Back Shaping, Anders Turns 12, Conference, And More

This morning, about an hour before my alarm was set to go off, I woke trying to grasp the wording of a phrase that was repeating in my mind. Something about backs being molded to fit their burdens. 

Later, when I was more fully awake, and the phrase wouldn't stop tumbling about in my head I looked it up and was reminded that it was something President Monson used to tell us. 

"Remember," he would say, "the Lord will shape the back to bear the burden placed upon it." 

Maybe I've heard it spoken with different wording by others as well. 

In any case, I hope it was going through my head as a reminder that I should be grateful for how nicely my back has already been fitted to carry its current burdens rather than it being a phrase that came to me in preparation for some unseen burden approaching! 

(Alternatively, I wouldn't mind having received it in order to strengthen someone else! "There there," I will say. "Don't fret over how heavy this new burden appears. Your back will be shaped to bear it. My own back has already been molded just so and needs no further shaping at present, mind you. But yours? Well. It will be fitted to this task just fine!")

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The other night, in a clear attempt to show me an agreeable and grateful dinner-time attitude, Summer came to see what I was making for dinner and then, with a great show of cheer, said, "Well, it's better than nothing, right?"

Yes. Better than starving. A great tribute indeed.

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I've been working with Starling on letters and sounds. The other day the connection between those letters and their sounds with things in the real world suddenly clicked.

"What does B say again?" she'd ask me.

And then, after my reminding her, she'd say, "Yah! Like b-b-b-butterfly!"

And G? "G-g-g-garbage can!"

The only connections that I was slightly unsure how to respond to were the connections she made with W and it's associated words. W, she cleverly realized, was the sound at the start of "wocks (rocks), woad (road) and wed (red)". She wasn't wrong really. W is the very sound she makes when she says those words. Still. ...

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Aunt Sarah gifted me a rice cooker awhile back. (Well. Maybe she did. She claimed she knew nothing about it when I found it sitting on my porch. Nevermind that I saw her car in our driveway early that morning. And that she'd been there when I was complaining that our gas stove here doesn't have a low enough setting and scorches my rice.) 

Anyway. I have always prided myself in using the good old-fashioned stovetop for things like rice. I even had an insta-pot for awhile, but I just never really took to it for some reason. But this rice cooker has me hooked! I keep praising it every time I get it out. It's just so blasted easy. I throw in rice, fill the cooker to the line corresponding with how many cups of rice I put in, flip a switch, and that's that. It magically cooks it into the fluffiest rice every time. I'll admit the stove isn't much harder, but I'm still quite in love with my little rice-cooker. (Even though it does make me feel of less hardy stock. Surely I should be cooking my rice and popping my popcorn over the stove like my pioneer ancestors before me! :) I don't want to de-evolve! [I've never actually popped corn over the stove, but I have happy memories of my dad popping us corn that way on several occasions. And I feel confident Mike could do it if put to the task.])

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Our power went out Saturday night. We'd just finished putting up Halloween decorations. In fact I was plugging in a strand of orange lights right when the house went dark. Jesse had me convinced for a minute that I had short-circuited the whole house. And what did I know? This is a new place after all. Maybe two measly strands of lights were al it could handle! However, after looking down the street and texting a few people along our road, I realized that if it was me ... I'd done far more damage than just our house! :) (Turns out winds had blown down a power line in Nibley.) In any case, the power was out for about 12 hours. 

In theory I like the power out. It's kind of cozy. And the kids get excited to suddenly be lighting candles and finding flashlights. (They cleverly put these little Halloween lights around their necks and had hands-free light wherever they went.) But from a practical standpoint, the power being out stresses me because it always seems to happen after it has already gotten dark, and before I have cleaned up the house for the night. If it would nicely go out an hour before dusk--giving me plenty of time to do the dishes, find flashlights, and put the house to rights, I would be all for it being out for a few hours! Also, we discovered that having the power out here means no water! I had never thought of that being a problem before, but the pump that brings water into the house from the well was no longer powered! (Something we might need to keep in mind when building our College Ward house--which will also be supplied by well water.)

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Between conference sessions I drove the kids (minus Abe who was doing homework and Penny who was uninterested [uninterested in a pumpkin patch??]) over to a self-serve pumpkin patch that I'd noticed not far from here and then we decorated our porch.

Conference was lovely, as it always is. My favorite talk was Elder Bednar's. His style and manner of speaking are not typically the type that would bring me to tears, but I did tear up several times thinking of all those I admire who "serve and grow faithfully and quietly". I just love the concept of just pressing forward in your duty whatever that might be and no matter how void of worldly recognition it might seem.

Of course I was so happy that our prophet was able to speak. 

I also felt Sister Runia's talk was one that was meant for me. 

Here are a few quotes I happened to jot down amidst my occasional notes ... though sometimes I missed the name of the speaker:

"To serve in this church is to stand in the river of God's love for his children."

"When nothing is expected and everything is appreciated life becomes magical."

Cousin Tori came for the last session and dinner. Sadly I didn't think to take many photos.

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And this is something. Anders turned TWELVE yesterday. He keeps saying, "I can't believe I'm a teenager." And we keep reminding him that he is actually not a teenager. Nevertheless, it is no small thing that he is 12 years old! For some reason I really remember when Abe, my oldest, turned 12 (recorded here); so it seems wild that I could already be on a sixth child reaching that milestone!

The cake was ... really something. ... Anders wanted Bigfoot, so I frosted a sun and a few mountains and then told him to just fill in our Bigfoot cookie cutter with black frosting to make a nice silhouette. Somehow it did not end up looking very Bigfootish .... But, then, I guess most Bigfoot sightings leave some uncertainty over what was actually seen. ... 

I don't know that it was the most exciting birthday he has ever had. By the time we did dinner, cake and presents, it was already fairly late, and the weather was too wet and cold for an outdoor adventure. Luckily Penny took Jesse and Anders off to buy Anders birthday treats after our festivities, and that seemed to be a happy little adventure for him. Also Mike, who has a Nov. deadline for some work stuff and has been mostly gone since late July, managed to come up before Anders was in bed. It made both Mike and I half-laugh/half-cry to hear how gratefully Anders kept thanking Mike for "coming to visit". Hahah. Oh sigh. This has been a hard few months! We would like to be at the end of them. Actually, we would like to have Mike retired and be at the end of this career altogether!

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I haven't hung anything on the walls here at the rental--which makes for a rather bare home. (And it's hard to know what to do exactly with such a skinny fireplace mantle.) But so much is in storage and, also, after just seeing all the holes and things needing fixed up from our last home, I don't know that I can bear to fill the rental with holes needing patched! So, walls might just stay bare for a year (or two?) till we are in a permanent home. But! At least I have the little hummingbird Daisy needle-felted me hanging from the fan in our bedroom, and this blown-glass hummingbird that Mike gifted me hanging from our kitchen window blinds!

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And, to end:

Why does misty fog settle over the fields behind (and in front of) us most mornings? At least in the fall! It's so great!

A cool climbing thing at a park we went to:

It's sometimes hard to get the kids motivated to get going on getting ready first thing in the morning, so I just coax them out to the living room couches and do scriptures with them while they are still relatively quiet and listless. 

A morning moon:

And that's all for now!