Sad Day

I love to write and talk, so this is very unusual for me to not know exactly how to write this particular entry. I am having a hard time seeing the computer screen though my tears as I type, which is also very unusual - I don't normally type and cry at the same time, but I have just sent in my last article for the Salt Lake Tribune after four years of nearly weekly stories I wrote for the paper. Sadly, they have had to let all of their freelance correspondents go due to budget cuts.

It was the most perfect job and I thought to myself constantly how lucky I was to be able to pursue my passion for journalism writing while still being able to stay home with my children. I spent four wonderful years working for the Tribune meeting some of the most fascinating people. On the other hand, I also met many people who were very uninteresting - always entertaining trying to write a story after an interview where they had nothing to say!

I know these economic times are tough on everyone, and sadly our lives have been affected as well. Logically, I knew it was only a matter of when, not if I would lose my job with the paper. Newspapers are having a terrible time keeping up subscriptions, and many papers are simply going out of business.

However, my Grandma Lynn has instilled in me the quote, "It could always be worse..." She used to say that to us all the time growing up, so it is usually the first thought that runs through my mind when something not so fun happens. I am so very lucky to have a wonderful and loving husband. I have three beautiful daughters who keep me on my toes. I would lose a thousand wonderful jobs just to have these people in my life.

Another thought comes to mind as well, that where one door closes, another window opens. As sad as I am to lose my job, I have always wanted to pursue writing for magazines. It is a very demanding proposition, one that takes a lot of time with no immediate results, so it has always been a little daunting to me. I never had the time since I was writing regularly for the Tribune, but now I most certainly have the time! I went to the library last night and got a whole pile of books to get me started on the task. Wish me luck and hopefully in the next few years, I will have a new perfect job and will once again tell myself how lucky I am to be doing something I love.

How Firm a Foundation

I am finally feeling better...yay! After 4 days of lying around in my pjs watching tv, it was nice to finally get dressed and do my hair. As nice as it is to be lazy, it definitely gets old after while.

One thing funny about this last week is that Natalie has figured out how to use the pump soap dispenser in the main bathroom. I was doing her hair yesterday in the bathroom when the doorbell rang. I thought it was a neighbor kid looking to play with Kimberly or Alicia, but since they were out with their dad, I ran to get it thinking I would get back to Natalie real quick. No, it was the neighbor collecting for Friends of Scouting. In the 5 minutes it took me to take care of that, Natalie had emptied about half the soap container into her hair!! Do you know how long it takes to get soap out of fine toddler hair? A long time...sigh...now she tries to do that everytime someone forgets to close the bathroom door. She did it again today while we were getting changed after church. She smells a little soapy now (I guess I didn't get all the soap out - oh well, I guess it can't hurt).

Anyway, at church I am the primary chorister and have deemed it my all-time favorite calling ever. No where have I been able to feel the spirit as often as I have in primary, especially teaching the music. Ask yourself, what do you remember the most about your time in primary? More often than not, you will remember the primary music, so I am thrilled that I have the chance to teach these special kids the wonderful songs laden with the gospel, helping to build their testimonies.

This month's song assignment was How Firm a Foundation. When I first read that, I thought to myself, "How in the heck are these kids going to learn such a hard song?" They have to learn words like omnipotent, upheld, dismayed, etc. I wasn't sure they could do it, but I set to work at the beginning of the month teaching them verse one. I was astounded at how quickly they learned it, despite it's difficulty. They learned verse 1 really well by week 2, so I started in on verse 3 on week 3. I learned some really interesting things about this song as I was teaching it this month.

In verse three, the words are written so that it is Heavenly Father or Christ actually speaking to us directly. I have not found another hymn that does this. There are a lot of hymns that refer to what Christ and Heavenly Father have told us in the scriptures, but none where they can be directly quoted so to speak.

I also found a quote from an article about men and depression that was eye-opening:

"Every single military man or veteran interviewed for this article, who has also served in battle, quoted verse three word-for-word and attributed great comfort and hope to those times that the Lord spoke these words to them as they went out into a battle situation. I asked my son, who served on night patrols and guarding schools and other institutions in downtown Bagdad, if there was something - some scripture or something...He didn't even let me finish before quoting this verse to me. 'It wasn't just in my head,' he explained forcefully, 'Heavenly Father was speaking it to me every time I was entering danger. He was promising me..."

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen and help thee thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

I am simply astounded at how well these primary kids have learned two verses of one of the more difficult hymns in our hymnal. It is a testiment to me that kids have a special ability to learn quickly, even things we deem as being too hard for them. We have felt the spirit abound in our primary this month as we have learned how important it is to have a firm foundation and how the Lord will always help us in times of need.

The Joys of Being Sick

I have contracted an oh-so-lovely cold that seems to have set up camp in my chest. I am trying to be positive and think about the benefits of being sick.

1. I can lie around the house watching as much TV as I want without feeling guilty. This morning I unguiltily watched some cooking shows, Rachel Ray, The View, and then some home shows on HGTV. My guilt-free morning ended when I realized there was a peculiar odor coming from Natalie's bum and she was hungry for lunch.

2. I don't have to make dinner. Usually I can talk John into this least favorite task of mine when I'm sick. The only down side to this is that he does not get home until 6 p.m. Which leads me to my next benefit.

3. If the kids and I need dinner before 7 p.m., I can make something REALLY simple like Top Ramen, spaghetti, pancakes, you get the idea without feeling guilty whatsoever.

4. The house is a disaster, but I don't feel good enough to clean it up, therefore...no guilt!

5. I don't have to exercise today!! (Need I say more about this)

6. Hmmm...I'm starting to run out of positives. Unfortunately there was no school today because of the holiday, so I wasn't excited about that, but...Kim and Alicia spent most of the morning outside building a snow fort. Yay for snow!!

Now I think I will have a nice bowl of clam chowder for lunch, put Natalie down for a nap, set the girls up in front of a movie, and crawl into my bed. Yes, I am still in my pjs and plan to remain that way for the duration. Maybe being sick isn't so bad after all.

All about Bugs

I just ordered Kimberly's birthday present online. She is going to be SO excited. Other little girls her age may not be so excited to receive what she is getting, but Kimberly is all about bugs so I just ordered some bug collecting items. She needed a professional grade bug catching net. Last year we went through about 10 cheapies (no kidding). So I got her a good one that will hopefully not break for awhile because I had to pay about 3 times what a cheapie cost.

To go along with the net thingie, I got a specialized board so she can pin the butterflies and moths, which allows them to dry properly...who knew? We learned by trial and error last year when Kimberly caught some really cool looking butterflies and moths. She put them in the freezer like she did all of her other bugs (yummie I'm telling you at the sight of those lovely things every time I opened the freezer!) They became all scrunched up so she couldn't pull the wings out to display on the board. I know now why there is such thing as a drying board! I also got some bug pins so they can be displayed in a case, and a book about catching and displaying bugs.

If these had been my birthday presents at age nine, I would have given them all to my brother and demanded a redo. Thankfully, I received the usual assortment of dolls and books. Much better in my opinion. Not for Kimberly though...she is all about bugs. She loves collecting them and trying to find new critters. She has even recruited her friends and neighbors to be on the lookout for cool creatures. Yes, we got several calls from neighbors. "Hey, there is a really wierd looking bug in our garage - does Kimberly want to come get it?"

Sadly, her bug collecting has been on hold during the winter. Want to know the first think Kimberly asked when we told her about our trip to Hawaii? "Can you bring home a cool Hawaiian bug for me?" Unfortunately for her, I was not going to bring back a bug souvenir.

Is this background better?

After much teasing about how my background just does not match my postings, I gave in...better yet I'm ready for winter to be done anyway, so this is better.

Beaches

I love beaches...in fact, when I need to relax, I imagine myself sitting on a warm beach listening to the lapping and crashing of waves. This does not count John's clock's feeble attempts to imitate wave crashing to help relax someone. For some reason, they only make me more agitated. I have to actually be on a warm beach. I have dreams of retiring on a warm beach - thankfully John is on board with these retirement plans.

Anyway, the wonderful thing about Oahu is not only are the beaches warm, they have a wide variety of beaches. We started out on Waikiki where you can find lots of people strutting their stuff (I did no such strutting) and the waves are perfect for surfers. (See posting below)

We then made our way over to a really rocky side of the island. We were going to hike up to the top of this area and see a lighthouse, but some locals told us to go around the bottom and see the tide pools. What they forgot to mention to us was how rough the water is around here and how quickly the water moves when the tide is coming in. We started hiking along on the cool rocks supposedly looking for whales (yes, the locals said we might be able to see whales), when the water started crashing into the rocks really hard. I could just picture us crazy tourists getting caught with the tide coming in on our first day in Hawaii! We skedaddled our way back as quickly as possible and made it safely, albeit a little wet.

We made our way up to Hanauma Bay, where there are tons of cool fish. We went snorkeling and laid out on the warm sand listening to the waves - though they were a little further back, which gave us the perfect opportunity to see the reefs and cool fish.Then we discovered the beaches on the North Shore where the waves were incredible and the surfers amazing. The beaches were long and sandy and very beautiful. The beaches over on the east side of the island were also amazing, but a little more rocky and we had some incredible views of the mountains.

Visiting so many wonderful beaches has only reaffirmed my retirement desires. No cold beach for me - warm beach here I come! I guess I better start saving up my pennies now.

Another great invention...

I have a confession to make. John and I have disagreements. In fact, one of the biggest disagreements we have had over the years comes at travel time. Here is the problem: I am not a very good driver, and I am not a very good navigator. This is not very conducive to happy traveling. Therefore, much frustration usually occurs on our trips when we are trying to get somewhere. That is until the invention of the gps. (Singing here...) Hallelujah!! Marital bliss now reigns on our traveling adventures as we sweetly listen to the lady's voice say, "turn right in 500 yards." This is of course much more preferable to the, "Oh, you needed to turn right there, oops, sorry I was a little late giving that information to you." Sigh. How I will miss the glares from the driver's side of the car when I give him those lines.

On our trip to Hawaii, we simply plucked the gps from it's prime location in the car and lovingly placed it in our suitcase. It faithfully guided us around the island, including finding a nice secluded beach not listed on any of our maps!

I hope the gps continues giving us pleasant directions because I fear the day it starts reverting back to our old ways and spitting out something like, "You forgot to turn back there ?!*! I have no idea where we are at!" I much prefer our new traveling accomodations and love that we can get through a trip without one ioda of direction disagreements.

Surf's Up!

John and I have returned from our whirlwind vacation to Hawaii last week and had the time of our lives. Yes, it really did happen. We had several friends email us asking if we were just kidding about the trip to Hawaii! John got his job offer on Wednesday morning (1/21), and by that night, we had arrangements for the kids and the hotel and air booked. By Thursday I was getting our house in order, Friday we were doing laundry and packing, and Saturday we flew the coup!

This was sooo incredibly uncharacteristic for us as I usually have our trips planned way in advance (I'm already planning the Bear Lake Meldrum family reunion trip for summer of 2010...that's how prepared I am). I was such a basket case on Wednesday night wondering how everything was going to turn out, but I shouldn't have worried because it was so much fun to just be with John and wing it. I forgot what it was like to travel with my best friend and not have to worry about the constant fusses of 3 young children.

The highlight of our trip was learning how to surf. On the first day in Waikiki, we were walking along the beach enjoying the warm weather and noticed several surf schools who had set up shop on the beach. John turned to me and said he had always wanted to learn how to surf, and would I mind if we signed up for some lessons. I have absolutely no coordination, so I wasn't sure about the idea, but since we were just winging it, I agreed to the adventure.

I was literally scared spit less, but we were told that the waves in Waikiki are perfect for beginners because the waves are so mild. This was encouraging - perhaps there would be no bodily harm. Now I only needed to worry about getting up on my board and looking like a cool surfer girl (hard to look cool without the hawaiin bod and cute bikini...my Utahn skirt swimsuit was just going to have to do the trick).

Our instructor was very nice and seemed very encouraging. He gave us a land lesson, then we swam out on our boards to the waves. There was no turning back now! The instructor had me go first. He told me to start paddling fast, then said it was time to get up...I painstakingly got up on my knees, moved up onto my feet, creaked my 30 something body up to a somewhat standing position and looked ahead to the beach, and thought...I really am doing this...I am the cool surfer girl - oops - crud - I'm going down - plunging into the water - not so cool surfer girl anymore...okay, I was just going to have to try again...and try I did and we had the time of our lives!! Surf's Up! (Here are some pictures to actually prove we did it!!)