Gratitude

I have been staring at this blank blog page for awhile. I want to talk about being done with my semester, the twins,  weight loss epiphanies , Chip our elf, but then my mind wanders back to the horrific events in Connecticut. I feel strange putting both things on the same page.....a heinous event mixed with the silly goings on in my life.

....but I suppose the silly goings on in ones life is what makes us keep going .....in what seems like a chaotic scary world at times.

 Friday I picked up my six year old from school and let her chatter away about this, that, and all things encompassing Christmas. We stopped at the store and picked up a movie from the Redbox, and grabbed a treat for later....then we gathered as a family and spent the evening together.....cuddled on the couch shutting out the world for awhile.

something so simple... and yet 27 others...20 of them being 6 and 7 years old.... were robbed of this Friday....and that makes my heart ache beyond words.....

So, I am going to go ahead and go on about my week.....and share pictures...and talk about all those silly things.....because I am grateful...I am AMAZINGLY grateful I have these things to talk about this week...these are the things that keep me going in this crazy chaotic world.


The twins had their Christmas concert on Monday.....and they did great!

I finished my semester Friday and with A, A, A-...the A- was in pharmacology and I worked hard for that A-....think about all the information that comes with one pill...now try to remember multiples of pills with all different information.......that is why I am okay with that A-.

When I finished my last final Friday I used some Christmas money I received and did a little retail therapy. I have talked about weight loss in past blogs, and I will go over my total weight loss after the holidays, but I want to mention something that almost brought me to tears in the dressing room. I have not done much shopping and it is apparent by the way my clothes fit, I am starting to look like a homeboy. First of all, being able to shop in a non plus size store is a change for me, and it felt amazing. I picked out a bunch of stuff and went to the dreaded dressing room, and you know what happened....everything fit and it looked good...only thing that didn't... was not to small, but to big. After about the third outfit I stopped and smiled at myself in the mirror and was amazed. I still see myself as the same person (the heavier person) most days, and at that moment I saw this new person staring back at me....I have worked my butt off (literally) this year. I am not to my goal weight but I am getting there...and it feels amazing!

Lets not forget Chip this week:

Day 9: Wanna go fishing?  The fish kept biting at his "lure" all day....Makenzie said she wouldn't eat it if he catches one.

Day 10: Chip went missing this day...but look who was here in his place...."evil" elf.....Makenzie was worried about Chip all day. Remember "evil" elf, he is from the south pole he made an appearance last year......

Day 11: Of course Chip came back....and took care of that other elf.......but somehow I think he might show up one more time before Christmas.

Day 12: " I MUSTACHE ask you a question!" .......Drawing on Makenzie's baby pictures.....

Day 13: We read the Nutcracker and Chip must have been listening.....Makenzie found this hilarious!

Day 14: Just hanging out with Santa this morning.....

Day 15: I forgot to take a picture!? My brain was mush by this point, it had been a long week of studying, and I actually forget to move chip from the night before. At 6am I remembered and  I moved him, and I forgot to get a picture that day. Chip helped himself to our treat the night before and had a few nibbles on the doughnuts. When I did remember to take a picture the kids had finished off the doughnuts, even the nibbled on one......

There it is.....  our week in a nutshell....

A typical week to have had.....

A week of picking up my kids from school, eating dinner together, and tucking them safely in bed at night.....

...and after Friday's events.....

I am humbled and grateful for this week, today , and tomorrow...and so on .......

RIP sweet precious angels....

Childhood Magic

....See this is my opinion we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds, and read the clouds, and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic chopped right out our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God's sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they'd allowed to wither in themselves....

~Robert R McCammon

This story has spread across the internet, and I think like everyone who has watched it...it touched my heart.

It brings make memories for all of us...our childhood imagination....the carefree magic of childhood.

We are burdened with the responsibilities of life and we feel ourselves being pulled further from the imaginative world that we saw as a child.

However....there are moments...moments where a smell, a song, or a picture conjures up distant memories of childhood mindfulness.

Watch Caine's Arcade...watch a father who allows his boy to be a precocious child and never hinders his imagination...be touched by this boys determination......

smile at the magic  Caine brought to East L.A. .................

enjoy....



Carpe a couple Kairoses a day!

Fact: I love my kids with every cell in my body.

Fact: Like most parents, my kids can test every ounce of my patience some days.

Fact: I love time spent with my kids.

Fact: I like having time to myself and being away from kids.

Fact: I will miss my kids when they start to leave home to venture out on their own.

Fact: I am looking forward to my years with just me and my hubby once the kids are grown and gone.

Here is a piece of an article that my cousin posted on her website:

Every time I'm out with my kids -- this seems to happen:

An older woman stops us, puts her hand over her heart and says something like, "Oh, Enjoy every moment. This time goes by so fast."

Everywhere I go, someone is telling me to seize the moment, raise my awareness, be happy, enjoy every second, etc, etc, etc.

I know that this message is right and good. But, I have finally allowed myself to admit that it just doesn't work for me. It bugs me. This CARPE DIEM message makes me paranoid and panicky. Especially during this phase of my life - while I'm raising young kids. Being told, in a million different ways to CARPE DIEM makes me worry that if I'm not in a constant state of intense gratitude and ecstasy, I'm doing something wrong.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glennon-melton/dont-carpe-diem_b_1206346.html

AMEN!! Thank goodness I am not the only one out there that feels this way. I know, I get the message...these days of raising my babies is going to pass in a blink of an eye. My twins are young women now and changing every day I look at them. My youngest is no longer that toddler that always found her way to my lap with her sippy cup. They are growing at a rapid pace and I try to soak in those little moments any chance I get among the chaos.

This article struck a cord with me because we all encounter those mothers...those women...who eat, breath, and live every waking moment of their children. As a mother I walk away from these mothers saying to myself, "I suck!"..."Why don't I hover over my children like that!"......"Seriously, I would kill for a week away from my children!"....."OMG!, I am a horrible mother!"....."Does she have any interests away from her children?"........"I am really not feeling intense gratitude at this moment."?"........"Where is my motherly euphoric feeling?"....."Carpe Diem, my ass!"....."Should I be more like her?"

No....I should not be more like that mother....I just need to be the best mother I can be...

So how do I balance it all and be okay with not always having the perfect mother glow oozing from my soul? How do I make sure I ingest those special moments and take those not special moments in stride? How do I survive this thing called motherhood and not lose myself somewhere in between?

The author of the article gives an excellent way to separate moments of motherhood. She uses Chronos time and Kairos time. This is an ancient Greek method to describe time. Chronos is the actual chronological time we are living at this moment. Kairos time signifies a time in between, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens; it is more qualitive by nature.

Chronos time right now involves my children fighting over who is using the last pink cup in the cupboard. The youngest is screaming at the top of her lungs while the twins hover the cup above their heads running around the kitchen. I have copious amount of studying, and I have to go to class tonight, and my head is pounding with a unrelenting headache.

Kairos time.....my youngest is working hard on a birthday card for her grandpa that she adores, her tongue is slightly out and to the side as she concentrates on her masterpiece. She carefully chooses each color with care and is debating whether glitter should be used.The twins are proudly displaying their report cards on the fridge because they struggle in math and they both received an A in math and that is a huge victory for them, their smile as they handed me their report card...priceless!

So when I encounter someone who says to enjoy this time and Carpe Diem the day, or I encounter those mothers who seem to relish in perfection of this motherhood thing...I just need to nod and say, I will.... and remind myself that I am the best mother that I can be......

And as the author eloquently tells herself  at the end of the article and now I need to tell myself:

Carpe a couple of Kairoses a day.

Good enough for me.

The Music of My Life

Do you ever listen to a song and it brings up certain memories? Adrian bought me tickets to a U2 concert, I have listened to U2 forever and I am so excited to be going to one of their concerts. On our first date we went to a U2 laser show, at what used to be Hansen Planetarium. I had been to this laser show a few times but this time...this time was different...the songs that I had listened to for years were now associated to me falling in love for the first time.
Back to the first date with Adrian....In between going to dinner and the laser show this CD was playing the whole time in his car...I love everything about this album and I still play it all the time...this album just makes me happy.
First time I heard this song was when Adrian and I were driving into Baltimore in our U-haul. We were moving from Utah, starting our new life. The songs on this album remind of this time in our lives. We always had this album in our CD player in the car as we drove around the east coast exploring all the new places we had never seen.
The Wallflowers album reminds me of our time in Florida. We had only had lived there for a short time when a change of job took Adrian back to DC but I was not able to move right away with him; I had to stay in Florida for a few months. I drove up to see him in DC (a 12+ hour drive) and I played this CD over and over while I took this long drive. When I hear these songs now I think of that commute and the distance we had between us.
No Doubt...they are second to my U2..I love No doubt. No Doubt reminds me of our time spent in DC. What a fun time...what an incredible album.
There has been so many more albums since and artists that I love. I currently listen to this Zac Brown album a lot, it is an album that seems to be our go to car CD when we are traveling somewhere.When I was thinking of all the albums and artists I love, I found a common theme among these albums....all these albums have memories with Adrian involved with them....

17 years ago we went to a U2 laser show together...two kids going on a first date...17 years later we are going to a U2 concert...a married couple of seventeen years and the proud parents of three amazing kids....so I suppose you could say that music that is special to me, is precious, because it is connected to love.

L-O-V-E

I have not lost a spouse. parent, or a good friend to death. I know at some point I will experience at least two of these things and maybe all three in my life. When someone around me looses someone that was an intricate part of their life and they loved my heart breaks for them because I know if I lost my spouse or a parent or a dear friend my heart would shatter into a million pieces. So where do you begin to put those shattered pieces of your heart back together?

I suppose your heart will mend day by day and there will be days that not a stitch will be made because it will hurt to much. I think that love is where it all begins. The love you receive the love you give and the never ending love for that person that is no longer with you..

Show your love everyday with those around you. If it is a hug or a kiss or the words it is all food for your soul and for your hearts.
Let there always be love ..................

16 years of learning

When I rub the back of my ring finger it is worn smooth from years of wearing a symbolism of my marriage. We are approaching 16 years of marriage on the 19th of this month. We met at our place of employment. He asked me on a date and within a short amount of time we were engaged. We were two strangers that seemed to fit together with complete ease.
Our first apartment was in Salt Lake. It was a one bedroom and we barely had enough things to fill up this tiny space. We used to pick a day to go grocery shopping together and our budget was 50 dollars for a weeks worth of groceries. Our dates were spent at the dollar movies and hamburgers from a fast food restaurant. It was a time of young and new love.
Our second place was a condo in Abingdon, Maryland. It was 1500 miles from home. It was the just the two of us in this new strange place. We would get in our car and travel somewhere new every time we got a chance. We wanted to take it all in and see everything we could. It was a fun carefree time and where we truly found our friendship with one another.
A job change moved us to Ocala, Florida. We rented our first home in this town. Once again we traveled and saw so many new things and places. Another job changed moved us to Washington DC but this time I was unable to move with him at the same time. I had to stay behind and move a few months later. It was a hard time for both of us. A lot of tears and loneliness were expressed over the phone. We learned in this experience how much we depended on each other and we are not complete when the other is not there.
We lived in an outskirt city of DC called Lorton Virginia. It was our fourth place we moved to and it would be the longest place we stayed till the twins came. It was a time of hard work and hard play at the same time. We worked hard and made the most money we had in our marriage up to that point. We went out every weekend and lived life to the fullest. Then the sudden news of an unplanned pregnancy brought our life to a screeching halt. I found out on my birthday, August 6th; I was having twins. They were born 3 months premature on September 10, 1999. It was a time of change for us, we had to learn it was no longer just us but we were now a family.
A few months after the twins were born we came back to Utah. We were home again with a our new family in tow. What a fun but hard time. Learning to be parents to these precious babies. It was probably one of our most difficult times. It had been just him and I for so long that it was hard for us to give up our freedoms of being able to come and go as we pleased. It was a hard adjustment for both of us but we found our way through patience and time. We found that balance of being a family but still not forgetting to take time for just the two of us so that we never forget and ignore our relationship.
Our third child came along a few years later. She was the missing piece to our puzzle. We bought our first home and began to put roots in to a place to raise our family. This is the present for us. I stay home with kids while going to college. My husband goes to work everyday and the kids go off to school. The weeks go by quickly and fast with everyone going in different directions at any given time. It is a time for learning and growing as we navigate our way through this thing called middle age and parenthood.
As I rub this smooth place on my finger where my wedding ring is placed everyday. I recall all these memories we have had for the past sixteen years. It reminds me how much I love my life.How much I love this person who has been part of this life. I look forward to our next sixteen years and what the future is going to bring us.

I love you more!

Me and my husband have always said the saying, "I love you more." when responding to the other saying, "I love you". I am not sure where it started but it has always been included in our phone calls or expressions of love written in cards. We did not know it but when Adrian's grandparents had passed away they had also said the same thing to one another. It was an expression they had used over many years of marriage so now it is something even more special to us. My three year old has also caught on to us using this with one another so she will use this expression and tell me she loves me more. I love when my children say, I love you. There is nothing more pure then a child's expression of how they feel. Everyone needs to feel love like that in their lives; pure, unconditional love.
Our discussion in church this last Sunday was the topic of family and love. Such strong emotions were present in the room as people discussed their loved ones and how they showed their love for these important people in their lives. Stories were shared about how their families never expressed their love with words but they are now trying to change that and make sure they are expressing how they feel to their families. Tears were shed by some when they could relate to some of the pain and hurt that comes along with the lack of being told that they are loved. I kept thinking of a song and I can not think of the title but I do remember the chorus it went like this:

Has anybody told you they love you today?

Has anybody told you they love you today?

Put me on the list. Let me be first

God loves you and I do too...we love you today!

I try to make a mental list to say I love you to my family everyday and as far as I know I never let a day go by without saying it several times a day. I suppose in a way love gives us hope, faith,peace and ultimately everything; that is why love is such a blessing.

How do I love thee? Let me make a list!

What Do I Love?

1. My husband


2. All three of my beautiful girls


3. My Idaho family


4. My Utah family


5. Incredible Friends


6. Chocolate Chip cookie fresh from the oven


7. The ocean at sunrise


8. The view from the top of a mountain


9. Good Hair Days


10. A conclusion to the T.V. show Lost


11. I Love Lucy


12. Babies


13. The movie Goonies


14. Eating a beignet at a street side cafe in New Orleans


15. Watching dolphins swim in the wake of your boat


16. My education


17. Elderly couples holding hands


18. My faith


19. Warming myself by a campfire


20. Getting a foot rub


21. My Aunt Wandas laugh


22. The poem "The Cremation of Sam Magee"


23. Rollercoasters


24. The christmas song "Silent Night"


25. Fireworks on the 4th of July


26. Arlington cemetary


27. Dogs


28. Spongebob Squarepants


29. Five Guys Hamburger and Fries


30. Good book


31. Laughing so hard that your sides begin to hurt


32. FlipFlops


33. Mork and Mindy


34. U2


35. Christmas lights at temple square


36. Sunsets in the desert


37. The song "Unforgetable" sung by Nat King Cole


38. Sounds of crickets on hot summer nights


39. What the air smells like after a rain storm


40. Shelby Mustang


41. Solitude

To be continued some other time...Happy Valentines!