HELLO . . . YEAH, IT'S ME AGAIN . . . NOT MUCH . . . HOW ABOUT YOU . . .

It occurs to me that most of what I have blogged here over the time that I have had this blogger account has been spent discussing why I blog so infrequently . . . This occurred to me out of the blue once, when in the midst of some deep introspection, one of my boys said 'mom, I don't read your blog because it is boring . . . all you do is whine about how you never blog'. LOL. Yeah . . . nothing like a little friendly wake up call by someone who loves you dearly and doesn't know how to be honest gently to provide much needed insight, right?


So . . . yeah, I am boring.


Big deal. Most of us are . . . honestly. I mean, NOBODY is endlessly witty and insightful and entertaining . . . right? Why should I expect to be any different? I began this blog as an exercise (sort of) after thinking about a part in an old movie ("Bridges of Madison County" or something like that, I think . . . I didn't even LIKE the movie, and never read the book, but at the end of it the woman's daughter and son are going through her cedar chest and discover some things that make them realize that they had never really known their mom as a PERSON . . . just as their mom. That seemed sad to me . . . and I decided that I would try to give my family members a chance to know ME . . . just as a person, not as their mom or aunt or sister or wife . . . just as, well, ME.


HMMMMMM . . . well, the jury was out for awhile, but apparently the 'ME' I was attempting to share is pretty dang boring. LOL.


OK . . . I can live with that. I don't know if I did a very good job of sharing myself here . . . but that is okay. I am aware that there are HUGE reservoirs of boringness in me . . . and sometimes I even bore myself. However, there are also times that I amaze myself, and to be honest, I really DO like being me . . . but my life is not such a thrill-a-minute that I would expect anyone else to want to BE me . . .


And I can live with that . . .


I am NOT, by any stretch of the imagination a finished product . . . and that does surprise me. I have spent most of my life assuming that when people got to 'my age' (which years ago I might have classified as 'old' but which NOW seems quite Spring chickenish) they were less works-in-progress and more polished. Either I am not that aware (always a possibility) or I just don't have it together quite as well as other . . . um . . . 'spring chickens' . . . ish . . . (also a possibility) . . . but I am definitely still learning, still growing, still discovering, still evolving . . . which is interesting (at least to ME), but also a little disconcerting. Fot some reason, I thought all my rough edges would be more polished by now . . . How kind of depressing to think that the people I spent my life looking up to were maybe just like ME . . . mere mortals . . .


Anyhow, be that as it may . . . this is kind of an unexpectedly stretchy time in my life . . . with some hard things happening/going on . . . and I find myself less ready to turn these experiences into Sacrament Meeting talks with the little standard pat answers to my very real questions and concerns. Oh, I haven't lost my faith. Not at all. I KNOW that my Heavenly Father is aware of what is going on AND that He is in charge and has a plan for my life. I also know that He sees a bigger, clearer picture than I do, and that things that don't seem to make sense NOW . . . WILL be understood and probably even appreciated somewhere down the road.


I heard the neatest story in Stake Conference awhile back that has stuck in my head, even though the details are fuzzy and I may not get them exactly right. Still, I want to try to write it down here before I forget it completely.


A woman was out shopping and came across some absolutely beautiful carved wood music boxes. Knowing how much her little daughter would love something so girly and lovely she purchased one for her, to surprise her daughter with on Christmas morning. On her way out of the store, she saw a much simpler, much smaller, and much less expensive version of the wooden music box, and remembering that her daughter was going to a friend's birthday party soon, purchased that for her daughter to give as a gift.


When she showed her daughter the small music box that she could wrap up for her friend, the little girl promptly burst into tears, sobbing "I don't WANT to give this to MaryAnn . . . I want to keep it for ME . . . I have ALWAYS wanted a wooden music box!!!" She could NOT be consoled, as hard as her mother tried to do so. The irony did not escape her mom . . . The girl WOULD be receiving a music box soon . . . a much nicer one than the one she was giving her friend, and yet the girl didn't know about the second music box, and so she was absolutely CERTAIN that the music box she was supposed to wrap up for her friend, was EXACTLY what she wanted.


The speaker then went on to say that trusting in the Lord means JUST that . . . TRUSTING him . . . Trusting Him when things don't go the way you had hoped or planned, and you are absolutely CERTAIN that the righteous desires of your heart are mistakenly slipping away, out of your grasp . . . Trusting that He DOES have a plan . . . and that sometimes when what you want and hope for and dream about doesn't seem to be working out, it IS because the Lord has something much better in store for you . . . You need to trust His plan when he takes (pries?) the small music box out of your fingers, and be willing to be patiently confident that it will be replaced with something even better.


I don't know if my retelling the story makes much sense tonight . . . but maybe that doesn't even matter. Maybe *I* am the one that needed to be reminded of that thought . . .


Yeah . . . I suspect that I really did write all this for ME . . . I may not be as witty or entertaining or insightful as I could be . . . but I want most to be AUTHENTIC . . . and tweaking things to entertain an audience (LOL, like I have one) will interfere with what I want (and perhaps need) this experience to be.


So . . . sorry, but this is ME . . . warts and all . . .


(Um, except I really don't have any warts, honest, but you know what I mean.)