A Smile Is Contagious

Mondays seem to be a tossup for me of disdain and joy.  In so many aspects I hate Mondays.  And rightfully so.  The kitchen is always a mess of soiled dishes and odds and ends scattered throughout the house.  The thought of getting through all of those dishes seems impossible and daunting, but on the other hand I love Mondays.  After the chaos of getting six kids up and running and a husband off to work, my hands sink into warm dishwater with soft church music playing in the background and I get to reflect on the week before.  In so many ways this starts my week with peace despite the endless mess and dirty floors before me.

            I was thinking thus this morning as I was struggling to scrub off the dried and glued on leftover Taco Soup from the pan that I was washing when I couldn’t help but think to last Saturday.  The day started rather sweetly.  Jason and I laid in bed longer than usual just enjoying being together.  The kids were quiet and off doing their own thing downstairs giving us a very rare Saturday morning of sleeping in.  When I got up I decided to make a big breakfast or rather brunch since it had gotten so late.  My oldest two girls were actually cheerful as they helped clean the kitchen and start cooking.  Everything was going beautifully and I couldn’t help but think it…should have knocked on wood then.

            I sent my younger two downstairs to find some canned fruit to go on top of the waffles.  Before long they started up on fighting which seems to be becoming the norm around here and something we were working on.  In the process of their bickering Stephanie took a swing at her brother who in return jumped out of the way knocking a jar of pears onto the cement floor of the fruit room and spilling the contents all over the floor.

            Jenny and Nan then were called into clean up duty so that the little ones wouldn’t get cut by the sharp glass and so that I could continue on with the breakfast.  Jason promptly set Sam and Steph into respective corners for fighting which I must reiterate has been the norm as of late with them and then joined me to help finish breakfast.  He started making Orange Smoothies forgetting to add ice and neglecting the hash browns on the stove browning them just a little too much, I nearly forgot to turn off the sausage getting them also a little too brown.  We laughed at brunch that Sam and Steph’s fight had jinxed the day.

            If we had only known then…Then we decided to head up north with our Pass of all Passes card in hand to enjoy Laser Tag and Mini Golf and Rock climbing only to realize that I couldn’t find Luke’s pass anywhere.  Searched through the whole house and car with no luck and everyone’s patience frazzled.  Looking on line I found the place to buy a new one for only 9.95, ten dollars less then I originally paid for it, but when it printed off it said that it would be six to eight weeks until it came in the mail.  With receipt in hand we decided to hope for the best that they would still stamp off Luke’s hand and let him in.

            On the way up to Lehi I decided to use the app on my phone and check our bank account to make sure like I do every two weeks that our automatic deposit from work had gone through.  It had as it always does but long and behold what did I find in my looking but that someone had rented a Redbox Movie in California for $2.19 on one of our cards.  We live in Utah not California.  Not a big deal?  No.  But it could have been if I had not so quickly noticed and they had continued on using our debit card.  After calling the bank we found out that one other charge had been made in California for the small price of $3.00.  Great.  Now we were in the process of cancelling Jason’s debit card, the only one we had with us up north for a day of fun with the kids.  Could the morning get any worse?  Luckily for us only a few miles away there was a Wells Fargo that was still open for another ten minutes and they were able to issue Jason a temporary card to use until his new one shows up in the mail.

            At that point our tempers were a little hot and the morning seemed to be one failure after another but then… my children started talking about the broken jar of pears that had started it all and laughing about how ridiculous the morning had become one thing after another.  It wasn’t long until we were all laughing and teasing about everything that had happened.  The rest of the day was wonderful and Luke’s hand did get stamped and we had the best time and in it all I am so happy that whomever had stolen Jason’s card information had only made small purchases and that I had taken the time to look at our bank account that morning before we finished our day and before the thieves had the nerve to start making big purchases out of our account.

            What was starting out to be a big disaster resulted in blessings and stressful moments that very shortly after we were able to laugh at.  Isn’t that how so much of life can be?  One stressful thing after another.  Sometimes I am not always so quick to stand back and smile instead of crying.  I don’t know any other way to get through life and all that seems to come with it bad included with the good then to smile when all you want to do is cry.  Smiling is contagious after all.  One child started laughing about that miserable morning we were having and before long we were all laughing about it and really we should have been.  After all those pears taught Sam and Steph to feel a little repentant about all the fighting that they had been doing and showed Jenny and Nan that even though it was a mess to clean up that together it wasn’t so bad.  Yes Jason may have forgotten the ice in the orange juice and nearly burnt the hash browns and I the sausage but we didn’t and brunch was really yummy and we had plenty to eat.  The debit card was stolen but only a little over five dollars was taken and the card was replaced and it could have been hundreds or even more and the bank would have been closed if I had waited to look another ten minutes more.  Now I know that nothing really huge or really horrible had happened that day but in the past it has and yes sometimes we need to cry a little before we can laugh, but in the end we need to laugh or smile at least.  Life is meant to be enjoyed even when it seems too hard and when our hearts feel too broken we can smile and we can find joy and once we do, when those times feel the hardest, we can appreciate the joy all the more.

            Well on to another week and yes we will have to wait and see what it brings.  Hopefully I can keep smiling and laugh when I want to cry, because really everything seems rosier when we smile.

"How Great Thou Art"

I just got done making over a hundred cookies for Jenny’s birthday party tonight…her belated sweet sixteen, and sat down at the piano to plunk out my favorite song from the “Hymns Made Easy” songbook…How Great Thou Art.  Now I’m no musician and I am definitely not a singer but when I am home all alone and no one is there to hear me I have been known to belt it out and in my own head it sounds pretty good to me.  Over and over stumbling across the keys but singing with every strength of my soul.  During that time I feel as though I am souring above with my feet only coming down to touch the clouds, the victor in a hard fought war presenting the spoils to my King.

                Perhaps that is why they say that a song can be a prayer unto our Father.  In those quiet moments when no one else is around I can express my “prayer” with all the energy that is within me without the fear or anxiety of being laughed at.

                President Ludlow sang “Lord, My Redeemer” in our ward on Sunday and it was so sweet and so beautiful that I of course being a woman sobbed right through it.  My brother Cullen was in Sacrament with us and leaned over and said, “Do you know what I think of when I hear that song?  You singing it over and over in the house when we were kids.  That was your favorite song.”

                He was right and I had kind of forgotten it over the years.  Of course I went right home and bought it off of iTunes and added it to my playlist.  Pour Cullen having to listen to his big sister belting through the house over and over with her less than beautiful voice that beautiful song.  But I guess even then my heart knew that its prayer would be heard and in God’s ears it was wonderful.

                Well onto a shower and the rest of my day but my heart is still soaring and today my spirit can accomplish everything until the day that I truly do go home and I pray that I can lay it all at His feet and He will tell me well done.  “How Great Thou Art.”

 

"My Day Off"

So my day off as I like to call my kids’ holidays from school did not start as wonderfully as planned.  I had pictured us having a nice breakfast, doing a quick clean and then watching a movie altogether.  Breakfast went fairly good but cleanup was screaming and yelling and all out fighting on behalf of my grumpy kids and then the movie that I wanted to watch with the kids, “The Librarian,” (a cheesy but cute kinda like National Treasure made for T.V. movie) wasn’t on Netflix’s even though the internet said that it was.  

                That having been said…zoom several hours forward and my day went pretty good.  Jason found the movie for us, later Jenny got to go to a fun birthday party, Nan went up north with a friend, Steph’s adorable friend Maddy and Sam’s cute friend Blake all came to play.  Before long I could hear the laughter giggling down the hall as Steph and Maddy and Sam and Blake all played a crazy game under the instruction of Suzy.  I remember those times when my sister Kari would direct us in one wild someone’s gonna get us game after another.

                Maybe not the way I pictured the day turning out but wonderful still the same.  I found time to write in my book while the kids screamed and giggled outside my bedroom door and I must say my writings today were brilliant, at least I’m going to say that they were, and now I’m off to make a lazy dinner.  Sometimes life is so mundane and so simple that I have to just bask in its glory.  I couldn’t be happier and my life couldn’t be more wonderful.  I know who I am, God’s daughter and Christ’s sister, I have a hardworking, amazing husband and the blessing of being able to be home with my awesome kids, even though sometimes I think they might kill each other.  Maybe I will never win mother of the year or have a novel on the New York Times Bestseller list but I have a pretty terrific life and I’m happy to keep it.

Agency

I dreamt all last night that every time I stretched my knee in my sleep that it shot shooting pains up my leg.  Funny thing was that when I woke up this morning it wasn’t so much a dream as it was reality.  Same knee that I have always struggled with, same knee that years ago I had surgery on.  Today Stephanie gets the joy of once more going back to the dentist for the thousandth time in the last 2 ½ months.  Her retainer fell out once again and she gets the joy of getting it cemented back in.  Between a retainer that just will not stay in and will not do what it is supposed to do and the abscessed tooth that she had to deal with that would not heal despite whatever they did to help it heal and finally having an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin that she was on that little girl has gone through more than an adult would want to endure with the dentist.

                This morning in our family scripture study we talked about the war in heaven and how many of our brothers and sisters fell.  We have finished the Book of Mormon once again and we are trying something new.  We are trying to follow along with the new curriculum that the youth have in young women’s and young men’s and Sunday school.  It’s already proving a challenge because I don’t want to follow what is on site with the Church because I don’t want to repeat what is already being given them.  As we discussed the third this morning that went astray it was brought up that the whole war in heaven came because of Satan’s greed for all the glory and for one other thing…our agency.  I think that’s what we will focus on this week is our agency.

                Sometimes I wonder why we have to have pain in this life, my knee, Stephanie’s mouth, but I am always grateful that my pains seem to be so much less than so many I know.  Why does life have to be this way?  In the scriptures it talks about how everything has its opposites so we can realize the good.  Pain is there so we can understand how good it feels when we are healthy, but I also believe pain is there to test our agency.  Oh, yes, we all have agency and it may even be exactly what we call it when we say “free,” but our consequences to that agency is not in our control once the action is done.  Now Stephanie could complain, if anyone had the right to she does, but she doesn’t because she exercises her agency to be joyful even when she has every right not to be.  What are her consequences in return?  This nightmare of an experience for her although hard and seemingly unbearable at times has been bearable, and her heart has been light and she has been happy when maybe she could have been sad.  And what are men?... “Men are that they might have joy.”

                I often look at my children and see the strength in them.  Some of that strength they are learning as hopefully all of us are in this earth life, but some of it so clearly came with them from the world before, from the people that they were already struggling and learning to be before they came to this earth…Stephanie’s patience in difficulties and sweetness no matter what, Sam’s deep thinking and determination to do what’s right, Suzy’s brilliance and tender but very strong nature, Nan’s joy and compassion, Jenny’s strength and ability to take care of herself in every situation, and Luke’s hard work ethic and desire to serve others no matter the cost.  All of these things my children brought with them and I have the opportunity to learn from their strengths and hopefully direct them when the use their agency.  Oh sure they will fall at times, I do more often than I would like, but because our Heavenly Father loves us there is always a way back.  And pain, whether physical or emotional may be part of the consequences of living this life can become one of our greatest blessings if we exercise our agency so that the consequences bring us growth and ultimately help us to find our way back home.  After all, “Men are that they might have joy,” and what greater joy could there be then going home, home to our Heavenly Father, to our Savior, and to our loved ones who wait for us there?

Millions of Birthday Wishes

I just got done “Chalking” one of our brand new Beehives front drives wishing her a Happy Birthday from the Young Women’s.  One of her advisors will be bringing over something magnificent too because that’s what my advisors do, be magnificent.  My birthday was yesterday.  I woke up to an Email from my Dad wishing me a happy Birthday at 2:11 a.m. our time all the way from the Philippines followed by one from his wife, my amazing step-mom, followed by a whole day of Happy Birthday wishes from all over the United States and even from my dear sweet friend in Hungary (my Hungarian Twin her birthday was yesterday too).  My phone even on vibrate was going off every two seconds in church in response to texts and Facebook.  How amazing is technology?

                Jason and I are going to dinner tonight and sometime this week I will go to dinner with my Mom and we will celebrate both our week of birthdays.  When reflecting on getting one year older… I am 38 now… I was pretty excited and more than a little proud.  I told my kids “Hey, I’m only two years away from 40 that’s pretty great!”  Jenny looked at me like I was insane, and in her defense a lot of times I am but this was not one of those times, and asked how that could be a good thing.  “I’m two years away from half my life which means that I am almost halfway home.”

                I’ve tried not to be one of those women who freak out as we get older.  It’s not the getting older that I hate.  It’s the ageing body that I’m not so thrilled about.  Every year I get a little wiser and hopefully you do to.  Why would anyone want to stop that process?  Isn’t that the whole purpose of coming here, getting a little wiser?  Not to mention in everything that I do there is one accomplishment that my children will never catch me in while I am in this life and that is that I will always be able to say that I have lived longer than them!  Why do we look at that so harshly?

                No one can stop ageing, it’s an impossibility and nothing that we are at any fault for, but yet most of us, especially women, take on the shame as if we have done something wrong.   How about in return realize that I have done something great, even remarkable, by living this long and enduring so much hopefully trying to smile on the way.  How many people have I touched and lives have I blessed?  How many babies have I snuggled and tears have I wiped, how many books have I read and lessons have I learned?  How many more will I in the remainder of my life?  I don’t know but I plan on sticking around a bit more and finding out.

                Then, someday which will seem all too soon, I will go home, because as much as this life here may feel like home it really isn’t, and hopefully I will have taken advantage of every minute of it to learn, to love, to laugh, to cry, to have faith when hope seems impossible, to listen and to enjoy the journey home.

                Now if only my body didn’t have to sag and wrinkle and poop out on the way….  Oh how grateful am I for technology?  Thank you all for the Birthday Wishes!!!

Should be in the Shower...

So here I sit when I should be getting into the shower.  I love a long shower after a good workout, it’s the getting  out, drying off, freezing, getting dressed, brushing my hair, putting on makeup, blow drying my hair, flat ironing and then the rest of the day that always puts off the shower for me.  I would much rather sit at the computer, stinky from working out, and type away like a mad woman.

Yesterday was Ward Conference and it was awesome having the stake take over.  In Young Women’s my Laurel’s President or one of her councilors always takes charge of opening exercises.  And they do a fantastic job.  Well this Sunday my Laurel’s President Megan had to give a 5 minute talk in Young Women’s  (which she nailed fabulously I must add…she is amazing) so the stake asked me to conduct.  What?!  Didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but I got tongue tied the entire time.  I now have new respect for my Laurel girls.  Megan and any of them that fill in when she is gone make it look so easy as they breeze through it as articulate as a poet.

Our new Young Women’s Stake President spoke and one of the things that kept going through my mind in relation to the wonderfully uplifting things she was saying was a conversation that Jason and I had had sometime earlier.  Doesn’t matter what we were talking about necessarily, but basically he was commenting on something that he didn’t want to do that he knew that he should do and maybe even should want to do.  I didn’t mind the thing that he was talking about and rather enjoyed it in fact.  He said, “I know that makes me horrible but I don’t want to after all that I’ve had to do.”  The thought instantly came to my mind, and of course I shared it with him because, well….I’m a woman and that’s what we do, “I like doing that and so for me to do it is no big thing, but you don’t want to and you still do.  Perhaps that’s a bigger deal than someone who enjoys it.”

I think he is a greater person than me in every way.  There are so many times in our lives when there are things that I don’t want to do when Jason will jump up and do it all be it grumbling a little while he does it but he knows it needs to be done no matter how much he hates the task.  He would be in the shower right now even if he had to do all that a woman does when they get out because it needs to be done like it or not so why put it off.

My mom always taught us about obedience as a kid.  She said that sometimes we do things that Heavenly Father asks out of obedience not necessarily because we want to, but that is okay, even great because He knows that although it is something that we don’t like doing we love Him enough to follow His commands.
 

Nan loves to cook and she is my master chef always popping in to help me with dinner.  I am always so grateful to her because she makes my life so much easier (and she is sweet as can be besides that), but Jenny doesn’t like it so much and even complains when I ask her to help.  The times when she just jumps up and lends a hand with dinner without being asked mean so much more to me because I know how much she hates it, but she loves me and that is why she is doing it.

That having been said, I guess it’s time to climb into that shower to enjoy the warmth even if what follows must come.  Kinda like scriptures, gotta open the book even if the time it takes doesn’t seem to be there, or prepare that lesson even though I don’t know where to begin, or say my prayers even if I have bad knees and I don’t want to kneel.  It may seem like a lot of work at first but He knows your effort and it will well be worth the warmth that follows!

Baby It's Cold Outside

                `Brr….It’s cold outside.  You know it’s sad when you are excited that the temp on your car registered 1degree this morning instead of the negative numbers that we have been getting.  Yesterday was an amazing start to my week.  Opening prayer Sherry Gould thanked Heavenly Father for the beautiful weather that we have had.  At first I was surprised but then she went on to say that even in the cold we have had beautiful sunshine.  She got me thinking about it right then and there.  She was right.  With all of the white snow we have and with it being so cold that everything has iced up, the beautiful sunshine has turned everything into something sparkly and picturesque.

                Then I went to Young Women’s.  Every chair was filled but one.  Now I know other classes have been noticing chairs missing from their rooms, but we have set ours up and it doesn’t appear that any chairs are missing.  We just have that many awesome girls coming.  In our lesson we broke up into groups to discuss a piece of a talk that we were assigned.  I looked around the room and saw the girls talking and discussing and giggling too and it was amazing.  Then when we regrouped and discussed it, they taught me something along with teaching each other.  Young Women’s is such a gift.  I’m so grateful that it’s my gift right now. 

                Then we had a big dinner with the family that night, Luke included, even though now he is renting with some friends across town.  He had cut his leg on Saturday after the chain came off the chainsaw that he was using.  It could have been life threatening or at least leg threatening, but it was really very minor to what could have been.  Blessings galore there.   After dinner we talked to my Dad and Step Mom on Skype.  How awesome is that?  It was 7:20 p.m. here on Sunday and 11:20 a.m. there on Monday and it was almost as if we were in the same room together.

                Valarie, my Step Mom, has been teaching the Relief Society ladies there in the Philippines how to make scones.  None of them have ovens, they cook over fires or hot plates, and therefore can’t make bread.  They were so excited to learn to make bread in a fry pan that word got out and a branch that’s outside of their Mission asked Valarie to come and teach their women.  I never looked at my oven as a luxury before.  I always thought that it was a need.  I am blessed because I have an oven and believe it or not so many people in the world do not.

                Today a good friend called, my best friend Bev who lives in Beaver.  She invited me to go with her to three days’ worth of awesome workshops at the end of February, and I couldn’t help but think after talking to my Dad and Valarie yesterday what a luxury that was too.  Two nights, with someone I can spend hours talking to while learning how to make gourmet cupcakes and applique flowers and I can think of nothing funner, well maybe spending three days with my amazing hubby.  Then that led me thinking about that amazing hubby that I have.  Jason is the most compassionate husband that ever walked the face of the earth, and he’s brilliant to boot (like genius I’m telling you)!  And I get to have him forever!  God must really love me!

                Which of course led me to be grateful for the knowledge I have of who I am, God’s daughter and Christ’s sister, and therefore I matter and my possibilities are endless and how do I know this?  I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that’s how.  All because my parents weren’t satisfied with the questions they had had and the holes in their religion that they couldn’t fill, and all because two young boys were willing to serve a mission.

                Now, I know it’s cold outside, and I really hate winter, but how can I complain when I have so much and my life is so amazing?