My Slightly Vida Loca

I used to love this song by Pam Tillis. I put it on my player if you're curious.

If you're coming with me you need nerves of steel

'Cause I take corners on two wheels

It's a never-ending circus ride

The faint of heart need not apply. 

The song came out just after I'd had my 4th child and Eric was in law school and life was actually crazy. 


Now that lyric comes to my mind mostly when I have weekends like this and have to get so much done in such a short time that I do feel like I'm rushing everywhere, squealing around corners and generally being crabby so my family and other companions actually do need nerves of steel to come with me. 


It will pass. Everything will be fine. But be warned. I'm on a bit of a short fuse. 


Right now I'm avoiding several large and important tasks (and trying to calm my nerves) by doing a little blogging, but I do have to get back to work for the day. 


I'll end on this thought from a talk by Lynn G. Robbins, a leader in my church: 

"Many of us create to do lists to remind us of things we want to accomplish. But people rarely have to be lists. Why? To do’s are activities or events that can be checked off the list when done. To be, however, is never done. You can’t earn checkmarks with to be’s."

So true. But he also said that what we are is the motivation for what we do so the two are inseparable.  


Today I want to remember to BE my best self and remember why it is that I'm DOING all this stuff. Then it will be joyful and meaningful rather than just plain crazy. 

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All Directions

My kids are going everywhere.

I spoke briefly to Sam this morning. I was hoping he would call from the airport on his way to Cali so I stayed home, checking the caller ID for odd numbers from a calling card or something. It showed up as Pay Phone and Johnathan answered the call.  sounded so great. His flight from Salt Lake to Phoenix had been delayed which would have meant missing their connection onto Orange County, but someone was able to get all 17 missionaries heading to Anaheim onto another, direct flight to Orange County. So, as I write this, he is going through the flurry of activity that means he's reached the mission field. He was picked up by the Mission President and his wife, who will be in charge of his health and safety for the next two years. He then probably went to the Mission Home, where the president and wife live. They probably fed all the incoming missionaries a good meal. Tonight there may be a meeting with whatever missionaries from that mission who are heading home tomorrow. Sometime in the next 24 hours, he'll meet a new companion and get settled in a new apartment, then hit the streets of California to try and help, serve and uplift. I found this little gem in an Alaskan newspaper, and it gives one of the best explanations of what a missionary's intention is that I've ever read.

This afternoon Sara and I ran mad errands to get her ready for her trip to Spain. Her Euros for ready cash are squared away.  Her new luggage is bought. A travel-appropriate purse that still meets her style requirements was found. The voltage adapters are bought. She needed a new camera, so that's on the way. Whew.  It's been fun to spend the time shopping together and I'm so excited to think that in a week she'll be walking under the Spanish sun.

Sunday afternoon is the big send-off to Spain for Sara and Johnathan, then bright and early Monday morning, Evan and I leave for VA for him to attend a week-long church retreat and then after dropping him off here, I'll head here for my church's Girls' Camp.  I'll be assisting in the kitchen as we make and serve meals for approximately 120 people over the course of the 5-day camp, run completely by volunteers.

Eric will be home all alone for a few days. He was wandering around muttering to himself about what he's going to do with himself, but I think he'll be just fine. He can cook for himself, loves quiet time to read and catch up on shows, and time for long bike rides.

In between all the other preparations, I have been baking batches of muffins to contribute to the effort to feed the girls next week.  My friend is in charge of the food and she's doing a lot more cooking than me, so I'm happy to help by making a total of 108 muffins by the weekend so they can get frozen and ready for transport up to PA.

It's both intensely gratifying and a little terrifying to see everyone off on all these adventures. Our times of constant togetherness are just plain over. That's the fact of the matter. Now we have new adventures and new relationships and new pathways to keeping our family close to work at and look forward to. I'm excited about the possibility of new traditions, of knowing my children as adults, and of knowing that they got the strength to go and do these things from growing up under my wing.

Time for them to spread theirs.

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Of Strawberry Fields, Sunsets and Saturdays

There are all kinds of ways to feel close as a family.

Last Saturday we had it this way: An afternoon all together. Well mostly. Johnathan was at the beach with his young singles group from church, but since I try to think of him as an adult who happens to be staying with us, it works out that he was doing his own thing.

The rest of us, however, made a plan to go strawberry picking. Sara was taking the SAT in the morning, so in the afternoon it would be. It wasn't quite as hot that day, so later on would work out just fine.

Larriland is a comfortable 35 minute drive from our house, and even though I knew it would be crowded (it was), it was familiar and accessible. They listed the picking only as fair that day (an accurate assessment) and we got a little lost trying to follow the signs to the new strawberry field up the road from the main farm, but only for a minute. Just remember to look for this:

I was a little disappointed by the crowds, mostly because I would rather be by myself, but certainly there were enough berries for us all.

All of us got to work in our assigned rows and in short order we picked 20 pounds of mostly perfect berry-ness.

 As our reward, we headed to Soft Stuff Ice Cream Stand for cool swirls of simple, creamy perfection, some dipped in chocolate, some turned into floats, and some twisted onto cones.

It just felt nice to be all together in the same place.

Last night it happened again. The togetherness way.  What was going to be a busy night with everyone going in different directions turned into a lovely surprise dinner with Eric's sister and brother-in-law, unexpectedly in town for a conference. The fact that they live far away made it an easy decision to ditch all other plans and focus on family. We headed down to the National Harbor and ate at Grace's, an upscale Asian-fusion kind of place with fantastic bathrooms and a HUGE wall of windows that allowed us to look out right onto the Potomac and the beautiful setting sun.

Evan, my picky eater,  ordered and miraculously ATE duck (we were hoping it might come out like the one in A Christmas Story, and we might have sung a chorus or two of FA RA RA RA RA..., but it was just nice tidy cutlets.) and Sara, my ever-adventurous eater, conquered this denizen of the bay: a whole rockfish. We spent almost as much time photographing her posing with it as she did eating it-hilarious!

So, thank you to Bob and Cheryl for figuring out that you weren't going to be way down in VA, but just down the road. It was great to see you both and spend the evening all together!

Now, onto today. In contrast...Lots going on. A more usual kind of Saturday for us. Swim meet, kids off on outings, meetings for church and all the rest. We will hardly see each other, but it's okay.  It's all good stuff that we're doing, and I'm glad that we have the balance of days to play and days to work. My stomach is all tied up in knots right now because swim meets make me generally nervous, but once I get there and get my job figured out, I'll feel better. Some of us will be busier than others, but we'll all keep in touch and even though there won't be many moments of togetherness during the day, we all come home in the night and we all wake up here in the morning and this is still home and that is what matters.

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Sinking In

I've been taking an online class called Soul Restoration and it has been a great experience for me. This week I'm working to finish the last couple of lessons because the second part has started up and I don't want to fall too far behind.

I have to admit I was skeptical at first. I usually avoid psychobabble and bestseller-type self-help stuff. Like the plague. But, my good friend whom I trust recommended it. And I just love making things. In bright colors. Just for fun. So I decided to fully commit and bought two fresh jars of Mod Podge for the journey.

I'm so glad I did. It has been such a delight and here's why:

I work pretty hard to keep my overlarge right brain under control with things moving along in some sort of order, and sometimes I think that process makes me really tired. I keep to my lists and feel the pressure of getting everything done and just a bit of the twinkle goes out of my eyes because it's so not my natural way.  For this class, however, my less linear side got to be in charge. And just in case you were wondering, an unfettered right brain, a stack of art supplies and a jar of Mod Podge can have some serious fun. The eye-twinkling kind. I found the projects to be freeing in a way that really got me thinking about the ideas put forward in the class. Nothing taught was revolutionary or rocket science,  but for me and my visceral, emotional self, it worked to get me thinking about some habits I'd like to break, some skills I'd like to put to better use, and some things to feel more settled and satisfied about. It worked better than just reading and making notes or watching a video. I had to work with my hands WHILE I was thinking about things, and stuff has started to sink in.

For example, last night I worked though a lesson and had one of those head-slapping duh moments that are often a portent that I need to get myself together in some way. I sometimes have these senses about my life, that something's coming and I need to get ready. I'm feeling that way now, and I feel like my experience with what I wrote and thought about was one of the road signs on the way to Ready for Whatever it is. I feel motivated to work on some of the organized side of my life with all sort of artsy, free-form reminders to keep my thought processes going in the right way. Like Mary Poppins for my mind, complete with her spoonful of sugar and magical bag. I can picture myself actually getting things done, but I'm pretty sure there will be kite-flying involved.

I can deal with that.

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Book Review: Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)

Mistakes were Made (But Not by Me) Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
By Carol Tavris and Eliot Aronson
Non-Fiction, Psychology and Behavioral Analysis

You might like this book if you want to consider your own tendencies when you make mistakes or you are interested in learning more about the concepts of self-justification and cognitive dissonance and how these affect both the lives of individuals and society.


This was not an easy book to read (listen to), but not because of difficult language or complicated concepts. In fact, the authors did a great job of explaining their thesis in clear terms, without psychobabble and without a sense of arrogance. The reason this book is hard is because it is about a hard subject-how we respond when we make mistakes. Ugh. Uncomfortable. Since we all make them, however, it seems an important and universal subject to tackle.

The book investigates mistakes made on all levels, from those that affect our marriage and other personal relationships to those that affect whether or not our country goes to war. The universal human condition seems to be one of seeking to protect ourselves from the pain of cognitive dissonance (having two opposing, right/wrong ideas vying for space in our brain at the same time) by engaging in self-justification. We tend to think that mistake=failure, so we get creative and think about mistakes in a way that allows us to not think of ourselves as a failure, as stupid, or as unworthy. This leads to a lapse in integrity and we become unwilling to take full responsibility for our actions and thoughts.

The key to solving this problem, say the authors, is to learn to understand our cognitive dissonance and either resolve it or live with it rather than lying or sidestepping to avoid it. It is essential to come to think of mistakes not as failures but as learning experiences on the road to good judgement  and be willing to admit to them and rectify the damage done.

Heavy-duty stuff, and stuff that life is full of every day.
Still hard, though.

Overall, I think it is a valuable book to read and consider. I would have liked it if fewer examples came from political hot subjects of the last 50 years or so, but I understand why those examples were included. It just seems to me that politics is SO subjective during the generation in which it is happening that for me the power of the example was diluted based on my opinion of the situation. When the examples came from older history (where we've had longer to think about and understand the full complexity of the situation) or from personal experiences, they had more applicability for me.

My favorite chapter by far was the last one. It summed things up very well and put into context the many ideas put forward by the authors. It acknowledged the challenges inherent in trying to do better at handling our mistakes and gave some clear direction on learning those skills.

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