Weekend Get Away

A couple of weekends ago we took a little trip to Arizona to visit the kids Grandpa. We love visiting there. The kids think it's a great adventure to stay in his travel trailer (where he lives) and they love to go play in the desert. Meg asked him to get out the "penny finder" or metal detctor. We searched for gold or other treasures, but found only tin cans and other odd and old metal pieces. Meg just loved the digging part. Adam loved the ATV and flying through the desert with dad or grandpa or whoever would take him. Pretty soon he will be big enough to fly off on his own. We all came home with sunburns, smiles and good memories. Thanks for having us, Joe. See you again soon.

To Becky, the Chemo Warrior Princess

{source} Sarah Kang 

My sweet cousin Becky lost her valiant fight with breast cancer today at the University of Washington Hospital. She fought very hard against a very aggressive and difficult cancer. She kept her sense of humor and good spirits to the very end and everyone who was around her felt of her love and the joy. Her husband and young children will be very, very sad for long while, but having their mom's smiling face and laughter in their memories will help to carry them through. I know Becky is in the loving arms of her older brother Jonathan, who died 17 year ago, also from cancer. They all have a deep faith and testimony of Jesus Christ and have been stalwart examples of showing love in difficult times. She was a Warrior, a Fighter, and one of the greatest examples of humor, facing adversity, and faith I have known. I am thrilled she was part of the rich tapestry of my family. All my love Becky. Until we meet again.

This is My Life

Yeserday was a busy day. I had reports for church due that evening and was struggling to get all of the needed information together so that I could finish them. Laundry was mounting again and dishes remained undone in the kitchen. We are getting ready for a little weekend trip and I had gathering things together on my list of the "to-do's".  To keep Meg occupied while I was compiling data, I gave her a pre-school book to color in. She wasn't content to just sit and color, she wanted to write her letters. She needed my help.

Within a few minutes, she was on my lap tracing letters and sounding out words. I stopped for a minute a looked around. Dishes still on the table from breakfast. Glue sticks from the book report worked on this morning. Pens and pencils of all kinds. My VT papers stacked here and there. A sweater from this morning's walk and a magazine I had intended to read. Sitting on top of all of it was my daughter's preschool workbook. I could see how happy she was to have some attention, some love and caring and well deserved praise for learning something new. She tried to write an M but had done it upside down. I told her it looked like a W and she turned the book upside down, telling me "Look now. It's an M now, Mom."

I thought "This is my life." Dishes undone, laundry to fold, a table to clear away, reports still to do, but happy, smart, trusting children to make it all worthwhile. Maybe I don't live a glamorous lifestyle, or even an upper-middle class lifestyle, but I live the life I want to live and the one that will teach me the most and test my limits, just the way it's supposed to be. I am thankful for that.

I love this quote from a recent conference I saw. It says it all about my life right now:

"I know that each of us has a vital and essential role as a daughter of God. He has bestowed upon His daughters divine attributes for the purpose of forwarding His work. God has entrusted women with the sacred work of bearing and rearing children. No other work is more important. It is a holy calling. The noblest office for a woman is the sacred work of building eternal families, ideally in partnership with her husband."  Steadfast and Immovable, Silvia H. Allred

What I learned about my Husband today

{source}

After almost 19 years of marriage, I love my husband mow more than ever. I never would have foreseen the journey we have taken to get where we are. I also have absolutely no foreshadowing of what's to come. But, today, after all this time, I learned something about my husband.

 If you know him at all, you know he is a man of few words. What he says carries weight because he doesn't just idly chat. He's got a wicked sense of humor, but you have to know him a long time to see it. He doesn't talk on the phone. At all. He hates it. He never answers it and it was well after we were married that he would even care to figure out how to dial long distance. When calling from places like Hong Kong, Japan, or the UAE it involved a lot of numbers and a lot of patience.

My sister Robin and I used to have a running joke about my dear hubby. Our joke was about our family cell phone plan. We had 700 minutes and we would laugh that my Mom (who's on our plan) would use well over half of them, I would use about a quarter of them and Justin would use 3 minutes. In at least 5 phone calls. We laughed about it all the time, but it was true more times than it wasn't.

Getting him to call home even while on deployment was difficult. While stationed in Guam he spent many many months in Japan. They had a system set up where you could call home for free for 15 minutes per day. I got a phone call once a month, maybe. In the days before e-mail sometimes that was hard for me. I actually had one wife tell me "Your husband must not love you as much as he should. Certainly not as much as my husband loves me." To which I had to bite back saying something really, really not nice and move on. She wasn't joking. Rude, huh? He loved me, he just didn't love the phone.

This morning his work phone stayed home due to a late alarm and a rush for the door. It had been charging all night and just didn't make the transition to the uniform before he left. Just after his departure, it started ringing. And ringing. And ringing. Between 5:30 am and about 9 it must have gone off 10 times. At one point I answered it and told the person on the other line it had left at home. They guy tells me he works in the same office and offers to have Justin contact me about the phone. He did call from work. I mentioned his phone had been going off a lot to which he replied, "Yep. That's a typical morning for me."

What? He talks on the phone for work? A lot?  A really lot from the sounds of the vibrating phone on the counter. Today I learned he is fully proficient in the use of his cell phone. He's a good manager and he's a busy guy at work. He works hard and does things that he doesn't enjoy so that others around him can have a better working environment and be more efficient. So go ahead, give him a call. He might even answer. Just don't expect a long conversation.

What could be better?

What could be better on a stormy, cloudy and grumpy day than hot, fresh chocolate chip cookies cooling on the table.

And bread rising in the kitchen?

It was a grumpy day at my house yesterday, everyone was out of sorts. Maybe it was the lightening, maybe the thunder, but probably not the rain. We like rain. In any case, fresh baked goodies made everyone feel better though. Ahhhh, the power of comfort food. Can you smell it yet? Oh, you have to add in the smell of chili in the slow cooker too. Perfect.

Finding Joy Every Day

Sometimes you just wake up in a bad mood. This morning my darling Meg was at my bedside at 6 am, just 7 minutes after Justin left for work today. She wanted her Dora surprise. I had no idea what she was talking about and she was getting mad about it. A few minutes into the incoherent conversation she decides she's going to be happy with a yogurt instead. About an hour later she comes up to me and tells me she thinks the Dora surprise was a dream. She had a dream that was real to her and was mad I wasn't up to speed on it.

Earlier in the week my neighbor dropped by. She had a stack of Parenting magazines. She said, "I don't know why I am getting these. I didn't subscribe to them. I can't use them and I thought you could." After staring blankly at her, I took the magazines, said thanks and went in to shut the windows that are on her side of the house. I am not sure she meant anything by it, but it really made me think how loud my voice could really get and how much of my life my neighbors knew about that I don't want them to. I know a little too much about them too. Windows in the back of the house now remain shut and Meg has lots of magazines to cut pictures out of. Oh, I got a new dinner recipe too. Can't wait to try it.

We had a friend stop by with her kids the other day. Meg and her little boy are close to the same age. Meg wanted to play Hide-n-Seek with him. She brought him to her favorite hiding place and told him, "You stay here and hide. I will go and count. I will be right back." And off she went. The best part was, he stayed there.

After Meg's latest reading lesson she got out the Children's Songbook. It's a collection of Primary songs for children in our church. She loves to bring it to me, randomly open it and have me sing her the song. We had a little sing a-long today. So sweet. After I was done, she remained on the couch to sing on her own. I hear this from the kitchen, "Mary wants me for a Sunbeam, sunbeam, sunbeam. Mary loves me and wants me to be a sunbeam for her." So I ask, "Who's Mary?" "You know", she says, "Row, row, row your boat, Mary down the stream. She wants me to be a Sunbeam today." Later she sang the same Sunbeam tune with the words "Daddy wants me for a prayer." Several times.

Sometimes in the day to day with the laundry never ending and the dishes stacking up and the kid messes and never ending project lists and meetings and commitments, it's really hard to remember why we are all here. To have joy and be joyful. I am so grateful today for my darling daughter who tries my patience more than anything and brings joy to my heart every day. I am going to try and pay a little more attention to the joyful, uplifting and good things around me. Won't you join me?

A Happy Birthday Part 3

After staying out late the night before with my darling hubsand at the community theater, I headed out bright and early the next morning for a day of shopping and girl talk in LA at the Fashion and Garment district. That was tons of fun.

At the Michael Levine's loft, where you dig through bins and buy your fabric not by the yard, but by the pound, I found some yummy white and bright yellow fabric I have a skirt in mind for.

Some of it was good, some was not, but mostly it was a grown-up treasure hunt.

We choose a day that was not ideal. It was a Jewish holiday and most shops were closed. Even with that, we found enough open to keep us walking from 10:30-3:30 that day. There's no place to sit and rest, so if you go, be prepared for that. We saw shops with $1.00/spool serger and embroidery threads, and notions of all types and sizes. Elastic for 15 cents/yard. Flannel, cotton, fleece, knits, rayon, blended fabric, lace of all kinds and everything in between. Some shops were organized and pretty.



Some were not. They kind of reminded me of my Grandmother's basement at one time. Seriously. Grandma knitted, crocheted, sewed, serged and did all manner of needle crafts. She could have had her own shop. All of her grand kids had the pretties to prove it.

Trims anyone? If you can't find it here, it isn't out there.



On the way home at the request of some hungry husbands who had a taste of being Mom for a day, we stopped at Randy's doughnuts. One of the better doughnut shops on the West Coast, so they told me.

We all had a great time. We didn't get home until late and we were tired. We also had all added at least 10 things to our project list. We also can't wait to go back. Thanks Mary, Michelle, and Angela for wonderful day and a great birthday weekend adventure. And thanks to my Hunky Husband, who held down the fort while I played a little.