Nothing to Write but Photo Labels

I feel like I've been in a writing slump for some time now. Perhaps more than a slump. Oh I still tell things. I record. But it's been over a year since I've put words together in a way that has felt like I've really created something. At first I thought it was just a phase. Now I'm not so sure. It feels like I wandered from some old, comfortable way I knew to say things ... and never landed on anything else concrete! I'm just adrift in my writing ... and not certain I'll ever reach land again. Sniffle.

Luckily (though I don't know that that is the correct word), the lack of inspiration hasn't stopped me altogether from writing anything. It might have done; if my phone and camera didn't keep getting filled to overflowing with people and moments that I don't want lost (whether I'm satisfied with the manner of their recording or not).

So, here I am again at our little loft computer desk--at a loss for how to use words to truly get at the heart of anything I am wondering and experiencing and thinking and praying over, but with a month's worth of pictures looking for somewhere to feel set down and secured! So we will continue with that.

This joyous little sprite. With diapers long gone and her crib recently abandoned, one might think I'd say how she's all grown up. But no. With no littler sibling in her wake, she has just remained our baby. 

Hansie boy perusing the most recent Lego magazine. In a toy wagon that he doesn't quite fit in.

A Family Home Evening walk I took the kids on (that involved enough fighting and crying as to accomplish the very opposite of what any Family Home Evening ever should--though you'd never know it from these photos 😄).

One of the best notes I've ever received. (At about 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning in which we'd seen no sign of Anders.)

A few misc. kid pics.

A couple of things Abe has texted us from BYU. (Daisy and Goldie send me far fewer texted pictures of their doings. 😠)

(Abe reserved some room and invited anyone who wanted to come from his ward to come enjoy an aired devotional with Elder and Sister Renlund. However when he arrived, the room he'd reserved was locked. So they adapted and overcame. ... By moving it to the laundry room which, for some reason,🤷🤷 has a large TV. Abe is good at inviting, gathering, and helping people to create relationships and belonging.)

(Here he is--reunited with the first companion he trained on his mission.)

These are some pictures Penny took of me for some little creative endeavor.

And our house one Sept. afternoon. (After July-like temperatures for much of the first half of September, this week of cooler weather and rain felt particularly glorious.)

And, finally, the overhang for hay storage, etc. on the barn is finished! (A few more exclamation marks are likely due there--!!!) For reasons that are too tedious to mention here, we needed to complete that small project before moving forward with further efforts on building in Logan. But the county (you see I refrained there from using the swear word Abe said was perfectly acceptable to use in between "the" and "county" 😄) wouldn't approve our finishing it. (Which was utterly ridiculous of course and a small barricade that paused everything for four months.) But we finally were able to move ahead with it and get that out of the way. (Now ... only about a hundred more hurdles to get over! But ... I loved running hurdles in high school, so maybe I can resurrect some of that feeling with these hurdles? 😄)

Nice finished job Mike and Abe!

Hamsters, Ear-Piercings, and Symptoms of a Decline

After months troubleshooting, Jesse's 3D printer is up and running again--at last restored to its former glory! Great joy for Jesse (what with his rocket building and so on), and great joy for his siblings (who have received 3D printed Bigfoots, specially-designed "octopus guardians", mini-marshmallow cannons, catapults and the like from their 3D-printing benefactor).

(All that 3D printing must be tiring.)

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The day before heading off to BYU again, Abe worked his last shift driving fork-lifts loaded with pallets of Hershey's candy for Fed Ex. Most of his co-workers were, perhaps, a bit rough around the edges, but they seemed, on the whole, sad to see Abe leave. "So you're going to BYU?" one co-worker asked. When Abe replied yes, the co-worker continued on with, "I didn't even know you were a Mormon, but when I said that to [another co-worker] she said, 'You didn't? Couldn't you tell by the way he says hi?".

I wasn't sure if the clearness of his religion was made manifest by the manner in which he said "hi", or simply that he said hi at all. Either way it made me chuckle.

(Abe and pal Noah riding the gondola up for some biking at Snow Basin.)

(Abe took Anders to a Raptor's Game with a few free tickets he got from work.)

(More of his labeling of household items.)

(Back to climbing with his Provo buddies.)

(A BYU women's volleyball game.)

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One of our favorite things Mike has ever come across is this paragraph describing one of Mike's ancestors:

It was clear to all of us that Mike must possess some of old Nathan's blood flowing in his veins when, after a long day of work for Mike, Abe asked him for help figuring out something tax related ... and Mike began to exhibit symptoms of a decline.

Speaking of family histories. After staying up late one night reading accounts of his forbearers, Mike told me that when you dig too deep you begin to find sad and hard things; things beyond "Huskin' Frolics" and "Loggin' Bees". Then, with a sigh he told me, "I think I'll have to give it up." As if he'd resigned himself to letting go of some bad habit. Studying family history. It made me laugh.

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Summer got a hamster. I have been quite adamant that my indoor animal days are done (though Shasta and Biscuit sneak in all they can). But Summer has had a particularly rough time sleeping and not getting anxious thoughts at night. When Abe was small, watching his little hamster run on his wheel at night, etc. somehow seemed to help, so when Mike suggested it and Summer nearly died with excitement ... I relented.

Meet Skittles:

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Speaking of animals, the other day I told Mike--a bit of discomfort rising in me: "I don't even know how many kids I've promised goats to."

Is this what motherhood has become for me? Promising goats to kids left and right until I've lost track of how many goats might be in my future?

I guess it has.

Most of the conversations are actually connected to this business of kids wanting indoor animals. They all sound something like this (though the animal being requested varies):

"Mom, can I please have a parakeet?"

"A parakeet? No! They live for like a hundred years. And you guys know I don't want any indoor pets. Jesse is allergic. And they're smelly. When we move to Logan you'll have all the outdoor animals you can dream of. In fact you can have your own goat."

"Could it really be my own?"

"Sure."

"Like I even get to name it?"

"Yep."

I was thinking maybe two small goats in Logan. But this conversation. How many times have I accidentally had it. It's easy to promise theoretical goats I guess. That should probably be a Proverb.

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Mette got her hair cut!

I don't know that we'd even had it trimmed in two years. Eek. So when my sister-in-law Jaime said she'd come over and do a few back-to-school cuts for us, we jumped at the chance.

(Before above. After below.)

She also got her ears pierced! After all, Summer was getting a hamster. And that felt awfully, unfairly lucky. The ears helped ease that somewhat. (Especially with Hans saying a prayer for her as she went and Summer coming along to let Mette squeeze her hand "as hard as she wanted".)

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And ... some misc.

(Despite snails devouring every annual I ever try to plant, these perennial black-eyed susans have never failed me.)

Kid in a clothing rack. 

Gooey chex mix stuff.

Sleeping Starling with little clasped, praying hands. (Ironic since every family prayer she exclaims, "Mom! I don't want to pray!" On the flipside, Sunday morning she said to me, "Mom, can I get baptized?" I tried to tell her that of course she could--just like Summer--as soon as she was eight. The "as soon as she was eight" part must not have registered however because after sacrament meeting she seemed to have been under the impression we would be taking her straight back to the font. When we took her to nursery instead, she was quite beside herself with sobbings that she didn't want to go to nursery, she wanted only to get baptized!)

I should've thought of this idea (from Summer's note to Mette) with my own kids!

The farm last night. Mike and I had driven Goldie back to Utah State after she came home for part of Labor Day weekend. We stopped at the farm afterwards in hopes of measuring some things for the surveyor. But the light in these pictures is deceptive. It was dark within about ten minutes of our arrival. (And my exposed ankles now each have a ring of roughly six hundred million mosquito bites.)