there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch

You know how some municipalities have a “free lunch” program? Well, we are attending a music camp in just such a town. I was pretty amazed it was offered here as I thought Wyoming was the last bastion of the whole “land of the free and the home of brave” thing.

I remember the first time I encountered the free lunch program. My children and I were playing at a park in Idaho when this huge bus of kids from a daycare were led out in single file line and told to stand and wait till the lunch lady came. I was bewildered by what was going on. Then a van pulled up to the park and a lady got out and started handing out brown bags with a pb&j sandwich, an apple, and a little box of milk. After she handed them out to all the daycare kids, all the kids who lived in the houses surrounding the park, and a variety of YMCA summer camp kids, she came over to us and gave us some bags. I told her “No, thank you,” but she would not listen, she said she had some left and they needed to be eaten. I again told her “No, thank you,” but she put them on our blanket and walked away.

Later I learned the schools in our area provide breakfast as well and that the children in my area are eating it…and that their mothers have stopped cooking them breakfast because the school does it for them…and that the kids who do still get breakfast at home are also eating it at school. What????? My tax dollars are going to feed people breakfast and lunch? People who don’t need the help!

Well, today at music camp, we were offered free lunch. I guess the local elementary school has a free lunch program during the summer months to insure that children don’t starve because they aren’t in school. Pretty much everyone at the camp took advantage of the free lunch and when I say took advantage that is exactly what I mean. Took advantage. The program isn’t intended to feed camp participants who are here from all over the intermountain west, it is intended to feed children in poverty level homes whose parents can’t afford to feed them.

I told my children all about the program and why we would not be participating. First of all, it is not the government’s nor the government’s schools responsibility to feed children.

Ever.

Secondly, it is not the government’s responsibility to tax people to feed other people.

Ever.

It is totally and completely wrong for them to do so. The responsibility to feed hungry people lies with themselves, their families, and then you and I.

Thirdly, aside from the program being wrong, it is being poorly implemented. It is not efficient or effective when bags of food are handed out to people at a park who already have food with them or music camp attendees who are not starving.

Yes, attending this camp is costing us an arm and a leg, but it will not cost us our principles and our self-respect.

perceptions

Today while packing up for our upcoming adventures we discovered that Keziah didn’t have enough shorts that fit her…so off to the basement storage overstuffed-overwhelming-disaster-waiting-to-strike room. We uncovered the bin that held Blythe’s old clothes and found a treasure trove of all sorts of clothing for Kez. Camping clothes, Sunday clothes, swim clothes, under-clothes, cute clothes!

Clothes full of memories.

It was almost surreal going through that box of clothes. It felt like a different life almost. Keziah has always worn Blythe’s hand-me-downs, so this is not a new experience…but today it was a very different experience.

It was so strange to see these clothes that my precious girlie wore when she was still small, before she developed lovely curves and grew up into a young woman. I remember when she wore these clothes. As I pulled out each piece of clothing, my mind would flash back to specific moments in time when Blythe had worn those capris as she swung on the monkey bars or rolled up those pants to wade in the stream or splashed food on a shirt at a family reunion and I scrubbed it and soaked it to get it clean.

So many memories of my precious girl.

When she wore those clothes she seemed so big.

So old.

And now? The clothes look eency-teency. They are so small and I can’t really wrap my mind around the fact that my beautiful grown-up girlie ever was that little.

How did this happen? How have the last few years of her life flown by me and I now have a daughter that is sharing my clothes, stealing my shoes, and looking every part of loveliness.

Isn’t strange how our perceptions change? How the way we view the world or people or things governs what we believe about those things and how we treat them and yet, our perceptions can be completely off base. They don’t even have to be based on reality! We create these perceptions, make sweeping decisions based on them, and we could be totally wrong.

I remember a time that I thought being 40 was old…now I know it is so not old. I remember thinking my Blythe was all grown-up the day she was baptized. Now I can see how little she was. I remember a time I believed someone didn’t like me and I was absolutely wrong, they were just quiet and communicated differently than me. I remember a time I thought everyone knew everything I had ever done wrong and that they were judging me on a moment-by-moment basis. Now I know the world is far to busy for most people to even notice I am alive, much less what my faults or sins are.

Perceptions are powerful.

I just want mine to be accurate!

pumice stone

I am cleaning my bathroom today. A bathroom that is so filthy we stopped using it months ago. I couldn’t deal with the mess, the overwhelming need to dejunk it of clothes that don’t fit, fashions that are out of style, beauty products that need to be thrown away, and bath toys that probably need burned. My bathroom is part of my walk-in closet and it has been in utter disarray for at least a year. There are still maternity clothes in there that need put away from 2007! There are clothing sizes from size 14 down to a size 6. There are umpteen numbers of shoes, some of which I haven’t worn for years. The bathroom part of the closet hasn’t been used in a long time. The sink is disgusting, the counter is covered with all sorts of junk, and we can’t even get to the toilet.

I decided it was time for it to be cleaned, dejunked, DI’ed, and sanitized. I decided last week I was going to do it and I have been working on it since then. I have boxed up LOTS of clothes, thrown away oodles of empty and outdated beauty care products, and amassed the largest unmatching sock pile ever.

But the sink? I knew it was a goner. It had layers of slime, layers of gunk, layers of who knows what stuck to the sides. I have tried to clean it a few times over the past year, but nothing I did to it would get those layers off.

Well, today, I decided to try a pumice stone. I had heard the wonders of a pumice stone on toilets, so I thought I would give it a try before I threw the sink out.

To my amazement, it worked…instantly! It cut through all those layers and made the white porcelain shine! It took some elbow grease to keep scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing, but it worked!

After I cleaned the sink, I started working on the counter and I found this quote by Sheri Dew:

Jesus Christ is not our last chance, He is our only chance. He will show us the way because He is the way.

I read it and it hit me hard. I had used the pumice stone as the sink’s last chance. If it didn’t get it clean, I was giving up on it. I had tried everything I knew to clean it and nothing had worked. I was ready to toss it in the garbage and start over with a new sink.

Sometimes we treat God as if He is our last chance. We try other things to get us through life. Try to find happiness in other ways. Even try to get clean in other ways. But in reality, He is not our last chance. He is the only chance we have.

And He will walk with us all the way, teaching us all about 2nd chances and 200th chances. Teaching us how to come clean. Loving us enough to not toss us out and start over with another creation.

He is a bazillion, trillion, megajillion times better than a pumice stone…which as I proved today…is a pretty amazing thing as it is.

grow the tree you have

I am reading a great book and it has a chapter in it called “Grow the Tree You Got” that gave me some big food for thought today. It talked about a man who had a gorgeous Kentucky black oak tree growing in his yard, but he yearned for an Australian acacia.

Every time he looked at the oak he saw that it didn’t have purple blooms and it didn’t let the sun stream through his yard the way an acacia would. He didn’t appreciate the strong branches of the oak, the beautiful colors of the leaves, the cooling shade it offered to every passerby. He didn’t notice how the oak’s root system nourished younger trees nearby.

The oak cannot do enough to please the man and soon the man doesn’t even see the magnificent tree when he comes home. There is a gift waiting for him in his front yard every single day, but he does not notice it.

From Parking Lot Rules & 75 Other Ideas for Raising Amazing Children by Tom Sturges

He only saw what his tree didn’t have and was not able to appreciate or be grateful for what it did have.

The author applied this to parenting and opened my eyes. He talks about how sometimes we do the same thing to our children. We have expectations, hopes, and desires for a certain child and when we don’t have that child we fail to see the wonderfulness of the child we do have.

I think in some small measure I have done this with my oldest. I have always adored her. She completely changed my life by making me a mother. I nursed her for over three years. I spent years being her mom with no one else around. She was with me every day and we had a delightful time going on walks, discovering bugs, reading for hours and hours, talking to all sorts of strangers on our journeys, going on bike rides, cooking up concoctions she could eat in spite of her allergies. We were completely in love with each other.

But then she grew up and I had more kids and she didn’t have all my attention and she wasn’t like what I thought she would be. I thought she would be like me and well, she wasn’t. She was a tad introverted. She thought artistically, not logically. She felt things deeply, but then she wouldn’t talk about them. She kept her ideas to herself. She wanted to be alone for hours at a time. She didn’t like being the center of attention and I embarrassed her constantly because I simply could not understand that facet of her personality. She was a slow reader. She held grudges. She created worlds in her mind and often went there to live unbeknownst to me who was treating her as if she was still in my home and thought she should interact with us. She had thin, breakable hair that seemed beyond my abilities to do anything with. She had oily skin that needed to be showered, washed, and pampered to stay on an even keel. She didn’t laugh at the same things I laughed at. She didn’t love math the way I love math.

Sometimes I saw these things as huge deficits. Things she didn’t have, couldn’t do, wouldn’t be. But really they were just things I couldn’t understand. They were things that weren’t like me. Things that seemed frustrating because they were out of my realm of experience.

Sometimes I saw them so much I couldn’t see the beauty and the wonder of who she was.

Who she is.

She is passionate about freedom for all of God’s children. She believes in standing up for truth. She has the soul of an artist. She moves with grace to the music of her mind. She has beautiful laughter and a lovely smile. She has the ability to be friends with all sorts of different types of people. She taught herself how to crochet and then makes things…like slippers, headbands, and gloves…just by looking at some and then figuring out how to do them. She is not afraid of doing things imperfectly. She stubbornly does what she sets her mind to. She is an amazing swimmer. She has a lovely body. She taught herself how to sew. She is clear about who she is and what she stands for. She is not afraid to do hard things. She is modest. She is funny. She has a beautiful singing voice. She has a flare for fashion. She has amazing curly hair. She is a great babysitter. She loves the Book of Mormon. She is strong. She is determined. She is resilient. She can draw for hours. She sees beauty that I miss. She is a deep thinker.

She is not me. She is not who I thought she would be.

She is her very own self and I love her.

I need to figure out how to send that message to her on a consistent basis and not focus on what the oak tree lacks.

Grow the tree or the child you have. The one you were given and not the one of your dreams. It will make all the difference.

running out of gas

I can’t tell you the number of times I have run out of gas. Many. Not like every week or even every month and probably not even every year, but enough times that it is embarrassing. Enough times that I should have learned to pay attention to my gas gauge. I haven’t run out of gas lately (at least the vehicular kind), but only because of divine intervention and the prayers of my children when we are almost out and we somehow make it to the gas station.

I have a friend who runs out of gas even more often than I do. She will call and let me know she is out of gas and then I will go find her and fill her tank with my five gallon gas can.

Once I ran out of gas in my driveway and our neighbor came and rescued me. I had no idea that gas was the problem, I just knew my vehicle wouldn’t start. I had only gone 451 miles and I normally could go 600 miles, so I knew that an empty gas tank wasn’t the problem. Of course, I was wrong and after giving me enough fuel to get to the gas station, I was on my way.

My husband has rescued me numerous times. Usually in the middle of his day when it is not convenient and it is 100% my fault. No judgment, no harsh words are given. Just a hug and a kiss and a tank of gas.

I think we all run out of gas sometimes. Life gets away from us and we are running on fumes and then we are stopped all together. It might be we run out of energy, health, money, or faith. We might run out of smiles, hope, hugs, or desire. Sometimes we aren’t paying attention to our fuel gauge. Sometimes life took more than we thought it would. Sometimes we are in an emergency and don’t have time to stop to refuel so we keep going in hopes of making it. Sometimes the place we thought we could get gas isn’t open and we have to look elsewhere. Sometimes we are stuck in a line of traffic for far too long and our gas runs out before it should have.

Its not always our fault.

Just sometimes.

But in the moment of despair, it doesn’t really matter whose fault it is (although it is usually worse on us emotionally if it IS our fault). What matters is being rescued and the manner in which the rescue is carried out.

With judgment. With speed. With slowness. With attention to all of the needs or just the most glaring. With a smile. With a lecture.

Or with love and mercy.

As I think about the people who have helped me when I have run out gas, of all varieties, not just the unleaded kind, I am determined to help others who are running low as well. We all need a rescuer sometimes and I have had more than my share of knights (and maidens) in shining armor come to my aid. I hope I can share the love and help others on their journeys as well. Their fault or not, they need some sustenance to get them on their way again. A smile, a hug, a heartfelt note, a meal, some ice cream, a warm bed, some reading time, a massage, some help given without judgment…all of these can change someone’s direction and get them back on their feet again.

We have been cleaning out the garage lately. I found a box of old cards and letters. Cards from my mom, my dad, my grandparents, school teachers, friends, church leaders, community members, and complete strangers. Cards that had been sent at a perfect time to refuel me and get me going again. Letters that spoke to my soul and helped me believe in myself. Words of counsel and words of faith. Encouragement to keep on keeping on. I spent a long time reading each note, remembering back to the young girl that needed so badly to be given some help and hope. Some direction. Some love. Some wisdom.

Rereading these words filled me with love, even now, years later. The process of reading them helped me reframe my childhood. It was obvious I was surrounded by love, not abandoned as I have sometimes felt, because right there in my hands was a box full of proof! It is true that I saved the “good stuff” and not the bad, but still, tangible proof that an army of people had loved me enough to write me a note, mail me a card, and send me some hope.

Yesterday I was the cause of my daughter’s running out of gas. I was being too hard on her (again!) and was critical in ways that hurt her. I needed to fix the problem. I needed to fill her soul with love. I needed her to know I believe she is brilliant, talented, lovable, and good. We spent a few hours together just having fun and walking around. It was exactly what both of us needed. Now she is off to Girls’ Camp and I hope she takes with her the knowledge that I love her, and more importantly, that God loves her.

In the end, He is the ultimate refueler. He knows exactly what we need to keep going and will send rescuers to us in our time of need. I want to be in tune with Him so He can use me to get His message and aid to others.

who comes up with these things?

We have a controversy going on in our community about Independence Day being celebrated on Saturday, July 3rd instead of Sunday, July 4th. It is getting fairly heated and there are debates going on in the newspapers, on TV, on Facebook, on city web pages, at the grocery store…pretty much all over the area people are talking about this issue.

In one of the online discussions about this issue, a man has commented repeatedly with statements opposing the celebration being on the 3rd. He paints himself as a logical, scientific, educated man who is able to see all sides of this issue. I was able to disregard a lot of what he said, but this statement of his stopped me in my tracks.

“Choosing God over Country is like choosing friends over family.”

What?????????????

Does he believe people should actually be more loyal to their country than they are to their God?

This I don’t understand. Not in any way, shape, or form.

If a person chooses their country over their God (whichever and whatever God they choose to worship) how can that be a good thing? How can a fallible country be a better allegiance than a God? How can anyone think that it would be?

Please, enlighten me here. Please explain to me how this could be a rational rule to live by.

Because I simply don’t get it.

I love America. Love, love, love America. I cried this week at America’s Hope practice as the children sang songs about this great country. I cried tonight at the rodeo as we sang the Star-Spangled Banner. I volunteer as much as I can to help make this country a better place. I research issues, I stand up for principles of freedom, I study the Constitution, I write and call my elected officials. I am a good citizen who is trying her darndest to help America be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

But choosing country, even a country as divinely instituted as America is, over God makes no sense to me at all. It’s like choosing a fingernail over the miracle of the human body, choosing the index over the author of the book, choosing a rain drop over the water cycle.

I’m with C.S. Lewis – religion is the most logical concept out there and I am sticking with it.

striving for

I saw a bag at TJMaxx with these words on it and knew I had to have it. Knew I needed these words in my life. More correctly, to be my life. I used $5.99 of my gift card to fund the purchase and have been smiling inside each time I read them.

Share
Dreams.
Inspire
Love.
Heal
Hearts.
Embrace
Spirits.
Nurture
Souls…

Yes, this is what I am striving to do. Striving to become. I believe this is why I was called to be a doula…so that I could learn how to love in this way and then bless families lives. It comes easily as a doula…it is so much harder on a day to day basis when my heart is not pure. When I am not focused on strengthening families, loving souls, and welcoming spirits. When I interact with people…people I choose to be frustrated with…people whose behaviors drive me bonkers. I yearn to become this person in all my relationships…to be a whole and healthy person walking the path of earth life with others in a way that enriches, nurtures, and heals. To not let my vision of who each of us are be clouded by the veil of mortality or let my interactions be based on the “truths” of this world that distort the real truth of the worth of souls and the purpose of our time here on earth.

These four births in the past few weeks have taught me so much about what these words mean. Each one of these families has asked me either in words or with their hearts to do at least one of these things and often all five of them. I have been tutored by my Father above to care for them in the way they needed and in the process my own spirit has grown. I pray I may have the wisdom, the humility, and the courage to treat all people this way.

Each day.

Imagine the world if we all could do this.

Bliss.

Joy.

Peace.

Heaven on earth.

I know I am not up to it now, but maybe over the course of my lifetime eons of time I will become a person who does this as naturally as I now have frustrations, pride, and selfishness come to the forefront of my heart. Step by step, day by day, relationship by relationship I will strive to treat people this way.

Will you join me?

make enough of me

I just learned of this song and I can already say listening to it the last few days has brought peace to my soul, hope to my heart, and a smile to my face.

I have been gone to swim camp for a week (it rained every day and was crazy-windy, like so windy three tents were blown over and broken, chilly, and lots of children were throwing up by the end of the week – but still way fun), got home on Saturday afternoon to a filthy house, loads of laundry, and my sister, Mikelle, and her husband, Logan, waiting for me and mowing my much overgrown lawn. Mikelle got right to work cutting hair and beautifying all of us, then we went to Logan’s Semi-Pro football game and got home around midnight. Annesley started throwing up shortly thereafter and continued through the night. Sunday brought church for a few of us healthy ones and lots of rest for everyone else. Sunday night I got called to a birth and got home last night around 11 p.m. This morning Blythe has Youth Conference (which amazingly enough, she was all packed for when I got home last night!), Keziah has America’s Hope Choir practice, and I still have a sick baby, LOADS of laundry, more dishes than I can throw a stick at, and lots of work on the Children’s Parade. I am spread far too thin and today I certainly feel there is not enough of me to go around…and yet, I love my life. I am grateful to be a wife, grateful to be a mother, grateful to be a doula, grateful to have a washer and dryer, grateful to have food to feed my children and dishes to wash, grateful to have a home to clean, and grateful to be in this phase of my life. It is busy, and yes, it can be overwhelming, but it is also a wonderful training ground for my soul to learn patience, diligence, nurturing, prioritizing, pausing, letting go, and letting God. Every day I am clearly reminded that I cannot do this without Him. I cannot mother the way He would have me mother without spending time communing with Him, learning from Him, and letting Him work miracles in my life and the lives of my children. He has given me this time to refine me. I know this. I know He loves me and wants to help me. I just need to let Him and depend on Him more and more each day. This song is helping me remember just that.

Enjoy!

Make Enough of Me

realistic expectations

I have a dear friend, Jodie Palmer, who often says we overestimate what we can accomplish in a day and we underestimate what we can do in a lifetime.

I have been pondering this concept for several weeks. It definitely applies to me. I believe I can get 10 loads of laundry, make dinner for a neighbor, clean up my yard, read to my children, take a nap, go on a bike ride, plan a fabulous homeschooling activity, teach a class, make 20 phone calls, go grocery shopping, read my scriptures, have a beautifully set table for dinner, give each child my undivided attention, make bread, scrub toilets, write in my commonplace book, and practice my cello all in the same day. This is ludicrous. I have come to know I cannot do all that in one day. I have let go of a lot of my expectations for myself and the resulting feelings of failure when I don’t measure up. I am much more realistic than I used to be about my energy levels, the amount of time things really DO take, and what my capabilities are.

But I still put too much in almost every day.

I am okay with that. For the most part, I am not going to bed beating myself up for not getting more laundry done or not having a the bathroom cleaned.

I do, however, beat myself up if I haven’t spent nurturing one-on-one time with my husband and each of my children.

Right now, for me, the more critical part of Jodie’s statement is that we underestimate what we can accomplish in a lifetime. I would like to make better use of my time in small increments to be able to accomplish much over the course of time.

You see, I am one of those people who wants to do it all in one fell swoop. I don’t want to work at a drawer at a time in my kitchen and at the end of a week have them all reorganized. No sirree! I am all about emptying the entire kitchen, scrubbing it from floor to ceiling, completely redoing what goes in each drawer and cupboard, getting rid of stuff, creating a new plan for our family kitchen usage, and putting it all back together in time for supper.

What this really means is that I live in chaos because nothing ever gets done in one fell swoop. Life has to go on. Children have needs. We all have appointments and commitments and so my piles of stuff add up and it takes me days and sometimes weeks to get it all put back together.

Now, if I could somehow develop a plan to do it in small chunks at a time I am sure life would go much smoother and more would actually get accomplished.

It is simply not the way I am programmed.

I like to clean by completely emptying, rearranging, repurposing, reDOING everything – and I like to do it in one day.

I like to read a book in one day. I like to can hundreds of quarts of applesauce in one day. I like to get in shape in one day (impossible, I know…but somehow I like to think if I go for a 50 mile bike ride or do 200 sit-ups it will magically grow muscles, heart health, and eliminate my risk of cancer). I like to sew a beautiful creation (okay, my creations aren’t quite to the beautiful point, but they are improving a little bit) in one day.

I have the hardest time with spreading things out over a period of time. I like to start something and finish it. I don’t want to stop until it is completely finished, even if that means going without food and sleep. This used to work quite well for me. I could write my research papers in one big day. I could pull an all-nighter and get my whole house clean. I could start packing the day of a trip and still get it all done by midnight.

I could do it and then sleep the whole next day. Now? Not so much.

Now, I have lots of little bodies that need me to be present and alert each day. I have many commitments that don’t allow me to take a whole day off to do a project. I get tired much more easily. I get hungry much more easily. I get sick much more easily. I have bigger hopes and dreams of order and it seems my level of mess and chaos grows in exact opposition to the level of order I dream of.

But, I can see the wisdom of it.

I can see that chapter by chapter, night after night we have made it through lots of family read-alouds.

I can go back through my blog posts and see that keeping a semi-daily record of my life for the last year has created a treasure trove of memories that otherwise would be forgotten.

I can see the power of compound interest.

I can see the power of serving neighbors and friends over many years and building a rich community of trust and love.

I can see what my grandmother accomplished in her life by doing things a little at a time. Filling a grandchild’s heart with love was done cookie by cookie, story by story, hug by hug, loving advice by loving advice, canasta game by canasta game, birthday phone call by birthday phone call, and strawberry pie by strawberry pie. There wasn’t a thought of “I’m going to fill ‘em up today with enough love to get by for the next year.” She knew it was a steady process, a little at a time.

I just don’t know how to really implement this in my own life. That whole Flylady thing? Tried it, wanted it to work, but nope, didn’t fly with me.

I am trying to clean my bedroom…it seems it is unconquerable. I told myself I would just do a little bit each day…and I have been. But it is driving me crazy. A little bit at a time seems so ineffective. I want to start in the morning and finish before bed and go to sleep in a perfectly spotless room. I am forcing myself to work on it in 15 minute increments. I am forcing myself to not stay up all night working on it. I am forcing myself to be okay with it…it just feels so, so, eeeeeuuuuucckkkkkkkk.

Now, I am trying to empty out the two bookshelves in my room so I can move those out. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because it is creating more mess!

Do you have some thoughts on how to do this?

addendum

I have been thinking about this whole missing my grandmother thing and I have some thoughts…

I miss her a lot. This is true, but what does it mean?

At my grandma’s funeral, I was crying and an uncle decided to take that opportunity to scold me for not believing in the plan of salvation, for not having enough faith, for not knowing that my grandma was in a better, happier place. I have thought about his words quite a bit since then and have decided he was wrong.

Let’s pretend my best friend is given a wonderful opportunity to meet amazing people, to study and learn from the great masters in her field, to be free from pain, and to see her long-lost husband again. Let’s pretend she has to travel across the world to a place I cannot go and there is no technology in place for us to communicate by letters, emails, or phone calls. Do I want her to go? Of course I do. Would I ask her to stay here with me? No, I would be thrilled for her to take advantage of this great blessing. I would be happy for her…but I would still miss her. I would still long to hear her voice, read her letters, and feel her arms around me. I would still long to pray with her. I would still want to play games with her and laugh with her and make her her favorite foods just to see her smile spread across her face and her eyes light up with joy.

Well, that is just what happened.

I do know she is happy. I do know she is out of pain. I do know she is with her loved ones…but I still miss her!