My brother-in-law Richard tells me that in Utah, the holiday is called Washington and Lincoln Day. Well, we celebrated it by climbing rocks.
Did you notice that Sparky is smiling in that one?
Well, that’s all for today. I need to get back to sorting papers, magazines, and toys from all of the baskets on our shelves. So far I have discovered that we have missed several non-required school assignments, allowed numerous gift certificates to expire, and that I need to stop hoarding personal letters. I also need to part with about 15 years of Taste of Home magazines. I just know that if I get rid of them, I am sure to be called to the Relief Society and have to plan meals for masses of people again and I will need those “recipes for feeding a crowd”. Come to think of it, perhaps it’s good insurance to keep them around.
Mark is a boy who loves comfort. He changes into his pajamas when he comes home from school. He loves to build nests of blankets and pillows. On Friday he had a day off from school, so that meant he could wear his pajamas all day long! While the big boys went skiing, he set up all of his stuffed animals in his bed and read books. I took the picture of Sparky at the foot of the bed, but a few minutes later, he was nestled among the stuffed animals with whom he had claimed some form of kinship.
I have started planning my 40th birthday party. It’s in November, but we can’t be too hasty with these things. The plans evolve each week. Lately I am thinking it will be a book lovers party and may just involve a photo booth with giant cut-outs of some favorite authors with whom you may have your photo taken! I’m such a geek.
Well, this is unexpected. Rain in early February? The snow in our yard lives a life of attrition as it gets pelted by rain. Blah.
Yesterday as I drove through the puddles I remembered that smiling, soothing voice of Gene Kelly and I decided to sing along with him. I’m singin’ in the rain… And that helped a bit.
Besides singing in the car, here are a few of the things I do to fend off the February blues:
Bake for a neighbor
Place pictures in frames
Take vitamin D
Plan paint projects
Write letters
Sew happy things
Help the kids make Valentines
Play the violin
Dress up in nice clothes
Sniff freshly sliced limes
Go to lunch with my sisters
Wear colorful tights
Read about good people
Watch the Olympics
Look at beautiful gardens online
Clean up a cluttered room
Make little presents for little people
Attend two elementary school Valentine parties
Wear soft socks
Read December magazines full of Christmas cheer
Eat crunchy, fresh salads and warm bread
Visit the street where my friend decorates her house with Valentines Day lights
Watch Downton Abbey just to hear Maggie Smith’s lines
It takes the Olympic Games to get us to watch television at our house. We’re excited to watch many of the competitions and I am looking forward to seeing some news pieces about Russia and to see some views of landscapes. I just read War and Peace, remember?
The boys are skiing on this day off from school. I hope they don’t try anything crazy after watching those athletes make it look so easy.
The last summer Olympic Games we spent in Arizona, packing and painting. I have lots of memories associated with the Olympics. Perhaps things become more memorable when I’m surrounded by my family and the world feels more friendly and amicable. I love my 2002 USA hat. I wear it often.
I spent a few minutes yesterday reading my journal from 2001. What a heartbreaking year that was. I’m pretty sure it was one of the most difficult in our lives. It was the year that I said goodbye to teaching seminary (I mourned over that) and I had my 3rd major surgery in 3 years. I was in pain for months and there were other troubles that I won’t list here. I’d get over one trial and another big one would emerge. The terrorist attacks affected the mood. Some of my entries were so sad. Other entries helped me see how I got through that time. I maintained hope that things would get better; I maintained hope in the power of prayer and faith. I clung to the written word from Church magazines and the scriptures. I believed that my problems were known and carefully measured for my good. I took time to realign my priorities.
I have been thinking about hope this month. I found a nice article about it in the September 2013 Ensign and I highly recommend it. Here is my favorite quote from the article and a quote by President Uchtdorf for you today.
Profound and sustaining hope is more than an attitude; it is an orientation of the spirit toward God.
-Vaughn E. Worthen, “The Healing Balm of Hope,” Ensign, September 2013.
There may be some among you who feel darkness enroaching upon you. You may feel burdened by worry, fear, or doubt. To you and to all of us, I repeat a wonderful and certain truth: God’s light is real. It is available to all! It gives life to all things. It has the power to soften the sting of the deepest wound. It can be a healing balm for the loneliness and sickness of our souls. In the furrows of despair, it can plant the seeds of a brighter hope. …It can illuminate the path before us and lead us through the darkest night into the promise of a new dawn.
-President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Hope of God’s Light,” Ensign, May 2012, 75.
I don’t feel like writing anything about today. How about I go downstairs and pull out my box of journals from storage and see what I was doing on January 28th sometime in my life?
Oh, look, here is my red suede journal from 2001 and there is an entry for January 28th.
Sunday, January 28, 2001
Doing well…
Working on patience with my children
Working on keeping the television turned off
Working to be more well-read in many books
Family is doing a marvelous job reading the B of M every day
Children going to bed earlier
The laptop works
Richard is supportive of seminary
Scripture study and lesson plans [for seminary] are good
1 degree off flight plan [makes] 1 mile difference for every 60 miles travelled (sic).
A flight plan parallels the mortal experience– am I on the right course
Punctuation and spelling are irrelevant to me in 2001. I was teaching the New Testament in seminary that year. I think that flight plan stuff came from a talk by President Gordon B. Hinckley. Incidentally, in 2001, I thought his last name was spelled, “Hinkley”. All of my seminary handouts carry the incorrect spelling.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.
Richard comes home this morning from Phoenix. I am so glad. We’re meeting for lunch in downtown Salt Lake City. How shall I do my hair? What shall I wear?
Decisions, decisions.
Here’s a parting thought for the weekend from a book that I am enjoying.
“It is an happy loss to lose oneself in admiration at one’s own Felicity: and to find GOD in exchange for oneself: Which we then do when we see Him in His Gifts, and adore His glory.”
I have been watching episodes of The Wonder Years in the background of my days while the kids are away. Season 3 is my favorite. Nearly episode makes me cry tears of memory, regret, and nostalgia. I love how they depict the mother in that show. Norma is the stay-at-home mom of the 1960’s. She keeps a spotless home and she is almost always in the kitchen. I snicker when I see the scenes where the family sits at the table, watching her cook, waiting for their meal to appear. While a woman working in the kitchen alone seems antiquated, I find that her presence in the kitchen and home is one of the things that draws me to the show. She magnifies the feeling of “home.” It is good that her family can count on her.
But Norma 1. isn’t real and 2. represents a different time. However, comparing my life to a stay-at-home mother (Norma) of the 1960’s can be instructive. On the positive side, I have more appliances to do the work that Norma did. I have an education and opportunities that Norma didn’t have. While I keep house and cook a lot, it’s with diminished expectations (my family doesn’t just sit and watch me do everything). On the negative side, the network of stay-at-home moms that Norma enjoyed is gone. In almost every neighborhood that we have lived, my stay-at-home life has been LONELY because so many women are at work during the day. Now that I have sent the kids to school, the house feels extremely lonely.
Is it the best use of my life to be by myself most of the day? Many women decide to get more education or go to work when their kids are all in school. Why don’t I want to do these things?
Should I be doing more? These thoughts don’t come from any feeling of boredom; I honestly have plenty to do. These thoughts don’t come from any feelings of inferiority. I know that I am capable and of value. However, something influences my thoughts and implies that what I do may not be enough.
No job has a 100% satisfaction rate and everyone is under-appreciated in some way, but it would be nice if there were fewer voices telling me that what I am doing is not enough.
The voices distill from hundreds of sources and have surrounded me my whole life. Even The Cosby Show’s mother needed to be an attorney to be relevant. Homemakers are parodied and trivialized almost everywhere. Feminist messages affect me, not in a way that entices me to agree with them, but they perplex me because I don’t feel the same angst. Am I missing something because I don’t share their frustration?
“What do you DO all day?” (said in an accusatory voice) and “Women should be allowed to realize their full potential in the workplace!” are some echoing remarks that I feel obligated to think about, but they don’t influence me to change my personal choices. I have exhausting exchanges in my mind where I try to defend my lifestyle to a critic. I lose every time. But that doesn’t mean that I am wrong. I’ve always been a poor debater. And what is right for my life isn’t right for everyone. Amen.
I acknowledge that I am in a privileged position to have the option to stay home instead of go to work. It’s important to me that it’s understood that we make financial sacrifices so I can stay home, too.
Perhaps it could be said that I sacrificed a bit of personal ambition to be a homemaker. I didn’t pursue a career that I loved. I have walked away from obligations that required too much time away from family, but these either never did or no longer feel like sacrifices. My small sacrifice is that I endure some degree of physical, emotional, and intellectual loneliness to be a full-time homemaker.
I enjoy a lot of freedom, so it seems a little silly to say that I sacrifice much of anything to take care of my home and family full-time. I’m going to continue as a modern version of Norma for a while longer. I think I’m needed here at home more than anywhere else. It’s one of those lovely paradoxes of life that after “sacrificing” for my family, I have an abundance of options before me in the walls of the home I have helped create.
Disclaimer: Please don’t get in a fluff over this post if you disagree with my thoughts. I’m not writing about anyone but myself and Norma here.
My brother-in-law Richard tells me that in Utah, the holiday is called Washington and Lincoln Day. Well, we celebrated it by climbing rocks.
Well, that’s all for today. I need to get back to sorting papers, magazines, and toys from all of the baskets on our shelves. So far I have discovered that we have missed several non-required school assignments, allowed numerous gift certificates to expire, and that I need to stop hoarding personal letters. I also need to part with about 15 years of Taste of Home magazines. I just know that if I get rid of them, I am sure to be called to the Relief Society and have to plan meals for masses of people again and I will need those “recipes for feeding a crowd”. Come to think of it, perhaps it’s good insurance to keep them around.
