Resolutions

I don't make resolutions. Too lazy. Resolutions require effort and accountability, and I gave those up when I quit my job to stay home with babies.

But I do want to be blogging more. I do miss blogging. The problem is, blogging usually happens during naptime. And lately, the only thing happening during naptime is napping. I'm all about the naps lately. Overwhelmingly, exhaustingly tired--that's me.

So, if you don't hear from this blog for a while, hold me accountable. Or bribe me. Or something. Because this blogging thing is going to happen again, before the end of the world in 2012.

The Great Divorce

I've been reading The Great Divorce for my book club. It's C.S. Lewis and not actually about divorce, but about heaven and hell. I always love me a good C.S. Lewis, although I've never been able to get through The Problem of Pain. He's not quite there doctrinally, but he does give you a  lot to think about. The basis of this book is that hell is a state of mind. If you can let go of selfishness, your pride, faults, etc.--basically be able to give up your sense of self as you have known it--then you'll be transported to heaven, which is reality. Earth life and life in hell was just an illusion, a ghost of things, and once you accept Christ you're able to see life for what it really is.

So here's what this book made me think about. Some time ago I happened to catch a BYU devotional on the radio. It was a professor who had moved from the UK to Provo about ten years ago, and he started out talking about the ways in which he still felt a foreigner in the U.S., like he still felt he was driving on the wrong side of the road. He then turned this into a metaphor in the ways our lives now would feel foreign in heaven. It really got me thinking. There are things I'm pretty attached to that really wouldn't jive in heaven. I hold on to things because I think they're part of me, but should they be? I do love me some mindless tv at the end of a bad day, but I'm pretty sure they won't show Thursday night comedies in the Celestial kingdom (still hoping I get there). So, thinking about the things we get so attached to: our hobbies, likes, so forth, thinking that they define who we are, when maybe we should be thinking a little bigger than concentrating on such ephemeral things.

And another metaphor (I was pretty insightful this morning at 4): nutrition. I keep thinking I ought to be eating more healthfully, since you know I don't want to be growing an obese baby or anything. But my days are such that when I'm hungry and have a minute to grab something, I go for something easy like leftover birthday cake. The apples are right there in the fridge, but that's too much work. So, and here's where it gets all philosophical, I think when I'm in need of relaxation or even just some temporary distraction, I reach for the spiritual/intellectual equivalent of ice cream, something that will satisfy me now but does not nourish. But oughtn't I reach for the kale?

So, cars, nutritional superfoods, great divorces. Have I got everything? I didn't sleep much last night. I hope you can't tell.

Christmas Shopping

Trying to finish up my Christmas shopping...

I was browsing around on Amazon (it being my favorite place to shop and all) and found their page of gift suggestions. They excel at being stereotypical. For girlfriend/wife, diamond jewelery, cute sandals, chick flicks. For grandpas, electric shavers, documentaries, classical music. So all you have to do is click on "cute sandals" and somebody's definition of cute sandals (hopefully concurring with the taste of your wife/girlfriend) will load for your perusal.

And for the person who has everything, fondue pots, santoku knives, and plush microbes. Which are just what it sounds like: plush microbes. Because I bet they don't have that.

The family heritage of oranges from a can

Last week I was at my mom's working on a sewing project, and my sister brought over the most delicious cabbage salad for lunch. Why is it that these things always taste more delicious when someone else makes them? If I had made myself a cabbage salad that would only have made a small portion of my lunch, instead of two large helpings.

But I digress.

My sister told me, "I brought mandarin oranges because I know you love them on salads." And I do. I pretty much love mandarin oranges on anything. I started saying how in college (actually I still do it sometimes) I would eat them straight out of the can. And she said,

"With a toothpick?"

Why, yes. How did you know?

"That's how we used to eat them at Grandma Jacques' house."

Grandma Jacques, my dad's maternal grandmother, lived in a storybook house (it was even the color of gingerbread) on Jackson Avenue(?). Tiny purple violets grew in greater profusion in her lawn than anywhere else I've seen. She always had a can of beer sitting on the table next to her recliner, but she was the best arm tickler. I wished I could sit on her lap indefinitely and let her stroke gently up and down my arms; she always knew when to move on to a different spot just before the skin got too sensitive and it really started to tickle. And she was the Cookie Grandma.

She kept a drawer in her house full of treats for the great-grandkids. Cookies, candy, strawberry milk, popsicles, you name it. Cans of mandarin oranges with toothpicks. It was all waiting for us every time we visited. One of the best delicacies was a piece of Kraft American cheese, which I can only imagine tasted good because it wasn't available at home. I had a special ritual for the way I'd peel open the plastic packaging and peel the orange goodness, piece by piece. It was luxury.

I have a lot more memories that are too vague really to be put into words, like her backyard that was so magical for some reason I can't remember. She died when I was eight: old enough to remember, but young enough for some memories to sink in enough that I don't know why things are special, why eating mandarin oranges with a toothpick is so comforting. How did I forget that?

And I think I'm doing my kids a great disservice by not taking them to see my grandparents more.

I need a publicist

Don't you think that would be nice? Personally, I'm horrible at communicating. I don't enjoy making phone calls. And I don't like to talk about myself. And so I'm lazy at sharing things, even good things.

So, I'm pregnant. If you haven't heard by now. I'm hoping most people have, though I found someone last week who didn't know.

And now that it's safely behind me and I can laugh at it, I'll share my best puking story:

Nathan peed his pants in the basement, so I sent him upstairs to undress and wait for me to shower him (shower as an accident deterrent didn't really work). I grabbed the vinegar and baking soda (feeling nauseated all the while) and just as I finished, I heard "Mom! I'm done!" Which means, "I've pooped and you have to come wipe my bum."

And the bathroom smelled, shall we say, horrible.

I tried to hold my breath, do the wipe, flush, and leave the stench before my stomach started to heave. But no luck. So Nathan got off the toilet and I started puking. There was a kid on either side of me, watching.

And it turns out Nathan has a weak stomach, because he also started puking. A little bit landed on the floor so I moved over and positioned him over the toilet bowl in case there was more, leaning around him to finish my sickness. Clara, however, was unaffected.

And then I had to wash Nathan and make sure he got dressed.

The end. Levi, kind husband that he is, laughed a lot when I told him.

I'm so glad to be feeling better. I can laugh now too.

Happy Halloween

Thoughts from a rainstorm

 We had a lovely rainstorm Sunday evening.

 He had to wear a beanie, because the big kids across the street playing in the cul-de-sac were. Obviously.

 She got so excited she wouldn't stay under the umbrella and sat down in the gutter.

 But it didn't matter because the water was warm, like only a summer thunderstorm is. I love summer storms. Their suddenness and intensity unleashes an abandon that makes for poignant memories. My two favorite rainstorm memories are: frolicking, and then wrestling, with my next-door cousin Brinkley (she was the little sister I never had) in a mud puddle. We couldn't stop laughing.The other, jumping on the trampoline with my real sister, who always seemed grownup. Sensible, not the one to jump on the wet trampoline that made a heavy rebound underneath our feet, careless of lightning or even hail. As one who is usually sensible and reserved, occasional abandon is joyous.

 It wasn't a giant rainstorm, like we got early the next morning. There was just enough water for splashing in the gutter.

 As he walked down the sidewalk twirling his umbrella, I thought he'd be a shoo-in for "Singing in the Rain." And then I thought that my kids really ought to see "Singing in the Rain."

That night my son wanted to ask in his prayer that it would rain the next day. And it did--just too early in the day. By the time he got up and breakfasted, it was over. So, it's nice to know that prayers are answered, but oh, if only they were answered a little more conveniently.

I didn't want to go outside. My kids begged, and I finally relented. Something to pass the time until bedtime. Also, I'm trying to say yes more. I shouldn't say no just because I'm lazy.

And this was a good yes. It was a beautiful time, not wild with abandon, but full of sweetness and small discovery.

A blog that I love recently posted about art in everyday life:

 Since then, I've been thinking that anything we do is creative. Any work we do can be art. Being a lawyer, being a teacher, working as a cashier, a nurse, being a mom, a dad, a grandma. I really hate when people say something like, "You are so creative." Not that I don't like the compliment, but it suggests that only certain people have imagination and creativity. 

Just by being human, by being children of God—we are all creative in a hundred thousand different ways.

Can you see why I love this blog?

I don't think of myself as artistic, or even that creative, really. I'll never write a novel because I'd never think of a plot that would satisfy me as realistic. But art like this, I can do. Saying yes to my kids can be art.

Art like muddy puddles and hysterical jumping on trampolines, and a Sunday evening spent in a usually verboten place, the gutter.