Monday, March 11, 2024

Parenting, Snakes, and Pig Bladder Balloons

Recently, while searching and praying for some parenting guidance, I somehow found myself in an article by Tad R. Callister that was completely unrelated to parenting. (It was actually an article on Joseph Smith.) Still, it seemed I'd landed there not by accident, so I shrugged and began perusing the article.

This was what I read:

"The gospel is somewhat like a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. When young Joseph came on the scene, perhaps 100 pieces were already in place. Then the Prophet exercised his divine mantle and put most of the other 900 pieces together. ...

"Certainly there have been many brilliant men and women since the meridian of time. Why were they not able to put this puzzle together? Because God had reserved this work for the Prophet Joseph Smith."

Somehow as I read, I did see parenting. It felt as if the Spirit was telling me that there were many pieces to the puzzle of each of my children's plans. And some of those pieces I had been given a "divine mantle" to be the one to put into place. And that I could trust God to help me with the work He had reserved specifically for me to do in their lives.

It made me think of Elder Uchtdorf saying (in regard to looking to Christ for the help we need in guiding our children):

"Accept this privilege and responsibility courageously and joyfully."

Anyway. It meant something to me.

In other news ... a snake poked its head (and a decent chunk of its long, slithery body) out of the side of our fireplace the other day, looked around at the inside of our house, then pulled his head back. 

It was quite alarming. I thought it was fun for my kids to catch snakes so often outside last summer. But I do not find it fun to see one inside my house. Am I really ready for farm life? AM I? (And do you even have any idea how much mud is now constantly tracked into my house? SO MUCH MUD!) 

But, my kids, who used to weep and need a funeral for any small, deceased critter they ever saw, have become completely unperturbed by all the dead mice and voles we now find left in our yard (complements of our cats), so maybe I can get used to snakes in my house. (No. I cannot.)
(But I have gotten quite used to these views. So ... shrug. Snakes it is I guess.)

Also, the other day Mike said to me, in regard to the Little House on the Prairie books, "I was surprised how much of the first book was just about homesteading. I'm serious. Like I could take that book and just be in the wilderness and survive. It talks about how to smoke meat, and how to make fun balloons out of a pig's bladder. ..."

Fun balloons out of pig bladders? Maybe we will be OK up here after all.

The End.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Housemaid's Knee and so on

The other day Hans was going through a folder in his backpack and came across a little first-grade math test of his. "36 out of 36?!" he exclaimed. "Mom! Do you see this? Look at your boy! He's learning so much!"

He is! He is learning so much. And he is my boy. 💙

Anders makes me laugh often. We occasionally turn on music for after-dinner chores. And I occasionally ... find a new song I like and replay it several times. I had done just that the other day when Anders took over the next song choice. "All right! All right! Let me choose one now! ... Oh! Here's a song you might like." And then ... on comes the same song I'd clearly overplayed. Haha. We all chuckled and heard it through again. Then Anders said, "OK. This one is actually by the same artist that sang that song." And then ... he played the same song again. 

Three days ago I began noticing that every time I knelt down to do something--tie a shoe for a kid, put laundry away in a low drawer, tuck in Hans's trundle bed--it would feel like my right knee had knelt right on a pebble or small shard of glass. At first I thought I actually had done that. But after awhile you start to realize you just don't have that many small pebbles or glass shards in your house (nor stuck in the knee of your pants--I checked). My google search pulled up all sorts of things, but I didn't even have to read anything about it to know which of the many things it might be. My eyes immediately saw, "Housemaid's Knee". Ha! Of course that's it. How could it not be?


Abe did a work presentation down at BYU a weekend or two ago. There were multiple presentations done at this event. And, luckily for Abe, they were being judged. Which naturally meant he won first place and $100. (I just warned him to make sure that $100 dollars wasn't a saving's bond. That was all they ever loved to let us win in Reflection's contests and the like in my day. "You've won a twenty-dollar saving's bond! It will be worth $20 in fifty years!" 😅) Look at that slide. How could he not have won ... ? (His proved to be a legitimate $100. Haha.)


Speaking of success ... we are not at all surprised, but it was exciting all the same for Daisy to receive acceptance letters for both of the places she applied for graduate school! Now she just needs to decide on where she will be for the next few years!


And to end, a few last photos:

This is what it looked like shortly after Mike came to find and rescue me on my Saturday run last week. (And right before an insane hail and wind storm came along--taking down many trees and barns in our area!)

Little sweetheart.
(And you've all seen the hummingbird pillow Shannon embroidered for us before I think?)

I will miss these walking-back-from-the-kids'-bus-stop views to the east and west when we move from the rental. (Luckily it will be replaced with other lovely views!)

Saturday-morning cartoons:

Some very last-minute scrambling to ready the kids for "crazy-hair day" at school. (Anders was not feeling it.)

"Look mom! I made mermaid earrings!"

That's all for now.

Aggressive pigs and geese, and ... a love letter to Mike.

Mike just informed me that he'd found an ad for not one but three potbellied pigs who are (and I quote) "aggressive to other animals and people". 😅 Exciting news indeed! James (of the James and Helen gentlest of all geese breeds duo 😏) has begun hissing angrily every time we come within thirty feet of him. (He even bit my--luckily gloved--hand when I was trying to feed the ungrateful brute the other night.) These pigs would make the perfect addition to the farm of utter terror we are developing.

He was teasing me of course--about the aggressive potbellies, not about pigs in general. I had mentioned, as I snuggled up close to him in bed the other night and looked over his shoulder at a screen full of various pigs for sale, that it was unfortunate that the only animal I'd ever told him I really did not even remotely want to have ... had become the sole animal of his interest.

"But they're so cute as piglets," he responded in defense.

There was no arguing that. "Yes," I said. "They are cute as piglets." (But my tone carried all Mike already knows about my feelings for adult pigs. [Who, at least from behind, look for all the world as though they should put some clothes on! 😄Also, whatever you do, do not google anything like "pig eats man". You will not like it. And your home will become like ours--one where nobody can even talk about pigs without one of their kids mentioning how they will most likely eat us before we eat them.])

For all of that, Mike's interest in having our kids show pigs at the fair has not waned. 

What am I to do with such a husband? What I ask you?

I do not know. But speaking of that particular husband. Look what I came across the other day:
This was at a Thanksgiving Turkey Trot the month before we were married. (The following year would find me running that same race--nearly nine months pregnant with Abe and hoping, in vain, that the race might put me in labor. 😄)

But look how young we were. Sometimes I don't feel like we've aged so very much since those early days together, but we are more than twice as old (!) as we were in that photo! I just keep looking at it. And feeling ... I don't even know what exactly. So happy I have Mike, I guess? It's all a bunch of mixed feelings of gratitude, nostalgia, a little missing, awe over all that's been. In any case, whatever it is, indulge me for just a minute in simply trying to tell how I feel about Mike. My great grandkids might read this someday after all. Perhaps they'll want to know how their great-grandma Nancy felt about that pig-shopping husband of hers.

So I will try and tell you:

Every now and then (more often than you might suppose), it feels like the depth of my feelings for Mike are going to explode out of me. And they do! More than any other blessing in my life, it is the gift of Mike that has me, with almost no conscious thought, exclaiming my gratitude up to the heavens. Sort of like when you have a newborn and you are just uttering little prayers of awe and thanks all day long. My soul just can't not send those thanks up to God constantly over having my Mike. Every time I snuggle into him before falling asleep at night. Every time I'm out running and have a little quiet to reflect. I just feel so grateful to have him. I tell Mike often how much I love him, but I do not think even he truly knows how much or how often I think about him. I truly long to be near him all of the time. I can hardly pass him in the kitchen or hall without hugging him tightly to me for a minute. I even find myself looking forward to things like Sunday School simply because I can just sit close to him uninterrupted for an hour! I can't explain how much just being physically close to him is a joy and a comfort to me. (I can't tell you how many times just being next to him has been enough to soothe major anxieties and worries.) I don't just miss him when he's away from me, I feel a dull ache in my chest when I know I can't be near him. And if we are ever remotely feeling distant or at odds with one another, I feel utterly wretched and miserable. I have been thinking lately that if all of the struggles of earth life--the tests and trials, and all the efforts to consecrate and sacrifice and serve to keep my covenants with God ... if the only blessing they resulted in was my getting to be with Mike forever, that would be enough. That would make all of this worth it. I genuinely feel that I have no greater blessing in my life. If I were to die, Mike could marry again. In truth I wouldn't want him to be lonesome. (Though I do actually pray often that, if possible, Mike and I will not have to spend very much time away from each other through death!) But also ... I hope he would know (he would know) that he would still be mine. Completely and fully. I relinquish no claim to him ever. He is as much a part of me as my very own soul is. There is something more than just love there. I don't know what it is. But it isn't just poetry. It's something real about how tied I am to him in my very core. I love him so much. I don't know that there is any single thing that I feel more intensely or more strongly than my tie to and love for him. And there is nothing that gives me more comfort than knowing that he really truly will be mine forever--that we are tied in some way that death honestly cannot break, that I never ever ever have to truly be separated from him. I never want to be. There is nothing I want more than just ... being with Mike always. I feel like I just want to keep saying, "I love him. I love him. I love him." And it still can't express it enough. But I don't want to put these words out--to proclaim this truth--only in some future day when one of us has passed on and these words might seem like just the sayings of someone looking back through rose colored glasses. I want to say them clearly now, while we are in the thick of mortality and our own weaknesses and failings and tiredness and worries and stresses and daily demands. This is how I feel for him right now. In the midst of all of it. And I'll stop there. (Though I suppose, after all of that, I can add that ... if he needs a few pigs that's probably ok. So long as they don't eat us.😄)

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Cookies on the Counter. (Though there might have been a better title?)

At about 5:00 a.m. yesterday morning I heard little feet paddle quickly down the hall, past our bedroom door, and into the kitchen. A cupboard opened. Pots and pans jangled. And finally, four-year-old Starling was at my bedside--pan in hand--whimpering, "Mom, I think I'm going to throw up." 

(Dear little soul: running in the dark to find her own little throw-up pan. 😬)


She did end up throwing up once--and then fevering the rest of the day. I would have liked to have kept her snuggled safely on the couch without interruption for the whole of it, but we had to venture out a bit. (One of those ventures was to get a prescription for Mette--whose toe has been swollen, painful and infected for over a week now with no signs of improvement. And you know my slight extra-anxiousness over infections--what with my great-grandfather dying from what began as just an infected thumb, and my own horrendous post-surgery foot infection several years back and all. [I wrote a bit about those here.])

But back to the venturing out. It was bitter cold. And I don't use that "bitter cold" phrase lightly. It was probably about 25 (F), but the wind was thrashing about with such icy determination that it felt ... well, as I said: bitter, icy. Much much colder than the tolerable-sounding "25 degrees" would suggest.

And it was surprising that I had to take poor Starling out in it as, in general, it truly has been unusual for us to be venturing out this winter. Partly because of the cold, and the wet, and the thick fogs lingering till 2 and 3 in the afternoons, and the early dark. Partly because we have yet to get our kids in any instrument or other lessons up here (so there are very few places they need to be). But also because ... we have to go into town now! It's 15 minutes to get ... anywhere. Which isn't so very far really, but it used to be that running a kid to school or picking up a prescription was a matter of five or ten minutes altogether. And now it seems hard to get anywhere (and back) without planning on an hour. So we've done a lot of sticking close to home.

(Some wintry biking with the neighbors while Mike fixes our downed mailbox.)

And along with that sticking close to home, I've been doing a lot of baking. Probably not the best thing for the old waistline, but one needs some sort of treat most days (doesn't one?) and with a trip to the store feeling like such a commitment (and our finances--what with our house taking roughly one billion years to sell [more on that later]--not being particularly conducive to lots of trips to the store anyway), baking has been a regular activity. Mostly cookies. (Though cupcakes and fudge haven't been unheard of. And I did talk Daisy into making me her eclairs [declares as the kids like to call them] last weekend when she was up being wined and dined by Utah State [minus the wined part of course 😁] in an effort to win her over to their graduate program. [Whether they succeeded in winning her over or not remains to be seen.])


Part of me has felt some bits of stir craziness. I'm ready to be out exploring parks and watching the kids jump on the trampoline again. (Even my runs have been sporadic. I don't mind running in the cold, but Starling isn't so fond of being in the stroller if it's below 40 ... which it always seems to be.) But also, I'm really grateful for this ability to just be here in my own little home. 

Every once-in-a-very-rare while I think back on 23-year-old me with her little acceptance to graduate school in one hand ... and her first ever pregnancy test in the other hand. When I look back at that girl, I see that she was at the start of one of those largely diverging paths in a "choose your own ending book"--though she didn't fully know it herself at the time. And the path she didn't take? It would have been a good one. Fulfilling. And, honestly, she would have been quite good at it, I think. I can see that girl in her alternate life as a biology professor. But the path she did take? The one that, 24 years later, has her pulling a third batch of cookies from the oven for her school kids to come home to (while her little tenth child sleeps snuggled in a fuzzy red blanket on the couch)? I'm glad she took that path. Thanks, 23-year-old me, for gifting me that.

Friday, February 23, 2024

One Thing Very Clever, Two Things Moderately Clever, or Three Things Very Dull Indeed

I'll leave it up to you to decide how to categorize these bits of information. ... :)

Movie Night:

Penny as Alma Hix in The Music Man. Why must they come out at the start of each performance up here and say, "Please don't take any photos of our performance.'? Why? Whyyyy? She did such a great job! I finally couldn't resist and snuck my camera out for these three quick photos. Next year I'll have her ask if I can come for the dress rehearsal or something maybe?

Disco Party:

The "fuzzy carpet room":

Snuggling:

Bunk room:

This little goofball. Just found her on my bed like this one day. 
Wearing my reading glasses in a comforter that she dragged from her room ... after me telling her not to drag it from her room.

Looks like my photos are out of order. Here we all are after The Music Man.
Pen with a few friends from the cast. 

Popcorn:

Penny asking a boy to Spring Fling. (She was dropping it off on her way to the play so we've got this half Penny/half Alma Hix version of herself. :))

Valentine boxes (some of the kids just made envelopes in class). Dais helped Summer make the shape then Summs painted it. Anders made his own:

Oh she's gotten to be the baby for so long. 

A stop at Smith and Edwards after a day of working on stuff in the garage at the Pleasant View house. (Jesse was off to the side. And Summer ... is actually in this photo--hidden behind Anders.) 

Just how a kid should look at 7:00 am.

We got a big rooster to ... hopefully bring order to our flock. (Do you know how mean hens can sometimes be to each other?)

Summer made a little will the other night. It left everyone wondering who would take Skittles the hamster.
Mette decided it to follow Summer's example:

Hans wrote this great book recently. You see the cover and think, "Meh. Random letters and scribbles. Not too promising." 
But then ...
And ...
And my favorite part: "TO-NOT-BE contenyoud".

Speaking of Hans. Here he is at his little patriotic program today. The little girl in front of him recently moved here from Russia. I think she spoke almost no English initially. But said her part with such a cute little Russian accent. Brave girl. But, back to Hans. It's so cute to see the kids come in and then to see their faces light up when they spot a parent in the crowd. It made me so glad I was there for Hansie just because of how much his expression changed once he saw me and Starling.
Though Starling didn't maintain appropriate interest in the program for long. ...

THE END.
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