A perfect begining

After dinner tonight I became rather bored, and decided I was in the mood to read. So I went to my shelf and picked up the last book in the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle. I have been working my way through the series for some time now, only picking one up when I am able to really devote myself to the book.
I was buried in the unfolding plot, passing the hours in adventure and peril with the characters as they faced insurmountable odds. Then came the end of the final battle. Just as the giant named Time raised his horn to his lips to sound the end of Narnia I heard fireworks exploding.
The new year had come.
I smiled to myself and kept reading, and if you know what lies at the end of that book you know what a lovely Eternal perspective I was treated to in this first hour of a new year.
Thank you Lord, for the favor of a perfect crossing into the new year, and for giving me another year in which to grow closer to thee.

Naptime

Today when Joe got home he went in the girls room and hung out with the kids, so naturally that's where he fell asleep. The kids were impossibly quiet for him though, and a few hours later I thought I'd better check and make sure they weren't into anything, old habits die hard a mother can't stand the sound of silence. I found Tali and Jay in my room watching kiddie movie, and Jordan was snuggled up next to Daddy, fast asleep.

Lord, thank you for letting her share that naptime with her Daddy.

Cuddly kids

Oh boy did I get cuddles today. Most of the kids at work I only see once or twice a week, so having them run up and hug me and not want to let go makes me feel so good. Today two of them fought over my lap, and let me tell you I loved that. I love being adored. I love sloppy kisses on the cheek and translating toddler into adult English. The adoration of a child is so much more real than that of an adult because kids are honest, brutally honest. If they love you, you know it, if they like you, you know it, and if you walk in and the start to bawl, well you had better get flirting.

Lord, thank you so much for K and S and all the extra snuggles today. I so needed them.

Olives and Artichoke hearts

Giving up tomatoes has been difficult, to say the least. When I finally made the break in July I quickly discovered that I used to eat tomatoes daily and didn't have any favorite recipes without them. I really did have to give them up though, because they gave me massively painful acne. Sure a healthy part of it was vanity, I looked so bad with these swollen lumps all over, but they were very sore lumps and all the creams and washes weren't working.
So I cut out the tomatoes, and it has made a huge difference, but... how on earth was I going to live without Italian food?
Thankfully I have olives and artichoke hearts to mix into my pasta bringing flavor and fun back into my Italian food.
Lord, thank you for olives and artichoke hearts and the other yummy plants with rich flavors.

Lazy days with the laptop

Joe has this habit of buying electronics, it's not really a good one, but I have to say it makes my life very nice sometimes. I worked a double today, but one shift ended early and the other started late. In between I got in some writing time on the laptop at McDonald's, then the break room. It is so very nice to have my head back in my book.
Hello beloved characters, I have missed you!

Lord, thank you for the abundance with which you have blessed us so that I am free to create so often.

Snow days

While I was really looking forward to the lessons in church today, there is something about sleeping in, not getting dressed, and the white glare coming through the windows that makes this morning perfect.

Thank you Lord for snow days.

The First Gift of Christmas

It wasn't gold, frankincense, or myrrh, it wasn't awestruck visitors. The first gift of Christmas was the love of a Heavenly Father to His children, delivered in the form of a child.
That child would grow and work the greatest work in the history of God's children, but today I am giving thanks for something else, something simple and yet elegant in a way only God could have done things.

In order to teach us about love, God sends us to parents, and then God allows us to become parents in our turn. I am only partially through this process, and I'm curious about the things I will learn as the years progress. Thus far I have learned this truth: that we cannot understand the love others have for us until we love in a similar way. It will be a long time before I understand the love that God has for me, but I see the smallest seeds of it in how I love my kids.

I am so thankful for that, I'm thankful I know about the relationship that I share with my Heavenly Father, and I'm thankful for the wise way in which He is teaching me more each day about how He loves me.

Thank you, Lord for bringing the first gift of Christmas, The Father's Love.

Catching up

Man life is insane right now. I've been so exhausted emotionally and physically, and I wish it was just me. A lot of people are coming apart at the seams from the way the world is spinning so fast.
So while I have taken moments to stop and be thankful, I haven't been able to log on and write them down, but that's the good thing about being my own task master, I'm very understanding.

Wednesday I was thankful for handmade gifts, as I received one. (Then I got another one on Thursday!) I guess it's because I make things that I appreciate handmade gifts. When I make something specifically for someone I think about that person while I make it. I wonder if they will like it, or sometimes I work for hours in gleeful expectancy of the look on their face when they open it.
Handmade is also an investment of time, the time of the giver, which is valuable and rare.
Yes that's what it is. A handmade gift is a literal gift of time spent thinking of me, loving me enough to want to express that time with something no one else can give.

Yesterday was the work Christmas party, complete with Santa, two elves, and a the head reindeer handler. We had a lot of kids, I'm not sure how many, it was too hectic to count. 25-30 range I think. It went pretty well, as parties go. It just came on a hard day, for several of us. My edges were a bit frayed but I had the opportunity to make a small difference in two people's days. I'm thankful that The Lord gave me the opportunity to reach outside myself at a time when I could have been wallowing in my own stress and stupid grievances.

Today, well shallow as this is, today I am thankful for what 12 hours of sleep can do when you've been running on about 6 a night all month.

Lord, thank you for the thoughtfulness of others, the needs of others that I can respond to, and for time to sleep off the holiday season and prepare for the Holiday.

Moon watchers

The light on my windowsill as I went to bed filled me with expectancy. The moon was full and so bright that it made my white curtains glow. A clear sky, and the lunar eclipse coming!
I set my alarm for 2:30 am, and then fought my way out of bed. I stumbled to the door and stepped out into the cold night, breathing in the first hours of winter.
But as I looked at the sky my heart sank. An expanse of gray stretched from tree to tree, blocking my view of the moon. Dejected I went back to bed, having missed a once in 400 years occurrence.
Thankfully not everyone missed it and today I thank the Lord for Prof. William Castleman who made a time-lapse movie of it, Melissa Bell of the Washington Post for doing an article on it, and Rebecca S. who sent me the link.

Thank you, Lord, for others who still look at the sky in wonder, thank you for the beauty of your creations.

Special events at work

I spent the day cutting out letters and glueing them on sparkly stars and a silver globe.

I get paid for this.

I have the best job ever.

Lord, thank you for my job and all the little joys it brings me as we prepare for special events.

On the Rock

One of my favorite verses of scripture, Isaiah 28:16 says:

"Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste."

Today I am thankful that I am built upon that rock, that Christ is my foundation. I am also thankful for the others I know who are "on the rock."

Lord, thank you for being our foundation in an ever-shifting world so that we can be sure and steady when all around us are frantic and lost.

Sucess of a friend

I'm attending my friend's graduation today. Exactly how she has managed to accomplish this degree with 4 kids at home, multiple callings, and her husband working hours away I'll never know. It's been taking a toll on her and I've been really worried she was going to fall to pieces this month.
I'm so very happy she is finished, and so relieved that she also has a job lined up to start in January. I know this is the result of much prayer and super-human effort on her part.

Lord, thank you for guiding and sustaining her through this.

The smell of Christmas

Pine tree, cinnamon, rosemary, the scents are heavy in the air as I walk into the house after work, like the whole house is shouting "Welcome home! Merry Christmas!"

Lord, thank you for the scents that fill me with memories.

A periwinkle shirt

My Mother-in-law volunteers at a thrift store. This means she gets the first look at most of the things that come in. I'm not ashamed to say this is how we get half of our clothes.

Clothes for me are a bit harder. What can I say? I'm picky. Luckily she takes it as a challenge and not and insult.

Yesterday she had the typical stack of clothes for me to go through when I went to pick up the kids. In it was a lovely, high quality, periwinkle dress shirt in my size. It's even the kind that you throw in the drier instead of having to iron, and periwinkle is my favorite color.

Needless to say, I'm wearing it now.

Lord, thank you for the generosity of my Mother-in-law, and for placing this shirt in her hands.

Tiny hands

There is something magical about holding a tiny hand in mine.
It doesn't really matter which child's hand it is, I don't know any child that I don't love. Just feeling those little fingers wrapped in mine makes my heart melt. Often at work I will need to go somewhere during the shift, and that means taking the kid or kids down the hall with me. I particularly like it when it is just one child and I, because then we can skip together, or jump over the colored squares, or stop and look at the pool. Those are the moments that make a childhood, and those are the moments that make Motherhood (or Caregiver-hood) such a priceless thing.

Lord, thank you for little hands and how aware they make me of the priceless moments.

While I'm thinking of it...

I'm thankful to whatever nice person designed this blog software so that when I do a spell check and miraculously don't have any misspellings it says "No misspellings found" and not "spell check complete. The former is such an affirmation of my victory, the latter has been a let down in every program that has said it to me.

Thank you!

Dill pickles and Dijon

I know, such a silly simple thing to be thankful for, but my sandwich just wouldn't be complete without them.

Lord, thank you for the millions of people in the past that knew so much more about cooking than I and contributed to the wealth of flavors I enjoy.

Teaching for me

Yesterday I gave the lesson in Relief Society, and as usual I cried halfway through it because I got to bear testimony of Jesus Christ.
So, no matter how badly I did, I know that something got through, because when you bring the Holy Ghost along when you teach he teaches for you.
Lord, thank you for never leaving me alone at the front of the classroom and giving me the Holy Ghost to teach them what I could never express as well.

Seeing beauty

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and by logical extension ugliness lives inside us too. I have long been of the opinion that we can change what we see by deliberately choosing to see what we want to see. I made that choice, I choose to see beauty.
(True, I have seen ugliness rear it's head in the intervening years, and it disturbs me, because I see it as part of me, something I must heal or correct. If I were as perfect as I wish to be nothing would be ugly, for I would have charity toward every soul and see evil as the symptom it is and not a state of being.
I digress.)
I find it rather amusing when I see in people's eyes that they think I am naive, that I lack in experience or mental capacity to comprehend that things are not all rose petals and feathery clouds. I just laugh inside because I think the thorns on a rose are more beautiful than the petals, and that storm clouds are what all clouds want to grow up to be.
For I am that rose, and I am that storm, I am also the one who bleeds and the one caught in the torrent, I have the capacity to understand all of this, and yet I still see beauty in it all.
I know going on like this you might expect me next to pronounce that I am the supreme ruler and all wise, but that's not what I'm trying to say.
I'm saying... oh how do I say what I am saying?
I'm saying that I'm thankful that I am open-minded, or open-hearted (because the poor term open-minded has been twisted by those who are rootless and swayed by every wind.) I'm saying I'm glad that I see beauty everywhere, in the bright yellow leaves against the dark wet road, and in the pain that brings a soul closer to the path. I'm thankful that in choosing to see beauty I am really seeing God's hand in all things, or at least in things I missed before. I'm thankful that every day I am greeted by unspeakable beauty that SHOUTS God's love for us.

Oh, how I wish everyone could see what I see.

Lord, thank you, thank you for leading me to the point where I see beauty.

Sleeping in

Not that I get to do it often, but there is something about turning off the alarm and going back to bed that is complete bliss.
I only stayed there about twenty minutes, but ahhhh that was nice to just dig in under the covers and hug my nice soft pillow and not have to do or be anything for a while.

Thank you, Lord, for a life just full enough that I can enjoy and appreciate the occasional sleep-in.

Up to speed

As I completed the curriculum for another month I was thankful that tasks that once stressed me out and seemed insurmountable are now something I can handle well. That ability to learn and improve is a precious gift, and I am thankful that the Lord helps me get there.

Thank you Lord for making me adaptable to the point of eventual competency.

Bare trees

The wind and cold has been fierce lately, and the leaves that clung so resolutely to the trees a week ago now litter the roads and cover my deck. I am left to look at bare trees. My eyes fill with tears and my heart fills with peace and joy as I look at them.
To me a bare tree is a symbol, a reminder of how we should be. Even in the coldest, darkest time of the year; when all that once made others think the tree was beautiful has been stripped away; when the skeletal arms of the tree are exposed to the elements and the ridicule of man; the tree reaches upward still. It is only in winter we see what the tree was all along, something that constantly reaches, constantly strains for the heights.

Lord, thank you for the bare trees, and make me like them. Help me to ever reach toward thee both in times of warmth and times of cold.

People to miss

I've been missing a lot of people lately, thinking about them in odd moments and wishing I was able to call and say, "I love you." There are so many people that God put in my life who play such a long term role in my life even though we live hundreds or thousands of miles apart. These are the people who I can always count on to love me and know me no matter how long it has been, or how far we have traveled down different roads. I am so blessed to share a connection with them, to hold them in my heart if not my arms.

Thank you Lord, for the people I miss.

Hematologists

I was really starting to freak out this morning.
My mother-in-law called and told me she had just gotten her platelet count back. 5k, which is less than my daughter had on the officially scariest weekend of my life. I was glad she was finally getting some medical attention for the bruising that she had been suffering from for two weeks, but hearing that number made me want to pull out the pillows and down comforters and wrap her up like the kid from "A Christmas Story."
I asked if they were sending her to the hospital and she started talking about how she had to take some prednisone first and then get an appointment with the Hematologist. I was ready to climb through that phone and throttle that doctor, prednisone. For pity's sake she's at 5k!
I kept telling her she needed to be in the hospital getting an IGIV RIGHT THEN, but she was upset and disoriented, so she said she'd call me back later. As much as I hated the thought of her getting in a vehicle, or even walking across the room, I took some comfort that at some point soon she would see a Hematologist. (Her PCP had never seen a case of ITP before today.)
I had no idea this tiny town had a hematologist, thank goodness we do and he seems quite competent. She got right in, they took a bone marrow sample, and then they checked her into the hospital. When the kids and I visited after dinner she was hooked up to a huge IGIV bottle, and I'm breathing easier.
Right now they are treating it as ITP, Tali's condition, and testing to rule out everything else. (That's standard procedure, and I'm so glad they are now operating according to my expectations.) It's funny to be praying it is only ITP, when ITP has been such a scary part of my life, but ITP is better than any of the other things it could be.
I've tried to explain to her several times the process that they use to treat ITP, but she doesn't follow me, or understand that there isn't a calendar we can look at and know when she will be over it. Land they don't even know what causes ITP, not really.
So thank goodness she will listen to the Hematologist and will trust him.

Lord, thank you for Hematologists, and IGIVs, and the people who donate the IGs in the IVs.

(BTW Tali's counts have been over 250k for years now, we just do yearly counts to be sure she hasn't slipped out of remission.)

St. Nick

I know, odd thing to say when I don't do the "Santa thing" with my kids. Thousands of people will fault me for that choice, but I refuse to blur the reality lines here. I want my kids to know what is fantasy and what is reality. Santa, Harry Potter, and the people in Mommy's books are fantasy. Jesus is real.
St. Nick is real too, the original one anyway, not the legend that has grown up around him.
What I am thankful for today, on St. Nick's own day, is that people like him existed. Random acts of kindness weren't something they came up with in the 1990's, they were being done thousands of years ago by people living in little stone huts no bigger than my sewing room. They weren't paying anonymously for some one's meal or putting a note on some one's desk, they were providing the funds to keep a child out of slavery and feeding those who really and truly needed it to survive.
And you know what, they didn't do it to get on the radio. They didn't do it to promote their business or agendas. However, that is what made people pay attention, because they truly didn't want the thanks, they did it because it was the right thing to do.
I have to wonder if that is the difference between a good person and a great person, the true motives behind their secret acts... but either way, I want to be like them. I want to be THAT thoughtful, THAT committed to helping my fellow man, THAT pure in my intent.

Thank you Lord, for men and women, remembered and forgotten, who taught this world to be more like Thee.

Our Stake leaders

We struggle as a ward. Our Sacrament Meeting Attendance is below 20%. If everyone came they would have to split the ward, maybe even divide us in 3 and have a Hmong speaking branch (perish the thought!)
Our Stake leaders are doing everything they can to help us and the last several weeks we have had stake visitors each Sunday. They go on splits with Home Teachers, advise us, support us, and I'm very thankful for the help, and even more thankful for the love.

Thank you Lord, for our inspired Stake leaders.

Kia and Sy

(This is yesterday's post, because I had a very full day yesterday and when I realized after reading scriptures that I hadn't written this yet I was to tired to come out here and turn my computer on.)

The Hmong sisters in my ward are AMAZING. They are each so wonderful and a delight to know, but after the Relief Society meeting Kia and Sy really touched my heart. They each brought extra help with them, stayed late helping me finish, helped clean up, and then as they were leaving took the time to come and thank me for my part. It just hit me so hard that these two women are always going above and beyond. They live their testimonies of Christ in their daily actions, in the way that they treat others, and I am so very blessed to know them.

Thank you, Lord, for Sy and Kia and the way they bring your love to the world.

Weaknesses

I tried to make cookies tonight. Some of them turned out okay I guess. I just simply can't bake, and I've known that for years. However, since I asked everyone else to bring two or more dozen cookies to the Relief Society Meeting tomorrow I thought I should do it too.
Needless to say I've been in a really bad mood for the last hour because of this attempt.
However, I am thankful that I completely suck at baking because:

• If I could bake, I would eat more baked goods, and I don't need any more baked goods on my hips.
• I can't do it all, and I shouldn't be able to do it all, and nobody (including me) should expect that I can do it all. I've got to have a few flaws, and things involving flour and the oven is one of mine.
• Stinking at something so many others are really good at keeps me from getting too big of a head. Humility is a good thing.
• It's good for me socially, to tell the truth. People tend to be intimidated by me, (which I really don't get because I'm certainly not the best at any of the things I do...) and it's caused me a lot of heatache in the past. Readily admitting that I can't bake or get jello to set seems to help morph me from the big scarey alien into a person.

Thank you, Lord, for my weaknesses, because I need them.

Christmas Costumes

There will be a new post on "things" in a few days about this, but I snagged an opportunity to make costumes for some friends for the Christmas parade. So I get to have all the fun of Christmas AND Halloween rolled into one!

Thank you Lord for making E and T cool enough guys that they will dress up like elves.

A Warm Bed

Oh yes, it is something I take for granted all the time. Tonight though, after a very long day on very little sleep I am so very thankful that I will be warm and safe tonight as I dream.

Thank you Lord, for my soft, warm, inviting bed.

Thomas S. Monson, the Prophet

I remember a long time ago that my parents took us all to a big meeting at some sort of sports arena. There, far away on a little stand, stood an aging man whom we had come to hear speak. He may have been a single person among thousands and so far away I could barely make out his face, but I could feel the spirit that he carried with him. I knew that he loved me, even though he didn't know me. I knew that he was a messenger of the Lord, called by God Himself to minister to us. I knew that Thomas S. Monson was a prophet.
Each time a President of the church has died we have been counseled to pray to know if he is called of God as a Prophet. I have had the Holy Ghost affirm that calling to me again and again. Well, I have known for so long, so strongly that President Monson is a prophet I didn't need to pray for that confirmation. I had that on that long ago day in Reno.
Ever since, when I hear him speak, I pay closer attention. When I read things written by him, it is not my voice speaking in my mind, it is his, I know his voice, his cadence that well, for I relish every word I hear him speak.

Thank you Lord, for President Thomas S. Monson, the Prophet.

Bedtime

In God's great wisdom he made it so kids require more hours of sleep in a night than adults do. So every night we send them to bed and then stare blankly at a wall or tv for a while trying to process the hours of little voices contending for our attention.
Then on the way to our own beds we do one last check, turning off lights, covering a little body laying cutely contorted, half on, half off the bed or with feet on the pillow. Though we are tired from a long day, though we have relished that adult time when we could be something besides keeper of the backpacks, we still reach out to touch a cheek. Our hearts swell with love.
Ah the magic of a sleeping baby, no matter how old they are, there is something about that helpless state that brings back all the warm moments and reminds us why we love them.

Thank you, Lord, for bedtime.

Now, to get mine down for the night before I turn into a pumpkin.

The Atonement

(Here's a link to the definition, if anyone happens upon this who isn't a member of my faith.)

Words will never express the depth of my gratitude for the Atonement and what it has meant in my life, but I will say this, I am nothing without it, and through it I have potential that spans the eternities. My relationship with my Savior is the most important thing in my life, and I have such peace because of this.

Thank you, Lord, for your incomparable work on my behalf.

Sewing

I love my sewing machines. I mean where would this stitch-witch be without them? Dad and Joe went in together on my standard machine right after I got married, and then later Joe bought me my serger. I've been using them both today making Christmas presents and I'm so thankful to have them.

I am also thankful that my mother took the time to teach me to sew at an early age. I very much remember making that little yellow sweatsuit for Joe-Joe. It couldn't have been an easy process teaching me, but she found the time and the patience to do it.

Thank you Lord, for Sewing.

Kitchen gadgets

As I type this I have been shuffled out of the kitchen by a husband who thinks the flip waffle maker is fun to use.

Thank you Lord for kitchen gadgets.

Harm avoided

I am thankful that when I turned on the wrong burner and managed to explode a pyrex pie plate that the only victims were two beautiful apple pies, a pot of corn, and a pot of green beans.

Thank you Lord for protecting us from my folly.

Falling leaves

Having been raised in the desert, I never really understood the draw of trees. In fact forest roads used to make me feel claustrophobic. I still love the big open sky of the west, but trees have definitely grown on me over the last several years. I fell in love with the quiet sentries of nature on vacation a few years back, and when I saw the forest that surrounded this house I just had to live here. Now every day I stop for a moment or two and gaze on the beauty of my trees.
Yesterday the wind was blowing gently, and I had some harp music playing on my iPod. For just a few moments the leaves fell perfectly in time with the chords from the strings, like they were the agile fingers that brought the music to life. It was a moment of pure beauty, and in moments like that I can't help but know that God loves me.

Thank you Lord, for falling leaves, the orange, yellow, and red valentines that you send drifting down to me.

My Bosses

... and not just because they sent me to this great big event and bought me dinner last night.

We prayed before that meal, and on the way home we discussed the allegories in C. S. Lewis' writing. How many places can you work and have your Christianity encouraged?

I love working in a place where good business ethics are not a question, they are something that comes naturally because the Directors are singularly focused on following Jesus Christ. He is in our meetings, He is in our classrooms, He is in our thoughts. Sure we aren't perfect but we put Faith first and the rest falls into place. I love love love that about my work.

Thank you Lord, for leading me to a job where I can work for people who understand why following you is my priority.

Words

I'm rather surprised I never put this on "Thoughts," I shared it elsewhere last year and saved it to my computer. This is how I describe the process of writing:

"Ah, catharsis, the point at which all that we have felt and all we are currently feeling rises within us and breaks the utmost boundary of our soul. Then issues forth something unique and beautiful which we scurry to catch upon the page before it is lost in the oblivion of spent emotions. This is the quest of all who write, to pen the words that frame the most intangible issuance of the human condition."

I am so thankful for words. I do unique and beautiful things in many ways, but there is something about writing that has such power.

I think in truth what I am should be called expressive and not creative. Depending on your perspective creation can mean anything from making something from nothing to the skillful reorganization of matter in a new or unique way. So, creative is so subjective.

Expressive though, that's me, I yearn to express the eternal and fleeting ideas and feelings that make life so beautiful.

Some LDS Composer, I can't remember who, wrote "Thanks for the music, inside me." Similarly I give thanks for the words that pour out of me.

Thank you Lord, for words.

He's so good

Anyone who has known James any length of time knows that he can be a handful. Incredibly intelligent people get bored easily, and you add in the stubborn streak he inherited from a certain red-head and you've got a force to be reckoned with.
Lately though, he's been very very well behaved. I guess the latest heart-to-heart talk got through to him or something because he's been quick to obey, cheerful, willing, just wonderful. He is making a big effort and I'm so proud of him (and yes I tell him.)
So today I am so thankful that the Holy Ghost is with my son and is helping him be so good.

Thank you Lord, for helping him be so good.

Thinking Thankfully

I've decided to do a daily blog, and for a year I am going to write about something I am thankful for.
I am thankful for the way the morning fog danced among the trees as I started my day. I know some people don't like fog, they think it is depressing, but I love fog. I love the way it wraps around me like a blanket of stillness. I love the soft way it caresses the ground, the lake, the sky. I love the sleepy way it lays in the valleys and the way it flows on the wind.

Thank you Lord, for fog.