Nature Walk

I hadn't much thought about it till we took my SIL and family up to The Land, but while she was there she mentioned how surprised she was at all the trees on the property. The acreage is split almost in half; sage and grass with a sprinkling of juniper being the lower half, and the part that is most often in pictures, and the upper half that has the Nature Walk. The shabin and firepit/pad areas being in the middle and taking advantage of the views.

Most of the photos on this blog don't show the upper half.

Come on a little walk with me...

We have the start of our walk.

Cactus Corner.

Rocky Heights.

Most tree-age consists of Pinon, Juniper and...



Scrub oak.


So pretty.

...and we are back, or... at least this is all the shots I am gonna load tonite. Blogger is feeling sluggish and I am sleepy.

So, am I boring you with all the yap yapping about The Land? Because I am aware that I am starting to really get my geek on about it. Dadguy got us some plant and wildflower books and a bird book too. Truly I am a goof about trying to identify all the bits of flora that are about. Nerdy in the extreme, and I just cannot seem to help it.

Nerdy, and passing it on down the line. There are several deer trails on the property, and I know this is so cuz there is plenty of deer poo too. Birdie gleefully informed her sisters that the proper term for wildlife poo is "scat," and now every time Mei has to go number two she hollers, "Mama! I have to go scat!"

Sunday pic: Hello

Meet the escape artist. Stinker, I tell ya. This is her bicycle which she refers to as her "pony." She calls her horse "Make Up." You heard me, "Make Up," as in the mascara that she is constantly pinching from me, and smearing all over her face. Make Up.


Here is the stinker in front of our house. Yard like that you might think the folks who live here have it under control, that they have a clue what's going on. They don't and they don't.


Shots of the girls at their respective "end-of-the-year-got-yer-moneys-worth" school programs. I have an almost identical shot of Birdie doing the same thing, standing in almost the same place, singing the same song from four years ago and with Mei's hair pulled up, it almost looks like they are sporting a similar haircut! Sorta not, except the point remains. Time! Flies!


Lilac had a line about springtime for her part in the Kindygardin show... hence the rain gear. That kid is more than ready for the BigTime that is first grade. Having noticed that Lilac likes spicy foods, Dadguy suggested that she and I go on restaurant dates to eat stuff like Mexican food. Lilac instantly perked up and asked, "Thoo-shi? Could we go and eat THOO-shi?!"



And of course my Birdie... who is sitting right next to a Particular Young Man who I will refer to as PYM. Apparently he is the smartest boy in her class, and holy crap if she doesn't have a huge crush on him. I don't want to make too much of the whole kerfuffle, she has had a series of different crushes this year... but we saw PYM and his family at the local ShamsClub on Friday, and when he saw her and waved, stood up, waved again and then sat back down quickly... my girl blushed. You have heard the phraze "blushed from head to toe?" Dude. I didn't actually think that elbows could blush. I am so no not ready for this.

This and That

So Pearl wants a new nom de blog, she has decided that she wants to be called Mei. Don't know if she actually wants to have it spelled like that, but since she keeps insisting that she wants to be named "May" like the girl in "My Neighbor Totoro," she gets "Mei."

Have you ever seen a Miyazaki film? You really ought to. They are dreamy and beautiful and the girls adore all the ones they have seen. We actually went and saw Ponyo in the theater. Just, wow. So when I finally remembered a month or so back that my brother and his wife had given us a substantial Amerzon-cot-dom gift card for last Christmas, I dropped a goodly chunk of Christmas change on three of our faves: "Totoro," "Spirited Away" and "Ponyo."

Summer has really set in around here, and once again I have all the best of intentions... so we spent a Family Home Evening having a family counsel and coming up with daily schedules and check lists. Basically just stuff that needs to be done before they run off and play or watch a show. Like, how I insist that they put on actual clothes and eat a breakfast. Seriously... you have to put that on a list for a four year old or it won't happen. Eight and six year old's too, apparently. There are other things like chores, piano practice, yard work, art and reading that are on the lists too.

I so understand my mother now. Awesome woman.

So I guess I need to consider purchasing stock in calcium tablets. I go through a bottle in no time at all, and I keep spacing off getting a new bottle. Of course... then I get sick at that special time I always get sick and I kick myself for having run out. I cuss too. The thing is, half of the frakking pills I have to take interfere with half the other pills, and some I can only take on an empty stomach and some I have to take with food. So I have to remember to take pills about four times a day, and that on top of everyone else's meds and guess who's meds are the most likely to get missed? So I am coughing and hacking and feeling run down, as well as bloating and cramping and generally feeling like someone is gonna die. Maybe me, maybe the next kid to whine at me? Who knows?

Winner, winner chicken dinner!

We replaced the window in our darling shabin out to the land. Or maybe it's The Land now. That seems to be it's title; The Land. On Memorial Day we went up and put new boards around the outside and then stained them.... missed the color pretty good, I got Natural Cedar, and I suspect the rest of it had been done in Redwood... but then I didn't even take a shot of it after staining. The heck?

Dadguy has taken the most pictures, his iPhone has a functioning camera (mine took a powder when we replaced the battery and it has not yet decided to fix itself) and I only just thought to take our actual household camera up. STILL didn't even take many pictures! Below you will get to see what I did get...

The supercool bit? Our brother-in-law is one of the head guys in charge of wilderness in the southern part of UT. He's gonna come have a look and do some research and let us know exactly what can be grown up there. We are seriously thinking about taking a chunk of next years tax refund to rent what is called a "Bullhog?" and turn most of our sagebrush and juniper trees into mulch. BIL tells stories of the agency he works for taking bullhogs and doing just that to the junipers in huge tracts of land, and then finding underground springs popping up out of nowhere. Apparently while junipers are really good at getting by with very little water, they will suck down whatever is available, leaving nothing else for anything else. Since he has told us this tale, Dadguy and I have begun to notice land around our spot that has been cleared. There are several places where the owners have cleared out all juniper and sage, leaving only pine. Right now it looks amazing because all the grass is green and it looks like pines out in a meadow, but I want see what it looks like near the end of July. Plus I tend to think that I'd like to leave most of the scrub oak; I like the idea of some color in the fall.

Still thinking and looking. And even though we are pretty well tapped financially, we are keeping our eyes peeled for water shares too. Some day. Some day!

Have y'seff a turrrr of the shabin:

front

standing in the door looking left

back


shelves we put in

the window!

the door! (betcha couldn't tell)

20 X10 pad... maybe home of new, prettier shabin?

firepit

Next up, I'll take y'all on the wee nature hike.

Live Streaming

So we got the land, and it is every bit as wonderful as we had hoped. We have gone out there and had cookouts, cleared some deadwood, caulked a few holes, went on mini hikes, dug up a few poorly placed cacti and aggressive thistles, removed splinters and cactus spines from three out of four kids, installed a solar light for the shed (which after trying out a few names like "the dog house," "cabin," "shed," "cabin-ette" and the like, I am thinking I want to call it the "shabin." Not a shed, not a cabin, it's a shabin.), practiced our outdoor peeing skills, purchased a porta-potti and dreamed. Mostly we just breathed in the air and reveled in our new ownership of a bit of awesome.

Have we camped there yet? Ummmm, heck NO! Until I get a workable and comfy cot at the very least, I ain't even trying. Dude. 40. Seriously.

Obviously I haven't done a whole bunch of blogging.

I got half the garden in, but then I had to leave off because of going to the Temple with Dadguy(date! whee!), scout training, spending time at the land and the fact that it's too flipping WET to plant anything. Hope I get a chance tomorrow night or Tuesday. This year we are planning on putting in a drip system so perhaps we will actually see some veggies. I hope! I hoooooope!

The fact is that I simply cannot be counted on to water all summer long. I lose my impetus in the heat of late July, so drip lines on a timer are just my speed. I am thinking that if I could just get my whole family on a drip line, this mother gig would be cake!

Wasn't too wet to put in trees though... five hybrid poplars and a purple ash. Growgrowgrowgrowgrowgrowgrowgrowgrow!

Henry smacked me in the teeth with a rock. Chipped my front tooth. Dang.

Lilac had a pretty rough meet-up with the pavement directly after showing off some of her new biking skills. Fat lip, smashed nose, skinned knee.

Pearl thinks that the bicycle she got from Santa this past Christmas is her ticket to ride. She seems to either be grounded from her bike or is off on it somewhere she is not supposed to be, and we are looking for her.

Birdie... well Birdie is just growing up too dang fast.

Summer break is right at the door, and I think I'm gonna go answer it...

The Not-Post

I just cannot write.

Sorry, I can't. I have tried again and again but I can't even write about the incident that happened last week when I "lost" Lilac and Pearl for 45 minutes. My neighbor, who's basement they were happily playing in with her son the whole time called it a "Perfect Storm," but I think I'll just go with "Custer Cuss." It's a little closer to my true feelings on the matter. It was just a lining up of the stars and a couple of horrible coincidences that set up to really freak a mama out.

Let's just let it suffice to say that when I did track them down I started sobbing on her doorstep, and spent the rest of the day feeling almost paralyzed.

*******

I got a church calling a few months ago to serve as a den leader for the Bears. It's Boy Scouts of America crap, if you are wondering, and the way I feel about the LDS's relationship with the BSA... well, it's not pretty and it's complicated and while I love the boys and am perfectly happy serving in this capacity on one hand, I have a lot of anger and grief mixed in there as well.

I have to work to make peace with this calling just about on a daily basis. I feel muzzled, in that I don't feel free to write about how I feel and why. I am ashamed to feel the way that I do, but on the flip side I feel entirely justified. Another cluster cuss. I cannot think very hard about it without weeping. More shame.

There. I said it. Maybe that will be enough and now I can just blog.

*******

Life is interesting and mostly good. I saw a silver minivan with metallic charcoal grey tribal flames across the front and down the sides.

*******

We got a family picture taken... but halfway thru, Birdie had a meltdown cuz we kept trying to tease a real smile out of her instead of this.

So we let the kids go run it off for a minute. They ended up in the pond to varying degrees. Even Henry. So that was it for the formal shots... but there were a few really good pics after that.

Note that Pearl's leggings have been hiked up, only they are already soggy and brown. Too little too late. Stinker.

There is a swab of mud on his arm and a bit on his eyelid, but on the other side of his head there is a new ding and he is kinda soggy from falling in a puddle. Stinker.

This one is gonna have to be it by default. Works for me.
Chaos.

Also, we might have some land this time!

Sunday Pic: The Hawk

When I was younger and wilder I loved (in the way that only really poorly acted, scripted and directed movies can be loved. Cult! Classic!) the movie Suburbia. It had a number of super fun things in it, like Flea. There was also the exchange between two young teen girls who were drinking (if I remember correctly) around a bonfire in the back of the abandoned house they were squatting in. It went like this:

"Guess what?"
"What?"
"Chicken Butt!"
(Gales of wild laughter)

Cinema gold, I tell ya.

Things like this that really played up the fact that here was a bunch of kids who had been essentially abandoned by their loser-angry-controlling-indifferent-abusive parents. I also really loved the fact that they gave the protagonists little brother a great Mohawk.

Fast forward to last summer when there were a few short, but actual factual Mohawks on little boys in my ward at church. It slays me a lot to see squee little two and four year olds sporting the hawk. A lot. At church.

It slays me to have discussions with my daughters about the distinctions between an actual Mohawk and a Faux-hawk (a.k.a. Chicken-hawk). Kids these days! They insist on calling these goofy Rhodesian Ridgeback lines of hair down the front of their heads a Mohawk. My kids will set them straight. Next up for discussion: Stroids, Liberty Spikes and the Chelsea. Homeschoolers have got nothing on the higher learning in the Chaos household.

Lilac actually came up with a new one on me.... a So-hawk. The raised crest of hair done up in the bathtub with shampoo or soap.

Anyhoo, I like the fact that I can get Birdie to give Henry a darling little fauxhawk for church and not feel like I am being too edgy. Plus it gives her something to do while I am dragging a brush through her unruly masses. Cuts down on the whining. Well. Birdies' whining in any case.

I give you the Sunday Pic a day late...

Are these littleboy ties killing you? They are killing me! Picklefaceplace, y'all. Mostly I am dying over the fact that this gal who makes them has several new lines of ties. I want a little tie with stars on it. Stars upon thars!



So close and yet so far! Next time before I put all that time into the painting, I'll check and make sure I have the drawing portion right. Sheesh. Still posting the pic because I am delighted with the paint technique. I had never tried this style before, and I think that the face really works in terms of color and painterly-ness.



This is one of Pearls. Again, I love the technique, but not so in love with the canvas she chose. I do have to give her props for using a water based marker as opposed to a Sharpie, and if I can salvage this with Spray 'n Wash, she may survive her artistic impulses after all.

Sunday Pic: Gearing Up

Getting a little more serious about writing that children's book... trying to remember how to paint.


Trying out a few different styles.


Oh yeah... I remember now. Using good paper really helps!


Still working on raising those kids too. Good paper only counts when they are potty trained though.


Come on SPRIIIIING! Seriously, all this snow is killing me.

My Mother Was Right

...yet again.

When I was a kid, my mom kept things like permanent markers and scotch tape, not exactly under lock and key, but we had to ask permission to use them. And I sure thought she was mean. Really, what the heck kinda damage did she think we were gonna do with some clear tape? Not like it's the priciest stuff in the world either. It's not expensive now and it wasn't then. What gives Ma?

Enter my own motherhood. From the outset I was gonna be the cool mom. I bought the good tape dispenser and decided to leave it on the cabinet top next to the pencil sharpener I mounted where the kids could use it. Right next to the stapler, the paper and the crayons. My kids will have access to all these items and learn to use them responsibly. I am not insane... the glue, glitter and paints are hidden in my private stash or up high, but the tape? Puh-leeeze. It's tape.

I never counted on how badly my kids desire to rearrange my world to their own liking. How much they would need to personalise and shift. I never counted on exactly where and how they would make use of tape.

Scotch tape.

Yards long swaths connecting their beds to the dresser, criss-crossing to form spider webs. Clothing taped together to make new fashion. Hangers with the corners taped up solid till they looked like the web feet of ducks. Inch long bits that never made it anywhere (I guess) other than to form an irregular skin upon the tile flooring, the table top, down the legs of chairs.

I expect to awake any morning to find my eyelids taped shut, my arms taped to the bedsheets like some 3M solution to my Gulliver.

It's like web worms in a tree, and my house is the tree. Every extremity and light fixture seems to acquire a scum of scotch tape, every toy is ready for the tape party with teensy little crayoned triangle hats taped on their heads. Anything not tied down is fair game. A Pokemon card taped to the walls in the hallway. The plastic ring that you remove from a new gallon jug of milk, scrounged from the trash and taped just in the entryway to greet our guests. Darling, did you find a wee little key to an impossibly teensy padlock? Tape it to the doorframe. Of course.

All this done while the tape dispenser is not allowed to leave the kitchen where it belongs. There is much scurrying and scuttling about with every new project as they run back and forth to the kitchen for a fresh length to shore up a beavers damn of sleeping bags and Littlest Petshop figurines.

I no longer cut or file my nails, my near constant habit of picking off stray bits of scotchtape off of any surface that is not wet, keeps them manageable.

Yesterday Lilac took a hanky and taped it up to make herself a "Trick or Treat" bag and tried to get me to raid Dadguy's stash of treats that he uses to bribe the Elders in his Quorum. Today as she walked into the house from the van she grabbed an empty ice cream bucket with lid off of the junk pile, and with a plastic spoon she found in the van, created a "Bird Feeder" using copious amounts of.... tape. She taped the lid upside down onto the bottom of the bucket, she used the spoon as wobbly perch with a knob of scotch tape joining it to the rim of the bucket..

She next wanted to go to the store for some bird seed.

If scotch tape was more aggressive I guess I'd end it here and now, but since the main casualty to the encroaching scum of tape is my sanity, as some new and incomprehensible place gains a filmy layer for whoknowsWHAT purpose, I guess I will let the madness continue. It's just sanity. Not like I'm gonna have anything to my soul or reason left at the end of this child-rearing, tape or no tape. I know that in the end they will take me away in a scotch tape straight jacket. It will look like a chrysalis, and when the time comes I will leave my filmy cocoon as a Granny and I will gift all my grandchildren with their own private tape dispensers and many, many rolls of refill.

But there is no doubt in my mind, my Mother was right to limit our tape access.

6. Be Still

....and know that God is there and listening.

Be still and slow down and have a little faith that your Father in Heaven loves you, wants you to be happy. Wants you to know joy, same as He wants that for the rest of His children. Believe that He is there with blessings innumerable, just for you, if you would but knock.

Be still and listen for the Comforter, pay attention to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit who will lead you to those who have need... of something. Something that you can provide or be. Often when it comes to friendship, so much of what is of value are the things that you do for someone else. So often it is the service you provide another that feeds your heart and stoppers up that hole where the wind blows through your middle.

...And so ends this wee series on being a friend and a neighbor. Good Luck!

Half

I just want to record this for posterity, for my records... for THE flippin' record in general. I went to the ENT today to see if he thought that I should get my tonsils out.

He didn't.

Turns out that I am one round of tonsillitis/strep shy of the recommended amount to get the old tonsies yanked. So. Yay, I guess. I've heard that getting your tonsils out as an adult it a miserable process. He said if I get either illness in the next three to four months, just to call his office and schedule a tonsil-yanktomy. Medical terminology.

Otherwise we'll just count this past year as the year of bad luck. Y'all. That was a year of buckets of bad luck health-wise. Let's do the math, shall we?

In preparation for this appt, they wanted me to get my doctors records from the year prior... and this is what they said:

Strep throat- three times, and the way I get it, with the ulcers and all, I am one sick puppy for minimum two weeks each time.

Sinus infections- three times. By the time I go to the doctor's office I have been sick a minimum of ten days (they won't even deal with you till then) Then I go on antibiotics and by the time I am up and running again, it's an easy three weeks per episode.

Tonsilitis- same deal, only I didn't wait the full ten days.... so two weeks.

Mastitis- one week

Pneumonia- six weeks (and that's being nice about it)

I also had at least two colds that didn't turn into sinusitis hell- they are a week of feeling crappy each.

Out of the past 52 weeks... I have felt like crap for at least 26 of them. That's half.

I am not sure what to do about this information.

But it does sort of explain the frustration with a generous side order of self-pity that I feel. On the flip side I finally got pissed off enough to find a new doctor. Hope this guy works out a little better. Hope I won't have to look at him again for a looooong time.

5. Be Civil

Whuf! This series has been a little tougher than I thought it would be. Mostly just because I had that round of so-called Strep, that turned out to be that stupid flesh eating virus that gives me ulcers in my throat. Again. Being sick just eats the color out of my life.

There is also a notable, unbloggable elephant sitting on my keyboard. Stupid elephant has managed to hurt my feel-bads on seven different levels of strange Chinese hells... like the Hell Of Childhood Hurts, the Hell Of An Ungrateful Heart, the Hell of Things That I Don't And Cannot Understand But That's How It Is Anyway, The Hell Of There Goes The Last Of Your Discretionary time, and the Hell Of What The Hell Is My Problem?

Like when you need to just get over a jerk-wad ex-boyfriend, you know you need to let him go, you know you shouldn't care about some dill-weed that treats you bad, and you are going to stay away from whassisdork and all that.... but it still hurts and it's going to just keep hurting till it doesn't anymore. I am waiting for it to stop hurting, only there is no jerk, there is just me and my brains and my traitorous heart.

Not trying to be cryptic, but I do want to acknowledge that I am an angry, hurty person right now, even if I cannot tell you why.

So... Be Civil.

Look, I am more that aware that I am not everyones cup-o-tea. More than one person has taken it upon themselves to point out how Lame I am... and other things besides. I'll tell you a secret, not everyone I meet is my bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper either. Some people just rub me wrong by breathing air near me.

Some people go out of their way to make me miserable. But do I have to let them dictate my behaviour? Heck no. When I react to some random person's nastiness with nasty in kind, I am giving them some of my space and some of my energy. Plus I am helping to grow the problem. Nourishing it. Closing down any useful dialog between us.

Civility is a choice, it is always a choice. It is not capitulation, it is not surrender and it is not validation of anything wrong done to you... it is simply Civility. An attitude, a pro-active choice rather than any kind of reaction. Since it is pro-active, it stands on it's own and has the amazing ability to be a beginning. A do-over. An opportunity to alter what ever negative thing is happening, or keep peaceful whatever disagreement that stands between two people. It is the anti-escalator, and when we adhere to Civility we can find whatever middle ground exists between those that disagree, small though it may be.

Civility means you put on your Big Girl Panties and Use Your Words. Sometimes it means doing things you would rather not, and often it means to have a care with how you say what you think you mean. Sometimes it requires you to listen twice, sometimes it means you just walk away.

It's all the stuff yer mama taught ya. And I'll tell ya, little one year old boys don't know civility from a poopy doobah, so this is all ya get today!

4. Be Quiet

Seriously, for the love of Pete wouldja just shut-up for a minute or two already?

Do you have any idea what you have just missed, what has sailed right on past you because you were so busy yapping or thinking about what you were going to say or being reminded about something that you could add...

...or even worse, has something awful, or private, or simply unnecessary about another person just slipped from your lips?

What critical thoughts, ungenerous even if true, are you putting words on and letting out into the open, about a friend no less?

Your mouth and your words cannot be too guarded when it comes to friendship. Trust me, I am perfectly aware of the concept "you are as sick as your secrets" and I agree that if you are having difficulties in a relationship that it really ought to be talked out, and some things really do need to be said. In the right forum. Carefully. And I bet you know what I am talking about when I say that most of this stuff is NOT discussed in the right forum. So shut that mouth. Quick!

Now, most all of y'all know me, I have lived a full life and have interesting stories to tell... and I like to tell them. But last year I had something interesting happen to me, a sort of epiphany I s'pose. I was at a family gathering for Dadguy's side and one of his cousins is a cop. A county deputy type I think, and let me tell you, this woman has paid and paid to be where she is. There is a pretty serious Good Ole Boy network in law enforcement in the county where she lives and works, and that network kept her working jail detail for years longer than her male peers. She has to be tougher and harder and smarter than everyone else to be where she is. And like any cop she has stories to tell, stories that normal people listen to with their mouths wide open. Only I was in there "swapping" stories with her, from my junkie days, but it was on the way home from that family picnic that i realized what had really just happened.

I had blown it.

Here was this amazing opportunity to shut my mouth and listen to stories, the likes of which can be told by so very few mouths on this planet. Stories from someone who doesn't tell them often. I was so happy to get in there and yapyapyap, that I used up valuable time that could have been spent quietly. What tales did I miss in my zeal to Share My Great Stories?

I am still kicking myself. To be frank, when I look back on it I still just shake my head at myself and say "Sheesh, what an shmoe I am!" But at least I am a shmoe with a lesson that I (hopefully) won't need to re-learn too many more times. Learn from my shmoe-dom.

Sure, not everyone has amazing County Sherriff Deputy Type stories to tell, but they do have words and stories that only they can give voice to. If you let them. If there is enough space that is not filled up with this need you have to fill every nook of silence with your own self-ity-self.

Shhhhhhhhh. Be quiet.

3. Be Aware

Huh, well how bout that? This may have been the "Be" that got a little glossed over in the presentation. I seem to have very little written down here for number three, and I think a goodly chunk got used for number one. Plus the more that I look at it, another goodly chunk really ought to get shifted over into number four.

(shiftshiftshift) Here's what's left.

Number three is mostly about being a good neighbor, but it can easily translate into being a good friend, since what the heck kind of friend are you if you are not even aware of what is going on for your friend. I am referring to who are they? What is important to them? Are they OK? Do they have any needs that are going unmet?

I am not exactly talking about being snoopy, especially at the neighborhood level.... but I am not exactly ruling it out either. I know, I know... it's none of your business what is going on across the street and down one. Not exactly anyway. Except for on a human level, it sort of is your business.

Do you breathe? Do you have a heart in working condition? Then you are a line of defense in your neighborhood against starvation, bullying, crime and abuse, and to a certain extent you really are responsible for what is going on next door inasmuch as you turn a blind eye or just cannot be bothered.

Heavy, but it's about being a real person.

So how do you be a decent human being and not turn a blind eye? Guess what, bad news.... you gotta reach out and make the acquaintance, perhaps even make friends with your neighbors before you can be of use to them, and that can be both difficult and problematic. Not everyone wants to be pals, and that's Ok... but you can pay attention to some details. Like if someone's dog gets out, you can let them know you just saw Fido trotting down the street. Like if all of a sudden the older lady who lives next door doesn't seem to be getting visits from her daughter every Tuesday anymore. Is everything OK? Is her daughter OK? Does she need help with anything that her daughter may not be helping her with anymore?

Don't have time to pay attention? Be honest, all it takes is a small bit of your awareness and a willingness to take steps if you see a problem.

That's all I'm a gonna write on this topic, even though I see now that I am giving a pretty broad topic just a little bit of attention. Just think about this for a minute on your own. Who is in your neighborhood? What is your relationship to them? If they got cancer, would you be a person they could rely on for a bit of basic assistance? If not, why not? Is there something that you could realistically change to be of use to another in case of need?

Do you believe that you have a responsibility here? If not, tell me why... maybe I have it wrong.

I just suspect that you kind of agree with me.

2. Be Open

This particular "Be" could mean "Open Your Heart." It could easily mean you should open your eyes and open your arms to accept others.

But it doesn't.

When I say "Be Open," I am talking about the doors to your house... and in some cases I mean this literally.

I should explain here, while I think that I am a pretty good mama and a nice person, I am a mediocre to middlin' housekeeper. Oh, I mean well enough... but there are always art projects and the park calling to me, to say nothing of good books and then there is that new little Netflix Online thing-gummy. Like most anyone I know, I love to have a clean home... but apparently I don't love it enough to actually do what it takes to have one most of the time. Really, just the whole "food" and "cooking dinner" shtick, along with dishes and clean up of meals sucks down so very much of my soul, there is little left to give a hang about cleaning the Koolaid drips off the baseboards in the kitchen.

That is... until I think about inviting someone else over and allowing them to see the reality of how we live around here. How on earth do I let someone see my messy life? How do I get over the shame of being who I am, a diffident maid and lackadaisical spot-shiner, a silly heart and a dreamer?

At first my answer was to clean the heck out of everything and then invite folks over, and that worked nicely with the bonus of fooling everyone into thinking I had and could do "it all." But I kept having kids. With every addition to the family, the chinks in my facade started to become more apparent, but need for friends grew. What to do?

In the end I got forced into opening my door, even when I wasn't proud of what others were seeing. I opened my door and had lunches and got really grateful for the new tile in the kitchen that hides the heck out of the fact that I haven't mopped in two and a half weeks! I opened my door and realised that this open door policy is kind of a metaphor. Because I had to let people see my messy life as well as my messy house. I got pretty darn real about the fact that while I have some talents and gifts, baby... I don't have it all, and I certainly don't have it all together. And that is just fine.

Turns out I didn't really have anyone fooled anyway.

I am starting to think that I might want to re-title this series of posts into "Something About Bees and Stuff I Learned On My Mission," because here I need to share another fine tidbit I learned while while serving. In order to teach the Gospel effectively, it really helps if the people you are teaching know that you love them. As a Missionary that's the easy part. The love that you have for the people you serve just seems to bubble out of your pores and wake you up at night with the desire to hit your knees and pray for your investigators and the members of the church in the area where you serve, just one more time. But even more profound is what can be taught by the Spirit when the student loves the teacher, but it's a little more problematic to get someone else to love you back. I had an amazing Trainer though, and she taught me a secret, and I am going to share it with you.

The secret to getting others to love you: let them serve you.

You think I jest? Not hardly, y'all. I am absolutely serious. Think about it... do you have a speciality in the kitchen? Something that you make well, and you think tastes darn good? Picture yourself offering a random individual a bit of your... we'll call it Brownie Supreme, and they don't want to put you out and politely refuse your treat out of some misguided sense of manners.

Huh. How do you feel about them?

Now offer it again. Random person takes a bite of Brownie Supreme, and WOW! Sonuvagun! You are right, that is some kind of brownie you have going there! Random individual enjoys every bite and thanks you and now how do you feel about them?

Sure I have simplified the principle, and you never want to overdo the getting served by others. A little goes a long way and all that. What I am trying to say is that it is not only OK to be vulnerable and allow others to help you, in some ways it is absolutely necessary to friendship.

1. Be There

Oh good, you're here! I am glad you are on time, because I wanted to make sure you got the heads-up on this post... it's a little heavy on the pithy cliches. Such is life, can't be helped, lah-tee-diddly-dah.

The first thing about developing loving friendships is you have to decide that they are valuable. More specifically, that quality relationships with other humans have value to you. I am hoping that my last post established a few reasons why this is so for you, but even if you are not all the way "There" with the "Why I Should Make Friends With Women" thingummy, or even "Why I Need Friends," this really is one of those things that you can take on a fake-it-till-ya-make-it trial basis.

You don't know the fake-it-till-ya-make-it? It means you just suit-up, show-up, shut-up and do what you are told. The proof is in the pudding. You will gain the testimony in the doing. Really. Really-really.

One of the first things about Being There, is being who you are and where you are in the time of your life. Face it, the kinds of friendships that a seventeen year old, senior year in High School you could manage are not the kinds of friendships you will be able to manage as a part-time-work-at home-mother-of-two. Heck, the kinds of friendships you desire will simply be different and the things you have to offer as a friend have changed. But you still need friends, and in some ways you need them more as you get older. Not necessarily more in terms of time, just more in terms of surviving the life experiences coming your way with grace and joy. Or maybe just surviving them. Period. So look at your life, and while being realistic please do carve out some time and energy to developing these sweet relationships.

Be There. Be where you are in space, now look around you with your minds eye. Who are the women who inhabit, or are in some way physically close to your sphere of life. Do you go to the gym, church, work, shop for groceries, take the kid to the park? Who else is there doing the same things? Who lives down the street or the next floor up? Maybe you come up with faces and no names, or names from a PTA roster, but no faces to go with. Perhaps you live out in the sticks, miles from any one else.... even still, open those peepers and look! I am talking about women here... not just women who dress like you, or seem to be about in the same place you are in your life. I am talking about old women, young women, poor women, wealthy women, jocks, fashionistas, artsy farsties. Women. Quit being so incapacitatingly picky! I am not saying you shouldn't be picky about your friends, I am just saying open up those doors to possibility, especially at this part of the process.

There are so many ways of being friends, and so many way we nourish and sustain each other.

When you have the good fortune to interact with these friendship possibilities, or with established friends alike you need to as much as possible, BE There. If it's at all feasible, turn off your phone or screen you calls if you must when visiting. Be there, by letting the kids take turns giving each other pushes on the swing while you take the time to catch up with a friend. Be there by giving some thought every now and then to think of a nice thing you could do for or with a friend. Don't be planning your dinner menu in your head while your friend is talking, be THERE.

Last of all, when I was serving an LDS mission, I had a mission president who explained that there were two main types of people in the world. There were the kinds who, in essence will walk into a room and say "Here I am " in any and all of the ways that short sentence can be said.

HERE I am!
Here I am!
Here I AM!
HERE I AM!

and then there are those who walk into a room and say, in all of it's various ways of being said:

THERE you are!
There YOU are!
There you ARE!
THERE YOU ARE!

Guess which kind the Saviour was?

Love Yer Neighbor

Six B's of Friendship

There is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that talks about the agency of humans, specifically as it relates to the fall of Adam, it says the following...

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
2 Nephi 2:22

Women too. Obviously. And yes, we are here to learn to have joy. This scripture isn't talking about being "happy" all the time, not pleasure and not giddiness. When it talks about joy, to my understanding, it is referring to a state of being that a human has to choose. Joy is a state that a person has to foster in themselves and is partly dependent on other choices that they make; because while you can choose what you will, good or ill, you do not get to choose the consequences, and some consequences are harder to live with than others. Some consequences make choosing and experiencing joy harder to do. Harder, but it can be done. And that's a darn good thing, because sometimes we make choices that have consequences that spill onto others, and make it harder for others to have joy.

Why the theological yap-yap-yap? Because I believe that our human relationships are absolutely vital to our progression and our becoming more like our Father. I also believe that when a person is embroiled in a feud with the next door neighbor over where they park their camper, or saying unkind things about a sister, that they are stunting themselves. There is no joy in contention or fear. It's my oh-so-esteemed opinion that since we are all here in this mortal realm for such a short time trying to learn the pro-active art of "having joy" in the midst of heartbreak, hunger, tragedy and sorrow, it would behooves us to foster friendship and kind feelings wherever we can.

Yeah, I know, I kinda suck at it too. But remember, we are practicing progress, not perfection.

Baby, ya need some friends. A little back-up, ya know? But being social and friendly doesn't actually come naturally to everyone, and even for those blessed with the friendshippy gene... it can be easy to let this stuff slip as we become adults and the weight of responsibilities start sitting on our shoulders, and maybe we rely more heavily on our spouse and kids for human interaction and less and less with other women. And hey! I am Mormon, biiig on families right? Big on BIG families and all that, so the more family time the better!?

I think this is a big mistake.

I don't have any scripture or scientific studies to make my point here, but I do have an interesting personal experience to share. Years ago when I was serving a mission in New England, the then Prophet and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, President Gordon B. Hinckley held a special meeting at a church house that stood on the Joseph Smith Memorial in Sharon Vermont. The meeting was for full time LDS missionaries only, and I prepared carefully for this meeting curious as to what it would be like to be in the presence of a living Prophet. As the day came and the meeting progressed, I was surprised, but then sort of not surprised, that I was feeling the warm feelings of the Holy Ghost in exactly the same way that I experience them during a good Relief Society lesson. I hadn't really thought about it before that moment, but there is a certain peaceful nourishment that comes to me especially clearly in the presence of other women and living Prophets. You can make of that what you will, but I have chosen to make friends with women.

Over the next few posts I will be outlining six points, and as a nod to the late President Hinckley and his Six B's, I have made them into B's as well. The whole exercise is to get you thinking about the friendships and relationships in your own life. Hopefully as you go down this short journey with me in to honeybee-land, you will look at those around you who could be friends and maybe are not yet. Also, I am looking forward to a little discussion along the way, and I will not die if you need to correct me.

Six B's
1. Be There
2. Be Open
3. Be Aware
4. Be Quiet
5. Be Civil
6. Be Still

Freaking Wretched

Eeep! Retreat! Retreat!

I really do have a series of posts, and the second is even more than half written, but wouldn'tcha know, Friday night I came down with...

drumroll please....

Strep Freaking Wretched Throat.

I feel tonite as though I stand half a chance of recovery, but the rest of my reality? Bruuu-ther! And please, this is NOT to disparage Dadguy's heroic work to keep the household afloat. But the man was pretty darn sick himself, with a mean cold, taking care of kids with mean colds... and all with no milk, bread, low on diapers and other vital necessities.

Only, afloat don't mean running like a well oiled machine, either.

I am thinking it may be a day or two till ya see installment numero two-o. But it's a comin'! And on a happy side of things, HEY! The antibiotics are working this time! Wheeeeeee!

Provenance

I no longer teach in my church women's group once a month, and as much as I love the turning-eight-year-olds that I teach every Sunday now, I really miss it. So when I got asked to give a short presentation for the Relief Society's mid-week February activity titled "How Do I Love Thee?" I jumped at the chance. There were to be three women speaking, each with a different topic on expressing and growing love in our families, with our husbands, and the topic I got, toward our friends and neighbors.

I worked pretty hard on the presentation, and I wanted to share the meat of it with y'all. First though, I am compelled to give you a bit of back story on how I arrived at my approach to the material. I call it my "provenance" and I when I say I am compelled, it's no joke. I pretty much have to do this or I can't go forward, a little thing I learned about myself and teaching style when I used to teach RS. It's sad that I cling to this teaching conceit, my little crutch, but it appears to be my one nod to the streak of OCD that crops up now and then in my family. So suck it up, ya'll... or I guess you could just skip the following, and check back in tomorrow for the first installment of Love Your Neighbor: The Six B's of Friendship.

But where's the fun in that?

When I said earlier that I "jumped " at the opportunity to teach when I was asked, I am mostly telling the truth. My only reservation was that making friends and being a good friend is an area where I have felt weak most of my life. Starting in grade school when I wished so hard for a good friend, a bosom-buddy-friend-for-life type friendship that I had read about in books. Instead I ended up in friendships that were not satisfying and that were fairly shallow. In High School I became one of those girls who you would often hear talk about how being friends with guys was soooo much better, "cuz girls are just so silly, and they are mean... mnyeah!"

Looking back as I started to prepare, I began to realize that the potential for friendships that were nourishing and fulfilling were always there, I just didn't know how to make those connections. I started looking at what was different about me and my approach to being a friend that made this so, tried to put my finger on what worked.

The first thing that came to mind was my mouth. Seriously. My main focus on being a good friend and neighbor is centered on three activities that are managed by mouth. Eating, talking and shutting my pie-hole (both in terms of letting someone else share for theloveofpete, and refraining from gossip). I have discovered as a mother of young children that I was feeling isolated and lonely, and mostly in the middle of the day. So I started inviting women over for lunch. And when I say lunch, sometimes it's as simple as tuna fish sandwiches and a bag of tortilla chips. I think I have even done PB & J's with a girlfriend in my messy kitchen during a problem stretch of time when I was nursing Pearl. Sometimes I make it a little nicer, trying out a recipe that I know my kids and Dadguy will not be able to choke down but sounds good to me. Mostly though, I have this recipe for vegetable soup that I got from Weight Watchers that is amazing; tastes awesome, is filling, nourishing and I have yet to meet a dieter or non-dieter who does not love it with some buttered whole grain toast. The conversation and confidences that have occurred over bowls of Friendship Soup at my table have enriched my life and quite frankly made it possible to keep going with a cheerful heart, or at least a lessening of the obscenity track that plays in my head. Dadguy can tell the days that I have had one of these lunch dates or something similar, I suspect that I am more bearable and fun to be around, so I can even consider these lunches as helpful to my marriage and family. You know it's true; If Mama ain't happy, NObody's happy!

Obviously these lunches aren't gonna work so well for those of you who are 9 to 5, but then again this is not rocket science, we each have our own style and depending on our lives and even the time of life, we have different needs.

The content that I am gonna be posting for the next few days pretty much assumes that you have opportunities to meet other women (work, church, playgroups, school), and yes.... the "friendship" aspects will contain language that assumes you are a woman, and probably growing friendships with other women. Mostly because as a married woman I find it is prudent to not pursue close friendships with men, but also because I was covering a this material for a fairly narrow audience. I don't see any reason to do otherwise, and you can correct me, but I suspect that you can find your own, or broader applications of these principles if you so desire.

Meantime, I am always looking for suggestions on simple ways of being friends. For instance, I have been thinking about starting Mommy Late Overs. The idea being that once ya get the kiddos down at night, leave your husband in charge and come over to my house for a chick flic and popcorn. Whaddaya think? Simple and fun, yeah? No?

Lilac Turns Six

So much has been going on in the House of Chaos; some new, some exciting, but really.... most of it mundane.

On Monday my parents went into the MTC in Provo... for all y'all who don't know Mormon lingo, they entered into the Missionary Training Center in advance to heading off for the Washington DC South Mission, where they will serve in various places (mostly VA) for the next 18 months.

They gonna be doing a full-on Proselyting Mission. Dude. My 'rents are hard CORE. I feel something trembling on the cusp of amazing.... something momentous, at their making this commitment. The sight of them in their name tags at the restaurant on Friday night as they had just left the MTC and were yet to begin their drive to the East Coast, I swear that I could see... something. Something not quite of this mortal realm, something of eternity in them, or around them. Was kind of like sitting down to have a steak dinner with my parents, and maybe some angels.

I have a lot more to pray about these days. I have been more regular about saying my personal prayers, and put more of my heart into each prayer than I have in years.

Among other thing, I have a baby sister doing some work overseas right now. In one of those places, those scary places that I will be glad to have her back from. Not directly in harms way, but not far enough away that I rest easy.

I have learned a few things that I had learned before. Guess I will have to relearn them again next month or next year... 'cause apparently I learn like some kind of sieve. One lesson that I want to talk about, but may be redacted later for Birdie's sake:

Lilac's birthday was yesterday, Valentine's Day. But since this year it fell on Sunday, we decided to celebrate it on Saturday. I try to let the kids have a "friend" party on the odd number birthdays, and reserve the evens for "family" parties. Hopefully it keeps them from getting inflated expectations... we'll see. She turned six this year, so it was to be a cousin party. Anyway, I did not entirely have my act together and we had to hit a couple of stores Saturday morning to pick up some last minute items for the party that afternoon. I couldn't leave anyone home because Dadguy is taking every spare minute he can to put into programming an app for the release of Apple's new iPad, so he was long gone working. Birdie was having a rough time of it. Actually, she was being downright ugly about having to come along to the store, about Lilac's birthday, about not being the center of the excitement. Although, to be fair, Birdie really hates going on shopping trips in general.

I got pretty fed up with it pretty fast. She was really raining on Lilacs parade, and I was also feeling pretty outraged that she would be so nasty about someone else getting to have a special day so soon after such a lovely fuss had been made over her. I felt like she was being very ungrateful and very selfish and very shortsighted.

"Why," I thought, "couldn't she just enjoy the moment for someone else? Why couldn't she be happy to think that her sister was about to get lovely gifts that she would probably share with her sisters? She was about to attend a party, eat cake and generally make merry even if the party was not all about her?" I finally got in her face and informed her that I was not about to let her be so nasty about this, not going to allow her to attend the party if she couldn't find a way to turn it around and help make this a special day for Lilac. It is to her credit that it took her maybe three minutes of silence before she chimed in with an idea for the party.

Sigh. Gratitude. How must I offend my Father in Heaven with my shortsightedness and nastiness, my unwillingness to be happy for others having so much. My ingratitude and insistence that being invited to the party is not enough. That I must be the star or I will be ugly about it.

I pray that I can be like my Birdie, that I can turn it around so quickly. Dang, I cringe to think of how I must hurt and offend my God when I turn a blind eye to my blessings.

Anyway... speaking of blessings! Look at this glorious six year old !

And a close-up of the cake. Feast yer eyes, cuz this will the last super-fancy cake I make for quite a while. Took six-seven hours to make all told, I started making it the day before and I was still up against it time-wise at the very last... to say nothing of my helpers "helping." Too much time and too frustrating, and all I can see is how sloppy it looks. I know I know, it's fine, it looks great. But I am thinking that the time investment is not worth it. Really. The kid woulda been thrilled for a bakery cake from Wally World.

Pictorial

Birdie wanted a Sand Bucket Cake, and she wanted to decorate it herself.

Birdie and Dadguy right before we left for the Church for Birdie's Baptism.

The dress, the girl. Wow!

The Hair, very easy yet dramatic and princess-like.

The Valentines Box for school. Theme for second grade: Love Bugs.

Kindergarten Theme: Nursery Rhymes.

Little Sister Theme: I Am A BigGirl And I Get To

...and, um, Henry. Just cuz.