Whirligig Daisy

Un-Bucket List #2: See a Van Gogh

2012-01-16T20:06:00.000-08:00

I was a substitute teacher in an art class this week. The room was gloriously colorful and cluttered and student artwork was everywhere: stacked on the floor against the walls, along the whiteboard rim, on every horizontal table surface, and painted on the ceiling tiles. The walls, too, were covered but not with student artwork. The walls had paintings by the masters: Picasso, Monet, Michelangelo, Matisse, M.C. Escher, Georgia O’Keefe, Salvador Dali, and Vincent Van Gogh. I stopped in front of the Van Gogh’s. The paintings here on the walls were printed reproductions, flat in color and texture, like washed-out replicas of the real things.

I know because I stood in front of Van Gogh paintings at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. As an LDS missionary, my companion and I both bought museum passes that let us in whenever we wanted. Sometimes we went to the Van Gogh museum just for lunch. Sometimes we went to sit among the colors and people and the awe of being there. It gave us time to see all the paintings over and over again. I loved the thick bright brush strokes on Van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers” and the bright cobalt and purples of “Irises.” These were the paintings I remembered from art history. I also loved “The Potato Eaters.” This painting was dark and earthy, a shadowed glimpse into the life of country peasants.

Seeing a Van Gogh painting was never on my bucket list mostly because I thought it seemed like such an impossibility. There I was though, surrounded by Van Gogh’s day after day and it was amazing.

Most absent from my experience was a personal glimpse of “The Starry Night” which is not housed in Amsterdam but in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I can see it in my mind: thick swirling brush-strokes with blues, blacks, and pops of white and yellow. I imagine the church steeple, the crescent moon, and the movement of the sky and hillside. I’d love to see it. Someday.

Un-bucket List: #1: Milk a Cow

2012-01-05T17:35:00.000-08:00

I’m starting my un-bucket list with what is, for me, the most obvious of all items on my list. It is true that I’ve seen “milk a cow” on people’s bucket lists and as a dairyman’s daughter I’m a bit flabbergasted. I don’t know why someone would purposely want to milk a cow. For one, it usually takes waking up at say, 4 am, when all reasonably minded people are still in bed. And yes, cows are generally docile creatures, but they do kick and the milking regions are in close proximity to the hooves. Mostly, though, I guess I just don’t understand what it is to NOT milk a cow. For our family, milking cows was a lifestyle; one drastically different from those who didn’t “milk.” Milking meant not opening Christmas presents until after “milking.” Milking meant planning your piano recital, your outings with friends, and even your wedding between “milkings.” Milking cows ruled our lives, our schedules, and interrupted everything.

It was also our livelihood. I knew it, and I never took it for granted. As a girl would stand on the spout of the milk tank, open the lid, and look into the white milk churning in the tank. I loved the sight of that full milk tank. It made me feel safe and whole and prosperous.

Admittedly, I didn’t milk cows often. This chore fell mostly to the men in my family. My grandfather and father had a relationship with their cows that was agitated when strangers were around; it was best to leave the ebb and flow of cows and suction machines and hydraulic gates to them. The cows responded to the clicks of their tongues, their low commands of “come boss,” and slaps on their flanks.

I have milked cows, though, both by hand and by machine. Both require a gently cleansing of the udders. This we did with soft washcloths dipped in warm water. So much of milking a cow requires being near the animal’s rear. Sometimes a strong hand on the rump can calm a fidgety cow. There’s not much to milking by machine, once you have the machine in place under the udders you simply slip them on. They suction on and do the work of milking for you. Milking by hand is trickier. Like a lot of things, it isn’t as easy as it looks. It can help to sort of massage the cow’s udder first. You should start at the top of the teat and squeeze downward. It requires a certain rocking motion of the hand. Your hand will get tired and cramp up. The cow might poop near your head. You will not look like a cute milkmaid with blond braids. Trust me on this. Chances are, it is not as glamorous or easy or fulfilling as you thought it would be. Still, there is something about the sound of a squirt of milk in an empty tin bucket, the warmth of the milk, the bulk of the animal that makes is seem like both a simple and a monumental task at the same time. I warn you: It takes a lot of milk to fill a bucket. After all that work, the bucket will only be half-full—or half-empty, depending on how you look at it.

I wish I could turn “milk a cow” into a metaphor for life; after all, growing up on a farm taught me a lot about a lot of things. I don’t love to milk cows, but milking cows let me do other things that I loved: like having a calf suck on your fingers or watching a baby calf being born. Those things were some of my favorite things and neither was on my bucket-list either. They were just part of the life I lived.

Intro: The Un-Bucket List

2011-12-29T15:35:00.000-08:00

It is almost a new year, and I've been thinking. There has been a lot of loss since we left Wyoming. There have been people we knew who've died young and tragically. It has weighed heavy on my mind and heart.

I think I'm one of those people who sees the glass as half empty. I hate to admit that, but I think I am. Life has been different than I imagined it and sometimes I've resented that. Sometimes I've let the letdowns stand in my way.

Lately, I've seen lots of bucket lists. You know, the things people want to do before they die. Things like: visit the Eiffel Tower, see a broadway play, or scuba dive.

I have my own list of things: watch the Northern Lights, see a firefly, write a book, visit Havasupai Falls. My list changes with time, but those are some things that have always been on it.

I haven't done any of those things.

But I have done some amazing things. I've done some things that I've seen on other people's bucket lists, but were never on my own. I'm going to tell you about them in the coming New Year of 2012. I'm calling it the "Unbucket List." I'm hoping it will help me appreciate the path my life has taken, even if the path was never on my roadmap.

Days of Infamy

2011-12-07T19:27:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago I attended a talk my famed children's writer Lois Lowry. She's a prolific writer with many, many wonderful books, the most famous of which is The Giver.

In her talk she spoke about her childhood and showed us a grainy photo of herself on a beach in Hawaii as a very little girl. The sky looked hazy and we focused on her, the famous lady as a child. Her father had been in the military and was stationed in Hawaii for a brief time. Just after the photo was taken their family moved away.

She moved on and spoke of other things, including the premise for the book The Giver, about a society that is sheltered from all the ill and evil and discomforts of the world as we know it. In their society there is no war and illness and the memories of those things are held only by the receiver of memories, the job that is assigned to the young protagonist (Jonas) of the story. It is a beautiful book, one of my favorites. There is a new gift addition available here.

So Lois Lowry told us of her life, some experiences she'd had, and of her books and her writing. Then, at the very end, she returned to the photo of her as a very little girl on the beach in Hawaii. She pointed it out, in the haze, on the horizon just behind her: an outline of the U.S.S. Arizona. The photo had been taken just a couple of months before the day that will live in infamy: December 7, 1941. The juxtaposition of the happy family at the beach and the ship that would soon lie sunk at the bottom of Pearl Harbor with tremendous loss of life was both poignant and startling. Lois Lowry didn't live in Hawaii anymore on December 7th. Her family had moved and were living on the mainland. Lois Lowry pointed out that in a book such as The Giver, society would have no memory of something as violent and horrific as the attack on Pearl Harbor and the war that rattled the world. And yet, the terrible moments shape us just as the wonderful moments do.

We are not one without the other.

We cannot be.

Tomorrow Morning

2011-11-17T22:25:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow morning Idaho will execute it's first death row inmate in 17 years.

I have a public blog. For that reason, there are things I don't share here. I have something to share about tomorrow's events in Idaho. Something personal. If you want to hear it, leave me a comment and I'll send you my entry about it. You must be someone I know personally. That's it. That's the deal on this one. Just cause it has to be that way.

It's Autumn Time

2011-10-19T09:03:00.001-07:00

I miss my mother most in the fall.

She loved autumn: the colors, the crispness in the air, and the sense of change. By autumn, freckles from summer peppered her face. They always made her look young and vibrant. She was married in October, before the snow fell. Her bridesmaids wore avocado green and shades of orange.

I, too, love fall, but my heart also aches for her this time of year. This was the winding down time; the time of year when our hope of a prolonged life for her was gone and we settled our minds instead on just being together. All the things that needed doing were set aside. There were good days then, before the vomiting and morphine and vials of medications.

We knew winter was coming with its emptiness, harshness, and stark absence. We knew she wouldn’t be there with us, to weather its storms or to smile when the hummingbirds came back the next spring.

Every year, it seems like I count down the days again. I mourn the loss of the leaves, the browning of the hillsides, and the death of my mother. She loved autumn enough to stay for it’s full duration. The first snow fell just hours after she died.

It seems fitting now, that my favorite time of year is filled with a sort of longing: for warm days and cool nights, for long slow walks, for the smell of maple and cinnamon, and to be loved the way only my mother loved me. I long for an elusive kind of peace. The kind that comes with feeling good about change; with hanging on to some things and letting go of others. It’s the time of year when I’m struck by how much I don’t have the answers. How much I miss being sheltered like a child.

All of my worries churn like the leaves rustling on the ground.

Then my children come, run through them, pick them up and toss them heavenward.

And I remember: I used to do that too.

Motivate Me: Mondays

2011-09-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

I {heart} Mondays. I know, I'm one of the weird ones. There's something about a Monday that feels like a fresh start. It's the day I re-commit to all of my goals -- the ones I stopped working toward last Tuesday. On Monday it all feels possible again.

I'm most hopeful on Mondays. The weight of the week doesn't drag me down. It is a day for setting my sights high.

I've been severely lacking in motivation lately. The summer drained me of all my energy. Moving drained me of all my inspiration. I wanted a rest. I needed to re-group.

But today (Monday) I feel better. So here are my goals for this week:

1. Write (or re-vise) every weekday.

2. Workouts: Monday (run - 3 miles & swim - 1 mile)

Tuesday (bike - 45 min)

Wednesday (strength) oh, how I adore cardio

Thursday (run - 45 min)

Friday (short run, or bike w/ daughter)

Saturday (long run - 50 min+)

I'm thinking I should post my goals every week and then check-in at the end of the week and see how I've done. Feel free to join me, just leave your goals in the comments.

I'm focusing on these two things this week. I usually have a tendency to overestimate how much I can actually do. But it is Monday and today, I feel invincible.

Owl Right

2011-09-21T13:04:00.000-07:00

OK, everybody. I didn't mean to announce I was coming back and then not come back. It's just that when I thought I was ready to come back, my laptop decided to die and it took a couple weeks to get it back up and running and things re-stored (thank you, my external hard drive).

((Oh, except for my daughter's photos from her camera and her trip to Kansas and 1st time ever on an airplane -- those are lost forever)).

But it could have been worse.

It could have been much, much worse. That statement seems to be my mantra lately.

So we are moved (to Hailey, Idaho). And school has started again. And we are settling into . . . well, something.

It feels OK.

It feels like things are going to be owl right, after all.

Raise Your Hand. . .

2011-08-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

if you've missed me.

'Cause I might be coming back. Soon.

Well-Read Wednesday: The Dreamer

2011-05-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

"Neftali, do you not have enough old keys in your collection?"

"Keys unlock doors, Laurita. One can never have too many."

This book was recommended to me by an amazing person and writer, Lisa Hale. Then it took me about a year to pick it up and read it. She was right. The imagery, the figurative language, and the story is beautiful. So rarely do we find books so beautifully written with as much careful thought given to the language used to tell the story as the story itself.

"The Dreamer" is the fictional biography of Nobel Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda. The author gives us a glimpse into the life of a young boy, Neftali Reyes, as a quiet, shy, sickly boy with a demanding father who tries to squelch his son's quiet unfocused daydreaming and his scrawling words on paper. The boy has a fascination with words, the world around him, and physical objects: pinecones, stones, feathers, old keys. There are poems here too, in the book, and prose that echoes poetry. We journey with Neftali: fearing his father, observing the world, learning, and growing older until Neftali has the courage to write. With the pen name of Pablo Neruda he finally becomes his own person and finds his own voice. And what a beautiful voice it is.

I love how the author includes some of Neruda's poety at the end of the book. The illustrations are beautiful. The book has a beautiful tone to it. It is one of those "quiet" books we hear about. The ones many don't appreciate or pick up because they aren't provocative enough, create enough buzz on twitter or cause us to turn pages fast enough. This book isn't a page turner.

It's a heart changer.

Read it.

Whirligig in Wyoming

2011-05-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

I came to Wyoming 2 years ago with no intention of liking it. It seemed mostly brown and barren--rangeland that stretched as far as the eye could see. Sometimes the horizon was pimpled with oil rigs, not pumping. I'd grown up in rural Idaho. I thought I understood remoteness and space and the barren distance between two places. I didn't. For me, Wyoming wasn't green enough. There were not enough mountains. My skin cracked and dried out like an alligator's.

Wyoming has a catch phrase: "Forever West." It's how they lure people here in travel brochures and T.V. ads. Ironically, being in Wyoming is the furthest East I've ever lived.

I came here with low expectations. And like Sally in the Disney movie "Cars": "I fell in love." I fell in love with a place where the traffic is slower and the cell phone coverage is sketchy at best. I fell in love with a town that feels like my own town did when I was a kid in late '70s. Locally owned businesses line Main Street. There is a McDonald's and a Subway and Safeway and a Family Dollar, but few other "chains." A shopping mall, Sam's Club, Target: they're all 2 hours away. Family is even further. But the town has what I value and need: a library, a swimming pool, a park, an ice-skating rink in winter, a golf course with groomed cross country ski trails when the snow is deep. I think we're the only family in town without a dog.

I never thought I'd leave this place. My soul had finally found a home, a place to land after flitting about like a caged bird. This was it. But things happen. The bad economy which seemed so far away is here too, with budget cuts and broken things. We're looking at another job change, at leaving here. I told a friend last night that with a job loss also comes a sort of mourning, not just for the loss of the job, or the income, or the security it provides, but also a sort of mourning for the life you had imagined for yourself. I'd imagined a life here: of raising my kids here, buying a house, writing a novel or two or twenty, of getting older, of biking up the canyon, and of backpacking every piece I could of the Wind River Mountain Range. It hurts to have to leave.

He told me that no one talks in language like that: "of mourning the life you had imagined for yourself"--and that I should be writing. And so I am. I wrote it down.

But it still hurts.

Still Amateurs

2011-04-23T14:18:00.000-07:00

I inherited a sort of nervousness from my mother. I don't like to travel, I don't like ethnic food, or new things. I hate moving. As a writer, I find it comfortable to stay home, to create worlds and problems inside my head all without leaving the house. After all, it's a dangerous and uncertain world out there.

I recently read, Manhood for Amateurs, by Michael Chabon. He described that, at one point, his life was what one would call "a dull business." But then he met his wife:

"Not very long afterward, in an ongoing act of surrender to the world beyond my window, with no possibility of knowing what joy or disaster might result, I married her. And . . . since our first date--this woman has dragged, nudged, coaxed, led, stirred, embroiled, mocked, seduced, finagled, or carried me into every last instance of delight or sorrow, every debacle, every success, every brilliant call, and every terrible mistake, that I have known or made. I'm grateful for that because if it were not for her, I would never go anywhere, never see anything, never meet anyone. It's too much bother. It's dangerous, hard work, or expensive. I lost my ticket. I kind of have a headache. They don't speak English there, it's too far away, they're closed for the day, they're full, they said we can't, it's too much bother with children along.

She will have none of that."

--excerpt, Manhood (Chabon 182-3)

I laughed. I have a person just like that in my life. I married him too. Together, life has been one grand adventure. He's drug me along every step of the way. I've been the one kicking and screaming.

And just when I thought that the we were finally settling into our lives, the world tilted again. Budget cuts, re-structuring, excuses, whatever they said, the reality is that my husband's school district cannot offer him full-time employment next year.

So the adventure begins anew. I'm dreading it. But I'm glad we're taking it together.

Spring Plowing

2011-04-13T19:43:00.000-07:00

Grandpa could read the skies: a moon dog at dusk that meant rain was coming, or high clouds that meant he could cut hay. I watched him once touch newly plowed dirt to his tongue and then spit it out. When I asked him why he’d done that he told me that he could taste things in the dirt: minerals and moisture and richness for planting. I nodded and tasted the dirt myself when he wasn’t looking.

He was right.

I tasted iron, like when your mouth bleeds. I tasted what it smells like before it rains. The dirt tasted like earth and rain and sunshine and life. It tasted rich and gritty and ready. Grandpa nodded at me. He’d caught me after all. I spit the dirt out, smiled, and turned with him to the tractor. We both climbed aboard and circled the field again once, twice, turning the dry dirt over. Behind the plow the soil went from dry, crusty taupe to pillows of dark chocolate brown--ready for planting.

It was finally spring.

Well Read Wednesday: The Sound of Colors

2011-03-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

The Sound of Colors: A Journey of the Imagination by Jimmy Liao

This is a picture book. Except that it’s not really a picture book—not in the sense that we’d typically define a picture book. At 80 pages, it’s a bit lengthy for a picture book and is leveled at a 9-12 age level.

However, this book is worth a read, for adults as well as children. The words are beautiful and poetic and the only things equal to the words are the pictures. They’re engaging and imaginative and gorgeous.

“The Sound of Colors” is the story of a young girl whose eyesight slipped away about a year ago. She travels from subway stop to subway stop imagining the world around her:

“I listen for the sound of the colors I can’t see,” she says as she moves through her mind’s eye imagining and searching for the place where all the colors are: “Home is the place where everything I’ve lost is waiting patiently for me to find my way back.”

I’ve heard that this book is even more poignant in it’s native Chinese, but the translation is touching, emotional even. I’ve also read that in Chinese it transcends the story of a girl in a subway station and is an obvious metaphor for life. I see, even in the translated version, that there is more at play here than a girl with a white walking cane. I mostly love that this book isn’t really about blindness, it is about color and light and hope and love.

Trust me, it’s worth read.

Well-Fed Friday: Eatin' of the Green

2011-03-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Here in Wyoming there are few signs of spring. I know the rest of you have crocuses or daffodils and blue skies and Easter decor up. We're a bit behind here. There is still frost on my windshield in the morning and the grass is still brown. But it was St. Patrick's Day and, as a farmer's daughter, I know spring will come. So I'm presenting my favorite Eatin' of the Green.

Here it is:

The easiest salad in the world: leafy greens (I like a spring mix), crumbled feta cheese, Real crumbled bacon, walnuts, and raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Oh, and cucumbers. I adore it with cucumbers too (we just didn't have any).

This salad is so very good.

Green is good.

Come Monday Morning

2011-03-04T11:24:00.001-08:00

Come Monday morning I will take my son to swimming lessons. I will carry him into the building and hold his hand tightly as we leave. I will breathe the smell of him: boy and sweat and chlorine when I get him dressed. I will give him a peck on the cheek and he will hold onto me, for balance.

I substitute school. Why, on earth, I don't know. But I do. And I sort of like it--most days.

On Thursday, I was at the Junior High--a place I'd never subbed at before. It has wide hallways and tall lockers and students who were dramatizing about their new health unit on sex ed.

Halfway into 3rd period a 'stay-put' order was issued. At the high school, where I usually teach, that means the police are bringing in the drug dogs to sniff for marijuana and chewing tobacco. But then I heard something about someone being hit by a car in the parking lot. We waited. We did our assignment. We hung out. We started a movie 0n the Revolutionary War, I quickly changed it to the movie "Holes." Someone came to my door.

"We're in lockdown. Put on a movie. It could be two hours, maybe three."

I knew the only thing that needed a three hour lockdown from an accident in the parking lot was an accident with a fatality.

"What happened?" I asked.

They didn't want details released. They didn't want students to know. "A 3 year old was hit by a car in the parking lot." That's all she could tell me.

"What is a three year old doing in the parking lot of the Junior High on a school day?" I asked. But as I said it, I knew: "Oh, no, swimming lessons." She nodded. My heart sank.

I bring my son twice a week to swimming lessons. When I work, his babysitter brings him. The pool and the Junior High share a parking lot. It's not a wide lot. Not one where a car can even move very fast. But I knew, that my son likes to get away from me, that he twists his hand out of mine. I knew that it could have been him. I knew too, that it could have been me, driving when a small child darted -- excited for the hot tub and the warm water and to monkey crawl along the pool walls -- in front of my car.

I still don't know the details of the accident. I just know that it makes your heart hurt for whose child it was and for the one who hit her. I wondered how I could be in a classroom, not far away and not felt the whole world shudder at the loss of such a tiny precious soul. I don't know how one heals from such a loss. I don't know how a parent's heart keeps beating, but it does.

I'll hold onto him too.

Water For Elephants

2011-02-24T10:09:00.000-08:00

Best Read so far of 2011: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I got sucked into this book by reading the preview thing they offer on Amazon where you can read the first few pages. I immediately fell in love with the main character, Jacob Jankowski, who is a feisty patient in a nursing home watching the circus come to town. We learn that when Jacob was in college he lost his parents in a car accident just before sitting his veterinary exams at Cornell. Rather than finishing his degree, he leaves and joins the circus where he's put in charge of the animals. He falls in love with the circus's rag-tag, decrepit assortment of horses, lions, a chimpanzee, and a later in the novel, one lone elephant. Oh, and he falls in love with another man's wife.

Sara Gruen captivated me first through the character, then through the setting, and then through the plot. I thought all elements were very well done. It is a lovely, enchanting, and engaging book. I couldn't put it down. It appeals to the part of us all that wanted (or still wants) to run away with the circus. We find a life there that is brutal, and base, and exhilarating all at the same time.

It's not a squeaky clean book. There are a couple of things (like a description of the circus exotic dancer/prostitute). So don't say I didn't warn you.

The movie is being released this summer. I, for one, always like to read the book before I see the movie. It will feature Reese Witherspoon and that creepy looking guy from the Twilight movies (maybe this will make me like him).

Me, I'm betting the book is better than the movie.

Today's the Day: New Year Take 2

2011-02-23T11:30:00.000-08:00

Today's the Day: New Year Take 2.

Why? Well, I thought this year got off to a sort of rocky start for me. First, the kids were sick. Then I had a bad attitude. Then I just could not get motivated to do anything. Call it the winter blues or whatever I didn't want it setting the tone for the entire year. So I decided to declare a New Year take 2. I mean, hey. I can celebrate again and put myself in a position to expect a better 2011.

Why today? It just feels like a good day. The sun is out. The broken heater in the house is fixed. I'm having lunch with friends. I've already had a good workout today. Dinner is planned and should be easy. I've been cleaning and doing laundry. So far it feels like a good, productive day. The kind of day I want to fill my 2011 with. So there you are.

2011, I'm ready for you.

Now.

Worth a Read: for MLK Day

2011-01-17T08:23:00.000-08:00

In honor of Martin Luther King Day allow me to share a book which I feel is worth a read:

"Song Yet Sung" by James McBride:

Read the review from Publisher's Weekly on amazon (see link above). It gives a good overview of the book's character's and plot. The writing of James McBride is poetic and rich and wonderful. So is this story and each of it's characters as well as the background information he gives in the author's notes. This book is well worth the time you'll spend with it. It's worth a read.

Possessions

2010-12-18T10:34:00.000-08:00

When I was serving a mission for my church in The Netherlands I visited Palais Het Loo, a former palace of the Dutch royal family. The palace sits on acres and acres of forested land with elaborate gardens, stables, and palace rooms with displays of how the royal family lived. The possessions of the royal family were meticulously catalogued and displayed throughout the palace: dresses on dress stands, a silver handled brush, white gloves with satin buttons, a wooden rocking horse, and rows of automobiles. There were paintings and rich tapestries, elegant place settings at empty tables—the possessions of people who are no longer living.

I wonder how our possessions shape us. What our purchases tell about the kind of people we are and what we value.

I think about the few possession of my mother that I now own: a pair of Pyrex mixing bowls, a spatula, and the quiet book she made so we’d behave during church. I wonder where other things of hers went. What happened to the small silver jewelry box lined with red velvet that she let me use as a couch when I was duplicating the home of “The Borrowers” inside a shoebox for a book report? What about the homemade advent calendar that we used to count down the days until Christmas? The music she played on the piano? Her wedding ring that had been missing its diamond since I was a little girl? She had few valuable possessions, maybe none. We don’t mourn the loss of her things. We mourn her. We miss her and the experiences we could have if she were still here.

I think of the lives of people that pass through this earth forgotten and undocumented. I think of the Holocaust. Those images we’ve seen of roomfuls of shoes and eyeglasses that were kept while the lives of people who owned them were cast away, contemptuously. How many people live and die without the careful documentation of their existence, while we catalogue the hairbrushes and gloves and dresses and rocking horses of only the wealthy and important?

We all have possessions and there isn’t anything wrong with that. Humans have always had items they kept for useful purposes, emotional reasons, or for their aesthetic beauty. But let us also remember people and what shared experiences and relationships can give us. I believe that people are more important than things. Always.

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-30T16:31:00.000-08:00

". . . you can feel the rejuvenating effect that a good meal can bring on. The way it can make people kinder, funnier, more optimistic, and remind them it's not a mistake to go on living."

-- pg. 241, Suzanne Collins, "Mockingjay"

Another quote I love

2010-10-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

"On the day I die, I want to have had dessert."

from Anne Lamott in the book "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith"

To astronauts and miners

2010-10-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

Why is it that the news stories we remember, the one that shape us and our youth are mostly stories of sadness—of death, of destruction? For my parents, it was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. For the high school students I sometimes teach it is the falling of two towers on a sunny day in September.

I still remember sitting on the hard carpeted floor of my elementary school, watching a TV strapped to a rolling cart. We’d all gathered in a common area, the place we called “the pod” to watch Christa McAuliffe become the first American teacher in space. We watched as the Challenger Shuttle took off and then exploded in the bluest sky I’ve ever seen. I don’t need a picture to remember what the explosion looked like: a trail of white that bulged at the top and then split in two directions. We’d watched the launch live and we sat there, staring at the screen until someone—a teacher—turned it off. We didn’t talk. We knew that they were gone—those people on board. They’d just been smiling at us.

They’d been waving.

My oldest daughter was only a year and half on September 11^th. Although she’s seen footage and knows about what happened that day, she doesn’t understand it. It may shape the world she lives in and the policy and political decisions of her generation, but it’s not a day that’s hers.

I’m glad that the news story that marks her, that first affected her, the one where she began to see the world differently, was a day when 33 miners rose one by one after 69 days underground. I’m glad that hers is a story of hope. A triumph.

My 10-year old daughter watched all she could of the Chilean mine rescue. She called me asking me for updates on her way to and from school. She knew and understood that there were more than just miners down there, underground. That paramedics and rescue workers had gone down too. She had questions and she had empathy. She wanted to watch every moment, but there was homework to do, piano to practice, a room to clean.

“Let her watch,” I told my husband.

I sat next to her. We watched as the last miner climbed out of something that NASA helped to build. It looked remarkably similar to a space shuttle, like a small, wire rocket.

It rose out of the ground. I heard cheers and there were smiles. Then the door opened.

And there was waving.

Backtalk

2010-10-08T08:26:00.000-07:00

I remember being at my Grandma's house listening to my sister backtalk. She'd never done it before, it wasn't something we did. I sat still and watched open-mouthed as my sister talked back to my mother. I was shocked, sitting on the olive green brocade couch, that she dared. My sister was reckless and brave. I wondered what would happen.

I didn't have to wait long. My mother marched her, or maybe pulled her into the bathroom where she washed her mouth out with a bar of soap. I followed and watched from the hallway. My sister was in trouble. Big trouble. My mom was a kind and gentle parent. I'd never seen her do anything like this. It did the trick, though. My sister emerged apologetic and sputtering.

I, however, was curious. How bad had the punishment been? What did soap taste like, exactly? I'd never thought to taste it. And maybe, most importantly, did I dare risk it myself? (Back talking, that is). It looked empowering. It could be useful. So I went into the bathroom and put my tongue, ever so barely, on the soap bar.

Nope. I knew then, that talking back would never be worth it.

YUCK!

Riding the White Horse Home

2010-09-23T17:11:00.000-07:00

I’ve always loved books. And so, there are some of you who’ve requested that I list some of my favorite books. I’ll honor this request from time to time, but with this caveat: just because I love a book, doesn’t mean that you will. I like most books. I find something interesting and enlightening in almost everything I read. I seldom hate a book. But to love one, that is a trickier thing.

So here goes:

A book I LOVE:

“Riding the White Horse Home” by Teresa Jordan

I adore a good memoir. For me, there is none more haunting and beautiful than Teresa Jordan’s, “Riding the White Horse Home.” I can honestly say that this book changed everything for me. I read it in college as a part of a Western American Literature class. To this day, I can’t pick it up without a lump rising in my throat. I’m not sure why. It might not appeal to everyone. It hasn’t sold millions of copies or even, for that matter, received much recognition (which I believe it deserves), but I found it life-changing. If I were only allowed one book to read over and over again for the rest of my life, this would be it.

Teresa Jordan was raised on a ranch in Southeast Wyoming. I grew up on a dairy farm in Southeast Idaho. I knew some of the same things she did: “that it’s easier to be a rancher’s daughter than a rancher’s son (pg 36), that “I feared my grandfather, but I also loved him” (pg 22) and that “I had some direct connection to both the land and the events that transpired upon it” (pg 12). What I was still navigating was the way that our family’s way of life and the land I’d grown up on had shaped me and where I was going now that I was away from it, on my own. In the book, Jordan says that “less than 2 percent of Americans live on farms and ranches.” I was startled in college as I talked to my friends: their fathers were bankers and doctors and lawyers and salesman and computer programmers. I never met another farmer’s daughter. Most of my friends viewed my way of life as charming and quaint. Teresa Jordan knows it and tells it for what it is and was. I loved her honesty of it, her perspective:

Another excerpt:

My family left the land because for four generations we had yearned to leave. We had lived in a culture that taught us that a professional life is more respectable than one tied to the land. This attitude shaped the decisions my family made, and it continues to shape the larger political and economic decisions, made by educators and policymakers far removed from the land, that affect the few who still hold on.

My sadness over the loss of the homeplace is my dark side, my grief, but it is also the source of my deepest knowledge. Perhaps it is only through this experience of loss that I can value a sense of place, that I can question how thoughtlessly—even contemptuously—we are taught to cast it aside. (pg. 88)

At this time in my life (when I first read this book), I was at a crossroads. I was ready to divorce myself from the place and land and way of life that I’d loved, mostly because I did not believe that I could be the person I wanted to be if I held on to it too tightly. “Riding the White Horse Home” allowed me to both hold on and let go. It was more than that, though. It is so beautifully written, so rich in emotion. I loved everything about this book. Secretly, I wanted to be a writer. Up to this point I’d only read books by people so different than me: people with money, from cities, who’d traveled the world. Here was a book, printed, published, and in my hands by someone I could relate to: someone who wrote of the smell of her mother’s bread baking and of the steam that rises from afterbirth when a new calf is born. It gave me hope and a sense that maybe I, too, could write something that someone else would want to read. It was a great, great gift. But aside from that, it’s a beautiful book. A must read.

At least I think so.

My Bucket List on You Tube

2010-09-13T12:17:00.000-07:00

So after missing the below mentioned dramatic eruption of Old Faithful, I did went any modern American with Internet access would do: I went to You Tube and watched a closer and more impressive version of the geyser's explosion than the one I'd witnessed. And then it got me thinking. I could probably experience almost everything via You Tube. I don't like the term "bucket list" but that's what everybody calls it. So I thought about mine and what I haven't done that I still want to do.

Hmmm. I've never seen a firefly.

It is definitely high on my bucket list. Has been for ages. So I looked up "catching fireflies" on You Tube. Here's what I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYuEzROg-MQ

Pretty cool, eh? Then it occurred to me: I could probably experience everything this way--except for someday having a pedicure and eating lobster. But other than that, I probably don't even need to leave my house. And you all know how much I really like to just stay home.

Still Old Faithful

2010-09-07T12:42:00.001-07:00

~~It was a dark and stormy night~~

It was a frantic and crazy summer.

It really was.

One thing we did this summer was go to Yellowstone. We didn’t go to Yellowstone to go to Yellowstone. We went because it was the shortest way between where we live in Wyoming and where our kids had a track meet—in Bozeman, Montana. But we did decide that if we were there, we might as well see the sights.

I went to Yellowstone exactly once as kid. I was ten or eleven and it was one of only 2 vacations we ever took. Since my Dad was a dairy farmer, we had to be back home in time to milk the cows that night. Old Faithful was our last planned stop. We couldn’t wait for the next eruption, so when we pulled into the parking lot my Dad said, “Everybody run!” The famous geyser was already erupting over the heads of spectators huddled around it. We were still what seemed like miles away in the parking lot. We ran, but by the time we got there Old Faithful was drizzling. It was only slightly more impressive than an exploding can of Sprite.

These days Old Faithful is less faithful. They no longer post schedules of its eruption times and I hear that the geyser is smaller. Still. It’s Old Faithful. The one on people’s bucket list. So we stopped. We were walking towards the geyser when sure enough, I told my kids and my husband, “Run!” There was the familiar spray of water obstructed by the backs of people’s heads.

After it was over I heard a man tell his friend, “Seeing that--that's a once-in-a-life-time thing, man.”

Or in my case, two.

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T16:25:00.000-07:00

My name is etched on the back of my mother's headstone.

It feels strange to have it there, staring back at me, the A in the middle capitalized like it's supposed to be.

What I hate more, though, is her name on the front. The fact that she is gone.

I miss her.

Today I miss that I am not there to cut lilacs from the lilac bush or arrange peonies in the tin cans my grandfather has saved for today. I miss that I'm not there, filling a bucket with water, carrying it to the gravesides of my grandmother, my great-aunt Donna, my Mom, and watering the pots of mums we bought in every color. I always put the white ones on my mother's grave, because she loved daisies. Dad takes a scrub brush and washes the bird droppings from the headstones. He starts with my mother's and then moves to his mother's and then down the row to relatives I don't know, the ones without flowers--without loved ones nearby enough to come and remember. He washes the big family marker that my kids like to climb on. We stare off into the distance at the mountains. We don't say much. No one does.

I know just how it will be there, at the cemetery, without me. What will be said and what unsaid. I know my mother is not there. That it's a long way to go and an impossible weekend to have gone. Still, though, I'm caught off guard today by the way my heart is tugged West--away from here. I'm caught off guard by the heaviness of the air here, how much missing hurts, and the tight lump rising in my throat.

My Pre-Summer Reading

2010-05-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

What I've read lately:

Living Dead Girl: Disturbing tale of a girl who was abducted by a sexual predator 5 years earlier while on a school field trip. This book was haunting, disturbing and unnerving. I thought about it for weeks. Its marketed as a YA book, but (and I never say this) I wouldn't want my teen reading it unless I knew they were and could discuss it with them. If you're interested in this one, read the descriptions and reviews on amazon so you know what you're getting into.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth: Krista Marino was the editor for this book and she talked about it at last year's Writing & Illustration for Young Readers Conference. I thought to myself: Oh, I'll never publish a book if that's what they're looking for. So maybe I won't, because I'd never write a book like this. Still, the opening scene/description about the ocean is beautifully written and it sort of pulled me through the book. I liked it, didn't love it, but liked it. It's a dystopian novel about a girl who longs for a world beyond The Forest of Hands and Teeth where the Unconsecrated (a sort of zombie world of former humans) feed on the living. It was a bit too hopeless for my liking, with the main character losing . . . well that would give it away. . . but it will probably make for a movie that my husband will like. Maybe there's hope in part 2. Maybe.

hold still: I LOVED this book. I thought it was beautifully written. It's about a girl trying to cope with her best friend's suicide. It's about her hanging on and letting go. Coping and crying. Moving on and mourning. I really did love it. I loved the writing. I loved that sometimes the chapters were only one line. They were just the length they needed to be. (Just learning that one thing from this book freed me as a writer). I'd love to write a book like this, or even something close. This is the author's debut novel and I think she's someone to watch.

Really, Wyoming, Really?

2010-05-11T22:07:00.000-07:00

Because I do watch Saturday Night Live, I give you my own version of a segment I like to call: Really?!! Wyoming, Really??. Except that there is no Seth, or Amy, or Tina Fey, or even Jerry Seinfeld. It's just me. And my rant. I'd even upload a picture, but its late. (And depressing, did I mention depressing?) So Here You Go:

Is it because “Wyoming in Winter” sounds so alliterative that you have to be snowing, again. I mean, really?

Or was the color “spring green” just too much for your comfort zone pallet of brown, tans, and sagebrush? Was that it? Really?

Maybe the state highway budget for clearing and plowing roads still has a major surplus. Or perhaps, being the 2^nd least densely populated state, you thought that no one would notice. Or care? Was that it, Wyoming? Really?

Or were you just playing a cruel trick on the bears who’ve already come out of hibernation? It could be that, since you’re the last state alphabetically, you’ve not yet received the memo that spring began on March 20^th! I mean, really, Wyoming. Snow again? Really?!!

Eye of the Beholder

2010-04-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

Before we left Utah, I took my kids to the BYU Museum of Art. They were having an exhibit of work by Walter Wick, the photographer for the “I Spy” books. I thought they’d be fascinated. One was. My oldest daughter studied the photos and the displays carefully, looking at all the details and creativity. My younger daughter, however, kept looking down the other hallway. It had black walls and a pile of black garbage bags in a room at the end.
“Can we go down there?” she asked.

“Not now,” I said.

We had limited time. I’d learned, from experience, that tackling an entire gallery could be overwhelming. I wanted to stick to one exhibit.

We went back to Walter Wick.

My youngest daughter looked. She ran around. She needed to go to the bathroom.

The bathroom was outside the other exhibit. I saw her eyeing it, being drawn to it. Walking close enough to peer down the hallway and then walking away, to the bathroom. We left the bathroom. Her eyes skirted down the hallway. Again. To the garbage bags. She looked at me.

I nodded.

Off she ran. Down the hallway to piles of garbage bags and a huge canvas of colored balloons. There was a sculpture of plastic chairs and a roomful of packing peanuts that were blown by a fan into an impromtu dance.

She ran from room to room. Excited. Giddy.

I thought about her personality. Spontaneous. Energetic. Impatient. Brave.

My oldest was still with Walter Wick. She was quiet. Disciplined. Detailed.

Both daughters found the same thing: something that intrigued them. They were just in different rooms.

And me? I loved them both.

Mr. Left

2010-03-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was reading this article to my husband. It's about whether the person you are dating is Mr. Right.

"Isn't it too late for you to be reading that?" he asked.

Hmm. Probably.

"I don't think you're Mr. Right," I told him "You never listen."

"Huh?" he asked.

I read him Trait No. 1: He listens to you. I emphasized the words "genuine concern" and "consistently remembers." It suddenly occurred to me that he forgets a lot things that I don't. Mostly, the names of people at church who I think he should know by now.

"It's not that I'm Mr. Wrong for you," he said. "It's that I don't listen to anyone. It has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with my short attention span."

Hmmm. I moved on.

Trait No. 2: He connects with you easily

"I think our relationship takes work," I said after reading the section.

I read it to him.

"I don't," he says. "It's one thing I love about it. That whole part about being easy, natural, and effortless. It's that way for me. You're the one who stresses."

Maybe I do. I decided not to read the rest. At least not to him.

He wasn't listening anyway. My Mr. Right.

Or Left.

More Quotes

2010-03-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

"I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. But, and that is the great question, will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?"

Anne Frank, 19944

Just a Quote

2010-03-13T19:26:00.000-08:00

"Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heart-ache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, to discover what is already there."

-- Henry Miller, "Sexus"

More Mini Memoir

2010-02-23T16:33:00.000-08:00

I announced to my parents that I'd picked up mission papers from my BYU bishop when we were at the hospital. My Mom sat in a chair, next to my Dad who was in a hospital gown and hooked up to IVs in his hospital bed. He'd just been diagnosed with cancer.

My parents were less than thrilled.

I wanted to go on a mission, but I began to think that it wasn't the best timing. I did not want to lose my father. I especially did not want to lose him while I was away. . . . on a mission. So I did what any good Mormon girl would do. I prayed.

I remember telling the Lord that I wanted to serve a mission, but not if my Dad was going to die while I was gone. In a rare stroke of confidence, I felt perfectly fine about leaving. My father, I believed, was going to be around for a long, long time. I felt it. I felt it strongly enough to go ahead with my plans for a mission. I don't think that ever before, or since, I've had such strong confidence in a decision that was based on nothing but prayer and maybe, faith. I can't imagine doing such a thing now.

My mother said it was harder to send a daughter than it was a son, but she hadn't sent a son. Not yet.

My Memoir, today

2010-02-17T14:50:00.000-08:00

If I were to write my own memoir, I think that every day I'd write something different. Today, though, the first two paragraphs would go like this:

When I was eight years old I leaned against the glass windows at the Salt Lake International Airport. I watched my grandfather be wheeled out of an airplane on a stretcher. He was taken to LDS Hospital where all the doctors smoked. Six weeks later he died of cancer. He was still an LDS missionary.

The words “LDS Mission” and “cancer” were synonyms in my family. It seemed that one always sparked the other. Or visa versa.

Wow. That is so uplifting, I know you all want to read it. :)

God Bless the USA

2010-02-03T19:27:00.001-08:00

I never thought I'd live in Utah. My husband always said that hell would have to freeze over before he'd ever willingly moved back to "happy valley--a place he'd hated as a freshman at BYU. (He transferred before he could ever become a sophomore). But move to Utah we did. To our surprise, we liked it. Loved it, even. We didn't want to leave.

I came to Wyoming with trepidation and uneasiness. There was no doubt that it was different. I had lots of worries. One thing I worried about was education. My kids had loved their school and their teachers. I couldn't imagine that the quality of education could compare to what we'd just left.

I met our neighbors on our second day here. I met their daughters. Two beautiful girls. One was returning to the University of Wyoming in a few days. She was a sophomore. And the other? She was leaving the next morning for college.

"And where are you going?" I asked her.

"M.I.T.," she said.

And then I remembered: this is not just Wyoming, it's America.

I haven't worried since.

Just Finished

2010-01-25T15:58:00.001-08:00

I just finished reading this book. The premise is that you can use writing and creativity to lose weight. I think this only works if you don't keep M&Ms next to your laptop. Or chocolate stashed in your writing room. Or in drawers all over the house.

In Stephen King's book "On Writing," he talks about how scared he was that he'd lose the ability to write if he got sober. For him, the writing and the getting wasted went together. He didn't think he could do one without the other. But he could. He did.

On Saturday, I went to a local coffee shop and wrote. And drank a huge mug of hot chocolate. There were no M&Ms involved.

Baby steps. Baby steps.

We Must Have Heroes

2010-01-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

When I lived in Utah I did some freelancing for a local magazine. I was assigned to write a piece about the President of the University of Utah's wife, Suzan Young. I interviewed her at the President's house just off campus on The Avenues. Her life was fascinating and there was a lot of information that didn't make the article.

For one, her daughter has a pilot's license. This intrigued me.

"What made her want to do that?" I asked.

Turns out, that her grandmother had been a pilot. During the second world war she'd ferried bomber planes from where they were manufactured (in Texas) to the San Francisco Bay area where they were handed over to the military.

I thought about this for a long time. Growing up, in my small town, I saw women who were secretaries, teachers, nurses, dental assistants, and little else. I knew no women doctors, lawyers, writers, poets, or pilots. To become such a thing never occurred to me. I don't blame the women in my life. My mother and grandmothers were all smart, capable women who told me I could be and do anything I wanted to do. I never wanted to be a pilot, anyway.

But oh, how I long to fly.

Baby or Toddler?

2009-12-03T06:20:00.001-08:00

At what moment precisely does a baby become a toddler? Is it when he takes his first step? Or when he climbs up and then falls off the kitchen table? Maybe it's when he no longer wants to snuggle into your chest when he's tired.

My son is becoming lots more work. As a baby, he slept and ate and smiled and laughed. Now he climbs and sometimes falls. He empties out drawers. He makes messes. He makes funny noises and tries to mimic his Dad. Yesterday, after I got him dressed he went to the front door thinking that we were going somewhere. We weren't.

He can climb up the bunk bed ladder. He stands on his tiptoes and plays the piano. He tries to feed himself. He plays with his Dad's cell phone. He likes to poke his head into the washing machine.

Two days ago I found his Dad's cell phone in our front-loading washer after I'd just washed a load of towels. It was soaking wet and totally ruined.

I think we have a toddler.

Pie for One

2009-11-17T14:39:00.000-08:00

Next week is Thanksgiving. I won't be making pie, but some of you might. While you're at it, you might as well make some of these:

Pies in a Jar.

Aren't they adorable? And you can freeze them and give them as gifts. I think they look scrumptious. If you like pie. Plus, did you notice the free labels? There. The work is already done. Oh, except MAKING the pie. Yeah, that's a biggie.

Small Town Traditions

2009-11-11T06:24:00.000-08:00

Small towns have traditions. In Mapleton, Utah where we moved from, the fire trucks would circle around town at 6:30 a.m on July 24th with their sirens screeching. It was to wake everybody up for the Pioneer Day celebrations.

Here in Lander, Wyoming, they set off cannons at 6:00 AM! to commemorate Veterans Day.

Oh, how I love small towns.

****************************************

I grew up in a small town: Preston, Idaho to be exact. Yes, home of Napoleon Dynamite. Only I lived outside of town. I was a country kid. See, in our small town there were city kids and country kids. You were a city kid if you lived in town. Our town had fewer than 5000 people. Hardly a city, but still we made that distinction.

We probably made it because we felt different. Our families were mostly farmers. We got up early, had chores, and listened to the commodities report on the radio. We went to church and high school basketball games. We never ate out. The most we could hope for was a stop at the gas station--the Will-0-way--where my Dad would buy a Mars bar and cut into seven equal pieces when we got home. About once a year, we'd get shakes at the Arctic Circle.

The city kids were different. Their Dads were bankers or salesmen or supervisors at factories. The city kids slept in on Saturdays, played golf, and shopped for school clothes in Salt Lake City. Their families owned their own VCRs. They ate chinese food and seafood and knew what they were going to be when they grew up.

We, too, had a small town tradition: Rodeo weekend. Rodeo weekend was big. A parade every night on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday followed by the rodeo. There was a carnival, too. You could see into the rodeo arena from the ferris wheel and you could hear the carnival noise from the rodeo stands. The rodeo grounds smelled like hamburgers, cigarette smoke, and cotton candy. I was a country kid, not a cowboy, so the rodeo was thrilling to me. I loved rodeo weekend. Even now, the thought of it fills me with memories and nostalgia.

Lying in bed, at 6 a.m. with cannons going off every 20 seconds, I thought how a rodeo and a parade and a carnival are really the perfect small-town tradition.

Mostly because nobody wakes you up.

Party Line

2009-10-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

My daughter, age 9, warned me that she might want a cell phone. Not yet, but sometime. Perhaps in a year or two. She just wanted me to be forewarned.

How nice.

I did what any reasonable parent would do. I told her about the “olden days.” I’m 35 and yes, according to a 9 year old, even I lived in the olden days. Here’s proof:

Up until I was five years old, I lived in town. Town was laid out in blocks. It had neighbors and modern conveniences. When I was five we moved to the farm. The farm was exactly 8 miles from the only stoplight in town. The closest neighbors were a mile away. We had a party line.

A party line, I explained to my daughter, was when the whole rural road we lived along all shared the same phone line. We all had our own phones in our houses, but they were all connected to one, singular line. Only one of us could be on the phone at once. Someone miles down the road might be using the phone when you picked it up and you’d have to wait until they were done talking. And yes, you could listen in on other people’s conversations.

My mother taught us that this was very, very rude. She never did it. If someone was on the line, she’d hang up so quick it was like she’d dropped the phone. My mother was patient and polite. But there were occasions when she’d need to actually use our party line.

Every party line had one: an Odessa. Odessa was a neighbor who lived 3 or 4 miles closer to town than we did. She probably wasn’t that old at the time, but as a child, I thought she was old. She was a heavy woman and she was LOUD. So loud, that all you had to do was lift the phone from its cradle at arm’s length. If she was on the phone, you knew it.

Odessa was ALWAYS on the phone.

She also always knew everybody else’s business. (There was speculation in our house that she “listened in” on the party line).

I remember only three occasions when my polite, patient mother quietly asked Odessa if she could get off the phone because my mother desperately needed to make a call. Most of the time, my mother just waited, checking the line every hour or so until she heard a dial tone instead of one of the neighbor’s voices.

It’s hard to believe that it was well into the 1980’s before we got our own phone line. Now, that . . . that day was a party.

Let it WHAT?

2009-10-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

Isn't he cute?

Yep. That's the white stuff. And it's a flying.

My kids got to use their snowman kit (I'll have to post about these later). They were so excited. I think it will melt. I don't think winter is here yet. But then again, I've been wrong before.

The DMV

2009-09-30T20:29:00.000-07:00

As a new Wyoming resident, I went to get a Wyoming driver's license. The routine is a fairly simple one, until January. (It gets more complicated in January). Now, though, in 2009, you only have to present an old license, pay $20, and take an eye exam.

I hate eye exams. An eye exam was the first test I ever failed. It was 2nd grade and I had to get glasses. I've had glasses ever since. Year after year, I fail eye exams and my prescription gets stronger and stronger. You can't study for an eye exam, you know.

At the DMV I looked into a machine. There were tiny little numbers in there. Teeny tiny ones. I could make out the first and last and took a guess that they went in order.

"6 7 8 9 10," I said.

I passed.

More little numbers.

Was I really supposed to be able to see these? I guessed. Half wrong, half right.

More little numbers.

"I can't read those," I admitted.

Maybe I can hire someone to drive me around, I thought.

The screen clicked. The numbers got bigger. I passed.

I drove home, passing speed limits signs with great big, bold, black numbers on them.

Sheets

2009-09-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

I used to be in a writing group with Lynne. One day she was reading a piece about clean sheets and how good they smell when they've been dried outside, on a clothesline.

"Wait," I said. "Is that how they get that smell?"

I'd been wondering why, all these years, my sheets never smelled fresh and new after a washing like they did when I was a child. It was one of those fleeting mysteries of childhood; a moment I tried to re-create every time I washed my sheets, but it always fell flat. Somehow, my sheets never smelled the same as I remembered. I used the same laundry detergent my mother did. I used the same dryer sheets. Still nothing.

I dry my sheets in a dryer. I dry all my laundry in a dryer. Hanging clothes on the line was one of my most dreaded chores. I didn't mind taking the clothes off the line so much, because it went much quicker. But hanging them up? No thank you. I served an LDS mission to The Netherlands. No dryers. We hung our clothes on racks in our apartments. When they dried, my clothes were hard and stiff. I couldn't wait to use a dryer again. I love when my clothes come out of the dryer, soft and still warm.

But I'd give anything for my sheets to smell like they did when my mother washed them.

We've moved to Wyoming.

It is different here.

The houses are older. There are mature trees. We have a clothesline in our backyard.

After I washed our sheets, I hung them out there to dry. The clothespins were cracked and sun-bleached. The air moved like a whisper around me, barely a breeze. I pinned some of the worries I've carried for a long time up there with those sheets. I didn't take them down again.

When I slept that night my bed smelled like earth and sunshine. I breathed deep and felt almost young again.

Butter 2

2009-07-23T15:40:00.000-07:00

Another essay on butter I wrote at the BYU WIFYR Conference:

My grandpa spread butter on his waffle slowly and carefully, so that it sank into every hole. He topped it with thick maple syrup, pouring slowly row by row, filling the indentations with sweet stickiness.

High cholesterol runs in our family. We shouldn’t butter our bread or fill the holes in our waffles with golden pools of butter, but Grandpa did. When my mother expressed worry over this unhealthy indulgence, Grandpa scoffed. Butter was natural. Pure. Better watch out for those other, fabricated foods; things that could not be tied to the earth. Those who live off the land understand these things. Besides, he’d say, he’d probably outlive most. He has.

My mother asked him, when she was dying, if he would help carry her casket. He nodded. I saw tears pooling, like melted butter, in the corners of his eyes. Mom patted his hand—my father’s father.

“It’s not right,” he said, shaking his head.

He couldn’t finish, so my mother finished for him, “No, it’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”

“Nope. Parents are not supposed to bury their children,” he said. He stood up. I knew he’d go outside to the farmland where he felt most at home. I knew he’d go to be alone. He’d walk past the barn, the machine shed, the haystacks. He’d open the gate, leave the fenced yard, and walk through the wheat field where the stalks were tall and golden, and waved like a sea of shiny butter.

Kolob

2009-07-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

My husband, Brady, had the honor and privilege of singing "If You Could Hie to Kolob" at Anna's memorial service this week. This was a very special and spiritual experience for both me and Brady. A tender mercy. Our hearts go out to Joe and Christy and their family. Our thoughts and prayers will continue to be with you in the months and years ahead. You have been an inspiration to us and our family.

Sooner or Later

2009-07-08T12:11:00.001-07:00

Sooner or later, it seems that every kid does it: cuts their own hair. Oh yes, isn't it lovely?

Butter 1

2009-06-25T17:18:00.000-07:00

During my novel writing class at the BYU Writing & Illustrating for Young Readers Conference, my instructor, Louise Plummer, asked us to write something about butter. We had a few minutes, right there on the spot. This is what I wrote:

My mother greased bread pans with shortening, using squares of waxed paper she kept in the shortening can. She only made bread when I was young, before we remodeled the house. The remodel brought men into our house. Men I didn't know. Men who came, kicked up sawdust, then left. Men who never--according to my father--put in a full day's work.

My father loved his work. He came into the house for breakfast with the smell of earth already on him. He brought raw milk, fresh from the milk tank. We'd pour it on our cereal. White rivers of cream flowed through our Cheerios. At lunch, he came inside with the smell of sweet hay or dust from the grain field. We ate meat and potatoes, and slices of bread heavy with butter.

My grandpa was always with him at lunchtime. Grandpa never said much. He'd roll up the sleeves on his work shirt and wash up, past his elbows. He ate ice cream off his dirty dinner plate because he didn't want to my mother to dirty another dish for him. The farm was his, before it was my fathers. It had belonged to his father before that. I watched him butter his bread and chew slowly, knowing that I knew so little about him. I knew they used to have dances in the parlor of the old farmhouse when my father was a boy. I knew that my grandpa was a fine dancer. I knew he stole watermelons from his neighbor when he was a kid and that he swore a lot when he talked with old friends and when the calves were ornery.

Handy Mom

2009-06-22T13:59:00.000-07:00

Over the past two weeks I've:

Fixed the latch on my laptop (which wasn't working)

Jump started the car

and

Figured out how to fix the Ipod which was frozen on some weird screen

Pretty good for me, who's usually inept at everything.

Not quite Cinderella

2009-06-03T21:16:00.001-07:00

All my daughter wanted for her birthday were these shoes. The day she got them she had a sore on her toe because she'd smashed it somewhere while wearing flip flops. So, of course, these shoes hurt to wear. Now that the sore has healed, she won't wear the purple shoes that she just had to have. I don't think she's worn them even once since her birthday. Little stinker.

Mom's Radiation

2009-05-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

What was it like at radiation, once she went through the doors? What did she do and think while I flipped through issues of Newsweek and watched the clock? Who did she talk to? Did the nurses remember her? Was the room too cold? The radiation hot? Shame on me for not asking—for not even wanting to know.

I remember a day when my sister and I took my Mom to Salt Lake City. Was it for a CT scan? Seems like it was. My sister, a nurse, would know.

I do remember that she couldn’t eat anything, so my sister and I didn’t eat anything either. It seemed wrong to have pancakes for breakfast or stop for a cheeseburger when my mother was trying to gag down some drink that would light up like neon in the machine they would feed her through like she were on a conveyor belt. She was trying not to throw it up. She took tiny sips and then shivered. She lay back in her seat taking measured breaths. Inside the building, we sat with her in the waiting room, watching a 30ish man in bicycle shorts talk with the receptionist. “The form says shellfish,” he said. “I’m allergic to shrimp, does that count?” She nodded. There’d be no neon drink for him. I wondered to myself if that was a good or a bad thing.

We moved to another room. When they called her back, we left the waiting room.

“I’m starving,” my sister said. I was too. Mom had told us to eat. She’d begged us to stop on the way. We didn’t. She told us to go while she was in for the scan. We hated the thought that she might finish before we were back. Suddenly, it seemed, that was the whole point of a waiting room. It wasn’t for those waiting to go in. It was so that someone was out there waiting for you when you were done.

We found the candy machines. They didn’t take debit cards. Nope. Cash. Of which we had very little. We went out to the car and raided the glove box and the cup-holder drawer. When we’d pooled our change we bought a packet of red, coconut-covered zingers. I don’t remember anything ever tasting quite so good. I hadn’t had a red coconut zinger in years and years, since I was a kid, probably. We both wanted chocolate milk to go with them, but we settled on long slurps from the drinking fountain because we only had two nickels left.

That’s what I remember from that day: red coconut zingers. I buy them now, sometimes. They still taste good to me. “Do you know what’s in these things?” my husband says, reading the label. Yes. Hydrogenates. Trans Fats. High Fructose Corn Syrup, or something else, equally bad. They’ll probably stay on a shelf for years and not go stale. They’ll survive nuclear war. They’ll attach to my artery walls and stay there. I just want to eat them and have my memory. They are, after all, inseparable in my mind from that day—CT scan day.

“I know.” I say, “They’ll kill me.” I bite into one. That is, if the cancer doesn’t get me first.

Oh, now I get it!

2009-04-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

"Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
- E. L. Doctorow

I think I needed to hear this a long time ago. Write on!!

Happy Birthday, Mom

2009-04-20T16:29:00.001-07:00

Miss you.

Grocery Shopping

2009-04-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

Not very often, but sometimes, I think ahead before going grocery shopping. Sometimes, I go through the ads and circle what I plan on buying that week. My daughter was at the kitchen table coloring with markers. This was one of those rare weeks when I was thinking ahead. The grocery store ads were strewn across the table. I went about doing my daily things: laundry, checking email, feeding the baby. When I came back to the table I found the Walgreens ad. I guess I must go there. Oh, and look at what I'm supposed to buy. Hilarious. Thanks my five year old. What? No vitamins or Mountain Dew?

Smart Computers

2009-03-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

Computers now days are supposed to be smart. They know everything about us: our social security numbers, where we shop online, what celebrities we might have secret crushes on. Right? Then why are there a few things they just can't get straight? I mean, if they were THAT smart, then I'd stop getting emails about breast enhancement surgery. Case in point?

Although I had a wonderful experience at the hospital where I recently gave birth, I was asked three times about my mother. Apparently the computer system was smart enough to know that I was her daughter and it linked us together. What the computer system was NOT smart enough to know is that she had died. I had to explain this three times, to three different people: once before my son was born, once after he was born, and the two days later when we were back for a bilirubin test. It was not something I wanted to be reminded of at any of those moments. And how do you explain it? She died? She passed away? She's deceased? Then the person who asked mumbles "Oh, I'm sorry" and then is embarrassed. Yeah, awkward.

When I told my father about it, he said, "Yeah, I got a call less than a year ago from the hospital asking how her cancer treatments were going. I had to tell them that she'd died--over five years ago."

"Well, somehow that information is STILL not in their computer system," I told him.

"Why does the computer make the connection anyway?" he asked me.

"Oh, probably in case I don't pay my bill, they want a way to find me," I said.

"Well then, that's where you made your mistake. You should've just said, yep, she's my Mom--send the bill to her."

Oops. That would have been funny, Dad. And smart. Very smart.

His Eyes

2009-03-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

My pediatrician told me that by about six months my baby's eyes would stop changing and become the color they will always be. Right now, his eyes are brownish in the middle and blue/grey on the outside. To me, they look like the color of storm clouds--gathering. Will they stay this way and what does that mean?

Chivalry Alive

2009-03-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

I was at the pool yesterday with my kids at swimming lessons. There was a Mom, dropping off her son. Since he was early for his lesson, he headed to the balcony to wait. I heard his Mom tell him that either she, or his Dad, would be back to pick him up. He nodded and climbed the stairs. I was behind him, carrying my sleeping baby in his car seat. At the top of the stairs, the boy saw me. He stopped and waited and held the door open for me. His Mom was long gone, out the door, but I wish she could have seen him. Surely, she'd be proud: it was so thoughtful and sweet. See, chivalry is not dead, not in that ten-year old boy. Perhaps, then, there is hope for all the world.

Empathy

2009-03-14T20:29:00.000-07:00

My daughter has a friend at school. Her name is Rose Marie. She has long, bright carrot-colored hair. I met her once, at Albertsons. She's gorgeous. She smiled shyly and I instantly liked the girl. My daughter likes her too. She comes home with stories of Rose Marie and tells me how nice and how beautiful she is, both inside and out.

One day my daughter told me that she feels so sad for Rose Marie for one reason. It seems that she goes to speech therapy.

Lots of kids do. I tell her. Not to worry. She'll learn to say whatever sounds she's struggling with. Just give her time.

Oh, I know, Mom, my daughter tells me. It's just that the only sound she has a hard time with is the "R" sound. She makes it more like a "W." My daughter is disgusted when I look at her blankly. "Mom, her name STARTS with an R." Oh. Yes, it does. "Mom. I just want her to be able to say her own name, the way it's supposed to sound."

And that's my girl. Always waiting for the day when a good thing will happen. Even if it happens to someone else.

Pass the paper doilies

2009-02-27T18:37:00.000-08:00

On the eve of school Valentine's Day parties everywhere, both my daughters informed me that they needed Valentine boxes the next day. I smiled. I was cursing under my breath, though.

Being a responsible parent, I knew this was coming. Every year there are Valentine's Day parties. I know this. I know they will need a shoe box, covered in red paper and doily hearts with a slot in the top for Hannah Montana and Scooby Doo cards. But I'd forgotten. And now I was tired, it was late, and I did not want to spend the evening making Valentine's Day boxes.

I remember making my own boxes in Elementary school. My mother (a saint) had sat at the table with me for hours, cutting hearts, glueing paper, and sprinkling glitter. Hadn't she? Unlike me, she'd never cursed under her breath. No, she brought out the construction paper and old cards and stickers and smiled. She'd been patient. And loving. At least, I remember her being patient and loving. And smiling.

I thought about it, though, as I measured fabric and cut it and had my girls glue it on their boxes. As I showed my daughters how to fold a piece of paper, cut, and open it to reveal a perfectly shaped heart, I realized that I have no idea if my mother had actually enjoyed making Valentine's boxes with me. I only know that every year, she did.

And suddenly, I was very happy to be making boxes with my smiling, loving, girls. It's just that next year, let's start earlier.

Chocolate + Love

2009-02-16T21:00:00.000-08:00

When I was first married, I heard my father-in-law complain to his wife about the half eaten chocolates she’d left in their pleated wrappers in the box. He was very annoyed. Convinced that my new husband shared the same pet peeve, I vowed not to make the same mistake. So when we received a box of chocolates as a gift, I ate the entire piece. Well, pieces. Strawberry crème filled. Caramel pecan. Dark Chocolate truffle. I savored them, knowing that he would be glad I hadn’t bitten them in half, leaving my teeth marks in the chocolate and making the crème filled centers dry out. Yes, I was proud of myself—until he came home.

“What have you done?” he asked me. “You’re supposed to just eat half a piece and leave the other half for me. That way, we can both try all the flavors in the box!” He was very annoyed. Sometimes in love and chocolate, you just can’t win.

The Fun Run

2009-02-04T21:21:00.000-08:00

Our Junior High had an annual "Fun Run." I don't know if those two words belong in the same sentence. But I married into a family of runners. They have a family Turkey Trot before Thanksgiving. They are the kind of people who believe that running is fun. Really fun. So of course, they loved the Fun Run.

It was bound to come up. And one year it did:

"How did you do in the Fun Run, DeAnn?"

"Fun Run?" (This was a stall tactic).

"The Junior High Fun Run, how did you do?"

Pause. More pause. Followed by a sheepish grin.

"You didn't run in the Fun Run?" This was said loudly as to attract the attention of the entire family, including my husband who might not have married me had he known this bit of information.

More sheepish grinning. Followed by, "I can't believe it: DeAnn didn't run in the Fun Run! Everybody ran in the Fun Run. Didn't you have to run in the Fun Run?"

The Fun Run, I explained, was optional.

"You never ran in the Fun Run?"

See, The Fun Run was an annual event. Three years of Jr. high, and not a single "Fun Run" for me. The sheepish grin had become more of wince.

My husband joined the questioning. "What did you do during the Fun Run, if you weren't running in it?"

"Well, it was simple," I explained. "Every year, there was an option. You could either run in the Fun Run or you could go to the library." (I think at this point my husband might have hit his hand against his forehead). "And not just the school library, either. You got to go to the public library. The city library that smelled of dusty books and glass cleaner. And it was the middle of the day, so it was empty. Even the big leather chairs next to the map collection. The chairs that had big metal rivets along the seams, the ones that were always taken. Even those chairs were empty during the Fun Run." I shrugged. "See, I loved the Fun Run, too. Every year. Oh, how I loved it."

Super Bowl Birthdays

2009-01-31T12:07:00.000-08:00

"You are SOOOO lucky!!!"

My brother, Brian, said this to me one year when my birthday fell on Super Bowl Sunday.

I didn't feel lucky. I didn't want to spend the entire day watching football, which is what we would most certainly be doing. (Well, besides going to church). He, on the other hand, thought there were few things greater than a both a birthday and the Super Bowl on the same day.

I've watched few, if any, Super Bowls since leaving home. Yesterday, I guessed (correctly) that the Steelers were playing this year. After all, it seems like I've seem them in the news and mentions of them on my yahoo home page. I was told the Arizona Cardinals would be the opposing team. Funny. I'd never heard of them. Wait a minute. Aren't the Cardinals in St. Louis? I looked them up on Wikipedia. Apparently, I've not watched football since 1987.

I have had birthdays, though. Some on Super Bowl Sunday, some not. This year, my birthday was on Monday. On Monday, the ALA announced the children and young adult literary awards for 2009: The Newbery Award, the Caldecott Medal, The Printz Award. The Super Bowl of Children's Writing. Combine that and the fact I finally got flowers on my birthday:

Well, I am so lucky.

Miss America

2009-01-24T20:55:00.000-08:00

Why am I watching Miss America? Tradition, probably. It used to be in September, right around my sister's birthday. We didn't watch it every year, but enough to remember some highlights. Like the year Sharlene Wells, Miss Utah, won. She played the harp, and ate almost a pound of fudge just prior to the swimsuit competition. I'll also never forget the year Vanessa Williams was stripped of her crown after nude photos of her were exposed by Penthouse magazine. I was young. . . and shocked.

My Mom always complained that they didn't show enough of the talent portion of the competition and too much of the swimsuit competition. And can we really compare an opera song to a show tune? or tap dancing to classical ballet? And a dramatic reading? Just how did she get all the way to Miss America doing a dramatic reading??? My mother loved the talent portion. She would always base her prediction of the winner based on the contestant's performance in the talent competition. Almost always, she was wrong.

My father, on the other hand, almost always correctly predicted the winner beforehand. Ironically, he wouldn't even watch the pageant. Usually he just bumped in from time to time, complaining "oh, did I miss the swimsuit competition again this year?"

No, my father would base his predictions on a set of random factors. A minor one was chest size. (For this my mother would scold him. He'd shrug and say, "sad, but true"--He never claimed to approve). The major factor, however, was simply a different kind of size: the size of their home states. New York, California, and Texas were always front runners. He'd also account for any politically correct wild card-ness. (In the case of Vanessa Williams, it was time for a black woman to win, and one year, there was a contestant who was deaf).

This method of prediction drove my mother nuts. It tore at her belief that the Miss America pageant was based primarily on talent, scholarship, and community service. To this my father would answer, "I'm not saying that Miss so-and-so SHOULD win, just that she WILL win." Then my mother would point out that her evening gown was the wrong color for her skin tone. Yes, it was as entertaining to watch my parent's bicker about who would win as it was to watch the pageant.

Home tonight, watching alone, well there's just not as much fun in it. There's still surgical enhancement, spray-on tans, too much make-up, and that song: "Here she comes, Miss America." Oh, and world peace. There is always, always world peace. Well, a girl can dream.

Make-up

2009-01-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

I did something last night that I hardly ever do. I went to bed without taking off my make-up. I thought it through. Since I didn't even put make-up on until 4:45 p.m., I thought maybe it could stay there all night without terribly damaging effects. After all, there are days I wear make-up ALL day. What's the difference, if you wear it all night?

Well, I read once that for every time you don't wash your make-up off at night, you age five days. I've committed this crime twice in past year. So people, that technically means that today's my birthday.

Kids & Christmas

2009-01-06T16:29:00.000-08:00

Christmas is not my favorite holiday. Instead I long to crawl under a rock and stay there until the spring thaw. At the very least, I want to stay home the entire month of December. I really do. I want to stay home, snuggle with my kids, and read a book. I wish that there really was a man in a red suit to deliver presents on Christmas morning so I don't have to go shopping. My brother-in-law calls me Scrooge.

I didn't stay home, though. No, this year we packed up all our kids, all their presents, all our snow/winter gear and went to Idaho. I didn't want to, but I understood that my husband and our children did. It wasn't about me, anyway. Christmas isn't about adults.

We'd driven about 40 minutes when my husband got a call that his cousin had been killed that morning in an avalanche while snowmobiling. We still had a 2 1/2 hour drive. A person thinks during that time.

We entered the house to a somber crowd. Jesse had worked for my husband's brother alongside his other two brothers. We probably knew Jesse least, but I never saw him without a smile on his face. Now I saw pain in everyone's eyes.

And then our kids came in behind us, bounding--their eyes and hearts excited for Christmas and all it's wonders. Being at Grandma and Grandpa's was an added bonus. It took a little time, but I watched everyone pick up their sagging hearts. After all, there was still Christmas to be had.

So we had Christmas. It was better for everyone, I think, because of the kids. It's hard to be too sad, with children around at Christmastime. Of all the years, this one was a good one to be at Grandma and Grandpa Campbell's. We didn't bring anyone lots of gifts. O.K, we didn't bring any gifts. But we brought the kids. I hope it was enough.

Poet

2008-12-18T07:40:00.000-08:00

Those of you who know me, know that I'm an aspiring writer. What you might not know, is that I also dabble in poetry from time to time. Here's one I came up with just this morning:

Ah, oh. Spaghetti-0.

You just spit up all over your clothes.

Genius, I know. Don't worry. There are more where that came from.

The Adult Table

2008-12-10T22:42:00.000-08:00

Photographer Justin Hackworth sends out a photo of the day. (Sign up here to be added to the list). Yesterday there was a photo of the adult table at Thanksgiving. Oh, the adult table. As a kid, I really wanted to sit there. Over there they talked about business, and politics, and the neighbors. Why couldn’t the kids sit with the adults anyway?

Both of my grandmothers would set “kid” and “adult” tables when they hosted Thanksgiving. There was one Thanksgiving, however, when my grandma Webster didn’t just set a kid table, she served kid food. At Thanksgiving.

I love Thanksgiving. Always have. I love the turkey. I love the dressing. I love mashed potatoes and yams. I love everything about Thanksgiving, but I especially love the food. As a child, even, I loved the food. I looked forward to Thanksgiving all year.

That year, we went to Grandma Webster’s. We kids all sat down at the kid table. Grandma served us chicken nuggets. What???? Chicken nuggets. I hated chicken nuggets. She had to be kidding. She wasn’t. In fact, she was excited that she’d thought of it. Kids don’t like grown up food. They don’t want turkey. They want chicken nuggets. I didn’t. I wanted turkey. Can I have turkey? No. You can have chicken nuggets. That’s what kids like: chicken nuggets. No sense wasting a turkey on children who don’t even like it. But I like turkey. I do. But I made chicken nuggets for the kids. If you’re at the kid table, you eat chicken nuggets. So I did. And I really, really wanted to be sitting at the adult table. Not just for the gossip and politics, but for the turkey.

After our chicken nugget dinner we had mincemeat pie, because all kids love mincemeat pie.

The Rollover

2008-12-06T09:20:00.000-08:00

Three days ago, my baby rolled from his back to his tummy. He doesn't like being on his tummy, so I put him back on his back. He rolled over again. We repeated this several times. I don't want him rolling over. That means he's growing up. My husband and I always say that we wish we could freeze time. Freeze our kids just where they are and watch them be little and adorable forever. But we can't. I supposed, really, truly, we wouldn't do it even if we could. I don't think we're supposed to. That's why man invented the camera.

Laughter

2008-11-23T15:56:00.000-08:00

My baby boy cried the very first day he was born. It's taken eighty-five days for him to figure out how to laugh. I hope he never forgets.

May none of us forget how. To laugh.

Real Men Love Pink

2008-11-13T10:54:00.000-08:00

I have a baby boy. He's just over two months now and what a blessing he is. My oldest, a girl, had colic and cried non-stop. When I say non-stop, I mean NON-STOP. It was horrible. I think I only survived because I didn't know any better. In comparison, my second (also a girl) was an angel. At least I thought so until now. Now I have this brand new baby and my, oh my. He's the happiest baby I ever did see. Of course he cries. Of course he had nights he doesn't sleep. Of course he had times when he's fussy and just won't settle down. Mostly though, I'm able to comfort him and meet his needs.

He's been smiling for a while, but lately he coos too. It's my very favorite thing. The cooing, the smiles, the way his face lights up. There is joy here, just all of us watching him.

He takes a binky, which my girls never did. We have a couple blue ones, a green one, a yellow one. But the one he loves most is pink. Bright pink with a purple handle. It was one of his sister's before him; it was never used, until now. He, however, chomps away at it, his legs kicking and his arms flailing like he's leading a choir. Someday soon, the binky will wear out. I can't find any just like it in stores. Someday too, he'll look at a baby photo and be horrified, I'm sure, that I let him have a pink binky. Oh well. Someday when he has a colicky baby of his own he'll understand. In the meantime I'll tell him that real men love pink.

Weird Thing

2008-10-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

This is weird. Today I was thinking about Death of a Salesman, and how I love that play. It's been forever since I saw it or read it. "I should read that again sometime soon" I thought to myself.

Then tonight I log onto Writer's Almanac. I don't check it much. Somehow the poetry is not the same in my head as it is when Garrison Keillor reads it on air, with a voice that is only his. I scroll to the bottom and read this:

It's the birthday of Arthur Miller, (books by this author) born in New York City in 1915. His family was wealthy, but they lost all their money during the stock market crash, so they moved to Brooklyn and lived with the whole extended family. Arthur's uncle was a storyteller and a big liar. He became an inspiration for Arthur, who said, "His unpredictable manipulations of fact freed my mind to lope and skip among fantasies of my own." While Arthur Miller was writing his playDeath of a Salesman (1949), he went to bed at night and realized that his face was wet from crying, and his throat was sore from speaking and shouting the lines of dialogue as he wrote. He said, "The theater is so endlessly fascinating because it's so accidental. It's so much like life."

Hmmmm. Weird.

Amazon.com

2008-10-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

Never get on Amazon late at night when you promised yourself you'd be writing your own masterpiece. It will only make you regret not buying a copy of The Underneath when you had a chance, even though it seemed like too much money at the time. Now it's been nominated for a national book award and you (meaning I) haven't read it. It's written by Kathi Appelt who was at the BYU Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Workshop this past summer. When she read from her memoir My Father's Summers I gasped audibly because the writing was that good. Audible gasping good. It takes a lot for me to gasp audibly, believe me. Oh, I do love writing that makes me gasp. It's sort of like a cross between tasting the world's finest chocolate and having the wind knocked out of you.

Unintentional Mistakes

2008-09-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

Growing up there were three apple trees in our backyard. I loved one tree the most. It's apples were red--not yellow and green like the others. The apples from that tree were crisp and tart, unlike any apples I've ever tasted. After a good frost they were cold and juicier than before.

One day, as a child, I found a small knife. It was silver with a pearl handle. Unlike the pocket knives my father used to cut string from hay bales, this knife didn't fold up. I liked the way the knife felt in my hands. I liked using it. It was light and comfortable. I took that knife and began stripping the bark off the apple tree--my favorite tree.

I stripped long strings of bark from the trunk and main branch. I watched the bark curl, exposing the fleshy wood underneath. I thought nothing of it, until my parents found me knife in hand, carving into the tree. They were not happy. What was I thinking?

My parents explained that stripping the bark from the tree had made it vulnerable. I'd exposed it to disease, to insects, to the elements. The tree, they said, would probably die. I cried and cried. I loved that tree. I loved its apples. I hadn't meant it any harm. I hadn't understood that I was doing something wrong.

It was the first time that I remember making a big mistake without realizing I was making one. Until that point I honestly thought that I'd have a clear understanding of my choices; that I'd always clearly know wrong from right. Instead I'd made an unintentional mistake.

The tree lived. For many, many years it bore the scar I gave it. It may still, although I think it's grown over. I still love the apples from that tree. I wonder how many unintentional mistakes I've made throughout my life, and I wonder when I'll realize that I've made them. I only hope it won't be too late.

Bedtime Chats

2008-09-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

My oldest daughter and I like to have bedtime chats. I snuggle down next to her in bed and we talk. Well, we did. About the time my tummy was too big with the baby and I was too uncomfortable to duck under the bunk bed our bedtime chats stopped.

Tonight we had one again. She told me about her day: school, how she doesn't like computer class, and how she made a tote bag at enrichment tonight. (Someone took my girls to mother/daughter night--how nice).

Since our new baby was asleep in his crib, I ducked down and we talked. It was nice. It really has been hard with a new baby to give my girls some one on one time. Tonight, though, at least I tried. When I said goodnight and left her room I had a full 30 seconds before the baby started crying. At least, though, there was time for a bedtime chat. Sleep tight.

Ineptitude

2008-08-20T16:45:00.001-07:00

My husband and I know so little about computers that we shouldn't even own them. The same goes for cars, and probably houses. Our PC is currently AWOL. I have no idea how to fix it. I'm afraid trying will only make it worse.

One of our cars needs to be fixed before winter. (Oh, winter, stay away).

Then my father-in-law visits and says that I need to get my husband (his son) to fix something that is wrong with our front door. When I tell my husband he says, "How on earth do you fix that?" I shrug. I have no idea either.

So just what are things we should own, given our areas of expertise?

Him?: Any and all camping / hiking equipment. Funny how he can take all that apart and put it back together. He also does OK with his bike and his trombone. He wants an electric piano just because it won't need tuning.

For me: a pencil. I get a notebook, too. Maybe.

Other than that, we're pretty inept.

Stephen King

2008-07-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

I've not read a lot of Stephen King's books. They're not really my type of reading. But I have found lots of inspiration from his book "On Writing: a memoir of the craft". I try and read this book every couple of years. There's always something good I missed the time before. I do, however, love the back jacket and always have:

"For years I dreamed of having the sort of massive oak slab that would dominate a room. . . In 1981 I got the one I wanted and placed it in the middle of a spacious, skylighted study in the rear of the house. For six years I sat behind that desk either drunk or wrecked out of my mind. . .

A year or two later after I sobered up, I got rid of that monstrosity and put in a living-room suite where it had been. . . In the early nineties, before they moved on to their own lives, my kids sometimes came up in the evening to watch a basketball game or a movie and eat pizza. . . I got another desk--it's handmade, beautiful, and half the size of the T. rex desk. I put it at the far west end of the office, in a corner under the eave. . . I'm sitting under it now, a fifty-three-year-old man with bad eyes, a gimp leg, and no hangovers. I'm doing what I know how to do, and as well as I know how to do it. I came through all the stuff I told you about . . . and now I'm going to tell you as much as I can about the job. . . .

It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around."

Lemonade Stand

2008-07-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

There was only a single day in my childhood that I had a lemonade stand. My brother and I had thought it was a great idea. No one dissuaded us. Our Mom probably loved that we were out of her hair for almost the entire day. All it cost her was a single pitcher of lemonade.

We drug the card table out on the lawn and set our two folding chairs around it. We had cups, and ice, and a hand-made sign drawn with markers on poster board. It was hot. Very hot. We were going to be rich.

Our older sister was not interested in our business venture. She was old enough to know what we didn't. Well, maybe we knew, but we didn't want to admit it. Instead, we hoped that our proximity to the reservoir, a local boating and fishing hotspot would provide us with customers. The problem was, our house was about 3 miles further up the road than the loading dock and a full mile past where the reservoir ended.

As far as locations go, ours was not ideal. We sold lemonade 8.3 miles from the center of our small town, along a windy country road that (in those days) seldom saw traffic. After my brother and I exchanged quarters, we each took a glass of lemonade. We watched the cars: there were three of them that went by that entire day. Not one stopped.

Still, we watched the road with hopefulness, swishing our bare feet just above the clipped grass. We sold (or failed to sell) lemonade for most of the day. It was a failed endeavor from the start, but I loved that no one told us we couldn't try.

My Father's Wallet

2008-07-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

My Dad kept two photos of my mother in his wallet. They were both black and white pictures of her in high school. She was beautiful. Really and truly, beautiful. Mom said he liked to keep them to remind him of how she used to look; I didn't like it when she said that.

I thought it was sweet, though, that he kept those pictures; treasured them, really. He wasn't that great at birthdays or anniversaries, or Mother's Day, but the fact that he adored those photos always reminded me of his love for her.

I liked to look at them too. I don't know when it was but I looked in his wallet and noticed that one of the pictures had sort of decayed around the edges. I asked him about it.

He laughed. "Didn't I ever tell you?" he asked. "It was the darnedest thing." It seems that he'd lost his wallet one fall, out on the tractor. We still had an old Allis Chambers open air tractor with a metal seat. That wallet, housed in his back pocket, had worked its way out and fallen somewhere in a field next to the pond he'd tried and failed to stock with fish. He'd looked for it when he noticed it was missing, but couldn't find it. "This biggest thing, was, that it has those photos, in it," he said. It wasn't the money in it he was going to miss, but he hated to lose those pictures of his young sweetheart.

Fast forward to spring. Same field. "I stood there and remembered that that was where I'd lost my wallet," he told me. "I decided that before I did anything to it: turned the soil, or disced, or messed with it, that I'd walk over it one more time." And there is was. A season later, after the winter snow had melted: his wallet. The leather was decayed and falling apart in his hands, a $50 bill, partly disintegrated. But the photos, in their plastic sleeve where still there. His young love staring back at him, except some minor decay along the edges.

He got a new wallet, a new plastic sleeve for the photos, and went to bank where they exchanged him for a crisp $50 bill. He smiled and looked at her picture. "I sure would have hated to lose those," he'd said. "Isn't she beautiful?"

He put the wallet back in his pocket and we went upstairs, where Mom was there, with dinner, waiting.

Mother's Day. . . again

2008-06-14T21:10:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Father's Day. So Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there. However, I'm going to write about Mother's Day. . . again. Why, you ask? Because tonight as I vacuumed out my car, I was still vacuuming out dried beans. Still.

They were left from my preschooler who brought home a vase of paper flowers for me for Mother's Day with things like, "This is good for doing the dishes" and "This is for hugs & kisses" written on them. Cute. And I'm sure her teachers meant well. It's just that I didn't realize that the popsicle stick stems were stuck in a cup full of dried beans. My preschooler set it on the seat and we went merrily on our way. We even ran several errands. It wasn't until we were almost home that I took a corner a bit fast and the beans went flying everywhere. Everywhere. When I saw them fly across our minivan I said to myself, "And that, is a Happy Mother's Day to me." Beans all over the car, that I'm still vacuuming out a month later. What fun.

Oh well. Happy Mothers Day still and Happy Father's Day, too. May you get grills and tools and ties, instead of messy minivans.

Empathy

2008-06-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the birthday of writer Nikki Giovanni who said:

"I resent people who say writers write from experience. Writers don't write from experience, though many are hesitant to admit that they don't. I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy."

Now, mull that over.

Cake & Dreams

2008-06-05T16:58:00.000-07:00

In college I read the poem "Questions of Travel" by Elizabeth Bishop. There is a line in it that has haunted me ever since I read it:

"Oh, must we dream our dreams and have them too?"

I'm still trying to figure out what, for me, is the answer to that question. Is it like having your cake and eating it too?

Today I got a phone call from a high school friend. We haven't talked in a while. (It's amazing how much more interesting your life sounds when you're summing up two years worth of living.) She said the one thing she admires about me is that whenever she calls to catch up, I'm always pursuing my dreams. Hmmm. Am I?

I hope so.

Who I am.

2008-06-04T16:21:00.000-07:00

I loved this quote so much I put it on a bookmark.

"I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck." ~Emma Goldman

I'd change the word "roses" to simply "flowers," because I love more than just roses: tulips, daisies, lilies of the valley, lavender, well, I love all kinds of flowers. Then I was thinking this weird thing. I think if you knew just two things: a) that I love that quote and b) that I put it on a bookmark, well then you'd probably know almost all there is to know about who I am.

Tips

2008-05-31T21:59:00.000-07:00

If I were rich I'd leave bigger tips.

Many years ago my husband and I went to dinner with Doug. Doug was married to my husband's cousin, Jill, before she died from a brain tumor. In his mid-twenties, Doug was adjusting to life as a young widower with a new baby. He'd been working for a while at his first job since graduating from college. For the first time in a long time, Doug seemed good.

We went to Ruby River in downtown Salt Lake City and we arrived just minutes before closing time. Our waitress was very annoyed, especially after we ordered only an appetizer to share and dessert. Our bill was not large. When the bill came, Doug paid (for us, too, I think) and then left the waitress an extremely generous tip. Her tip was over 5x what we'd paid for dinner. We left. We were still in the parking lot when she ran out to tell us there'd been a mistake with the tip.

"There was no mistake," Doug said. Then he smiled, "have a good evening."

She was shocked, but she did mumble a genuine "Wow, thanks."

In the car, Doug smiled, "I've always wanted to do that," he said.

We then drove to the hospital where Doug's good friend from high school was dying of pancreatic cancer. He and his wife asked Doug for advice on losing one's spouse while their two toddler boys climbed on the bed rails and pulled on IV lines.

Sitting there, amid the heartbreak it was nice to know that the waitress, at least, had had a good night.

Shout Out

2008-05-22T21:46:00.000-07:00

I'm giving a big shout-out to my sister-in-law, Kaylee, who won the Idaho 4A girl's state title in the 3200 meters. (That's the two-mile, for those of us like me, who can't remember). We're so excited for her. She's worked very hard. We're so proud of her, win or lose, but I'm sure she's just ecstatic to have won. Way to go Kaylee!!

(After you follow the link you have to scroll down to Session 3, #3 Girls 3200 Meter Run 4A to see her name and time in print, but there it is!)

Mothers

2008-05-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

Lynne says in her comments that I haven't been writing enough. Lynne is a dear, dear friend, who is also sometimes mother-like to me. She knows I need both a friend and a mother. Sometimes she is one and sometimes the other. She knows just what to be in the right moment. After my Mom died, there were several people who volunteered to sort of "be there" for me when I felt I needed my Mom. Most were women in my ward at church, or friends of my Mom. All meant well, and I love seeing them, but none are continually in my life enough to be that person for me. Very likely, there is no replacement for one's Mom. But I have cherished friends who are there for me. Lynne is one. My mother-in-law is wonderful. I have two great friends in my neighborhood: Lauren and Janet. And, of course, my sister, Jenny (Too bad, we live far away from each other). One thing about all these women: they all serve those around them in remarkable ways.

My own mother hated Mother's Day. She said it was a day that reminded her of all her inadequacies. She had few. My mother-in-law claims my Mom was a saint. She probably was. But my mother-in-law fails to see her own wonderfulness. I watch her serve her family, her neighbors, friends, and strangers. The same is true of my sister Jenny and my friends Lynne, Amy, Janet, and Lauren. They are all kind, and generous, and true (which according to Winston Churchill is all you need). I learn a lot from each of them, just as I learned a lot from my own mother. So Happy Mother's Day. All I ask is that you follow the link below and read this poem which I love, love, love. I can't copy it here because I don't have permission. But go read it and think about it and have a Happy Mother's Day.

The poem is by Julia Kasdorf and is called "What I Learned from My Mother."

And now Lynne can be happy that I at least wrote something. :)

Regrets

2008-04-19T15:49:00.000-07:00

I regret one thing about Jr. High. OK, probably more than one thing, but there's one thing I still remember and I still wish I could change it.

I was on the yearbook staff in 7th grade. I liked it. It was fun. I liked learning about publishing, layout, and design. It was something I thought I was good at. I was very particular, a perfectionist, really. This was before the days of computer layouts. Instead, I drew everything that would go on my assigned yearbook pages on graph paper with a pencil and ruler. I was meticulous. My pages looked perfect. I checked and double checked them with the photos that would coordinate to the boxes I'd drawn in. I made sure everything was cropped perfectly and corresponded to it's assigned square.

I turned them in. Everything went in without our names on them, because the pages were to appear exactly as they would in the yearbook. I had a partner in yearbook. She did half the pages in our section, I did the other half. She was not meticulous. She was always late. On the day our pages were due she asked me if I'd turn them in because she didn't have time. I took them to our teacher. On the way I noticed they looked terrible. Nothing was measured. She'd haphazardly drawn what looked like ovals (not boxes) to represent pictures. The frames were supposed to be numbered with the picture that belonged there. Hers weren't. Oh well. She'd done a terrible job. It wasn't my problem. I'd done a beautiful job on my pages. I turned hers in.

I'd applied to be on the yearbook staff again the next year. It wasn't until weeks and weeks later when the staff list was posted and I wasn't on it (and my partner was) that I realized the teacher had probably thought my pages had been her pages and that her pages had been the ones I'd done. I was sick, not only because I wanted to be on the yearbook staff again, I also felt bad that the teacher had thought those terrible pages were mine. Did I do anything about it, though? No. I did not. I was shy and timid and not at all assertive then. I'm not really sure I've changed a lot since that experience. I'm probably still shy and timid and not assertive.

Maybe it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Maybe it would have. I'm currently wishing I'd taken some graphic design classes. I'm wishing I'd done a few things differently. I'm not sure how we overcome mistakes we've made or regrets we have. Right now, I'm not sure of anything.

Writing Contest

2008-04-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

I entered an essay contest at "Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative" in February. Winners are supposed to be announced today. I got on their website: no winners posted. Yet. But I did see that I am a finalist!!! Yeah. My entry falls into the "flash" category, which means the essays are all under 1,000 words. (Mine was about 500). They are giving away three prizes of $100 each. There are five finalists. I hope my chances are good. I could really use $100. And some validation that maybe, just maybe, I'm a real writer. Winners will be announced here sometime today.

Birds and Tulips

2008-04-02T11:03:00.000-07:00

"Keep a green tree in your heart, and perhaps the singing bird will come." -- Chinese Proverb

I spent $3 on this little bird. No job, no prospects and I still bought it. So unlike me, who tends to be conservative in even the best of times. It makes me smile. It gives me hope. It helps me keep a green tree in my heart. It reminds me that spring will surely come. Surely?

Even though my tulips are covered in snow, I dreamed last night that they were tall enough to pick. Tall enough to put in a vase. The day is coming. It's just not here yet.

Easter Angels

2008-03-23T05:25:00.000-07:00

I never believed in the Easter bunny. The concept seemed too weird, even for my overactive imagination. I knew the candy we found Easter morning came from my parents. Some years there was an Easter dress. Some years not. Most of the time their were things like bubbles, sidewalk chalk, or a new jump rope.

I know that my own kids adore Easter. Isn't everything exciting when you're a kid? They've been looking forward to it. I, however, have not. With my husband out of work, we're trying to spend as little as possible. I had bought a couple bags of candy while he was still working and figured that would have to be it.

Last week, however, my in-laws showed up. My mother and father-in-law brought candy, new dresses, etc. (and etc. They do spoil their grandchildren). My sister-in-law, a college student, had spent some of her own money buying them stuff for Easter. I found that quite touching.

Then yesterday (Saturday) we get a bunch of doorbell rings. I thought it was the kids. About ten minutes later we find a note on our door. Someone had a left an Easter basket for each of my kids in the yard. What fun! They spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the toys and eating the treats from their basket. I'm still sort of emotional about the whole thing. I've wondered who it could have been that did that for us. When I asked my kids who they thought it was they both answered, "It was the Easter Bunnny!"

Of course. That's what the note said. I never believed in the Easter bunny. But this Easter, there are Easter angels. Thank you.

Writing Exercise (Visualization)

2008-03-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

Before the big breakdown and my husband lost his job, I was taking a writing class. That was back when I thought we could afford such things. I enjoyed the class. As part of the class, our teacher, Randall Wright, (author of Hunchback, A Hundred Days from Home, and The Silver Penny) gave us a writing exercise. It was a visualization. He had us close our eyes and walk into the woods. We came to a clearing. Then we were to write what we saw. Later, we added a smell and the emotion of sadness to the scene. Here's what I wrote.

A halo-shaped light shines through the trees into the clearing. The way the light filters and dances reminds me of what I’ve read of fairy rings and magic mushrooms. Walking through this forest, one can almost imagine that all the folktales are true: stories of little men and houses hidden in tree stumps. Fairies, maybe, woodland creatures that talk, and animals with magical powers. But then the light shifts and the magic is gone. I am old enough to know it was never there in the first place. There is only a part of me, tiny as a fleck of dust, that wants it to all be true.

Those dreams of childhood that smell of strawberries and cream have dampened with age and cynicism. The air here smells both hearty and fruity, like rhubarb; tartness that all the sugar in the world won’t sweeten.

I look again at the light dissolving. The halo that welcomed me has left. The shadows play alone. I turn to leave. I will never come here again. Not because I can’t, but because, like me, it will never, ever be the same.

Swimming Lessons

2008-03-06T17:43:00.001-08:00

My daughters are currently taking swimming lessons. They are loving it. Swimming lessons are at 4:30 p.m. twice a week. 4:30 p.m. Late afternoon. At 10:00 a.m. on swimming lesson day, my youngest comes up to us, (her parents). "Is is time to go get sissy (her sister) from school so we can go to swimming lessons?" Did I mention it was 10:00 a.m? I turned to my husband, "It's going to be a long day." And it was.

Strange behavior considering I hated swimming lessons as a kid. I think hate is perhaps not a strong enough word. I detested swimming lessons with every part of my body and soul. When I was very young, my mother would take us to her sister's house where we would stay and take swimming lessons during the week and she would come get us on the weekend. I think our small town, swimming pool-less as it was, did not offer lessons.

My cousin Rich had the job of getting me ready for swimming lessons each morning. I remember having a brown swimming suit. I think it had owls on it (it was the '70s, mind you). I have distinct memories of running away from my poor cousin, Rich. I remember hiding in his closet and under the bed while he held out my swimming suit, hoping I'd get into it willingly. No chance.

Funny too, that I eventually learned to swim and today it is one of my great enjoyments in life. I swim laps from time to time with my friends Lauren and Janet. The friendship is great. The swimming is wonderful. Go figure.

Things fall apart

2008-02-29T18:44:00.000-08:00

I say right there on my profile that sometimes things fall apart. I'm in one of those places, where everything is in pieces. I don't really feel like posting. And I hope you will all forgive me.

Wedding

2008-02-19T19:08:00.000-08:00

I've been absent from my blog because my Dad got married on Thursday (Valentine's Day). The wedding ceremony itself was good but it was sandwiched by lots of stress. I'll have to write about it sometime, but not now. Not yet.

I think weddings in general must be stressful. When one of my best friends from high school (Melody) got married she asked me and our friend Syndee to be her bridesmaids. I went with my Mom to get fitted at a bridal store where Melody was renting dresses. The woman at the store took one look at me and declared me a size 5. (She was the expert. She fitted dresses for a living). My mother assured her that, being well-endowed, I would not fit in a size 5. Of course, I had to put on a size 5 to prove to her that while the rest of my body fit, my chest did not. The dress would not zip up.

I put on the next larger size, a size 7. It fit perfectly. She made a note in her book and then "humphed." "I was so sure she was a size 5," she told my mother. "It's the bust," my mother explained.

On the evening of the wedding reception Syndee and I showed up at Melody's house. The dresses were laid out on her bed. We picked them up. We looked at the sizes: size 5 and a size 3. "What size do you need?" I asked Syndee. "A 5," she answered. "But the lady swore I would fit in a 3." Hmmm. Go figure. Obviously she sent the sizes she thought we should fit in.

My Mom came in. As an expert seamstress she removed the darts and unpicked just enough that I was able to squeeeeeeeze into a size 5 and Syndee was able to squeeeeeeze into a size 3. We took only shallow breaths and didn't eat a thing. It was an uncomfortable night.

We were young and wanted to go immediately and tell Melody of our dress disaster, but my Mom stopped us. "Don't you dare tell her," she said. "It's her day, it's her wedding. As far as she's concerned everything is perfect." So we never told her, and it was a beautiful evening. She was happy. And as soon as the cake was cut, we were back in jeans and t-shirts. I hope she never wondered why.

(disclaimer: maybe I fit in a 9 and she sent a size 7 and 5, I don't remember. All I know is that I'd love to fit in any of those sizes now :)

Let us eat cake.

2008-02-11T19:19:00.000-08:00

I have a friend named Lynne. She's actually the one who pestered me to start a blog. Lynne is extraordinarily funny, only I don't think she realizes that she is. I am not a funny person. At all. I love that I have Lynne in my sometimes lonely life. I treasure her friendship for a million reasons besides the laughs. But oh, how I love the laughs. If you need a laugh, you must go to her blog and read this entry. It's about cake.

Claim to Fame

2008-02-06T13:47:00.001-08:00

Six months ago, if you googled my name, it would come up on the very first page. I think it still might but it's creeping further down the page. Soon it will be gone completely. The reason it even comes up is because of this essay:

http://segullah.org/summer2007/threads/

I wrote it about my Mom and it was published last year in an LDS literary journal. I'm linking it to my blog as my claim to fame. OK, that, and I haven't written anything else lately.

My Summer Girl

2008-01-30T22:02:00.000-08:00

My daughter's friend wasn't allowed to play yesterday because "she didn't zip up her coat."

On the other hand, there's my four-year-old daughter. A few days ago when it started snowing she pounded on the window; she was so angry. She told me she wants winter to be over because she wants to go to the pool. To get in the mood, she's been wearing her swimsuit in the bathtub. She's also been wearing sunglasses, even though the days are cloudy and overcast.

When I told our neighbor she said, "Well, she's such a summer girl. She's always in skirts, even in the winter. I've even seen her barefoot in the snow."

Yep, that's my girl. Today she was leaving the house in a pair of strappy sandals. It wasn't until she noticed the snow was about four inches deep that she returned inside for her boots. She still wore a short skirt. And a coat? Well, it wasn't "zipped." I carried it for her, just in case she'd need it.

I have had singing

2008-01-27T21:13:00.000-08:00

“As long as we live, there is never enough singing.” -- Martin Luther

There is singing in our house again.

My husband has a bachelor’s degree in music. You’d think, then, that there would always be music in our home. In many ways, I suppose, there has. But for many years, it was sort of the begrudging kind. At certain times of the year, my husband would spend hours on the computer listening to snatches of choral arrangements in an effort to select music for his choirs. At other times, if he found himself humming a tune at dinner, he’d seem annoyed at himself for bringing his work home. It was as if teaching music for a living stole away his love of music and turned it into a chore.

Two years ago, my husband quit teaching music to try something else. I’ve missed going to his concerts. I’ve missed the music; my husband doesn’t even sing in the shower.

A few months ago he started teaching our daughter piano and voice lessons. In January, he started teaching voice lessons to a girl in our neighborhood. Ever since, there has been singing. Two weeks ago he spent $58.61 on three books of vocal music. He brought the books home and sang through all the arrangements. I really should thank them for asking him to teach their daughter. Because of it, he is excited about music again.

Because of it, he is singing.

Buttered Up

2008-01-19T21:39:00.000-08:00

My youngest, who is four, did the funniest thing today. You know those things that you think you will always remember but then, if you don't write them down, you forget. It was one of those things.

She leaned over to my cheek and kissed me ten or fifteen times in rapid succession. When she was done she looked up into my eyes and said, "There. You are all buttered up."

It was adorable. I wonder if it will still work when she's sixteen.