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a new chalkboard
I am kind of really tired of all these dreary posts, so here is a cheerful one. Mikelle and my mama were here visiting last week and boy howdy, did we have fun! On Thursday we spent the whole day craft store shopping. First we went to Mini-Bazaar to check out their new spring arrivals and I fell in love with a red chalkboard…as in, I MUST HAVE IT RIGHT THIS MINUTE fell in love. Do you ever do that? See something and want it so badly? Well, I do. I saw it and wanted it, but was absolutely not willing to spend $47 to buy it.
So I stared at it.
And went back to look at it several times.
Finally, my mom looked at it and said we could make it so easily. Me, being completely craft challenged didn’t really believe her, but jumped at the chance to put her crafty skills to work.
We ran over to DI, a local thrift store, and bought an absolutely ugly, pink framed picture with a nice wooden frame for $6.00. Wahoo! First mission accomplished. Then we ran to Home Depot to get some MDF and chalkboard paint, but instead we found some MDF that was already turned into a chalkboard. Mom quickly had the cutting crew sawing it to the right dimensions and out the door we went with a perfectly fitting piece of chalkboard for our new frame.
Now all we had to do was find the right color of red paint. Not too bright, not to dark. After looking at twenty plus shades, we picked out the one we thought would go best with all the other reds in my house.
We (and be “we” I mean mom) sanded the frame down, primed it, let it dry, then painted it with two coats of red. But I didn’t like it. I thought it was too bright. So Mikelle tried to mix some red with a teensy-tinesy bit of black, but it didn’t turn out right either. Mom wasn’t too happy with our experimenting and said we were going to ruin it, but we kept trying to solve the problem. Finally Mikelle decided to put black right on to the painted frame and have me immediately wipe it off to antique it.
It worked! I love it! I can’t wait to get some chalk markers and have Blythe sketch us something lovely every week. After reading gobs of reviews, we are ordering these lovelies. I hope they are as wonderful as the company says…and that they erase off my board.
My photo-to-computer cord is missing therefore I can’t upload any photos, so you’ll just have to trust me on how cute it turned out or come for a visit and see for yourself.
when will morning come?
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame
This is how my nights are playing out the last few days. The tigers, the demons, the whatever you want to call them are here. They are whispering to me all the lies I have ever believed and some new ones I have never entertained before. They are filling my soul with pain and blackness. I feel like my light, my life-giving energy is being squeezed right out of me.
And it hurts.
The sun is shining in my window and giving me hope that I can reach out to the source of truth and light one more time.
potw: cats
We started a new poem today. We haven’t done very many poems these last several months, but I decided to pull out our new poetry book, The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems, and let Keziah select a poem for us to memorize. Having a poem to memorize all together brings some fun and unity to our weeks. Everyone is learning different things, doing different projects, and a weekly poem for each of us to learn gives us one thing to all learn together. It also brings some beauty into my soul…and today I need all the beauty I can get.
By the way, the Barefoot Book of Classic Poems is oh, so lovely. I am love with the illustrations, the text layout, and the wide variety of poems. We have a lot of wonderful poetry books and this one is one of my favorites. I am so glad I got it on Jessica’s book co-op last fall and now that we have pulled it out of our secret box of book surprises, I can’t wait to delve into it every week!
Cats
by Eleanor Farjeon
Cats sleep
Anywhere,
Any table,
Any chair,
Top of piano,
Window-ledge,
In the middle,
On the edge,
Open drawer,
Empty shoe,
Anybody’s
Lap will do.
Fitted in a
Cardboard box,
In a cupboard
With your frocks –
Anywhere.
They don’t care!
Cats sleep
Anywhere.
Isn’t that cute? We used to have a cat like that. Her name was Sarah and we got when Blythe was about six. She gave us many litters of kittens and loved on that girl more than I thought possible. She died about 18 months ago and Blythe’s poor heart still hasn’t recovered.
trying again
After two really hard days fighting the you-are-hopeless demons, I am up and going this morning and willing to try again. I can’t really say determined to try again, but I am willing and I am trying and we are having a pretty normal school day.
I had a good talk with my big girls last night and told them how sorry I am for being impossible the last two days. I told them how much I love them and how I have decided to try again to be their mama. We all cried a bit.
This morning was another story though. Deciding to do something and actually following through are two different things.
But I AM following through. We did have morning devotional. We have done math. We have memorized a poem. We have done our temple of the day. I haven’t said anything mean. I am trying again, especially with that teenager that is so hard for me to understand.
I woke up to a pile of balloons all over my door with “I love you” and “You rock!” and “Thank you for all you do for us” messages all over them. Completely unexpected and super sweet.
I still have a ways to go with my sword of truth, but I am getting there. Our Easter services were really wonderful yesterday and I had a good 45 minute sob-fest in the hallway at church with some lovely ladies who gave me good advice, huge hugs, and a bit of humor. Yesterday afternoon Jessica brought me some of her delicious homemade peanut butter cups and invited our whole family to go on a walk by the river. I didn’t want to go and I was not good company, but the sunshine, sounds of trickling water, and watching my children have a grand time and say adorable things did give my soul some healing.
I need to spend more time in my current read, Through His Eyes: Rethinking What You Believe About Yourself and I think I will refocus on my word study of “Promise” throughout the scriptures. I need some truth, some love, and a lot of hugs.
they’re back
I am plauged by demons. They have been with me a long time, but they don’t rear their ugly heads that often anymore.
During our first three years of marriage they were a constant companion. They whispered in my mind that I would never, ever be good enough for Richard, that I could never be saved by the Savior, that I was deluding myself into thinking I could live a righteous life and be worthy of my temple blessings.
Sometimes I listened to them. Sometimes I fought them off with swords of truth. Sometimes I felt completely insane. Sometimes I knew God was winning the battle for my soul.
Always my husband loved me. Always he believed in me. Always he taught me who God is and how much I am loved by the Father of us all.
After Blythe was born, the demons lost much of their power. I knew my purpose as a mother and my value to my Heavenly Father. I knew and experienced the blessings of being a daughter of God. I settled into my role of mother and wife and sister and friend and gave my whole heart to my children. I came to depend more and more on my Savior and to love His plan for my life. I learned to trust Him and to love Him.
But lately, the demons have been visiting again. They are coming more and more frequently and I am finding it nearly impossible to vanquish them. Today they are here in full force.
Today, on Easter Sunday of all days, I woke up feeling completely bereft of any hope. I am so tired of trying. I am so tired of failing in my role of mother. I am so tired of being so inept at loving these precious beings God has sent to me.
And the demons are winning.
I know the Savior rose again. I know He is THE source of truth, light, and healing. I know only He can give me peace. I know He wants me to return to Father.
But today I don’t know that I can. I don’t know that I have any hope. I don’t know that I will ever be able to figure out how to mother my teenager in love and peace and truth.
Today I am broken. Today I am convinced that I will never deserve my husband, that I am ruining my children, that I am failing at motherhood, that I will never, ever learn how to speak the universal language of Christ’s love and that my family will be better off without me. These are the messages the demons have been sending for years. But today I am listening. Today I don’t have the strength to fight them off.
I need Jesus.
He is the only one who can fix this and win this battle for my soul.
genealogy – i am doing it
It has been one year since our trip to Utah in the invalid mobile. Kat and Jessica made that trip one hilarious adventure after another. Doctor’s visits, MRIs, little teeny-tiny needles that are used on babies and yet still freaked me out, hospital gowns, a full-rainstorm of tears over delicious Thai food, puddles of urine all over my mattress and my valiant friends trying to change my clothes, mooning Roy, UT (completely on accident, of course), sheer terror on my part being overcome by the love, support, and courage of my friends, and a million miracles all orchestrated by God.
One year today.
It has been an amazing year. I am deeply grateful for the experiences I have had since that day. I am grateful for the lessons I have learned. I am grateful for the guidance of the Spirit and the care of my Savior. I am grateful to God for the blessings he has poured out upon me. I am grateful to my husband for his unwavering support, never-ending patience, and tender care of my aching body. I am grateful for an army of friends who have prayed, cooked, cleaned, hugged, smiled, cheered, laughed, cried, and carried me through this year. I wish every suffering person could have a battalion of my friends.
One year ago today Jessica’s father gave me a powerful priesthood blessing. I was sure he would deliver words of healing to my soul. Promises of a full recovery for my hip injury. Relief from the immense pain I was in. But he didn’t. God had a different message for me.
I was commanded to find my family and help them by doing their temple work. At the time I didn’t even know I had family that needed their work done and did not even identify my father’s family as my family. They were complete strangers to me and I had no interest in them and could not comprehend they had an interest in me. In that blessing I was told they are watching, waiting, and praying for me. I was told they love me. I had a very hard time believing those words at the time, but now I know they are true. I know that many of these ancestors have guided me to find themselves and their loved ones. I know many of them have had hard lives of pain and struggle and that these ordinances are providing a way for them to learn and grow in their relationship with their Savior. I know that as I continue to pray for them that their hearts will be changed and they will find healing and peace through the ordinances of the temple.
So how has this all worked out? Well, it took me over two weeks to decide to be obedient. At the time I didn’t want to do it. It was very difficult for me to accept that God had called me to something so big because that meant I had to accept on a deeper level than I ever had before that He loved me and could ask me to do a very specific thing for Him. I had to take His love into my heart and allow it to change my heart. I didn’t want to change. I felt just fine as I was. I also didn’t know the first thing about doing genealogy and I didn’t want to learn. I wanted my hip to be healed and to be free to do what I wanted to do. I wanted to run and jump and play and stop hurting. Perhaps the biggest thing feeding my reluctance is I had a sense of just how huge this undertaking would be. I could feel the weight of it settling down on me and I could not comprehend how I could do something so big. I knew I didn’t have the time, the skills, or the love to do it.
So, I hemmed and hawed. I cried a lot. But on April 15, after many days of delay, I started. That first day was frustrating. I couldn’t figure out how to do anything. I read outdated instructions on the internet about floppy disks and pedigree charts and about screamed in frustration that genealogy was living in the dark ages. I called my mom and ranted. She told me to call my Aunt Louise and find out how to start. Well, Louise was super helpful and explained everything and off to the races I went. Many hours later I had 30 people entered into my tree and was on fire with how exciting it all was. The first person I found was Sallie, my father’s grandma. I fell in love with Sallie. I even found her last living daughter through one of those people-search sites and called her up. Of course she had no idea who I was, but it was wonderful to ask her questions about Sallie and her family and get a little sense of who these people are.
The next morning my eyes popped open at 6:00 (which is a huge anomoly – I am NOT a morning person) and I opened my iPad and got right to work again. I did a google search for the next person on my list and was given a link to RootsWeb. I clicked on it and found all sorts of information about my ancestor. I clicked around some more and kept seeing this woman’s name, Rosalie, with her contact information, so I wrote to her. It turns out she is a genealogist and had been researching her family for the past thirty plus years. She is related to me on both sides of my father’s line and so all her research is the same research I needed to do, but it was already done! We have been talking and sharing information ever since and have made some amazing discoveries together.
Since then I have kept working on my family tree and my life has changed a lot. I shifted gears and it has taken some time to figure out how to balance wifehood, motherhood, friendhood, laundryhood, and all the other hoods of my life (who am I kidding, I haven’t even begun to find balance yet, it is still pretty much all-consuming!). I have added thousands of people, witnessed many miracles, received guidance from both the Holy Ghost and these ancestors, and invited many people to do ordinance work at the temple for my family.
If you are not LDS, you are probably wondering what ordinance work is…well, let me explain. When an adult is ready to make covenants with Heavenly Father, they go to the temple and receive their endowment, which is a gift from our Father to allow us to enter into covenant with Him and receive spiritual help for our journey back to Him. You can read more about it here. After we have made these covenants for ourselves, we can then stand in place of our deceased ancestors and make the same covenants for them. We believe these ancestors are then able to accept the covenants and receive the blessings of being in a covenant relationship with God and the spiritual help it bestows or choose to not accept the covenants. They are not at all bound by what we do here. It is a gift we can give them and they are completely free to partake of the gift or not. When we go to the temple for our ancestors, there are six different ordinances to do. Baptism, confirmation of the Holy Ghost, initiatory, endowment, sealing to parents, and sealing to spouse. Once our youth are twelve years old, they can participate in baptisms and confirmations and my girls and their friends go to the temple about once a week to do so. Only adults can do the last four ordinances and so I have enlisted many friends, family, and ward members to help me. In the past year we have done thousands and thousands of ordinances. It has been an amazing experience, far more precious than I can describe in a blog post.
Now it has been one year since God invited me on this path with Him and I am pleased with my work. I have done what He asked me to do. To me, that is huge. I am often not that great at being the most dependable person, my house is not organized or well-run, I lose papers all the time, I lock myself out of my car, and I am often late to appointments. But I have done this. I have stuck with it. I have put thousands of hours into this endeavor. I have not given up. Most of all, I have changed. My heart has been softened and been filled with love for these people I have never met in this life.
Today twenty to thirty of my friends will be joining me in the temple to do the sealing ordinances for hundreds of my family members. We will be giving them the opportunity to be joined together for eternity as husband and wife and parent and child. It is the crowning jewel of all the ordinances because it allows a family to be together forever.
I am so excited. I almost can’t breathe with all the anticipation that has been building inside me.
If any of you local friends would like to join us, please do! Email me and we will get it all figured out.
passover 2013
Monday night we joined with millions of other people of the House of Israel and celebrated Passover. We spent all day Monday (and much of last week) getting ready and now that we have had our Seder two times in the past few weeks, I think we are getting to be quite the professionals. It was MUCH faster this time than it was last time. Keziah, Blythe, and I make a good team getting all those goblets, salt dishes, ceremonial plates, silverware, and candles out. I was even able to squeeze a bath in before our guests arrived!
This year we had the Brownings, the Thomases, and a brand new family in our area, the Hansons, join us for our Seder. We didn’t have all our guests finalized until about 36 hours prior to the event, but it all worked out beautifully and we were thrilled to pieces to be able to share our favorite Holiday/Holy Day with these families.
Annesley found the Afikomen for the first time and has been carrying around her prize all week long. It is a small plaque that says:
The redeemed of the Lord shall return and everlasting joy and holiness shall be upon their heads.
I love that message! Passover is all about redemption. Redemption from our sin, pain, bondage, sorrow, mortal defects, hard hearts, and anguished souls. Passover teaches us that Christ is the only answer for these circumstances and that through Him we can be healed and filled with joy, complete and everlasting joy.
This year, many of my Sheva & Shalom students and past Passover guests are holding their own Seders with their families. It makes me so, so happy that others are enjoying it and making it their own special tradition as well. I have been fielding phone calls and emails all week long helping people figure out Passover. A few people have suggested I write a how-to-guide. I don’t think that will be happening anytime soon (or ever!), but it is kind of fun to think about.
At the end of the night Annette and her girls stayed and washed dishes and helped us get the whole kitchen back in order. What a treat! It usually takes us hours and hours (days and days?) to recover from Passover, so it was really wonderful to have it all taken care of so quickly with the six of us working together.
Now we just need to put the last few dishes on their shelf in the storage room, put all the linens away, and move the furniture back into the family room and we will be back to normal!
sacred sabbaths: blessed day
Oh! What a joyous day this has been. My Josh (he is not really mine, but I love him to pieces and I feel he is a little bit mine because of how much I love him) is leaving on a mission for our church to Calgary, Canada. Today he spoke in Sacrament meeting and it was simply wonderful to hear him share his thoughts on the Savior, serving Him, and spreading the good news of His gospel. He has grown up so much since I met him almost six years ago. He is the big brother of Madison, Blythe’s dear friend, who goes on so many of our adventures with us and the son of Jana, my dear friend who inspires me to be a better mother and wife every time I am with her.
It seems I have arrived at the stage of life I never envisioned. The stage where my children’s friends and my precious youth who I have taught for the past many years are leaving their families and moving on to college, missions, and marriage. It all started when Tanner (Josh’s older brother) left to go serve the Lord in Russia last year and then Kate got married and now a whole slew of people are leaving the nest. Josh, Dustin, Morgan, and HeatherJane are all leaving for missions in the next few weeks. Vanessa and Aliysa are embarking on college.
And me? I am so excited for them. Thrilled to pieces for these youth that I love. But also, a little melancholy. I am sad for me and the holes that their leaving gives me. Sad for the missed hugs, book discussions, temple trips, and ice cream nights. Our family has so enjoyed these youth and have loved being part of their lives.
And now they are flying away. Everything their parents and mentors and friends have hoped for is coming true. They are mature, responsible, virtuous, committed youth determined to make a difference in the world. It’s a beautiful thing and my heart is full with joy at the thought of them moving on.
But I will miss them fiercely.
And their leaving shows me how very short the time is that I have left with my own children. We will be doing this same mission dance with Blythe in two short years.
After we got home from Josh’s farewell, I rushed in the house, gathered up the materials for my Relief Society lesson and hurried over to my meeting to teach. I hadn’t been able to prepare much this week and although I had a lot of thoughts I hadn’t written even one word down and had no idea what I was actually going to say. Thankfully the Lord gave me ideas on the spot and prompted me to ask certain questions, share certain stories, and testify of certain things. It turned out beautifully. I love my calling! I love sharing and loving and guiding and learning with the sisters in my ward. We are all still getting to know each other and it is a little strange giving so much of my heart to women I hardly know, but we are coming together as a ward and hearts are slowly being woven together.
Now it is evening. Tomorrow night is Passover and our big annual Seder. We are all working together to get everything ready for our guests. Oh, how I love Passover!
As soon as Passover is over, my family will be here to visit for almost a week! I can’t wait to snuggle Miss Oaklyn Noel and play catch with Easton and laugh myself silly with Mom and Mikelle.
I love the Sabbath. I love the ritual of having a pause every seven days to ponder my relationship with my Savior, my husband, my children, and my self. I love partaking of the sacrament. I love listening to the hymns. I love having my husband home.
the ups and downs of life
- Olivia, Keziah’s hamster died this week. Last night was her funeral. Keziah was too upset to participate. Sometimes that is how it is with death – we think avoidance will alleviate pain. It usually doesn’t work that way.
- I made sourdough bread for the first time in many months and it is delicious. My sweetie stayed up with me until 11:00 so he could have a warm slice right out of the oven. I have been feeding and reviving my start for months and months and months and all that work and wasted flour was worth it to see the smile on his face as he scarfed it down. Unfortunately Sadie ate one of the loaves this morning!
- Our Subaru, which we have named Pippin, has been driving quite erratically. He chugs and gasps for breath and has a cylinder 4 misfire. He and I had a talk last week and he has driven perfectly well since last Monday. I am hoping that now that he has a name and a duty he will behave better.
- I orchestrated a huge book order for lots of local educators from Bluestocking Press. They shipped it out super fast – two days from order to arriving at my house. So exciting! But like many things in life all was not sunshine and roses – the UPS man left the box at my gate and as the snow melted it soaked the box (I am giving him the benefit of the doubt that the sidewalk wasn’t wet when he set it down, but who knows for sure?) and the books inside. The replacement books arrive today and I am hopeful he won’t make the puddle mistake again.
- My dryer takes 2+ hours to dry a batch of laundry. But my washer and dryer are 16 years old so I am thinking I am doing pretty well since I have heard of lots of appliances dying every six years or so.
- Homeschool Prom was Friday night. Blythe and her friends had an amazing time. Unfortunately I have not a single picture to prove it.
- I have finally figured out that my pudendal nerve is damaged. Through a series of google searches I ended up on an organization’s page that was discussing labral tears and pudendal nerve damage. After devouring the page, I figured out that yes, my pudendal nerve is damaged and causing some of my hip pain. Not a huge surprise, but interesting nonetheless. Good thing Fisher is worth all the damage his birth did to me or I might have some anger about it. Instead I am amazed God blessed me with him and then worked a huge miracle to fix my insides enough to get Annesley here as well.
- Freckles is a wonderful book.
- Barefoot Books Podcasts can cheer my Fisher up in less than ten seconds flat. His love of stories warms my heart.
- I think I have a cavity. I don’t know what to do. I am pretty sure I can’t have any form of local anesthetic since I am allergic to Procaine and have had a reaction to lidocaine as well. Since my tooth is already hurting pretty badly I can’t imagine how I can get through a treatment on it without numbing.
How is your Monday going? More ups or more downs?
yes, they are that wide
I have hobbit feet. Not hairy hobbit feet. Not super long hobbit feet.
Super wwwiiiiiiiiddddde hobbit feet. As in Triple E wide. You know, on those metal foot meausurer thingys, I am a Triple E.
See the width measurer on the left side? It goes A, B, C, D, E. Then the second E line. Well, I am a Triple E. The line that isn’t there.
My hobbit feet make shoe shopping and shoe wearing fairly difficult.
I have only found three brands of shoes I can fit my hobbit feet into – Chacos sandals, most styles of Keens, and some styles of Danskos (not the clogs, my high arches can’t get inside of a clog unless I size up a gazillion sizes and what is the point of wearing shoes several sizes to big, it’s not like I can walk in shoes that are flopping all over the place).
But I have been dying for some little casual Converse-y type sneakers. I have tried on gobs of different pairs and either can’t get my feet into them or as soon as I do my feet have a full-blown panic attack from being squeezed to death.
But Saturday was Kat’s birthday and she wanted to go out to eat and then go errand running (she is somewhat anti-consumerism, so she can’t really call it shopping, but shopping is really what it was) for whatever we needed.
Well, what I needed was a pair of cute, comfortable shoes.
And hip-hip-hoorah, we found some! They aren’t Converses, nor are they Keds, though I tried plenty of both of them on. They are Dr. Scholl’s in the Jennie style in the wide width, which sounds a bit like orthopaedic footwear for the elderly, but they are actually cute! Kat, Jen, and Amy all said so, so it must be true. They insisted I didn’t look like a geriatric patient and after walking around the store and being sure my feet weren’t going to be strangled to death, then checking online on Jen’s fancy phone for a better price (the in store price was better by $15!), I bought them on the spot.
I am in love. I want several more pairs as well. Like these polka dot ones.
The problem I am now facing is I can’t find any wides at any of the online shops. ARGH!
For those of you who don’t know, women’s shoes are sized to be a size B-width. Wides are sized to be a size D-width. These shoes are extra wide because many of the online reviews said the regular width is too wide for people, so I think that is why I am able to wear the wide width, they are sized wide to begin with.
If anyone sees the Jennie or the Jamie in a wide width, call me stat. I need a size 7 and would love some of the super colorful ones. Wanna join the find-Tracy-some-wide-shoes team?
I'm Tracy, a mama with big dreams, crazy ideas, loads of laughter, an insatiable desire to learn, and enormous piles of laundry.
