Dancing with Daffodils

One evening last week I read a message with my children from a church leader on ways to keep Christ at the center of our Christmas celebration.  He suggested reading scriptures, listening to the words of sacred carols and sincere acts of love.  In an effort to reach out and show love, I had gotten a catalog from heifer.org and asked the children if they would like to pick out an animal to give to a family in need as a Christmas gift.  The flock of chicks or the hive of bees were very reasonable but my children picked a sheep, one of the more expensive animals.  In that moment I felt an inner conflict with my own selfishness. Here I was trying to teach my children to be unselfish but it was more than I was hoping to spend.  Yet they both agreed and were determined and united in their choice, so we bought a sheep.  It hit me later how appropriate their choice is for Christmas.  Christ is the Good Shepherd and it was the shepherds who first heard of Jesu...

I love to read and for the last five years, I’ve enjoyed reading to my children.  The most special time I had with my dad was when he would read to me and now I find that snuggling up with my kids, having them quiet and listening, having a shared experience while reading a good book is my most special time with them. As with adult literature, I’ve come to learn that there are definitely books for children that are poorly written, have bad illustrations, have unlikable characters or just a terrible story, all of which detracts from our special time together.  When we go to the library I skim through every book my kids pick out before I agree to bring it home and even then, if once we’ve read it I don’t like it, I hide it back in the library bag. Perhaps you think I’m too controlling, or perhaps you also have children and know that they often pick out the same story over and over again and with a bad story, once is more than enough.   I am always on the lookout for qu...

It is November and with a bag full of Halloween candy sitting in front of me, it is time to be grateful. While I do believe it is best to be grateful all year long, I’m proud to live in a country that makes time for us to contemplate our blessings and feel gratitude for their abundance at least once a year.  As part of this annual exercise in thankfulness, I’ve made my list below (in no particular order). 1.  A healthy body.  I’m grateful that I can run (in theory) and play and get around.  I’m grateful to be able to have children and that I have energy to take care of them.  I’m a good sleeper, have no chronic pain and am able to use all of my senses.  It may not look exactly how I want it to look but it does what it needs to do and that is an immense blessing. 2.  A home.  I spend a lot of time in my home and I’m thankful that it is warm, safe, comfortable, relatively clean and a place to take care of my family.   3.  The ...

Kiev, Ukraine I got to spend a day recently with a dear friend whom I met while serving as a missionary for my church and we were reminiscing about our worst day on the mission.  It was the beginning of summer so it was hot and we had absolutely nothing on our schedule that day.  Usually the goal of  a missionary is to be teaching lessons all day long but that day we didn’t have a single teaching appointment, which meant we needed to find someone to teach.  We set the goal to have four discussions (or lessons where we share about our church) that day so we picked a building in our area and set off to find people willing to listen to our message. I’m not sure what was up with this building but that day we met some of the strangest people that I encountered during my entire 16 months in Kiev.  It was an exhausting day just knocking on doors and being turned away.  We somehow managed to have lessons with three individuals but none of them went very we...

I love reading good books.  Whenever I’m asked what my hobbies are I always list reading first.  I love that it is quiet and relaxing.  I love that I can see another point of view or experience something through a character that I never could in my own life.  I love learning about history and people and other cultures.  My favorite night of the month is attending book club and discussing books that I liked or disliked with friends.  I appreciate good writing and love when a story grabs me and I just can’t put my book down.  While I have a great memory, I don’t usually remember details of stories that I read but I always remember how they made me feel. My favorite book as a child was a book entitled “Mandy” by Julie Andrews.  It is about a little girl who is an orphan and finds a secret cottage back behind the wall of the orphanage.  She makes it her own little home and it becomes her escape from the sadness of not having a family.  E...

On May 9, 2006, my husband and I came home from being out all day to learn that my brother-in-law had passed away in an accident.  It was devastating news to think that my dear sister was suddenly a widow and her three boys were now without a father.  I felt such overwhelming grief for my sister and her position; that her life had turned upside down in a matter of minutes. I felt a great need to be there with her, especially to help out with my nephews.   My sister lives in Michigan and I was living in Utah at the time, working at the university while my husband was in school.  First I had to arrange the time off and then I had to figure out how in the world to pay for a last-minute airline ticket to fly across the country on a very student kind of budget.  No one else in my family would be able to make it to Michigan for a few more days.  I just had to get there but the cost of tickets was overwhelming. Then the phone rang.  We didn’t have call...

On September 11, 2001, I was in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) for my church. I’d been there for not even a week and was still adjusting to missionary life. This includes always being with a companion but also no television, email, computers, phones, radio, non-sacred music and access to only a few books. As a missionary you are to focus on the scriptures, learn the doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ and prepare to teach them, often in another language. I was trying to figure out the Cyrillic alphabet and getting used to being with another person all day every day. The MTC has been referred to as a compound or a bubble because you are intentionally isolated from the rest of the world for 2-12 weeks (depending on language) in order to prepare to be a missionary. So it was in this circumstance that I came to class on that Tuesday morning to find my teacher drawing a diagram of buildings on the chalkboard. Once we were all there he told us how planes had crashed into buildings ...

Today is a special day.  Five years ago today I became a mother.  I went through three years of infertility treatments, had one miscarriage, dozens of shots and medications, one D&C and three doctors before I was able to become a mother, but none of that mattered on August 17, 2008 when my beautiful daughter was born. I woke up around 4am on that Sunday morning and just laid there wondering if I was in labor.  I finally stood up and went to the bathroom around 5am and definitely felt a gush that was not normal.  I woke my husband up and we then called the doctor who said I should come in to the hospital, so I showered and got ready and we drove to the hospital very calmly.  They checked me when I got there at about 6am and I did have a tear so they went ahead and broke my water all of the way for me.  Then I got an epidural and the next few hours I just sat around.  I couldn’t feel anything below my waist so I was relaxed and not even aware of w...

A few weeks ago my 19-year-old nephew left to serve a two-year mission for our church in Bogota, Colombia.  We got to hear his talk in church on his last Sunday before leaving and the room was full of family members, friends, and church members who were there to support him in his good decision. My nephew with his mission president in Colombia My nephew is a good-hearted kid and we've always been close.  When he was just learning to talk I had him convinced my name was “favorite aunty ‘lecia”.   He has always had a natural desire to do the right thing and that was increased upon the tragic death of his father when he was 12.   My grandfather died when my dad was only six months old so he too grew up without a father.  He has said that God has made up the difference.  Men have been placed in his life at key moments to play a special role and my father promised my nephews the same thing in their lives.  On that Sunday before my nephew...

We recently returned to my hometown of Rochester, New York to visit family.  It is a joy to grocery shop at Wegmans, eat Abbotts custard as I walk along the Charlotte Beach pier and to drive through downtown, pointing out to my kids my two favorite buildings: the sandwich and the clippers.  These are moments from my childhood that I love living over again. I lived in a great neighborhood when I was a kid where my two best friends lived just across the street.  We would play board games or Atari at my house, Super Mario brothers at Laurie’s house and Sonic at Heather’s house.  We’d swim, play gymnastics, ride our bikes to the local grocery mart for candy, walk to school together, build leaf forts, have bouncy ball competitions and race in the snow.   Each May my family would go to the Lilac Festival.  We would take a picnic dinner, walk around the tulips beds first and then head over to the large hill covered in deep purple, light purple an...