Life according to Angela – Page 98

Kind friends

A neighbor shoveled my walk yesterday sometime between 4:30 and 6:30 a.m.. I am not sure who did it, but I have an idea. My relief at finding this when it was 4 degrees outside can’t be measured. I could see that all of the walks in the cul-de-sac had been shoveled to so it wasn’t obvious who the good neighbor had been. Nice work! That was my happy face from yesterday in the picture above. You’re welcome. (for the laugh)

The past few weeks have brought a new friend in my life through one of Timothy’s friends at school. I learned that we grew up within a mile or two of one another. She and I graduated from the same high school several years apart and we admired the same teachers. Last night we learned that their family and ours had each worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the early days of our marriages. I love finding people with whom it’s so comfortable to to talk.

I asked… “Have you see this [obscure film]?” and of course she had. It is nice to be understood based on where I came from without her having to know me during those flawed years of my life. She has been a good friend during these days without Richard. She is a recent widow, yet she still showed sympathy to me about this time without him. I admire her for that selflessness. My favorite people are those who can look at someone’s situation and appreciate the importance of it and show empathy, despite their own pain or experiences.

I haven’t made close friends very often in my life, and that’s the way I prefer things to be. Some people are just easier for me to share things with. I appreciate friendships on many levels. I need many different kinds of friends

I have my “Role Model” friends with whom I tag along and try to learn their ways, never feeling that they let me in too close.

I have my “Parents of my Children’s Friends” group and that’s a fun relationship because I learn about them through their children so I think of them as friends even though we rarely talk. I know what they are doing and when they eat dinner and other things about their schedules. These are the friends I can text at 6:30 in the morning with a question about carpool and I know they will be up. These are the friends whom I can call when there is a school dilemma, and honey, I have a lot of those now.

There are the “Friends because we are Working Together at Church” friends. Sometimes these relationships last beyond the assignment, but there is a beautiful bond that lasts from shared experiences even if we have nothing else in common.

I will call anyone a Friend who loves my children.

Yesterday was a happy friend day.

Music

I can’t remember a time in many years that I haven’t played the violin for church or a fireside for Christmas. What a nice tradition this is that I never set out to establish, but one that has humbled me and helped me to feel the sweet message of the season every year. I’m playing two pieces this Christmas and the arrangements are beautiful and the people with whom I play are some of the best musicians I have ever met. Where would I be without music and these friendships that come from it?

In high school I was surrounded by really talented violinists that made me see that I lacked in my ability. After 10th grade I no longer had a private teacher and I felt like an amateur among what I now realize was a remarkable and uncommon batch of gifted kids. It wasn’t until I moved to Texas in 1997 that I began to see that there aren’t many adult violinists. I began to appreciate that I could play well enough and not be ashamed of what I knew I still lacked. I am so grateful that I didn’t give up on my talent because of the greater talents of others. I have learned that my talent is enough. I’m the person in the parable who was given two talents, not five, but I have been diligent.

I drove to an elementary school a few weeks ago to introduce the violin to the student body along with other members of a quartet. I stood in front of hundreds of kids and played samples of many styles of music. I remembered my public school orchestra teacher and dedicated the effort to him. What a gift he gave to me with his teaching.

Last Sunday a grandfather approached me to ask if I would teach his granddaughter to play the violin. “She’s a great girl,” he said. I told him that I would consider it. I’m trying to decide if this elementary school performance and this conversation with this grandfather are the signs that I have been waiting for indicating that it’s time to begin teaching someone, even one person to play.

For now, I am being diligent about practice and trying not to get the shakes when I stand up in front of people to play. Richard says that he finds it odd that my confidence has not increased over the years after so many pieces in so many meetings. My confidence hasn’t improved because I think too much and my goal is to transport somebody in the congregation beyond their troubles. The result is the shakes and fear of fainting. But I haven’t fainted yet, so it would be reasonable for me to get over it. My nerves remain immune to reason and I predict that I’ll be a bit of a wreck for the next two Sundays and then feel great about the whole thing when it’s all over.

Teacher and Carpool Christmas Gifts

This is one of the most useful ideas I have seen. We made these (from potholders and plastic bags) in a Relief Society activity two years ago in Arizona and I have used mine several times a week ever since. They fit nicely into a purse or a glove box in the car. They hold first aid items, tooth picks, medicine, or whatever. The kids and I made a bunch of these for teacher and carpool gifts this year.

You stack and alternate 8 or 10 plastic bags on a pot holder and sew them down the middle using a ribbon and thread. You cut off the bottoms of each bag after you sew them down the middle. In order to keep all the bags and ribbon from slipping, I use 3 flat push pins or to hold them in place as I sew.

The outside looks like this after it’s sewn and you attach a button.

A list of items I like to keep in mine:

first aid: bandages, alcohol swabs, q-tips, cotton balls, rubber gloves, Ibuprofen, antacids, throat lozenges
beauty: bobby pins, lip balm, hair elastics, nail clippers, tweezers, soap leaves, 1 or 2 tissues, gum or mints, dental flossers
emergencies: $1 bill, a quarter, safety pins, thread and a needle, a printed list of important phone numbers, tiny flashlight
organization: tape rolled around a craft stick, post it notes, a sharpie and a pen

I like to be prepared, and this little thing has saved me so many times. Having 10 little compartments helps me to see when I run out of something. I hope the people enjoy them as much as I have.

Finish vs. Enjoy

Once in a while I hear people announce that they are “finished” with their Christmas shopping and gift preparations so now they can enjoy the holidays. There are lots of issues playing out here such as trying to focus on the spiritual rather than commercial, completing a big task, and relief that it’s no longer necessary to fight the crowds at the stores. (Have you seen crowds this year at stores? I have not.)

The other day I was working in my “Christmas shop” down in the basement. Candy jars, blankets, and other homemade Christmas gifts surrounded me. For a minute I felt a little overwhelmed when I realized that I was running out of time to finish everything. Then I remembered how much I really enjoy making gifts; I remembered that I had chosen simpler gifts this year on purpose so I could enjoy the making of them in spare minutes. Most gifts I can complete in 15 minutes or less.

I have decided that it’s most important to enjoy the process. If I don’t get it all “done” by December 10th, all well. And good job to those who do “finish” Christmas early. I mean to enjoy every minute of the season, “finished” or not.

I decided that the baking is what is stressing me out this year. I may not bake cookies for all of the neighbors. A friend of mine in Arizona assembled beautiful plates of Christmas goodies using an assortment of store-bought cookies and candies. Perhaps I’ll do that. But I am NOT going to get stressed out over something like a plate of cookies. Amen.

Our Christmas Village

Tonight after doing some snow shoveling I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. Snow was falling and the icing on the houses and trees made my neighborhood look like a little Christmas village on someone’s mantel. I took pictures so Richard could see what he is missing in Phoenix where it’s 65 degrees today. One neighbor caught me taking photos and I was a little embarrassed. All well. It’s best that he learns my odd ways.

The neighbors have really done a beautiful job with their Christmas lights this year.

I love how this house has icicles along with beautiful white lights everywhere.

Our house doesn’t have Christmas lights yet, but it has a little Charlie Brown tree. In fact, I shall name our house the Charlie Brown House of the cul-de-sac. One of these days we’ll get those lights up. But that’s just on the outside. On the inside, we are NOT a Charlie Brown house.

We have a Christmas tree upstairs and two downstairs. Our candy dishes are brimming, Christmas music is playing, nativities are on every shelf in the family room, and red berries and ornaments are everywhere!!

Freedom

Tonight as I put together a Christmas craft activity for the kids I kept thinking that I could pull out the camera and make a “tutorial” for the little pocketed pouches we were sewing. A contrasting thought reminded me that my grandmothers and mother never felt internal pressure to publish home project tutorials. How did I arrive at this mindset?

I understand that my value has nothing to do with what I publish online, but I like to see that people are reading. And people don’t like stale, day-old stuff. I feel pressure to keep moving so you will come back… because we never outgrow the thrill of reading something new, especially when it’s a note from a friend. I write with you readers resting someplace my thoughts, but I also write because I escape as I craft and whittle away at ideas and sentences. If I decide to post a crafty tutorial, it will be because I am proud of it, not because I feel pressure to produce something.

It would be difficult for me to be a serial cartoon artist, always having to come up with something funny. It would be very difficult for me to be a craft or lifestyle blogger, always trying to come up with the next new thing.

Is there anything I can produce online day after day that I can consistently be proud of?

I don’t think so.

It feels like freedom to say no to this production sometimes. Peaks and valleys, green light, red light. Thoughts take time to distill and life must be lived before it can be written.

Little Women

Paige and I watched this movie late into the night last weekend. I always watch this movie with my girl. The first time I watched it was in a theater with my mom and two sisters in December 1994, just a few days before I got engaged. That’s a sweet memory.

It was a weekend to celebrate women. My mom spoke at the Missionary Training Center to all of the sister missionaries on Sunday morning and she invited me and my sisters to attend.

We were told that 39% of the missionaries at the MTC this weekend are sisters. That’s a lot of women. There was real power in that enormous arena. There were other sisters assembled at the “west campus” and we waved via satellite. When they all sang I cried.

They took lots of notes and told me they were excited to go to Taiwan or Scottsdale, Arizona and all over the world. My mom’s words were beautiful and reminded us that The Gospel Blesses Families. It’s quite something to be invited to speak to such a unique and historic audience. It might have been the largest gathering of sister missionaries ever. It was a special thing to see my mother speak with confidence and power to that audience.

I went home to my Young Women at church and told them that they look like the sisters at the MTC. They are nearly the same age and they have the same countenance. Do they understand that they have power through their obedience to covenants? I hope so. Do they understand that they are respected and valuable in their roles at church? I hope so. Do they know that it’s a blessing to be a woman? Oh, because it is!

C.S. Lewis

I’ve spent a year reading the writings of C.S. Lewis not realizing that it was the 50th anniversary of his death on November 22. I have collected many quotes. There are fundamental differences in his theology and mine, but his insights into human nature are honest and enlightening. I like his words about God’s love and methods of perfecting his children.

Here are a few quotes that I have enjoyed in my study this year:

…on wasting time and energy on things of little worth:

“The Christians describe the Enemy as one ‘without whom Nothing is strong’. Nothing is very strong: Strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.” –The Screwtape Letters

…on forgetting to count our blessings:

“We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, not kind, nor happy now but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the present.” –The Screwtape Letters

…on free will:

“The sin, both of men and angels, was rendered possible by the fact that God gave them free will: thus surrendering a portion of His omnipotence …because He saw that from a world of free creatures, even though they fell, He could work out… a deeper happiness and fuller splendour than any world of automata would admit. –Miracles

…on mourning and remembering a loved one:

“For, as I have discovered, passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them. This becomes clearer and clearer. It is just at those moments when I feel least sorrow… that H. rushes upon my mind in her full reality, her otherness. Not, as in my worst moments, all foreshortened and patheticized and solemnized by my miseries, but as she is in her own right.” –A Grief Observed

“I will turn to her as often as possible in gladness. I will even salute her with a laugh. The less I mourn her the nearer I seem to her.” –A Grief Observed

…on our unanswered questions:

“Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsensical questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask–half our great theological and metaphysical problems– are like that.” –A Grief Observed

“Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.” –A Grief Observed

…on reading:

“The great thing is to be always reading, but not to get bored–treat it not like work, more as a vice! Your book bill ought to be your biggest extravagance.” -quoted in CS Lewis, A Biography by Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper

…on God’s love for us:

“The great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we should be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.” –Mere Christianity

…and a reminder on how to reflect God’s light:

“He [God] shows much more of Himself to some people than to others–not because he has favorites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favorites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.” –Mere Christianity

…and about the word “Christian”:

“if at once we allow people to start spiritualizing and refining, or as they might say ‘deepening’, the sense of the word Christian it too will speedily become a useless word. In the first place, Christians themselves will never be able to apply it to anyone. It is not for us to say who, in the deepest sense, is or is not close to the spirit of Christ. We do not see into men’s hearts. We cannot judge, and indeed are forbidden to judge. It would be wicked arrogance for us to say that man is, or is not, a Christian in this refined sense… as for unbelievers, they will no doubt cheerfully use the word in the refined sense. It will become in their mouths simply a term of praise. In calling anyone a Christian they will mean that they think him a good man. But that way of using the word will be no enrichment of the language, for we already have the word good. Meanwhile, the word Christian will have been spoiled for any real useful purpose it might have served.” –Mere Christianity

…and finally, why we should seek Christ:

“Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him, everything else thrown in.” –Mere Christianity

We need a little…

1979 Christmas — Sanchez kids Christmas 1979

Will Thanksgiving ever arrive? I’m impatient to see Richard again. Perhaps if we put up the Christmas tree early this year, it will seem like his homecoming will be sooner.

I bought a new tree last weekend. I placed the big box in the living room for a few days and stirred up all kinds of anticipation. We’re big Thanksgiving enthusiasts, but we are breaking all of the rules and decorating for Christmas early. There might be pilgrims and nativities, and pumpkins and stockings adorning the shelves and mantels for a week. We’ll do whatever inspires a pull of family connection and memory.

Los Alamos

Dear Richard,

We were darling in 1995 and living in Los Alamos, NM. When was the last time we reminisced about that lovely place and time?

The canyon views as we drove to work each morning were gorgeous. Remember meeting for lunch at the lake and reading that silly book Heaven Only Knows aloud? Remember how we would hike a new trail every weekend? The Red Dot trail was unforgettable for lots of reasons, and it was on the Pipeline Trail that we decided that we’d spend our wedding money to buy a computer… I think it had 75 megabytes of RAM and a 1 gigabyte hard drive?! We had a goal to play tennis on Wednesday nights and each evening after making dinner we’d sit down together and watch Coach. I tried to watch an episode of that a few years ago and I couldn’t remember why we liked that show so much.

One day we traveled to Santa Fe so you could take the GRE and I locked the keys in the car and we had to use a hanger to unlock the door. Gasoline cost $1.30 at the station all summer long. One of my favorite memories is the time we drove to Santa Fe to buy a piece of strawberry pie.

Remember when we played violin and piano duets at the Chamberlain’s house all evening while they were away? What about that camping trip in the thunderstorm when everything got drenched and we huddled together on the small island in the center of the tent through the night?

My memories of that time feel like mountain air, mixed with a bit of sunlight from our window on Sunday afternoons after church and the swell of grandeur in those views of the Rio Grande and mountain trails.

Those were sweet days. I thought I loved you then, but that was just the beginning.

Love,