Something to Blog About

Okay, so it's been a long time since I've come and blogged. Great things have happened. I went to the LDStorymakers Conference and learned so much, I got a new calling, and I started an exciting project with a circle of brilliantly talented people that is going to be so fun it should be illegal. BUT something happened yesterday I couldn't NOT write about- my husband spoke in Sacrament Meeting on Mother's Day.

Now if you don't know Greg, I'd say the best way to describe him is stoic. He's an engineer who believes in showing emotion through actions rather than words. It makes him a great husband- hardworking, dependable, kind- but it also means he rarely gives anything resembling a compliment. He just doesn't see the need. Some may say I have enough romanticism and enthusiasm for both of us but sometimes I get wistful that he'll come up with something that sings to me, that appeals to the poet in me and then I think- get realistic. Believe it or not, yesterday it happened.

At four a.m. on Sunday morning I rolled over and he was gone. When I got up at six, he was still at the table writing away. It surprised me because I thought his talk was done. We had a wonderful Mother's Day breakfast made by the children and Greg left early to pick up a man he met at a lawnmower shop that he had invited to church. So the time for his talk comes and he begins with the history of Mother's Day which was interesting and then tells the story of "Elder Croft," an early missionary who was saved from the mob by his mother's letter. Okay, so then came the awesome part.

He began by saying to the YM that when he was their age, he used to dream about his future wife. He dreamed that she would be blonde, beautiful and athletic. When he was on his mission, he even bought a t-shirt for this future dreamgirl. It was XXsmall. But that isn't close to what he got.(Well, at this point I'm blushing because I'm XXlarge and I'm thinking there is no way he can recover.)

Then he looked at me and said,

"Some of you may not know my wife. She is the type of woman that would love to shop at Nordstroms and Neiman Marcus, but has spent her life at Wal-Mart and the Thrift Store so that our children would have what they needed and we could stay in budget."

"She is the kind of woman who would love to go to the finest restaurants and follow it up with attending the Opera or a Broadway Musical, but instead makes due with an Angry Whopper and watching her children's school performances."

"She is the kind of woman who loves to write novels, short stories and plays. She likes to read the classics and advanced literature, but she spends much of her time proofreading my emails from work and helping our children with research papers and science projects."

"She loves to read the scriptures and could hold her own in any intellectual religious debate, but instead explains the basic of the gospel to our children around the dinner table and in FHE."

He ended with how grateful he was for the mother of his children and how every husband and child should honor the sacrifices their mothers make every day.

Wow, and I didn't even think he noticed. They say the best compliments are honest and specific. I'd say he nailed it. Wow.

Keeping my Playdough Clean

I don't buy playdough anymore. Not because it sticks to my carpets, which it does, and not because it dries into shriveled blobs when the lid isn't put back on. No, I don't buy it because we can never keep the colors clean. It starts out great and then one of my children decide to make a blue flower with a yellow center. Her project turns out beautifully but when she is done admiring her work, she squishes everything together and there is this yellow cancerous mass in your blue that you can never really get out. Each time we play it gets a little worse until finally every container is filled with an ugly swirly pinkish brown mess and the playdough is declared ruined.

School had such clean compartments like the playdough containers. Everything stays in its place. A bell rings and it's time to read, another bell and it is time to eat, and another bell and time to play. When I had my first baby, I planned on running my life like that, keeping all the playdough in clean little cannisters but by the time I had my third son in four years everything was smushed together. My days be a mixture of constant eating, bathing, playing, sleeping, reading and crying with no shape or form and with a croupy baby sometimes that continued late into the night. My life was just like that pinky brown swirly mess.

So when my youngest went to kindergarten I decided I was going to change. I was going to have clean lines and keep all my colors separate. My time was my own and I could control it, right? So I planned on spending an hour scripture reading and calendaring, then do housework until ten, when I would start writing until lunch. At which time I would put in my lean cuisine, and write until two when I would put away my computer and make an afterschool snack, happily greeting my children as they walked in the door. My life was going to be orderly, I would be thin and everything would be perfect. So how have I done?

Well, the first glitch was that my wonderful pre-missionary son comes home for lunch (say good bye to the lean cuisine), then my great husband works from home now and then, which is great but a constant interruption. Then my bishop decided I should be the YW president and I've got wonderfully talkative friends. There are always little needs that I can't seem to leave unfilled and then I got this contract on a book I'm writing with my sister and have been feverishly trying to get it done to meet our deadline, writing late into the night, or in the car during basketball practice. Ahhh. My life is still one swirly mess of pinkish brown goo.

Maybe it is practice for the eternities. Maybe life is supposed to be full of noise, fun, hope, work, mess, love and craziness- or maybe I need to plan better, live with a timer and force myself to keep my colors clean. I just bought some more lean cuisines- we'll see.

I Want it All

As a teenager I went to a Broadway play with my mother called, "Oh, Baby!" It was about three different women who each found out they were going to have a baby. The big finale went "I want it all" drumming home the idea that having a family shouldn't stand in the way of a woman's personal ambitions.

When I had my first child, although I adored my sweet baby, I struggled with feeling lonely and intellectually underwhelmed. I thought that I'd stay home full-time for those first years but looked forward to starting a career when they started school. I even worked on a number of part-time venues but inevitably found myself pulled back home because of the needs of my children. Writing is no different. Even now I struggle with walking away from the computer when they come home after school. It is confining, even frustrating, but essential.

The other day my sister emailed with these same feelings but said she had found great comfort in the last verse of "Sweet is the Work" which goes, "Then shall I see and hear and know all I desired and wished below, and every pow'r find sweet employ in that eternal world of joy." There is no earthly way to have it all, in order to be the sort of mother, wife, writer, professional, citizen or individual we want to be- there will be things we need to sacrifice. But what comfort and joy we can have in knowing that in Christ comes "every good thing!" All our righteous ambitions will eventually be fulfilled if we hold fast and endure.

Sister Beck's Talk and the dog going pee

Last night I had to get up and let the dog out. She is sixteen years old and when she starts to whine, I will wake up from the soundest sleep in order to avoid cleaning up a mess in the morning. The problem is if you leave her outside, she'll scratch at the back door all night. While I was waiting for her to do her business out in the cold, I sat up to the computer and did a search on something I had heard about but never looked into. My sister lives in Alpine and knows Sister Beck. She told me that it has been a great sorrow to her to see the negative reaction of some sisters to her talk. I'm like "what negative reaction?"

At this point I know you are rolling your eyes because I live in a complete bubble, but it is a great bubble to live in, trust me. Anyway, I first pulled up a BYU bulletin board and my mouth hit the ground. Then I went to a reponse to a Exponent II article and was equally shocked. I heard about the petition but I had read enough. I know I hate child abuse so I do not need to read the details of evil acts to know I hate it worse. I stand for the safety of children and move on.

I felt the same way about every negative word and just had a few points to make.

1. "Women who know believe in having children" & "being a Mother is the most important thing a women can do."
This was the first area of contention among the sisters that were grumping out and I suppose I should just roll my eyes and pray they grow up. Do they realize how few stable families welcome new little angels into their homes, even within the church? When I lived in Minnesota my children were the only ones on the whole street. But if I went down to the projects, there were many single mothers with large families and mobs of children. Even if you don't believe families are forever, the most powerful thing you can do to save our culture, to encourage education and improve our society is to have a righteous family of well-trained leaders.
I can just imagine the little spirits waiting to come to earth, watching us and being told that they don't get to come to a righteous family because your mother wanted to have time to herself, didn't want to budget or live in a house that wasn't 'normal', which excuse are you going to tell the baby you didn't have?
In my ward I have three heros. Tammy just had her ninth baby. She is gorgeous, vibrant, talented and smart. Her husband supports her and she throws incredible parties for the children, puts on the best Primary activities days and laughs easily. Wow! There is Jenni who struggles physically with childbirth and has dealt with grief, but after feeling impressed, decided to have a third child. It will probably be her last, but the joy that this decision has brought her glows from her face as does the Spirit in appreciation of her sacrifice. Then there is Ashley who had cancer as a child and can't have children of her own. She is currently a lawyer and is doing very well for herself. On listening to Sis. Becks talk she knew that she was not actively mothering right now but used it as a pattern for her attitudes and filed it away for future reference. In her heart she said, I would if I could and she was blessed for it.

2. "Nurturing means dishes and laundry"
No one on the planet hates doing housework more than I do and unfortunately too often I don't do it. My kitchen sink is rarely empty, if ever. When she said these words it stung and rightfully so, but her point was that nurturing is doing the mundane. I am so tired of women who think it is demeaning to clean house, that their time is worth more. In doing daily tasks we are serving those we love and we are taught humility, which seems to be in short supply these days. She did not say these activities define us but they are important and should be a goal. You never see the temple messy. Our homes should have the same spirit but noisier- much noisier.

3. General Bad-mouthing of People you Sustained-
The terrifying thing for me is to look in the scriptures at the reaction of the people to a prophet. When they refuted their words, they were ripe for destruction. Now, I'm not talking about making fun of a hair-do (I'm not saying whose) or a type of phraseology, but when we refute their message after sustaining them, that is serious stuff. Besides Sister Beck never said that every women had to believe the things she said, only "women who know"- women who get it.

Lastly, I have to end by saying that when Sister Beck was in the YW I thought how unfair it was that they got her because she was so doctrinally meaty and clear. She doesn't sugar-coat messages so that everyone nods their heads softly and then forgets what she said the next day. When we got her as the new General Relief Society President, I didn't just lift my hand I waved it enthusiastically. We are so abundantly blessed to have a woman who stands up and in strong, well-crafted words clarifies truths that have been held too silent, but have never changed. I adore her for that. I consider her brave, intellegent and hope that she knows that the greatest gift she gave to the women who listened to her message, even those who didn't agree, was a chance to revisit their views about motherhood and (herein lies the rub) see if they are in accordance with gospel principles or not.

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