inspired

i know this girl. she's family of family and we've probably only met in person a handful of times, but i bump into her online presence a lot. that's what happens when you have lots of people in common. and i have her blog on my RSS feed because i really like her writing and i find her inspiring. secretly, i kind of wish i could be so cool. we're friends on facebook.

all of this is to say that the other day, she posted a link on facebook to this post. i don't usually click over to links from facebook too often, but like i said, i find myself inspired by this girl and wondered if maybe i would be inspired by her inspiration.

and i was.

and my sister just ran a half marathon.

and i was.

and like the post said, it makes me wonder what else am I telling myself I can't do?

sometimes i blame my children for my not doing things. not like i get mad at them or anything. more like i use them as an excuse. time to stop doing that.

here we go.

observations made between the hours of 12:00 and 1:30am

• there are few feelings worse than finally going in to check on a crying baby and wondering how long they have been sitting in their own vomit.
• quinoa is a fun grain to cook with. it is less fun to work with the second time around.
• my baby creates bile that smells strong enough to knock over a horse.
• having an extra set of sheets is so nice when you are trying to clean up barf in the middle of the night. having a couple more would have been even nicer.
• only having grape juice in the house is not a great idea when you are looking for a liquid that will not stain everything purple in the event that it re-enters the scene. 
• should have put zip up jammies on the first time that we had to get dirty pajamas over a very sad baby's head.
• iron chef america may be good entertainment for parents that are staying up with a sick child but is less entertaining for the child.
• i am very glad to have a husband that is so helpful in the clean-up process. he may have an uncanny ability to sleep through screaming children that can't sleep, but he is always right on the scene with sick children. 
• madeleine shares her father's uncanny ability. 
• diane is even more attached to her blanket than we thought. 
• having a kid get sick in the middle of the night is the pits.

thanks

time with family. pumpkin cookies. toddling steps. books spread around my children's room. diane's smiles in the morning. strong body and mind. magical brownies. a temple nearby. beautiful home to live in. madeleine's constant singing. hooded sweatshirts. christmas playlists waiting to debut. stack of sewing projects. snuggling on the couch. modern family. kind and thoughtful friends. the rare coordinated nap. knitting needles tangled with yarn. shelves lined with home canning. randy's music. sunday morning naps. bookclub. sweaters. m&ms. date night. books. bed time. a testimony of jesus christ. the love of my little ones and my favorite. christmas around the corner.

downpour

after we finished the business of balloon buying and sent daddy off to class this morning, we got back into the car. and that's when it started raining. not just any rain though. it was percussive rain. the kind that smacks your windshield and often yields to thunder and sometimes even hail. it did both today.

i felt bad for the perfectly coifed girl who didn't know she had forgotten her umbrella until she was suddenly drenched. and i almost felt bad for the boy in the white shorts who was riding a scooter. but he wasn't wearing a helmet, so i had a hard time feeling sympathy.

we drove down university and left the storm behind us. apparently moving slower than 50 mph.

it followed me home and made rivers out of the gutters. i love a good rainstorm.

through sepia glasses

sometimes i have the overwhelming desire to share experiences and places from my childhood with randy.

i would take him to chautauqua lake. i want him to feel the hot parking lot against his feet as he runs to the beach. i want him to feel the inexplicable urge to don an old fashioned striped bathing suit as he wades into the water. maybe he would want to grow a wavy mustache. i want to eat cold ice cream with him as the perfect end to an afternoon in the sandy brown water.

i wonder if it would feel as magical as it did when i was six.

i think it would.

preface: winco has you bag your own groceries

i often think of things that i would like to say to random strangers.

for instance, to the speedy man bagging his groceries opposite me at the grocery store, i would say, "yes, but you have the advantage of having worked as a bagger for four years in your small town grocery store."

fortunately, i generally refrain from making such comments.

thanksgiving

i have so many things to be thankful for. and even though i feel overwhelming gratitude every day, it is good to have this one day a year to really specifically focus on those things that i am grateful for and maybe even jot a few of them down.

i am thankful for my wonderful family and that we all live so close to each other right now. i love family dinners on sunday, raucous as they may be, and how comfortable it feels to be surrounded by my whole family. and even though they live a little farther away, i am grateful for such good in-laws (seriously though, i couldn't ask for better in-laws), who live close enough that we still get to see them fairly often. i am also grateful for ichat, which allows us to see them even more often (though still not often enough). i am thankful for caring extended family and those who have gone before me who are such good examples of faith and hard work.

i am thankful for the basic needs in life that i often take for granted - food, shelter, clothing, and so many less basic needs that i also enjoy. i am thankful for employment and the ability to support ourselves through school. i am grateful for knowledge, of so many different things, which empowers me and guides my decisions.

i am grateful for good friends. we have met so many amazing people throughout our lives. many of them have moved far away, but i am thankful that we are able to keep in touch with most of them and continue to enjoy their friendship. i am grateful for the friends that we still have around and who make our lives so much more enjoyable. i am thankful for laughter, for its abundance in my life, and for its healing powers. randy continues to make me laugh every day. what more could i ask for? i am grateful for peace in troubled times that comes through the gospel of christ and correct decision making.

i am thankful for music, that fills my home and my heart, makes randy who he is, and is already shaping madeleine. i am grateful for tender touch in my life that comes in the form of kisses from randy and madeleine's soft hand on my face. i am thankful for mornings in bed with my family, filled with soft chatter from madeleine. i am thankful for the overwhelming sense of love that i feel in my life in such a tangible way every day.

and this year, i am especially thankful for my little family. i am grateful for madeleine, who is such a sweet, mellow baby. she lights up my day and gives my life such greater meaning. she has taught me to be more selfless and renewed my sense of wonder at the things around me. every day is so much better because she is part of our family. i am thankful for randy, for his constant patience with my flaws, for his talents and abilities, and for his constancy in all things. i am so thankful that i married him.

and most of all, i am thankful for a loving heavenly father, who has given me all of this to be grateful for. happy thanksgiving.

unspectacular quirks

my friend, erin, asked me to post about a few of my unspectacular quirks that people may not know about. here goes...

i am obsessive about keeping a journal. i was going to try to tone down the word obsessive, but i think that it is probably appropriate in this case. i have a written account for every day of my life since i was 12 years old. dead serious. i used to write individual entries for each day, but now, i usually write weekly, while still accounting for the events of each day. my journals are probably terribly boring. almost certainly, actually. they are not a diary so much, but really are an account of my day to day activities. a travel log. it's not that they are emotionless, but for the most part, they are not terribly thrilling, either. but i have stopped caring what they may be like for other people to read because other people don't read them, and when they will, i will probably be dead and i won't care. the main reason that i do it is because it is therapeutic for me.

i am abnormally prone to wearing holes in the armpits of my shirts. i have no idea why, but that is probably the number one reason that i end up getting rid of shirts. maybe it is because i insist on doing 100 jumping jacks a day... okay, that was a joke. hopefully you already knew that.

one of my most prized possessions is my ti-83 calculator. the silly thing is, i rarely used it as a graphing calculator, even when i was pursuing my math degree. i don't know how to use approximately 75% of the functions on the calculator, but i prefer it over any other lesser calculator. i think it is because of the screen that allows me to see the steps i've taken. and the memories of mr. haldane's calculus class.

i love making lists. i undoubtedly get this from my mother. lists make me feel so much better in life because they quantify and bound the tasks that float about in my head and make me feel overwhelmed when they are so uncontained. i often make lists that never get looked at again, but made me feel better just to make them.

i have a thing for ticonderoga no. 2 pencils. mechanical pencils will not do. they squeak and scratch when they write and their erasers are insubstantial. but a ticonderoga... now there's a pencil you can depend on. and if you give me one that has just been sharpened to a pristine point in an electric pencil sharpener...

motherhood

i've been thinking a lot about motherhood lately (for obvious enough reasons). i think that a lot of people think that i am crazy for being a full-time stay-at-home mom. i just finished my legal degree a little over a year ago, i had a successful and very enjoyable clerkship that i could have extended or used as a springboard into a high-paying and fulfilling job, i could easily justify working to put randy through school at least, but i'm staying at home instead?

first of all, let me say that education is never wasted. i feel like my legal education has made me a better person in so many more ways than a means to a legal career end. the critical thinking skills, experiences that i had in and through law school, and the practical experience that i have gained in legal matters will serve me and my family no matter what i do. second of all, i am not saying that women who do work, or put their husbands through school, or whatever, are doing the wrong thing.

but yes, i am staying home to be a mother and to care for my family full-time. this was not a rash, or ignorant decision. i have done the working mom thing, so i know what it is like and i know what i am giving up. but in the end, i chose motherhood because i feel like that is where i am supposed to be and where i am making the biggest difference. david o. mckay said, "no success can compensate for failure in the home," and i firmly believe that. i have been in the court system and seen what results when parents neglect their duties to put the time in and raise productive children with good values (obviously, not all wayward children are a product of parental neglect). i know that "the family is central to the creator's plan for the eternal destiny of his children." (from "the family: a proclamation to the world") parents must take responsibility for raising their children in righteousness and cannot rely on society to pick up where they are unwilling to fulfill their parental duties.

i am grateful for my own mother, who decided to sacrifice to be home with us and never made motherhood seem like a burden. i know that i am the person that i am because of my mom. she was there at the crossroads of my life. i remember fondly coming home and sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and telling her about my day, as if she had nothing better to do. because of her loving and constant attention in my life, i had high self-esteem and was able to accomplish more in schooling and other efforts. i hope to provide this constancy for my own children and feel like i would not be able to do it as well if i were trying to balance a career along with it.

i wish that more women felt comfortable deciding to stay home. i think that we feel a lot of pressure from society to be career women and to be "equal" with men in that arena. i have felt that pressure externally and internally. it feels good to be successful in a job, to have visible contribution and to receive recognition for your intellect and talents. but i also know that women have specially capabilities in nurturing children. i don't think that's an archaic value that society somehow imposed on us and i am ignorant for believing.

i am grateful for randy, who is willing to work hard and support us while still going to school. i know this isn't an easy balance for him, but he does it so that i can be home with madeleine. i love being home with madeleine. yes, there are days when i crave adult interaction at the end of the day and bombard randy when he steps in the door. i now have to take an active role in my own continuing education. but it's all worth it.

like i said before, this is not to say that mothers who work are doing the wrong thing either. nor does it mean that i will not consider opportunities that may come around requiring me to balance motherhood with work outside the home. i know that there are important things that i can contribute outside of my home as well. there are times and seasons in our lives. it only means that i will be very prayerful and careful in making those decisions. for now, i chose to be home.