Here's where I start trying to play catch-up. April 2014

Mister had to write a narrative for his class a few weeks ago, but couldn't remember all of the details of the harrowing experience he was writing about. I couldn't either. So we searched back through my blog. We didn't find the experience, but as we looked, I saw my kids growing up before my eyes and my heart hurt a little and I remembered why it's important for me to blog. So here's where I start trying to play catch-up. I've written down pictures from each month to try to do a summary of our past few months. So, I give you . . . . APRIL 2014.

In April, Mister turned 11. Yikes! One more year until Young Men's! He did have a friend birthday party this year--they partied it up at the Nicklecade with pizza, laser tag, and plenty of video games, but J took the party-goers, which meant we got no pics!

 

 Mister at 11

favorite color=green

favorite restaurant=Texas Roadhouse

favorite TV show=don't have one

favorite movie=Amazing Spiderman 2

favorite after school activities=riding Ripstick and Razor

favorite sports=football and golf

favorite foods=pizza, wings, ribs

favorite drink=Mountain Dew

favorite cereal=Hersheys Cookies and Cream

best friends=Alec, Garrett, 

when he grows up, he wants to be a financial forecaster--VP of finance like his dad

he's really good at games, having fun

he wants to go on vacation to China

if he had $1000, he would buy a fancy tv for his room

his biggest hero is his dad

before his next birthday, he wants to go to a state he's never been to

In April, Mister participated in the Hope of America concert with all of the other 5th graders from around us. I wasn't so happy to go to the Marriott Center and spend a few choice hours there, but it turned out to be well worth it.  

And April gave us some great kite-flying weather. 

The Books that Broke My Heart and a Poem of the Month

This month there were plenty of posts floating through my Facebook feed that listed 10 books from various people--10 books "that have stayed with you in some way," as the instructions read.  My friend Melanie tagged me, so I compiled my list, without taking long or thinking "too hard," as instructed. Here's my list, in no order:

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Koningsburg

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard

Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery

Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell 

The Culture of Disbelief:How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religion, Stephen Carter

The Christmas Wish, Richard Siddoway

Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life, Martha Nussbaum

Literacy in American Lives, Deborah Brandt 

Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry, Katrina Kennison

These books aren't necessarily my favorite books, but all of them were influential in some way to me. For example, From the Mixed-up Files gave me the courage, as a little girl, to begin to write my own book, and The Culture of Disbelief gave me the courage to claim my religion publicly and verbally in ways I hadn't before and with reasons that resonated. Many of the others on this list taught me, or reminded me again (since this is a lesson I seem to need to relearn) about the importance of walking in another's shoes, or trying to put myself in someone else's position and not judge them.  

This lesson, reflected in many of the books on my list, reminded me of this poem "Lead" by Mary Oliver.  In this poem, Oliver encourages us to hurry to where we will have our hearts broken open. But, significantly, she doesn't mean that we need experiences that will shatter our hearts, but instead, that we need experiences that break our hearts open "to the rest of the world."  This type of heart-break exposes our hearts to the sadnesses and joys and experiences of others in such a way that we can't close our hearts to others.  This is something I needed reminding of this month. Here's the poem:

Lead

by Mary Oliver

Here is a story
to break your heart.
Are you willing?
This winter
the loons came to our harbor
and died, one by one,
of nothing we could see.
A friend told me
of one on the shore
that lifted its head and opened
the elegant beak and cried out
in the long, sweet savoring of its life
which, if you have heard it,
you know is a sacred thing.,
and for which, if you have not heard it,
you had better hurry to where
they still sing.
And, believe me, tell no one
just where that is.
The next morning
this loon, speckled
and iridescent and with a plan
to fly home
to some hidden lake,
was dead on the shore.
I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.

3 Things I Am Grateful for Tonight:

(1) muted lightning flashes behind dark clouds and a shining temple spire, (2) conversations with family, (3) baby loves

Breaking out of here

This post was started back in April, but never finished. 

Spring break 2014 found us breaking out of the winter gloom and heading for the sun of southern (eastern?) Utah--destination Moab, Arches, Goblin Valley, and camping bliss (so we told ourselves). It had been 3 years since we last camped, and the memory of the 6 year old vomiting, J's sudden onset of strep throat, and the dirty 12-month old, crawling everywhere in the mud and dirt was finally settling into the distant recesses of our memories. 

Until the first night camping, when we froze (somehow the tarp that covers our tent was separated from the tent in the move) and when H woke up in the night and promptly lost his dinner all over the sleeping bag. Thankfully, because of the freezing temperatures, we had covered him with an extra sleeping bag, so the clean-up wasn't entirely miserable, and thankfully, the vomiting was a 1-time occurrence. 

The rest of the trip was spent hiking to Delicate Arch and a few other arches: 

We also spent a fun--but extremely windy--afternoon in Goblin Valley. It was so windy, though, that the dust was everywhere and stung our eyes badly.

Because of the wind, only a few of us (the non-wimpy ones) ventured into the TOTALLY AWESOME slot canyon next to Goblin Valley. We paid the price on the way back, hiking with our hands over our eyes.

All Is Well

Written the night of July 23, but never finished/posted:

I spent the summer after the first year of my master's degree program as an editorial intern for The Liahona, or the International magazine of the church. This summer just happened to be the sesquicentennial of the pioneers' entrance into the Salt Lake Valley, and the magazine and the church in general was saturated with pioneers. My work days were filled with reading and editing pioneer stories, often the same stories over and over again. I grew thoroughly sick of the original pioneers, modern-day pioneers, and everything remotely "pioneer."  

Now that my Summer of the Pioneers is receding farther into my past, though, I've come to once again love the pioneers and the symbolism of their journeys and their stories. This year, I happened upon this talk , given by Tessa Meyer Santiago, a fellow instructor of mine at BYU back in 1997, at a BYU devotional. Tessa speaks about the significance of pioneer stories to her, a convert from South Africa, and to all of us. In her application to all of us, she says, "Saints under covenant must be devoted to the concept of journeying, not destination." She laments that often

In our zeal we fail to realize that we are judged not on whether we reach the Salt Lake Valley but on whether we wore ourselves out in the effort to bring ourselves and all for whom we are responsible as far along the trail as possible. . . .  We cannot stay in our Nauvoo forever: we must wade the Mississippi River, join the wagon train, and begin the journey. Ultimately though, this covenant journey is about willingness and worthiness to enter the kingdom of God.  

In the end, the Lord doesn't care if the pioneers made it to the Salt Lake Valley. He cares if they began the journey and wore themselves out in the process of journeying.

When I was in graduate school, one of my good friends who entered the program at the same time as me was (is) married to a Congregationalist minister. She also had a Mormon roommate at Boston University. She told me that she and her husband and daughter still visit her old roommate and her family when they can, and when they visit, they go to church with them. "We love your pioneer hymn," she said immediately upon learning that I am Mormon. "It's one of our favorite hymns of all time."  I never asked her why exactly she loves "Come, Come, Ye Saints," but if I had to guess, I would say that it has something to do with the truths in the song--the truths about journeying, about the nature of our God, and about the nature of life in general:

• We must find the joy in the journey, as we "wend [our] way" and strive to drive out "useless cares."
• God will help us--Grace will be with us, "our God will never us forsake," and He has prepared a place for us.
• Despite what happens, "All is well! All is well!" 

Recommitting

“Those who write are writers. Those who wait are waiters.” 
― A. Lee Martinez

“And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

“Writing is the great invention of the world.” 
― Abraham Lincoln, Discoveries and Inventions: A Lecture by Abraham Lincoln Delivered in 1860

"It is easy to lose sight of the fact that writers do not write to impart knowledge to others; rather, they write to inform themselves."
--Judith Guest, Foreward to Writing Down the Bones

"I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life."
--Natalie Golberg, Writing Down the Bones

#BecauseofHim

I loved the Church's video and social media campaign preceding Easter this year. We watched the #BecauseofHim video a few times as a family and each time, the music and words and images resonated deeply--food for my soul. The message that because of Him we can start again, that there is no end, not when we die, nor as we live our lives each day, is truly what gives me hope through the daily grind. This career and calling of mine--mothering these 4 children, being a companion to J, loving those around me--is beautiful and joy-full, but it is also frustrating and discouraging, and many days (most days?) I end the day humbled, feeling as though I have not been very good at any of them.  But because of Him, I feel peace in the midst of discouragement. Because of Him, I start again each day.


I used to love the week before Easter and the short nightly devotionals we did with the kids. The last 2 years have been difficult, though, as kids have scattered every which way in the evenings for soccer, track, cub scouts, you name it. We haven't come together in our short daily remembrance and celebration, and I miss that.

Most of my Easter pictures this year are from my parents' Easter/spring party, which was really a lot of fun, thanks to my mom's skill at planning. She had family games, kid games, egg hunts, egg dyeing, a scratch-off prize box for the games, a treasure hunt, a short spiritual lesson, and dinner! Phew! I'm tired just listing all of that!

  

 

Little Zelly in hog heaven, swinging and having just polished off something delicious

Finding their Easter baskets Sunday morning:

About to tear into her hollow bunny and looking so pleased about it