which are enlightening and entertaining.

Timothy loves his after school jazz band. His goal lately is to build tiny models of all of his favorite Star Wars ships and to tease Mark. He has been attending Scout merit badge clinics and I’m still not accustomed to seeing him at youth activities. I’ll catch a glimpse of him and feel a little sentimental. How did he manage to arrive at age 12 this quickly?

Mark finished his first reading of the Book of Mormon and immediately began reading the Old Testament. If anybody can do it, Mark will. He’s put the pressure on me to help him finish his Wolf badge in Cub Scouts. The boy knows what he wants to accomplish and does it.

Baseball begins in a few weeks. It will be Timothy’s last season. It will be another season of machine pitch for Mark. The parks are beautiful here and the backdrop of the mountains is still a stunning sight to me. I look forward to evenings spent outdoors.

We bought new patches for Richard’s Scout uniform. Soon the Catalina Arizona Council patch and commissioner paraphernalia will be replaced with the Great Salt Lake Council and Assistant Scoutmaster patches. Ropes and pioneering poles are standard equipment these days. We miss having the missionaries in our home now that Richard is no longer the ward mission leader, but I think he enjoys spending time with Timothy and the other boys.

I am writing my book and playing the violin, keeping up with my study goals, and not exercising enough. I smile every time I look at these plates my grandmother gave me on my kitchen mantel.

The End.

Bread Baking Cure

It was 2009. I was feeling blue and I was feeling put upon. Church was a challenge and I didn’t feel understood or nourished by the people I was working with there. I was weary of the political commentary I heard in the halls and from comments in classes. I was grumpy, so I decided to fix it with bread.

I baked bread for several days and delivered the loaves to people in my town. The recipients were a mixture of people I loved and people I needed to learn to love. After the first delivery, I was a believer in the bread-baking cure for social maladies.

People reacted in strongly positive ways to receiving a loaf of warm, homemade bread. They would tell their friends; they would announce it in Sunday school that they loved my bread; and one night at a church auction, my offer to bake bread sold for over $100 for our cause. More important, people saw a loaf of bread as an act of love. It was a bridge to better friendship. I exchanged some of my pride and harsh judgments for a little effort in the kitchen and a new reputation for generosity.

Baking bread was one of the tools that helped me to finally accept living in Sahuarita, Arizona and enjoy it.

The knee

Richard really hurt his knee while skiing a few weekends ago. Over the last two weeks he’s taken various days off from work to rest in bed and try to heal. His brother Rob is coming to town in a week and he wants to be healed so they can ski together. The reality is, Rob’s ski trip of epic proportion will probably not include Richard.

Richard yells out in pain now and then, even when it’s the middle of the night. Is it from physical pain or mental anguish? Maybe both.

On Saturday, my sister loaned him some crutches. Bionic Richard was then able to propel himself in great strides ahead of us. This made him lucky because we chose to visit BYU that day and it was one of the bleakest, coldest days we’ve had in a while. He could get between buildings long before any of us could.

The kids and I shopped the BYU bookstore until every aisle was exhausted in its possibilities for our happiness and entertainment. Richard languished in a corner of the store, found a chair, and then settled down for a nap. No one disturbed him because he looked so tired and was obviously physically challenged, his crutches propped against his chair. Sad, sad, sad.

The next day, church seemed to brighten Richard’s mood. The crutches were a source for conversation, opportunities for humor, and some sympathy. He came home and told me that he must have talked to every member of our congregation. That seemed to help him to perk up, even if he might have to go to a doctor.

He’s not had to use the crutches as much the past two days. His moaning has decreased, and he was active all day yesterday. We’ll hope that it’s the beginning of better days for Richard.

Pink Starry Starry Night

We have taken a couple of days off from our regular routines to reconnect with each other. I am related to each of these darling and amazing women.

Today I taught a little oil painting class to the group. I didn’t get a photo of one of the paintings, but here are most of them.

Then we painted these letters to hang in the craft room at Spring Lake. My mom pulled out her guitar and we sang songs as we painted. What a happy time.

Mine is the PINK Starry Starry Night “A.”

Celebrations

Ooooh. I finally got brave and sewed these paper hearts I cut out a year ago. I’ve never sewed paper before, but it was easy and I love how it turned out. Please don’t ask me what the camera is focused on in the above picture. Not a single bit of that picture is in focus.I’m a little ambivalent about Valentines Day. I think it stresses Richard out. I don’t like to feel high maintenance, because I’m not. Except when I am shopping for a violin. Ahem.

My annual reading of The Gettysburg Address and Pink and Say will happen today when I find some time alone. I used to read Pink and Say aloud to the kids each February, but I gave it up. I just prefer to cry in private. Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln.

Family Home Evening #9,000 or something

Sometimes I am guilty of giving my best to my students instead of my children. I am learning that I can give my best to both. When it is my turn to give a family home evening lesson, I share what I am learning in my personal study or preparations for lessons at church. This month I made some extra copies of the Plan of Salvation kits that I made for a young women lesson. Last night the kids cut them out and added them to their missionary/future family collections. We also prepared some for a missionary care package.

My mom told me that she would make Plan of Salvation visual aids with the missionaries all the time. She suggested that we include transparent “spirit bodies” which enter at birth, are separated at death, and reunited with the colorful physical bodies at the resurrection. I have to admit that this little detail is my favorite part of these laminated kits. Most of these elements come from The Friend Magazine, January 2008. If you want a copy I would be happy to send them to you. You can use my laminator if you’re close by, too.

Progress report

I’ve made some progress in doll making this weekend. Here we see her face, missing pupils and a few final details in the eyes. I’m trying to decide if she is a redhead or a brunette. I am leaning toward brunette. My social media friends have been asked for their vote, and so far they are divided on the hair color. Eventually I hope to make many dolls of many different shades. I am also in love with a concept I found for a little boy doll.

This is so satisfying to see her come to life. I work on her for a little while now and then and come away happy each time.

As I sew, I think of my friends and family members who are facing difficult things. This doll is going to one of them.

Writing but not blogging

I found this on Pinterest but couldn’t find the original source.

It’s a good time for me, writing and studying many things. My formula for success lately comes from going to bed early, getting up early, exercising, and doing “mental” work in the morning. Housework happens in the afternoon, and most days, I take a short nap. At the very least, I try to read when Mark reads and write when Mark writes. On good days, I also practice the violin when he plays the piano.

Sorry, no pictures of the kids today. I’ve taken some but haven’t edited them. I have written many more essays for my book this week than I set out to accomplish and some activities have to be dropped in exchange.

Is writing this book evidence of a midlife crisis? The only other person I know who is writing her memoirs is dealing with a terminal illness. Some days I feel like I’m doing something crazy that no one will want to read. Other days I feel like I must be very self centered to think that my experiences are worth sharing. Other days, I write something that moves me and I can’t wait to share. The Doppler effect of memories is always on my mind. I am trying not to distort my story with too much sentiment earned by time and a different perspective. The truth is, there have been a steady mixure of rough days and good days and I am trying to figure out how to share them to connect with someone who might be going through something similar.

After indulging in the literary equivalent of a selfie each morning, focusing on myself and loving the time, I try to do something completely different, preferably for someone else! I think that I’m happier for the time spent writing, even if it means that must I get up early to do it.

#TBT: 2005

1-Texas good-bye-001 — Timothy is strapped into a car seat behind Richard. I lost this poncho a year later. I still miss it. At least I still have my trusty black Sienna!

In this picture we had just left our home in Austin for the last time and we were on our way to the airport to move to Arizona (Timothy is strapped into a car seat behind Richard). I had just tried to vacuum all the footprint marks from our carpet after everyone walked out. There was a hopeless thought that we would be forgotten as simply as those footprints disappeared beneath the vacuum. At least I had that fabulous poncho to wear that day. At least there was that. I’m totally not kidding about that poncho love.

I wrote a few more sad things about the day and just deleted them. I’m going to go cheer myself up now…write with some colored ink, read something, and make a few stitches in some fabric.

Life isn’t always rosy, folks, is it? Hold on, though. Everything will work out. Guaranteed.

Spinning

I haven’t taken any pictures of the kids lately. I spend all day with Mark and when the kids come home it’s pretty nice to just be together. I haven’t taken a picture of the college admission letters Paige has received, nor the project in the garage where Richard wired for some outlets and a light. Timothy has joined us for youth activities on Wednesday nights and joined the jazz band at school. Daniel is a class officer at school and has been introduced to the world of school responsibility and some of the perks that go with it. He has been our plumber, fixing our broken sinks and his hair is getting long but I haven’t taken the time to cut it. I had a little cry in a parking lot the other day as a new level of reality set in about Paige leaving our house this year. I am happy and sad. I write and read and sew and try to create order in my lists and stitches and words as my little people spin into their own beings. It really does feel like a spin, this emergence of their individuality through all of the activities and study, milestones and challenges. It’s difficult to capture a picture of someone who is spinning.