Dancing with Daffodils

Hallelujah! Every outside commitment I have is done, my husband finished up his work project, the kids are off from school and all I have left to be ready for Christmas is a bit of wrapping and cooking a turkey. To say I am relieved is an understatement. Now that the good but busy-ness of Christmas is done, I feel more peaceful and like I can take a quiet moment to really feel the spirit of it all.  Today as I was making cinnamon rolls and listening to Christmas music, I felt such gratitude for my parents. There is something about Christmas that always makes me think back to childhood and those special years of celebrating as a kid with my sisters and parents. My mom is a wonderful cook and she makes the best cinnamon rolls in the world. They are different than most people's cinnamon rolls and take a special touch to make them turn out just right. The first half of mine came out well but the second half were near perfect and I had this moment of joyful success! She has taught me...

It is Christmas time, a time I love and from which comes many of my fond childhood memories. However, as an adult, some of the magic has certainly been lost in the work of it all. This has only been emphasized this year because my husband is working a ton of overtime and between that and heavy church responsibilities, he has hardly been home in three weeks and has two more of this to go. Then the last week or so he has been really sick so even when he was home he was sleeping. It has been a bit lonely doing almost all of the decorating, gift planning, baking, party planning, as well as general life/family management with little support (not by his own choice).  The most difficult feeling of all is that of just not being enough. More times than I can count the past few weeks I have put my head in my hands and thought, I can't make this all happen. It isn't even in the commercial part of Christmas that many would say to cut out in order to simplify our lives. We have filled our...

There are so many problems and heartache in this world. My mission president and his wife once told a group of us missionaries that they often prayed in gratitude for all of the problems they didn't have. This week I have felt humbled by the circumstances of so many and it certainly makes me grateful for my very normal and simple life. I could look at those with lots of money and think how fun it would be to travel more and honestly, sometimes I do, but today I am grateful that I don't have to worry about where I am going to sleep tonight or what I am going to feed my family. I don't have to stress about clothing or how to get around or if my kids are safe playing outside. I don't have to worry about their behavior at school or their health. I am not in a hospital being treated for a terrible disease and I am not in chronic pain. I am not concerned that when my husband gets home he is going to hurt me or be unkind to me in any way. I don't have to worry about subs...

My husband has now been the bishop of our congregation for six months and thirteen days. People have just barely stopped asking me what it is like to be a bishop's wife and I don't think I have ever answered the question well because it is a complicated response. First off, it is challenging, and more so than I expected it to be. Perhaps pridefully, I thought when he got called that I was totally ready for this challenge and could handle it. My dad was a bishop and stake president from the time I can remember until I was in high school and my mom never complained or seemed bothered about him being gone so much. I figured I could easily follow her good example and do the same. I am now more humble in realizing that I can't handle the increased burden of parenthood on my own well. It isn't even just the physicality of getting them where they need to go but also the emotional stress of being the only one who is there to handle all disputes, break downs, complaining and m...

It has been awhile. I have been too busy reading and cleaning my house from the wonderful mess that is summer. I have been organizing a space almost every weekday and it has made me so happy to have a clean laundry room again and an organized shoe closet and I even cleaned out my freezer. I am half way on my list but decided today to take a break and do some writing. I have been thinking a lot about feelings lately. A month or so ago I had an interaction with a good friend that left me feeling hurt and left out and unappreciated or even liked. For days I thought about it and it bothered me. I wasn't super friendly when I saw her because I was allowing my hurt feelings to let me step back from the relationship. As a kid I was always accused of being too sensitive so I have worked hard as an adult to not stew or stress about every interaction I have. I think I've done a good job learning to let go of these kinds of situations and move on and I can usually do that, but this time...

Today is my birthday. The past few days I've been feeling sad and like a birthday these days is less exciting than as a kid or young adult. The magic and wonder of what could happen on your birthday or what surprise might happen or what friend might remember you is kind of over. I just wanted my kids not to fight or cry today and if they had cleaned their rooms up I might have considered it a birthday miracle! But why set yourself up for disappointment just because it is the day you were born? These expectations that everyone is going to be nice to you and make you feel loved and special can easily lead to disappointment so I was having a hard time getting excited about today. The day, however, started off that I woke up when my body wanted to, which was 8:40 a.m. Woot woot! I love that! Then a note was slid under my door saying that I could sleep for 20 more minutes (which meant my kids were up to something!). I took a shower and then went to get my kids, who covered me with hug...

This past week my daughter was officially invited to her first sleepover. As parents, we had decided years ago that our kids just weren't going to do sleepovers. The only exception has been when we go away for a night and they all stay at a friend's house while we are gone, or when we watch kids for friends for the same reason. So this was the first time we had to say no thank you to an invitation and it was a learning experience. Years ago a church leader was speaking in our general church conference and said that a lot of kids are introduced to things such as drugs, alcohol and pornography at sleepovers. He warned parents to be courageous in protecting our children by being prayerful and willing to say no when we are uneasy about activities, especially overnight ones. This was a true experience for my husband who went to a sleepover and found that his friends had changed from 8th grade to 9th and decided to drink alcohol. He spent the entire night afraid to go to sleep, sit...

I set a goal to read 35 books this year, after I successfully read 30 last year and felt the need to step up my game. I have read 17 books, so I am about halfway there, although more than halfway through the year so I am looking forward to catching up during the fall time when the kids go back to school. But here is my first 17 reads of 2018. 1. Victoria by Daisy Goodwin. Fantastic book! I absolutely loved this one although it is right up my alley of English historical fiction, but it is well-written and interesting and it was a great way to start the year. 2. Of Mess and Moxie by Jen Hatmaker. I have some friends that just love her and I liked her but am not quite drinking her kool aid. It was an easy, uplifting read and I enjoyed it but it felt a bit fluffy to me. Good book, just didn't wow me. 3. A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. This takes place in the Adirondacks and is full of good characters, heart and mystery. I was really into it and it was a refreshing change f...

Sometimes it is just hard to be a grown up. There is something about summer that makes me yearn for the simpler days of my childhood. I drove nine hours last week to visit my parents and while I was driving I couldn’t help but be slightly envious of my kids sitting in the back of the car, reading and playing with toys. That used to be me. Since I am the youngest, all our years of road tripping across the country meant all my sisters would take turns driving but I was never old enough. I got to sit in the back and read, listen to my walkman, watch out the window, sleep or do whatever I wanted for 36 hours. That sure beats sitting in traffic, getting cut off by a red BMW, being rerouted onto sketchy streets because of traffic and trying to find a Wendys before your kids get too hangry. My kids always wonder why dad doesn’t have a summer break. Every day for the first week of vacation they ask where is dad and they’re so confused when I explain how he still has to go to work. Wouldn’t...

Last week I was at the beach and was therefore too busy dancing in the waves to write. It was a glorious week of being disconnected from any regular responsibility other than my children. I know I've written about how much I love the beach before but here it goes again. I love the ocean. I don't know if it is because I went so often as a kid or if it is just part of who I am but I love water in general and the ocean especially. I find the power of the waves inspiring and I love how it is always changing so it never gets boring; some days the waves are huge (fun!) some days the waves are calm (still fun!) and some days they are just right (super fun!).  I love how the water is always moving and going somewhere, pulling or pushing you. I love how beautiful it is when a wave crests and crashes on itself, spraying white bubbles and kicking up sand and shells. My favorite is getting out just past where they are breaking and wave dancing. This is a sport I invented when I was nin...

Well, you know how much I love summer. I've been verbose at times on how much I love having my own schedule, enjoy the beach and the pool, the joy of picnics and summer rain storms and dusk when it starts to cool off but isn't dark yet, and eating copious amounts of ice cream. One of my very favorite parts of summer is sleeping in. We've been out of school for a week but because my son attended cub scout day camp this week, I had to actually set an alarm and get up earlier than on school days. Thankfully I had a friend close by who drove him each morning so I just had to get him to her house or I would have to get all the kids dressed and in the car to go sign him in every morning at 7:45 am. Does that sound early to you? It is very early for me. I don't like to start my day before 8 am and I do have to say I was shocked by how many people were out and about at 7:25 when I was driving him to our friend's house, eyes barely open. This is how I have learned what a...

My second grader is a great speller. He rarely did any practicing for his spelling tests and maybe missed five words total for the year. When he came home with a paper saying there was going to be a class spelling bee and then the top four spellers would go on a grade-wide spelling bee, I was excited for him and expected him to do well. I didn't push it or want to put any pressure on him and we had a busy weekend so it was just three days beforehand that I suggested we go through the long practice list that had been sent home. Each day we had to go over an entire front and back of words in order to go over all of them in time. As it turned out, we didn't make it to the last three columns but I figured he knew the majority and would be fine. I anxiously waited for him by the door that day and when he walked in I excitedly asked him how it went. That was when he burst into tears and said he misspelled the very first word. He said it was one of the few on the last page that we h...

I gave this talk last week in church and thought I would share it here, mostly because I've been too sick this week to do any other writing, so enjoy! I was asked by the handsome guy in the middle [Josh but I felt funny calling him Josh in church and there was no way I was going to say Bishop Darrow so he became handsome guy] here to speak today on how asking gospel questions is part of gospel living. I think he gave this topic to me because he actually really wanted to give this talk and by having me do it, he could pepper me every evening with ideas. He tried to flatter me by saying it was because of my experience in journalism, which makes me  a professional question asker, but I know better. When I was at BYU and taking my news writing class, our managing editor inspired us the first week of class with an analogy involving fishing. The actual analogy was lost on me since I don’t like fish but his point was that we need to get into the guts of the story and not just stay...

First off I want to apologize to my loyal 10 readers. I've been very busy and haven't made time for my writing, which has led to a few late posts on Friday night in an effort to meet my goal. Without time to really reflect and edit my writing, I feel like it has led to lower quality posts. While it is a good exercise for me to practice writing on a deadline, it isn't fun for you to read lame stuff. So, thanks for coming back and I'm hoping quality will improve as I continue to practice. Let me share with you another struggle I am having. A few weeks ago we bought a new car. A minivan actually. I still have a hard time saying it. I've become a minivan-driving soccer mom. I have always been this person but just didn't have the minivan for the rest of the world to know it too. I am not ashamed of who I am; I love staying home with my children, I enjoy supporting them in their activities, I can even get into my son's soccer games. But for some reason I felt a ...

I have a sister-in-law who will be having her first baby this summer and it has been fun to go back and try to think about life before I became a mother. I never had any great ambition for a career, although being a travel writer sure sounded fun, but what I ultimately wanted to be when I grew up was a mom who stayed home and took care of the family. To some that may seem demeaning or the formula for a life unfulfilled but for me it is perfect. I grew up with a wonderful mother who was and continues to be everything that makes a good mom. She is tough and could practically pull things out of the oven without an oven mitt because of her calloused, hard-working hands. She is an excellent cook and made family dinner a special time every night. She taught us to work hard, she encouraged us to live the gospel of Jesus Christ, she took us on picnics and fun trips to the beach, she enjoyed taking us shopping for clothes, and she was always helping or serving other people. My mom is a do-er...

Tonight my family attended a teacher appreciation evening put on by our church. It was well-organized and a lovely event that included gifts for each teacher and a great video of each child saying what they like best about the teacher they chose to invite and honor. My two oldest invited school teachers who could not attend but my younger daughter invited her ballet teacher, who did come. It was wonderfully special to get to actually talk to this good woman who I admire so much for her approach to teaching dance and to see her interacting with my daughter. Teachers really are a special kind of person. When I was trying to choose a major I went to an English major introduction and all they talked about was becoming an English teacher, which was not what I wanted. I ended up switching my major to journalism so that I could write and not teach because I knew I wouldn't be good at it. It requires a special amount of patience and understanding and love for the subject and your student...