It is finished! It took me five years to complete it. I would work on it a few weeks each year, get frustrated, and put it away. Now I have a folk art decoration that is not my usual style, but I love it. I love Thanksgiving. I love the colors of autumn. I love gratitude in all its forms. I love praising God and feeling his love for me. I love time with my family during this season.
It’s been a solitary six weeks of painting. I am almost finished, so there is hope for posts about something else. To break up the monotony of the work, I listen to music of all kinds. It’s funny how I can look at a room and remember what I listened to when I painted it, even if it was five years ago. It was the Wicked soundtrack for the basement hallway baseboards in 2013; I remember John Denver, Mindy Gledhill, David Archuleta, and the Dixie Chicks for Paige’s walls in 2017; Mark’s room was painted almost entirely to Classical 89. This is my playlist recently:
Sometimes I just turn on the TV for company. I chose these shows recently:
I am almost ready for Christmas music, but I am holding back the urge to listen to it. We don’t want to overlook Thanksgiving!
I drove past the masses of cars at the elementary school Halloween parade this morning on my way to an Old Testament class. And I felt old, but ok with that.
Once upon a time, I was a great costume maker for the cutest children ever. It is enough for me to just have memories now.
Update: It’s enough to have memories AND my youngest show up at the door with his friends. 😉
I have mentioned that my 2018 planner has a section to keep a weekly gratitude list. Here are some highlights from my gratitude lists for October:
My heart has been a bit heavy this month with feelings of loneliness, fragility, and rejection. I have had mouth ulcers and possibly toothache. But looking at this list, I can say it has also been a very good month.
We had a evening of French cuisine at a beautiful setting this week with Mark. We went to La Caille with Mark’s foods class who had just studied table etiquette, so they knew just what to do with all of those utencils. And now we can say we have tried escargot.
Note: This is about a process more than an event, and left ambiguous so you can see yourself in the narrative. It is a lesson gained over many years, events, and interactions.
I live like a kind of marionette, bouncing and dancing according to the will of puppeteers, responding quickly to turns and lifts of the cross of wood over my head. I live a frenetic pace, until suddenly, I am set down on the ground. In a tangle of strings, left in a heap on the floor, I struggle to find which way is up. Wasn’t I doing just as the puppeteers directed? So why am I here, entangled in all these strings?
I am flustered as I fight to stand. I become angry at the puppeteers for the awkward situation in which they have left me. I don’t want to be on the floor, but I must rest after struggling against the heaviness of wooden cross, strings, and my own weight. I am trying to rise, and I look down in shame as I struggle. There are people who understand, but I cause some hurt to others because they see my struggle as a retreat. I want them to understand that I came here to dance and I am trying! I wonder, was that pretty marionette real? Or was it a puppeteer all along that made me who I was?
On the ground, I work new muscles. I do repetitive tasks. I hardly create, but I repair things with patience. In menial tasks, I come to myself. One by one, the strings begin to snap. Looking down as they fall, I see they are not light, clear strings, but road-stained tethers. They are my hurts, my fears, and my own expectations, and they are my only connection to the puppeteers and critics. I feel new freedom in the release. More strings snap at unexpected times during sacred, methodical work and service. Grace likes a surprise entrance. Without strings, the criticism and puppeteers retreat in my mind to their inconsequential places: apart from me. There are no limits as long as I remember these things:
I am a child of God.
I am more than I know.
No mortal puppeteer defines who I am.
I always have power to choose who I will be.
And I rise. I believe I will dance again, not because a puppeteer or strings compel me, but because that is what I did as a child, before I acquired strings.
Mark was honored as an Eastmont Patriot of the Month for citizenship, leadership, scholarship, and extra-curricular activities. Woot!
I helped make this quilt for a new baby in the neighborhood.
Every conversation at our house includes a status update on my massive painting project and Richard’s apple harvest. I stopped counting gallons of paint, but Richard knows exactly how many pounds of apples were produced.
Court of Honor
Missionary
BYU Homecoming Spectacular 3rd row seats. Awesome!
It’s Inktober for Paige on Instagram.
ONE page of a piece Timothy is working on. Legit!
Did I mention I am painting a lot? It feels like our house is finally becoming our own. I waited a long time to paint because I knew what a big job it would be and I didn’t have the time. So far, I have spent about 17 full days on it. I have not had this kind of time…ever in my life to devote to such a project. Someday I might post “after” pictures, but you could also come and visit.
This is a little glimpse of what I hear each day as he practices. Lucky me. And he is growing up so quickly.
This happened on my parents’ property. The house is fine. The National Guard is digging and laying sandbags.
We pray that the home is protected from more mud with the additional rain that is coming.
Article Here.
the hike:
