The Road Not Taken

I have an interesting job.  I have found myself working with the teachers who I have faced across the table at parent teacher conferences.  When I go to work, the teachers know who I am.  This is not due to anything I have done, It is because I have six kids who have gone through the school system here.  It is interesting to see the other side of things now.  I haven’t ever taught other than substitute teaching.  I only started that five years ago.  I quit it all when I started to have kids.  I made the decision long ago to put my life into my kids, I quit working and stayed home for twenty one years.  I left my career behind and didn’t think much about it again until I started working again.

My life and the lives of those whom I work with are very different.  I don’t have years of teaching under my belt.  I haven’t established a reputation in the community.  I am not well known for my fantastic programs or productions.  I am just a mom who subs.  Spending time with those whom have been teaching for twenty plus years has been very interesting.  Some of them have actually retired and then returned back to the work place.  Their two (they all had two) kids have long grown and moved on.  They are well known and well respected, and that is their life.  There is nothing wrong with that.  I could have done that, I could have been there.  I have learned since working with them, they are just ordinary people who put their time in. I could have done what they are doing.   I chose a different path.  I put my time in elsewhere.  

The lives of these teachers have been very fulfilling, I have respect for them and the time and effort they put in with my kids.  I chose a different path and that is something I have never regretted.  I don’t regret staying home and taking care of my six kids.  I don’t regret having six kids, they are my life, my pride, my joy.  I would have it no other way.  I made my choice long, I made my bed so to speak and never looked back, and that has  made all the difference.  

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as far that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both the morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

They’re Here!!

It all started in the early morning hours of Aug. 29th with a phone call from our daughter Kristine,  “Mom, my water just broke”.  She was due in October, we were having a baby.  A few hours later our first grandchild Brian Knight was born weighing in at just over 5 lbs. but he was healthy and we were thrilled.  He is beautiful, my husband and I were lucky enough to make a mad dash trip down to see him.

We had to leave and head home before he was able to leave the hospital.  Eight days later, on September 8th, we got another phone call in the early morning hours, this time from our second daughter Karlee, “Mom, my water just broke”.  We were having another baby!  Later that morning, we got a phone call from Kristine, “Knight was going home”!  It was turning out to be a fantastic day, my parents were in town visiting and to top it off it was my birthday!  We got the word at noon, William Clayton had arrived weighing 7 lbs 8 oz.  He was born on my birthday, and as a note of interest, I was also born on my grandfathers birthday and I was also the second grandchild. 

What a wonderful last few weeks we have had.  I have had many friends tell me that grandchildren are the best and I have found already that they are right!  I couldn’t be happier.  The boys and my girls are all doing great and John and I have started a new and ‘grand’ period of our lives.  I can’t wait to spoil them.

TREK!

Many of you may have heard of the infamous Mormon trek.  I had the opportunity to go on a trek this past week.  It was all I expected and more.  I began exercising 30 min. a day in January in anticipation of trek.  In case you are preparing you self for a similar opportunity, please be advised that 30 min a day riding an elliptical is not enough preparation.  This turned out to be a very intense experience for me.  I was prepared for the fact that walking 27 miles in three days wearing a long skirt, hat and long sleeved shirt pulling a handcart may not be all that fun.  What I was not prepared for, was the extreme spiritual experience that it would be.  This is like Mormon extreme, like those extreme sports you see on t.v., only spiritual rush instead of adrenaline rush.  Maybe the complete fatigue had something to do with it. 

My fifteen year old son and I went with a group of tough Wyomingites.  No silly rides or camping at the near camp for us.  No way,  we were going all the way, the whole 7 miles to Jackson camp ground.  None of that sissy stuff for us, especially not at what has been referred to as Wyoming’s temple.  The whole shebang  here.  The kids were great, the food was awesome.  Sleeping out under the stars on the hard ground not so much.

I learned several things on ‘trek’,  I am capable, with the help of my Heavenly Father, of walking farther and faster than I ever thought possible, or ever wanted to before, for that matter.

I have great respect, admiration and gratitude for my pioneer ancestors.  I also have great empathy for them.  I am sure walking that far pulling everything they owned with them sucked every bit as much for them as it did for me. 

I know that the only way they made it through was with the help of Heavenly Father.  It took great courage and faith to do what they did, and they didn’t have cars waiting for them at the visitors center.  There was no going back for them, nowhere to turn when disaster struck.  They suffered unimaginable things, yet through it all, their faith remained strong. 

I am very appreciative of the chance I got to go into Martins Cove, to cross the Sweetwater, and feel the great spirit that dwells there, it truly is hollowed ground.  I am also grateful that I will probably never have to do a trek with 250 youth again.  If I ever do visit Martin’s Cove again,  it will just be a quiet visit, not an extreme Mormon Trek!

There and back again, a reunion tale

We had a great reunion, fantastic.   It was my parents 5oth anniversary this year and so we had a celebration in conjunction with our reunion.  It was short but action packed.  I loved seeing all of my great family and spending time with them.  Most of us packed up our goodies and headed home Sunday.  We only made it about 150 miles then disaster struck.  My car, which isn’t really that old, and which has had it’s oil changed every 3,000 miles, decided to spin a bearing.  We were traveling with my daughter and son in law, so we split up and sent the ones who needed to get back to work home with Alex and we useless ones back to Rexburg.  My dad headed out to tow us in and the odyssey began.  Monday morning my dad and brother tore into my car.  One of them was on vacation and the other one actually took off work to help my Dad.  One week later, the job was done, the car started and we headed home.   I will be forever grateful to come from a wonderful family where my parent taught us to work.  Where a head of homeland security, a geologist and a few more actually had the gumption and know how to tear into a modern car with all of their computer systems and be able to get it all put back together again.  I am grateful for a family where there is enough compassion to actually care enough to help one another. Last year my daughter and son-in-laws clutch went out after our reunion in Washington.  My brother who lives there stayed up all night fixing it for them.  This week proved to be not just stressful, but enjoyable also.  I was able to spend time with family that I don’t see very often.  My brother and Dad were able to spend time together also.  I feel that through all of it, this was a great experience.  Mom and Dad have been married for fifty years, and they have created a great legacy.  I just hope to be pass it forward.  I hope my children will look out for each other also.  I guess that is the goal.   

Summertime!

The last day of school has come and gone. I worked so much the last month, I awaited this last day with great anticipation. Remember as a kid, the sense of freedom you felt walking home on the last day, with your ‘your child has successfully completed’ letter. I do, that is what I felt this last day of school. I was so burned out and ‘done’ I couldn’t wait until it was over. I went to my daughters awards assembly on the last day, which was really enjoyable.

One tradition we started at our house is that we build a bonfire one the last day of school and burn all of the homework. We roast hotdogs and have smores. This serves two purposes, it is a cleansing process for us all, and it gets rid of all of the crap they drag home. We sort it out and keep the good stuff and burn the rest. I wish I would have had the chance to go through my school bag and burn some stuff. Summertime is the best, the freedom, the heat, the swimming, the traveling. I am glad it is here. I am ready, I know my kids are ready, and my yard and my car. We have started off with a bang, we went to the pool the day after school got out, and we are heading on our first trip soon. Yeah! for summer.

Family

What is it about family?  My family is preparing for another family reunion in a couple of weeks.  This is going to be a special one because we are celebrating my parents 50th anniversary.  We are all congregating in their town and having a party.  What started out as two fifty years ago has swollen to forty something with great grandchildren on the way.   

I wonder if they had any idea what they were starting.  I know that when my husband and I were married 27 years ago, we didn’t. 

I love my family, I love being with them and spending time with them.  We talk on the phone with each other constantly and look forward to being together.  My hope is that someday my children will enjoy spending time together as much as me and my siblings do. 

I don’t know what it is about family, but it is amazing to me how you can see someone once a year and pick up like you spent every day with them.  I guess growing up together and having some of the same trials and triumphs together create bonds that never break. 

I know  that the sacrifice and traveling that we have done to be with our families has paid off for my children.  Their aunts and uncles have been great examples to them, they have set the bar high and my kids know what the expectations are.  My brothers have spent time with my sons that I know has helped them on their journey to manhood.  My sisters have done the same for my girls.  A great extended family is a wonderful thing.    I have also been lucky enough to have awesome in laws.  Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins make the best support system.  Thank goodness Heavenly Father gave us families. 

Changes

As some of you may have read in a past blog, we recently purchased new furniture for our family room.  It is fairly nice stuff, leather with recliners in both the love seat and the couch.  It is actually a bit rediculous to go down there and all the recliners are at attention.  This actually doesn’t happen very often, because we forget they are there.  Our family room for years has been kind of a kids den, with crappy couches, gaming systems and T.V.s.  We adults kept our distance, it was neither a necessary or pleasant experience to go down there.  I would only go down there out of dire urgency, like to find shoes, sox and dishes.  Times have changed.  We now have ‘normal’ couches down there, with only the wobbly entertainment center to remind us of yesterday.  This is all very stressful for me.  I can’t get my head around it. 

You may think this is strange, but for me it is not.  I am a creature of habit.  I have to put my car keys exactly in the same place or I will never find them again.  I don’t think about them.  I haven’t thought about the family room for a long long time.  I forget it is down there.  I was sitting at school during a particularly difficult day of subbing first grade, (I do not recommend this), and I thought, wow it would be nice to go home and sit on my new couch.  I have had to invent things to do down there.  I have to imagine myself sitting down there reading a book, and then thinking, yes, that would work.  I start to stress about the whole thing.  “What am I going to do with that room now that is not a pit?” and things like that.  Don’t despair for me though, I think I am getting the hang of it.  I find that when iI do get stressed, all I have to do is go downstairs and sit on the couch, swing out the recliner, and get comfortable.  I am finding that sitting down there in that soft leather comfort can be enough.  At times I go down there and do nothing at all.  i could really get used to this. 

Practicality

I have always considered myself a practical person.  I buy clothes more for comfort rather than fashion.  I don’t tend to get caught up in the infinity of things as my mother puts it.  I have begun to wonder lately if I am a little too practical.  We recently bought new furniture for our family room.  The couches we had downstairs were at least thirty years old.  We haven’t even been married that long, they were hand me downs and not in very good shape when we got them ten years ago.  When we purchased the new family room suite, the sales person offered us a ‘dispose of your old crap’ option for $15.  I thought about it for a minute and then decided it was rediculous to spend money to get rid of a couch, we could dispose of it ourselves.  When we got the nod from the delivery guys, (which was rather quickly, probably because it was my son-in-law), we hauled that baby out into the garden and sacrificed it to the sofa god. We lit that sucker on fire.  We doused it with gas and let it burn.  This is not the first time we have done this, I am afraid to admit.  This is the part that makes me wonder if I am a bit too pragmatic, what must the neighbors think, (the one closest to us is a fireman).  That lasted for about two seconds.  It was a beautiful fire.  I can understand why sofas are the main fuel in house fires.  It was awe inspiring.  One minute it was a couch, the next minute it was not, nothing from something, a perfect solution.  Lest you worry about the environment, don’t, we are green, very green.  The room that this sofa lived out it’s life in had green carpet.  No carbon footprint at all,which to me makes about as much sense as global warming anyway. But, lets not go there, I think I am a bit too practical for that. Maybe being practical isn’t so bad after all, especially when you enjoy a good bonfire.

Saturdays

I love Saturdays.  It is the one day of the week when I don’t have hard and fast commitments, sometimes.  I don’t think that people who don’t work during the week, truly appreciate the value of a blank Saturday.  If they did, they would never plan anything on this ‘sacred’ day.  There is not much worse than coming off of a week where one has worked every day and hitting a Saturday that is jam packed with obligations.  This means no housework gets done for the whole week, no laundry, no vacuuming, no dusting or window washing or mopping or toilet cleaning or anything.  I know to some, this may not be such a bad deal, but after you have wallowed in the filth of a week without a deep housecleaning you learn to appreciate a free day to clean. 

Saturday is also a day to spend with family.  Some days the school day and then homework and concerts etc. leaves little or no time to spend with the kids.  I guess I would rather cram every concert and activity into the week and be gone from dawn to dust than hack into a Saturday.  So a word to the wise, leave Saturday alone.  It is a precious commodity, one to be left alone, God himself doesn’t mess with this most awesome of all days except twice a year for Conference, so lay off, planning and Saturdays don’t mix.  Even the primary song says “Saturday is a special day”. I know it is tempting but don’t do it. Don’t plan your parties and junk and stuff on this holy day.  Remember you are dealing with some people who work all week and need a day, a simple no planned, nothing to do but clean day… A Saturday.   

Computers

Computers can be wonderful.  Can, being the operative word.  I love my laptop and would be lost without it (this could be a bad thing).  We recently moved our desktop up into the dinning room to have more control over the usage.  I swear I put everything back exactly they way I took it apart, but of course, when I fired the thing up, the internet didn’t work.  I messed with it for a while, until my husband finally called my 17 year old nephew to rescue me ( his exact words were, can you come help me so my wife will get off of my back).  It took him exactly three minutes to have the thing running.   

I am having trouble installing Adobe flash player 10 onto my laptop.  I have hit the troubleshooting for the sight, but they expect me to read several pages of crap and know a bunch of techno babble that I do not understand.  Do they not understand that the ‘end users’ are comparative novices.  I have often dreamed of coming out with a simple, secure computer system that can be taken care of without having to call Dell every couple of months for a fix.  My suspicion is that computers and programming is built this way for job protection.  After watching my nephew messing with our desktop getting it in top running order, maybe they deserve job security.  Until there is a system the a mere layman like myself can mess with, they’ve got it.

 

And the cat came back, she didn’t want to roam…

We have had a big fat cat named Squishy for years. She was actually born here, in our house some years ago.  She thrived and became huge.

Along came Sandy Dog.  Sandy is the bird dog that my husband has always wanted.  She points and fetches birds like a dream.  She is also a hyper brat   dog. Needless to say, Sandy and Squishy do not get along.  We noticed last fall, that Squishy would spend more and more time away from home.  Right after Christmas,  my daughter rescued the cat from an iceberg in the middle of the creek that runs along our property.  She couldn’t convince her to come inside and that was the last time we saw her for five months. 

Last Sunday while were eating dinner with my brother and their family and my daughter and her husband, my husband came inside to tell us that he and my brother had spotted Squishy.  Sandy the bird dog, (not cat dog) had her ‘treed’.  My daughter and my niece headed to the rescue.  After a brave and dangerous and determined trip down the gully, they came back with the cat.  What a wild thing.  There she was bigger than ever.  She looked as though she had been living in the wilds of Borneo eating elephants.  Her once pristine white fur was dirty and clumped with burrs.  I don’t know how she survived, but she must have been eating coyotes.  The past week has been interesting.  This huge beast cat, who we could hardly get inside, has become a big fat house cat.  Her fur over the last week, has thinned out and become cleaner.  We have found piles of white hair with burrs in it around the house as she has cleaned herself up.  I have never seen anything like it.  It is like when the wicked people of the Book of Mormon had a ‘mighty change of heart’.  She has turned from her rowdy and wild past and has domesticated herself and is completely happy to be the house cat we never wanted.  Oh well, at least we won’t have any mice (or small children for that matter) running around mucking the place up. 

Good Food

I love good food, I think most people do.  I have also been lucky enough to live in some great places where great food is available.  I grew up in Utah, where one can grow anything.  As a child, my summers were spent helping with our families massive garden.  After planting, weeding and watering, the great harvest would begin.  I snapped beans, shelled peas and helped can them all along with tomatoes, peaches, pears, pickled beats, just plain pickles, and corn just to name a few.  Summer and fall months were full of fresh fruits and vegetables which grew in abundance.  I remember grabbing fresh tomatoes from the bushel baskets that were waiting to be canned and eating them with the salt shaker like apples.  

My husband and I were also fortunate enough to spend quite a few years in the Pacific northwest, in the Seattle and Portland areas.  The fresh fruits and vegetables were also prolific there.  We had blackberries in our back yard.  There were wonderful deep red strawberries and peaches that were huge and so juicy it was impossible to eat them with out them dripping sweet juice down your chin.  Along with the great produce, we had wonderful fresh seafood.  Salmon, shrimp, crab, lobster, I can still taste it. 

I live in a great place now, but sadly, it produces more coal and oil than produce or seafood.  We have tried and tried to grow a garden here, but with limited success.  The soil is mostly clay and the growing season short.  Any seafood that is available is days or weeks old.  I find myself still purchasing tomatoes, peaches, strawberries and even seafood here.  Most of it is hard pale and crunchy.  I haven’t canned much since I moved here, there is not much to can.  I have to admit though, that we do get chokecherries and love the syrup that they make, but I would love to get my hands on some strawberries that were actually red instead of pink and crisp, or peaches that were large and tender and juicy, and not as crunchy as an apple.  The produce that I do buy here, I think I get so that maybe a bit of the rich flavor will come through their pale crunchy exterior and bring back just a slight memory of what great fruit really tastes like.  The dry, fishy clam,  I actually order in restaurants, and if I close my eyes and try really hard I can still remember what good crab is actually supposed to taste like.  All of you who live in places with great food, go and eat a crab, or a peach for me.  Don’t worry though, I will be alright ,we do make get really good jerky here.

Waking up

Have you ever been in the middle of a routine that is the same routine you have been in for months, and suddenly ‘come to’.  Perhaps you then  realized that you are doing something not quite planned and are not quite sure how you got there and if this is where you want to be? 

This happened to me the other day.  I work as a substitute teacher.  I started about four years ago, because all of my kids were in school and I wanted something extra to do and a bit of extra cash.  The other day I was standing in front of a junior high science class, talking about invertebrates and it hit me.  What the crap am I doing here?  I had worked for the past month every day solid and was hitting my sixth week with no break.  It is to the point that most of the students know me by name.  I am on a first name basis with most of the teachers. 

The part time job that I started four years ago to fill in some time, has become a monster.  I am expected to know how to use the air projectors, how to use the computer program used to keep attendance at the schools.  It is often assumed by students and even staff, that I am going to be there, for assemblies etc.  Sometimes they forget, I am a substitute.  If I don’t get called in, I am not there.  When a student asks me if I can help with something tomorrow, I may not be there.  It is interesting, I do love working with the kids, maybe that is why my job has grown into something more than expected.  I hope it is because I have some rapport with the students and the teachers and administrators trust me.  That is my goal, I don’t know if I have met it or not, they keep calling me.  Maybe they are just desperate, I don’t know.  I guess until I get too fed up with it, I will continue to accept jobs and go to work.  Sometimes after a six week stint of subbing every day, I do stop and wonder though,  how did I wake up here? 

General Conference

It is General Conference time again.  October and April, this has been ingrained in me my whole life.  It is a tradition, like Christmas and Thanksgiving.  Growing up we Conference wasn’t just a two day deal.  General Conference lasted for several days with several sessions each day.  We didn’t have a television in the house for many years while I was growing up.  So I loved Conference time because my parents would rent a television for a week or two  so that we could watch.    We got caught up on all of the shows like the Brady bunch and Gilligan's island.  The interesting thing was, six months later, when we rented the TV again, we found that we had not missed much.  We would sit around as a family during conference and color and listen.  We had stoves that heated the house and we would put our paper up against the stove and melt the crayons onto the paper.  We could get away with this until dad got sick of the smell.

Going to school during conference week was interesting also.  They had just put televisions into the schools.  The teachers would pull them into the classroom and watch General Conference while we did our assignments.  It never occurred to me that life was any different than this.  I didn’t realize until years later when I had moved away that having the same belief as those who I was surrounded by during the day, was unique.  I wonder if I had known then, if I would have appreciated it more.  My children grew up being very much the outsiders.  Maybe that is one reason that I like General Conference so much.  Beyond the spiritual uplift, I love the camaraderie I used to feel as a child.  Plus, it’s tradition.

Red Letter Day

lI had a great week this week.  I am finished with PAWS testing at the Jr. High.  Although I will miss the association with the people I have worked with this past month, it will be great to have a day off once in a while. 

Friday turned out to be a red letter day for us.  It was my daughters’ tenth birthday so we got to go to Chuckecheeses and uild a Bear Workshop.  We went to Billings to watch Michael test for his blackbelt. 

He did such a good job.  I am proud of his ability to set this goal for himself and put in the work required to achieve it.  He is an awesome young man and I am really excited for him. 

National Nap Day

March 15th was national nap day, I am sure it is because the day before, March 14th was the first day of daylight savings time. 

National nap day, was never so poignant as it was this year.  I get up unreasonably early as it is.  I wake up at 5:30 a.m. and exercise for about a half hour, then I get showered and dressed for the day. On the 15th, (the first day back to work after daylight savings time), my husband woke me up and said “5:30, time to hit it.”  I drug my sorry self out of bed and headed downstairs to my elliptical.  It was a hard work out, I was so tired.  I couldn’t believe how much difference an hour less of sleep made.  I drug myself upstairs and showered.  About an hour after I got up, I flipped open my computer to check my email.  I glanced down at the clock,  it said 5:30.  Crap, my computer hadn’t switched, maybe this was because the idiots in Washington keep moving daylight savings time up.  Just then my phone rang, it was my husband.  “What time does the clock say”, he asked.  “My computer says 5:30”, I responded.  “So does my car clock”.  I sat there in stunned silence.  It was 5:30 in the morning, and I had already been up for an hour.  That means in real time, like two day ago time I got up at 3:30.  Unreal, nightmarish, horrendous. 

I was going to be  tired all day and there was nothing to it.  I pulled myself together and managed to head to work .  On the radio in my car, they announced that it was ‘national nap day’.  How appropriate, and also how wonderful.  My day brightened immediately.  I usually don’t have time for the luxury of a nap, but if it was ‘national nap day’ who could refuse me, how could I possibly ignore this.  It was perfect.  It was going to be a good day after all.  Well starting about 6:30 p.m., after I got my national nap.     

Spring is here

What a beautiful week we have had.  We even had snow one day, but it warmed up and melted by noon.  Mud season is pretty much over and I have been able to go back to weekly floor mopping instead of daily mopping. 

My daughter has been playing outside constantly.  She throws her backpack in the back door and takes off.  I remember those days.  I remember being a kid as the days got longer, when it was almost impossible to go inside and go to bed.  It seemed almost sacrilegious to waste a great spring evening sleeping.

Daylight savings starts tomorrow, it is going to be hard to get up, but I am going to love the long evenings.  My mood has magically lifted and everything seems better, just because of the sun.  So bring it on, I am ready, I have been ready since September. 

Here comes the sun!

Getting Old

I had big plans for myself when I grew up.  I remember thinking that if I had to get old, I would at least go full out.  The interesting thing is, as I have gotten older, I have noticed that the things I was interested in, no longer interest me.  I think this is because, I don’t have time, energy or money to do the things I thought I would die if I couldn’t.  I thought I would love to travel the world, write books, plant huge gardens, maybe have a green house, have a perfect house, run marathons etc, etc.  Reality hits and I have found that life isn’t so bad without all of the big dreams.  I have found pleasure in much simpler things. 

Lets just say, it doesn’t take much to make me happy.  A clean dining room floor makes me smile.  A little girl with bobbed hair skipping off of the bus, a drive with the window down, a good song on the radio, a sunny day, a good book with time to read, a 30 min. ride on my elliptical, a phone call from a daughter or sister, a free class period at school.  I know this sounds boring.  It sounded boring to me when I was younger also.  I was determined to be different, special and bigger than life.

Life hasn’t turned out that way, life is just full of simple things, and great kids.  The horrible boring life I was anxious to avoid when I was younger, has been my bliss in middle age.  Thank goodness that the small decisions that I made growing up, lead to this simple, ordinary, wonderful life.

Mud Season

When I learned the seasons in school, I was only taught four, spring, summer, fall, and winter.  I believe this is because the majority of my schooling was done in Utah, where they actually have four seasons.  Had I gone to more than just kindergarten in Wyoming, I would have learned the truth.  There are five seasons.  Spring, summer, fall, winter, and mud.  Mud season is most prevalent in the country, where there is a lot of snow and dirt roads.  I happen to have both.  I live at the a mile of dirt roads.  Mud season starts whenever the temperatures reach high enough to melt the snow.  When this happens, everything turns to mud.

This year is especially bad, because we have the pleasure of welcoming new neighbors who are  building a new house next door and they dug up the road. The gravel is gone and the road has turned into mud slide. The cars are caked in mud, the animals are caked in mud, all of the shoes are caked in mud.  When my nine year old came in yesterday, she left two little piles of mud on the front step, they were her shoes.  When kids get caked in that much mud, the only solution, is to pull out the hose and hose them down.  This solves the immediate problem, but it creates a much larger one.  Once the hoses are back on the spickest after their long winters nap, and the water starts flowing guess what this means…more mud. 

A lot of people say that spring is their favorite season.  The whole renewal of the earth thing.  For me, this is a to close to the mud season and it is ruined for me.  Maybe there is something to be said for living in the concrete jungle especially when new neighbors only bring MUD.

Rules of being a kid

I know we think back on our childhood as carefree, but thinking back on my own childhood, I realize that the opposite was true.  I remember looking at the adults around me and wishing I had their freedom to boss people around.  It was the truth, this is what makes kids lives so difficult, adults are bossy, this is were the rules of being a kid come into play.

As a kid dealing with bossy adults you learn that the more rules you figure out the better off you are. 

A good rule  was, if you are outside playing, don’t go in.  Outside is a safe zone, if you go in for any reason, you could get stuck there.  This rule was especially true in the winter time.  Don’t go in, if you were freezing, just wait, you would get a good numb going soon and couldn’t feel anything.  If you went in for any reason you could get caught in the chores trap, (out of parental sight, out of mind), or   you would thaw, get wet and begin to feel how cold you actually were.  Once you were wet you were in, the clothes came off and everything had to dry again before you were let out again, this could take hours.  

Usually, the only reason you would go inside, was for a potty break.  This usually came after too much waiting and the potty dance while stripping off six layers of sopping wet clothes ensued.  The memory is still vivid in my mind. 

My younger siblings actually beat the potty problem and the poo crew was born, but that is a story for another time.  Lets just say, when they sold the vacant house next door, it needed more than just paint.

Another good rule was be careful when, and on whom you tattled.  Usually tattling occurred when you were all doing something you weren’t supposed to.  I found that I screamed for a parent after I had slugged a sibling and they were about to slug me back.  I learned quickly that this didn’t work, because when you tell on someone, if they are crying and you are not, guess who got into trouble.    

There are just a couple of examples of how tough is was to be a kid.  Every once in a while, when I find myself bossing my kids around, which is by the way, as fun as I thought it would be as a child, I have flashbacks to my childhood, and I actually have pity on the poor things. 

Childhood memories are awesome, especially when you forget about how tough it can be being a kid.

The Olympics are here!

The Olympics are here and for the first time since we shut off the T.V. I am sorry.  I am an Olympics junkie.  If I could, I would settle myself down and do nothing but watch them from the opening ceremony, to the closing.  I don’t know if I like winter or summer better.  I don’t even know when it started, I just know I am hooked.  I have very vivid memories of watching the torch being run through Tacoma Washington while we lived there on it’s way to L.A..  I watched when it ran through Sheridan on it’s way to Salt Lake.  I remember Nadia’s perfect ten, and Mary Lou’s  ten with her injured ankle.  I have seen the Jamaican bob sled team, before the movie, and that English ski jumper that was so bad that they set new standards entry in to the games.  

I know it won’t be the same catching bits and pieces on the internet, so all of you who have television, sit down with a bowl of popcorn and a warm blanket and watch an event for me. 

I love having a nine year old.

I am getting old. I am seriously middle aged. The women who are my age are putting their kids through college. Some of them are empty nesters. I am one of the lucky ones though, I have a nine year old.

Most of the people I work with, spend their time traveling, going on cruises and spending money. My life is a bit more colorful. I still have a child who tried to crawl in bed with me when the wind blows. She came in just last week and woke me from a dead sleep by yelling, “ I can’t sleep, I am totally serious!” I still get to read the Tales of Despereaux and Ramona the Pest as bedtime stories. I still buy tacky Valentine cards each February.

I get to answer questions like,” Why ain’t ain’t a word if people use it.” I get to laugh at knock knock jokes. I make pinkie promises and do knuckles when required. I still get to buy corn dogs and pop sickles. There is a constant noise in the background when she is home that I miss terribly during the day. I get to hear humming and singing and the voices of toys talking to each other.

I am still doing long division and multiplication tables after school. I get to go on field trips and go to orchestra and Christmas concerts. I have to help write talks for primary and am thrilled to get homemade bookmarks and Christmas tree ornaments. I have never regretted the choice I made to forgo a career to have six kids and stay home with them. I am so glad that one of them didn’t come until nine years ago, because I would be totally lost without a wonderful nine year old.

It looks like chocolate but…

I got a phone call from my sister the other day.  She was laughing so hard she could hardly talk. 

“What’s so funny?” I asked. 

My mind went back to the time that another sister called, laughing hysterically also.  On this occasion, it was about the first sister I had mentioned, and a certain incidence with a gas hose and her car.  Something about it parked out in front of the house with the pump and hose still in it.

Back to my story…   Apparently, my dear mother had found a bag of potting soil that had gotten wet.  One thing you have to know about my mother is that she will waste nothing if she can help it.  The potting soil was no exception.  She spread the soil out on some old cookie sheets and put it in the oven on low until it dried.

My parents work in the Temple.  On this particular day, my mom was filling in for someone and so she went to the temple and my dad was left at home.  She completely forgot about her little drying project.  Part way through the day, she realized what she had done.  When she got a break, she called my dad to get him to pull the dirt from the oven before it… I don’t know, does dirt burn?  According to my sister, the conversation went something like this.

“ Honey, I need you to turn off the oven and pull the cookie sheets out.  Don’t eat it, it looks like chocolate, but it is not, it is dirt.”  My dad assured her that he would take care of it.  She hung up the phone and turned around.  She had not been alone.  Another  sweet temple worker dressed in white stood there looking at her with a puzzled expression on her face.  It was too long to explain, so my mother just smiled and walked away leaving the other worker wondering if she had heard right.

The lesson here is, if you go to grandma and grandpa’s, check before you eat.  It may look like chocolate but….