I sit here at the computer, wrapped in a quilt and I am trying to think of how to get out of cleaning the bathrooms. Tuesday is bathroom cleaning day and since my nest emptied out in January, its up to me to clean BOTH of them. But surely a good blog post has as much merit as clean bathrooms, right?

Last week at dusk I was watching TV and suddenly the TV went off. My first impression was that we had flipped the breaker again. This is a common occurrence in our old house, and with four girls who were either doing their hair or trying to get warm in front of a space heater, and then add to that in late November I my award winning Christmas Light display (no, really I won an award this year. Apparently only 4 people entered). However, I was the only person in the house and I had been sitting there an hour (do I want to admit that?), and I now realized the electricity was out for the whole house.

I knew I had only about 20 minutes before it was completely dark outside so I set to work. I shot texts to a spattering of neighbors and found that the outage was fairly widespread. I suggested to one friend that we just head into the city and go see a movie. She said she had to help her daughter with a report on Lincoln due the next day, even if it was by candlelight. I suggested we could go see "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter", and call it good. She was not amused. Fine.

So I set about trying to find our camping lanterns. I found two, a little bitty one and a nice hefty one, but the hefty one was dead. So by the light of the little bitty, I scrambled thru the battery drawer to replace the dead batteries. Still no light. So out the batteries came, and I tested them, but they are good. Light fading faster. So I ran to the kitchen for my reading glasses to see if I put the batteries in wrong. Nope, lantern is dead. By now the light in the little bitty lantern is fading and I trade those batteries out for new. Phwewf. Just as the last of the sunlight disappeared. It was now very dark.

I needed more light. So I felt my way to the basement for my candle stash. I have four drawers down there filled with pillars, votives, scented, unscented, at least one of every style and color. So by the light of the little bitty I start digging. I reject candle after candle, thinking, "NO, I am going to wish I hadn't lit that one" over and over. First drawer, then the second drawer. I eliminated all the smelly candles, for if they were all burning at once the over all effect would be so confusing I would pass out. Third drawer, SCORE! I found a bag full of candles that I had lit decades ago and these I could stand to sacrifice for the occasion. Only trouble is, now what do I put them in? I go back through the drawers and find that there is nothing I want to put lit candles in because I am too lazy to scrape the wax off when the lights go back on. Remember, I am only writing this because I am too lazy to clean the bathrooms.

Finally the fact that the furnace has not been on for like an hour now forces me to get on with this and get curled up somewhere with a couple of quilts. I remember that there is a vase that is cracked in in my recycling pile so back up the stairs I head, find the vase in the dark and spend 20 minutes trying to get the candles to stand up. I rearrange them 100-150 times and at last get them all standing. I then manage to find my book, my reading glasses (abandoned by the battery drawer), 2 quilts and a lighter.

Lighter in hand it takes me another 15 minutes to decide which candles to light, for I realize that if I light them all it will be a melt down to rival the Great Mascara Meltdown just prior to Junior Prom of 2006. FINALLY the quilts are in place, glasses perched, and I take a deep breath and  think this is going to be kinda nice.

And the lights flickered.  Some well meaning and efficient power company employee had just robbed me of a romantic evening with a good book read by candlelight.

Oh well, the whole curl up and read a book by candle light thing wasn't quite perfect until I had warmed up some hot chocolate in the microwave to sip as I read.  I would love to tell you this is how I finished the evening anyway.  Nope.  As soon as I figured out where I had put the remote it was back to re-runs of Duck Dynasty.

AS for right now I guess I had better go clean the bathrooms just in case the lights DO stay on.

of Faith and Nerf

On this particular day in late December our little cottage in the canyon was packed to the brim. We had 13 humans all crammed in together and you couldn't step anywhere with out squishing something or someone. It was AWESOME! This particular morning the air was charged withe anticipation because we were prepping for the great and dreadful NERF WAR. I had crawled into the depths of the closet under the stairs which my brother referred to as the "slasher closet", and truthfully really did look like something out of a slasher movie, and pulled forth (cue the angelic chorus) "THE ALL POWERFUL BUCKET OF NERF".

Now it may look like a simple 5 gallon Home Depot contractors bucket, but I promise, within it's depths lies so much more. It contains finely studied ammunition and weaponry. It represents hours of target practice (shooting the dogs) and detailed studies of aerodynamics ("look at how the darts go behind the frig when I hold it like this"). And most of all it symbolizes the most fun we have at Christmas time. I hate to say it but if asked, I bet my kids would vote to save the bucket of Nerf over the Christmas tree with out blinking an eye.

My 3 grandsons, 4, 6 and 8 years old, were crazy with anticipation, unlike the rest of the family who were still asleep, so I set about to give them something that would keep them entertained for a while. Out of old foam core boards from assorted abandoned art projects I cut 3 shields. I was even so awesome as to fit the shields with pieces of waistband elastic (leftover from Christmas PJ's) so the boys could slip the shields onto their arm. I handed the boys each a shield and the washable markers and let them go to town. I did learn washable markers don't adhere all that well to the slick surface of the foam core, and before long there was some smearing, but what the heck, it was all washable, right? At leasts that's what I said to their mom when she saw their faces and hands coverered with red, blue and green ink.

Finally after much pleading from the littles, the bigs were dragged out of bed, fed and pushed into assorted cars. We arrived at our nearby church where we had the building to ourselves. Teams were drawn up and rules were made that pretty much no one followed and for over an hour sanctioned mayhem prevailed. Squeeling, laughing and a massive amount of darts flying in all directions. Except me, it was my job to hold the sleeping newborn baby of course. They began with assorted strategies but for the most part they just shot each other until they ran out of ammo and then reloaded and started again. The only rule that they adhered to was that if you got hit you had to "die", meaning throw yourself on the floor for ten seconds before you could get up again. Most "deaths" were award winning in their theatrics and never lasted a full 10 seconds and somehow the dead person had managed to completely reload at the end of their brief visit to the great beyond.

Truth be told, I would choose the bucket over the tree if anyone asked.

This last week I was getting ready to sing with my 4-11 year olds in church and was thinking about what we do to protect ourselves spiritually. I got to thinking back on the shields that I made with my grandsons. I hadn't paid much attention to it at the time, but the shields were pretty much abandoned after about ten minutes. It seems to me that it just took too much coordination to hold up the shield while trying to shoot everyone within range. To be watching the enemy and aiming and shooting took up most of everyone's concentration. To be able to swing up that arm and fend off incoming darts at the same time would have taken more practice than the once a year we have our Nerf war.

So on Sunday I told the kids that story and explained that we could look at that shield as if it were our faith (see D&C 27:15-18). Our faith can shield us from so much that could harm us, but we are going to have to practice. We need to exercise our faith every day if we are going to balance all that comes and goes in our lives.

Then we sang this song:
"Faith is knowing the sun will rise, lighting each new day.
Faith is knowing the Lord will hear my prayers each time I pray.
Faith is like a little seed if planted it will grow.
Faith is a swelling within my heart, when I do right I know."

My own faith has shielded me time and time again. There have been some pretty good darts that have come my way, and a handful of times when they have come from all directions. And let me tell you I have given some award winning performances myself as I have throw myself to the ground, sure this dart or that may have been my undoing. But for some reason I never abandonded my sheild. And my shield never abandoned me.

So what if I had to choose between the three, bucket, tree or shield? I'll choose the sheild. Even if I have to practice.

If Only I Had Eyes To See

This is a little something about the Christmas that I understood the first Christmas a little better...


It had been a busy day, that day in December 1985, with two small children sentenced to stay inside a tiny bungalow by the winter's cold chill. Now as the day drew to a close the young mom was finally having a quiet moment. The four year old had finally stopped asking how many "sleeps" until Santa came and the three year old that she was rocking had finally settled down. The young mom's gentle back and forth motion belied the activity of her mind as she ran over all of the things she still hoped to achieve before Christmas Day.

Between the ages of 12 and 18 she had faithfully attended over 300 Young Women’s meetings, full of focus and preparation for her future self and potential family life. During those years she had been a regular at the Annual Festival of Trees, where she had gathered a mountain of magical ideas for traditions to create when she had a family. Now that she had a family, the reality was the actually wanted to be fed and nurtured more than decorated and paraded.

She sighed. At this rate she wouldn't even be able to wrap packages before 2 am Christmas morning. In her mind's eye she saw herself running out of wrapping paper and grabbing for anything that would do: the sports section, paper towels, last year's gas and electric bills. She knew she was being unrealistic, but she wanted her little world to be as magical as the Festival of Trees. She wanted her tree perfectly trimmed, gifts wrapped with huge bows, cinnamon sticks, berries and maybe even a live kitten, or at least a gerbil.


The Christmas tape that had been playing made a popping noise as it came to the end, and gingerly the young mom got up from the couch that had belonged to at least a dozen family members before ending up in her front room. She started to tip toe down the hall, so as not to wake the young husband as he lay settled down for his long winters nap. Then she remembered that since the procurement of the white noise machine, now humming away on the nightstand next to her husband’s head, Santa and his sleigh could have hosted a party in their front room for several hundred, and her "wake at the drop of a pin" husband wouldn’t stir.

But lately the young wife worried that that machine might be doing it’s job just a little too well. Last Sunday they had run into Myrtle and Emmet Greenwell in the hall at the ward house. Emit and Myrtle’s back yard met their backyard, and they had been wonderful neighbors since the young couple had moved into the neighborhood. Emit always called before cranking up some power tool to make sure that neither of the little ones were napping. Myrtle had brought over a crocheted sweater for the littlest one. Last year when the fence between their two yards needed to be repaired, Emit patted the young husband and said that he would handle the whole thing. Wasn’t long before a solid eight foot tall cinderblock structure arose that could rival the great wall of China. The young couple weren’t exactly sure what to make of it and decided that being good neighbors meant deciding not to make anything of it at all.

But last Sunday Emit shook the young husband’s hand and said, "Boy, what a night, eh?"
"Uuuuh, last night?" said the young husband tentatively.
"Well, sure, all that noise from the fire trucks" Emit said, looking at them curiously. The young couple looked at each other for some clue as to what this man could possibly be talking about.
"You mean to tell me that you didn’t hear that commotion just after midnight?”

As it turned out, the night before one of the rental units just across the street from the young couple had caught fire when teenage daughters had left both curling irons and a set of hot rollers on in the bathroom when they all left for a movie. So the fire department had been called when smoke began pouring from the home and the fire trucks had arrived, lights going, sirens and all. The radio alone kept folks up for three blocks in each direction. Except all those within the melodious sound of the white noise machine.

At the conclusion of the conversation the young couple slipped into one of the back benches with rather pale expressions on their faces. After a minute to ponder all the possible dangers to her little family while sleeping through a fire directly across the street thanks to the white noise machine, the young mom glanced around meeting with some concern. Sister Fisher was sight impaired and lived right next door to the torched rental, in the basement of her mother's home, and the young mom was apprehensive about how those two lone women had fared through the night.

The young mom searched the congregation for Sister Fisher’s bright flowing mane of hair and was relieved to see that regardless of the eventful evening’s fire work’s, Sister Fisher was in attendance.

This meeting turned out to be one of those rare times when the young mom actually managed to be in her seat more than out in the foyer with a squirmer. She knew she was in for a treat as Sister Fisher made her way up to the stand to speak to the congrigation. Sister Fisher always had this pleasant, hopeful air about her in spite of the difficulties of her life.

"Brothers and sisters" she began, "I just have to get up and express my gratitude today. As some of you know I had the opportunity to undergo surgery on my eyes." Great, thought the young mom, I live across the street and I had no idea...again! What kind of white noise blocked that out?

Sister Fischer continued, “I wasn’t aware of much improvement at first, but before long I realized that I could make out whether or not I was walking on cement or blacktop. Now I am pleased to announce that I can tell which side of the Christmas wrapping paper is the right side or the wrong side and my presents will actually be wrapped correctly this year!"

Those concluding words of Sister Fisher’s echoed in the young mom’s ears as she laid her sleeping three year old into her crib and tucked the quilt around her daughter’s finally peaceful form. Sister Fisher had concluded with a sure, gentle testimony of the Savior, of the wonder of his birth and humble beginnings, of the reality of his life, atonement and resurrection, and of the huge sacrifice that the Savior had made for us.

The young mom stroked her daughter’s little cheek, and thought how much her own sweet child had sacrificed to come to serve their little family. This little one would not know what wrapping paper was, let alone whether there was a wrong or right side. Though she was three years old she would not know that there would be presents under the tree, nor understand the upcoming holiday festivities. In the dim glow of the night light the damp wisps of hair clung to her cheeks, evidence of a long evening as her imperfect body had struggled until exhaustion took over.

The young Mom wondered at that mother so long ago who swaddled her baby in a stable. Two centuries separated them in time, but a mother’s heart is timeless. Mary probably knew, as did the young mom, that the road ahead for the child they held would not be an easy one. There would be so much pain, so few who would understand, always the distant rumblings that these little ones, so loved, would be taken long before their mothers were ready to let them go.

So maybe getting around to a 6 story French Provincial gingerbread house wasn’t so important. Maybe impressing the crud out of the neighbors with intricately wrapped presents wasn’t exactly where the magic of Christmas lay. Maybe the magic of Christmas was a new and improved dedication to what mattered most. Maybe the magic was in just one more breath together.

It's A Combination of Things

I got word today that my 3 grandsons will be arriving on December 14th to stay for 2 weeks. I am ecstatic beyond words. Instantly I pull open a December Calendar page on my computer and begin plugging in fun things to do each day with the boys.

My only 3 grandkids live half way across the United States and I will want to wring every possible minute for all it is worth while they are here, all while juggling the extra cooking and cleaning and limited sleeping when our smallish house is full of as many as 13 people and two dogs plus puppies due soon. While they are here there will always be someone eating, though not always someone washing dishes, always someone in one of the two bathrooms, though seldom does the Lysol and Windex get applied, and as it will be winter, there will be layers of clothing and socks and wet gloves, so the washer and the dryer will always be running. Oh, and I need to remember to hide the Sharpees.

I honestly don't mind the chaos and the work. I will make a lot of the food in the weeks prior to their arrival and freeze it ahead, that will make dinner time easier. I will check with the grand kids to find out their favorite dinners so that dinner-times have fewer melt downs. Oh, wait, did I say grand kids? Oh please, my 17 year old is pickier than the 3 grand kids put together, and I have 3 other kids who have a long list of quirky food allergies.

Anyway, as I add to my calendar "Ginger Bread Houses" for the 17th and "Build Snowmen" on the 20th, I come to the 21st, Winter Solstice. I decide to do a little reading on Wikipedia to see if it sparks a fun idea for a way to make that day fun. That page comes up on the screen and I am reading along, and hit this sentence, "The Saami, indigenous people of Finland, Sweden and Norway, worship Beiwe, the sun-goddess of fertility and sanity."

Fertility and Sanity coming from the same Goddess?

That's the best laugh I have had in a long time.

Primroses

Hooray! The grocery store where I usually shop had primroses out front this week! A single rack filled with a dozen trays, happy hopeful flowers of bright yellow, deep red, and joyful pink.

In the world there are a lot more complex flowers than the primrose, more heat resistant, some better for arranging, some more flamboyant. But I think primroses the bravest, for they are the ones that show up first, and can keep themselves together, even if winter isn't quite through blasting us. They bravely go to the front lines of our imaginations, reminding us that there is more to life than winter and inversion and shades of gray, dead brown and more gray. "Spring is coming," they announce, "Somewhere under the snow there is hope".

It was warm enough on Saturday that I tied up my walking shoes and walked outside for the first time since November. The smell of things warming up was so wonderful that I started to get light headed from all the deep breathing. I was disgustingly cheerful as I called out to other walkers who couldn't resist getting out of the house as well. I live on a road that leads up to a lovely little canyon, and it was a steady stream of folks who just had to see for themselves if their favorite trails might not have disappeared completely after all the snow storms.

Though I had planned to walk at least two miles in any direction before turning around, my footsteps led me to the house of someone close by I know who started chemo therapy at the end of December. I worried I might be disturbing her, but her daughter showed me in and we had a great time chatting. She had been on a short walk that morning, but the second phase of chemo made her back ache, so she was curled up on the couch with a heating pad. She rubbed the few tufts of hair left on her head and said that should know soon if the second drug would allow her to keep what little hair was left. She was thrilled to say that even though she couldn't taste anything, at least her mouth didn't taste like chemicals anymore, and even though she didn't feel like moving much, she didn't feel like throwing up any more either. She thanked me for the gum and scentless lotion that I had brought previously like I had brought her something that took effort and talent. Her eyes, more pronounced with the weight loss, were bright and alert, and hopeful.

She's like those primroses, brave and hopeful. I liked primroses before, but they mean a little more to me now.

Chores

My kids are getting older and the are being pulled in a thousand directions. Jobs, college, romances, band gigs, church. The only time they seem to settle is when their little bodies can't take it any more and they get sick. Like last weekend Tradition and Potential were both recuperating, one had the sniffles, one still had a post-flu headache. I checked in a couple of times, asked them how they were doing, they replied by writing their response in the dust in the coffee table.

What I am really saying is that I am stuck with all the chores these days. Except I will NOT bathe the dog. Nope, don't like him that much. I support all the good things they are doing, really I do. But I do feel a bit whiney when I have to vacuum the halls now for the first time in 20 years since I started pawning off jobs on them, all in the name of good parenting, of course.

Still, Monday rolled around and I was feeling a bit sorry for myself as they all rode off to school and work, and I was left wondering how many rolls of paper towels it would take to get through the mess? So I wrote this on the white board...

"Did anyone do their chores last week?"

Before bed someone replied...

"We love you"

Tuesday morning I wrote...

"Actions speak louder than words"

Later that day I stopped dead in my tracks as I read...

"I can yell super loud"

Where did they learn to be such smart alecs?

Secret of Life

Whenever I am feeling like I would rather sit in my comfy desk chair, with it's padded seat and arm rests, then get up and do the stuff I should be doing, I justify my sitting by researching nutrition. I love those "Ten Foods to Make Your Ankles Skinnier" and "The Miracle Cure For Disobedient Children Found in Rhubarb". Last week I learned that eating a carrot a day can cut your chances of some cancers by 50%. So once I finally made it out of my desk chair I rearranged the things in the frig so that by moving the rhubarb to the top shelf I couild fit a lot more carrots in the veggie drawer. Phwew, nutrition is hard work!

Now in a previous posting I told you about my darling neighbor, Melba. You will be pleased to know that she is recovering nicely from a fall she had this summer where she broke her back. At least once a day I see her walk past my house with her cane, taking small steps, unrushed, glad to chat with the neighbors with her voice that is barely above a whisper.

Melba's sister was visiting recently from somewhere out of state. Her sister is about ten years older, every bit as whispy in form and no less determined. I chatted with them in church last week, always amazed at how these two widows never miss a beat, a meeting, a smile. I was hauling through the grocery store a couple of days later and saw them slowly emerge from an aisle. They didn't see me but I saw them, and more importantly, I saw what was in their cart. Two gallons of chocolate milk! So awesome! Here I am stuffing carrot after carrot into my mouth and all this time the secret to a long and useful life is Chocolate Milk. Maybe the secret to skinny ankles could be to soak them in chocolate milk, do you think?