RAH RAH REEEE!!! KICK 'EM IN THE KNEE!!!!

It was kind of cute the other day . . . I always spend three hours in the Math lab right after my math class (which meets two days a week). It allows me to get started on my homework when the explanation is fresh in my head, it is fairly quiet, and there is always at least one math professor on duty and several math-knowledgeable lab aides (one of which hates me because my questions frequently stump him) to help with any problems or questions that arise.


I don't get ALL my math homework done in that three hours, (well . . . once in a great while I do) but I do get a good start on it. Anyhow, because I am there so much, several of the lab aides and teachers recognize me and talk to me when they see me around campus or in the lab itself, which is kind of fun.


So I was in the lab on Wednesday, and spread out my stuff (book, paper, notes, etc) to get started on my homework, when the professor on duty, that I like A LOT (he is VERY good at explaining concepts) came up and asked me how I was doing. I answered that I was trying desperately to remember everything I had ever heard about logarithms and he stayed and talked to me for like twenty minutes (GRRRR . . . I wanted to get HOMEWORK done, but he is nice, so I didn't mind too much).


He said how impressed he is that I am so dedicated about spending time in the lab, getting the help I need to succeed in my class. Then he told me that when he was in high school and college he HATED math . . . he struggled with it SO badly. Because of that, he decided that he wouldn't let it defeat him, so he worked EXTRA hard, and one day the lights came on and he GOT it . . . He actually decided to become a math teacher BECAUSE it was such a struggle for him. He figured he would have both a lot of empathy for people who struggled with the subject AND he had had to work so hard at 'getting' things, that he knew a lot of different ways to explain concepts.


Then he told me that I was doing exactly what I needed to do to be successful in my class . . . that it is obvious that I take it seriously . . . I am always there . . . I take good, detailed notes . . . and I am willing to take the time to really WORK on the concepts, including getting outside help when needed.


After he walked away, I realized that he had just done like this little cheerleader pep talk for me . . . I am not sure exactly why . . . I was having a really good day and the sections we are studying now are not ones I find particularly frustrating . . . but it was nice of him to 'cheer' me on . . .


YUP . . . apparently there ARE math cheerleaders . . .


HEY . . . does this mean the tooth fairy really does exist TOO?!?!??

THE PERFECT FAMILY . . .

I was talking to a friend the other day who was really upset at some criticism that had been leveled at her family. This friend is a good, conscientious mom who loves her grown children dearly, even through their struggles and trials, and what was said to her HURT. It is always hurtful to be criticized (or even feel like you are being criticized silently) by people that you admire and respect. She cried as she told me that finally she said, "Well, I am sorry that my family isn't perfect like yours is" . . . and I interrupted her to say, "But it IS. You DO have a perfect family . . . perfectly NORMAL . . . "


Since then, I have been thinking about her experience . . . and pondering just what does make a 'perfect' family . . . and the answer is, I have no clue.


Nope . . . no clue at all . . .


The family I grew up in was not a perfect family, though there was much good in it . . .


My own family has not been perfect either. Oh, I TRIED . . . I WANTED a perfect family . . . I wanted to be a good, patient, serene, insightful mother that instinctively knew how to solve all her children's problems and just how to approach each one so that they could grow physically and mentally and emotionally and spiritually healthy and strong . . .


But I am well aware that just because I LOVED my children with all my heart . . . and tried my best to to respect and value them is no guarantee that that is what they FELT from me. It is perfectly possible to love people and have that not be the message that they pick up on.


I wasn't always as patient as I wish I could have been . . . sometimes life had me so frazzled that giving my best still didn't mean I had much to give these five incredible gifts that the Lord sent to my care . . .


Despite my good, heartfelt intentions and my best -- though imperfect -- efforts, we did not have a perfect family . . . though I DO think there was much in our family that was good and healthy . . .


Perhaps, when it comes right down to it, a PERFECT family doesn't even really exist . . .


Perhaps there is no such thing as perfect parents . . . or a perfect marriage . . . Just imperfect human beings who are trying to make a relationship work and build something meaningful and lasting together . . .


There is no perfect number of children . . . Some families have no children . . . some have many . . . that is a very personal decision which is between a husband and a wife and the Lord . . .


I must admit that I hope that there are aspects of our family life that our children would like to duplicate in their own families . . .


We laughed A LOT . . . We had so much of fun together . . . I have SO many precious memories of spending time together playing board games, working in the yard, reading stories, working on school projects, going on hikes, laughing together over silly things, making our own kites to fly, going to church together, reading the scriptures together . . .


I remember vividly the time we worked for a solid month to get the house SPOTLESS from top to bottom, being careful not to fight or bicker because we wanted to have a Celestial Day . . . and that meant that the process of getting there was every bit as important as the end result . . .


I remember when we inadvertently picked the six HOTTEST Saturdays to paint our house together, as a family project . . . We sweated, we fell off ladders, we swore we would NEVER do that again, finished it and stepped back to admire our handiwork and simultaneously asked ourselves "Who on EARTH picked this HIDEOUS, BRIGHT aqua color?!?!?!?" (um . . . yeah . . . it was me . . . sigh) . . . and yet from that ordeal came a very sweet sense of accomplishment. We did it TOGETHER . . . It wasn't particularly fun . . . it was ALOT of hard, hard work . . . but we did it together . . . and that was enough . . .


I will never forget the Mother's Day that I woke up and instead of having a pile of presents waiting for me to open, there was a dirty pair of gardening gloves and a trowel . . . because after I had gone to sleep the night before, my husband and children worked for several hours -- in the middle of the night -- to weed and plant flowers in our BIG flower bed out front . . . That touched my heart SO much . . .The flowers were lovely . . . but what touched my heart even more was the thought that they were willing to do that for ME . . .


Sometimes money was really tight . . . sometimes non existent . . . sometimes we had squabbles . . . sometimes we were NOT all on the same page, but through it all, I think that we genuinely enjoyed one another . . .


You know . . . there may not be any perfect families . . . perhaps our family, like my friend's . . . was and IS simply perfectly NORMAL . . . Seven (in our case) imperfect human beings with various personalities and strengths and weaknesses who tried to build something worth holding on to together . . .


I am deeply and genuinely proud of each of my children . . . and -- more than anything else -- incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have raised them and loved them and nurtured them, trying my very imperfect best to share my vision and values of what is most important in life and what I thought would bring them the greatest happiness . . .


I do not know how much they listened . . . or how much they internalized what I tried to teach them. That is out of my hands . . . but more than anything else, I hope with all my heart that they each felt loved . . . and listened to . . . and respected . . . and valued . . . and as much as I hope that there were things from our family that they would like to carry on to their own families . . . I also hope that they follow their own hearts, their own visions of what they each want for THEIR families . . .


There may not be any perfect families . . . but what makes a GOOD family is when people love each other . . . and value each other . . . and respect each other . . . and enjoy spending time together . . . and try -- with their very best efforts -- to build something worth holding on to . . . for all eternity . . .

WEDNESDAY'S WANDERINGS . . .

It is FINALLY beginning to feel like Autumn . . . It cools off nicely at night . . . the mornings are almost cold and occasionally foggy . . . and even when it gets sunny during the day, if you step out of the sun you can feel the delicious, crispness of Fall in the air . . .


I LOVE this time of year . . . I love the holidays -- Halloween (what is not to love about cute costumes and getting CHOCOLATE?!?), Thanksgiving (It is truly FUN to cook a big, huge feast because the whole focus IS on the foods . . . so you feel very appreciated for all your hard work), and Christmas (I love it ALL . . . the decorating . . . the shopping -- trying to find something JUST right for the people you love . . . the wrapping . . . the baking . . . the Christmas carols . . . the sparkling lights . . . the nativity . . . Santa . . . fun family traditions . . . the ambiance of peace on earth and good will towards men) -- but I also just love the WEATHER.


Even here in the sunny southern California desert, we get Fall weather . . . well . . . we at least get FallISH weather. The air gets crisp and feels clearer and more bracing . . . It gets dark earlier . . . and stays dark a little longer in the mornings . . . I reach around for a blanket in the middle of the night . . . cuddling in front of the TV in the evenings gets more and more appealing (LOL . . .the cuddling always sounds appealing . . . TV . . . not so much) . . . I love how the colors change, as Mother Nature dons her richest, deepest colors . . . which just so happen to be some of my very favorites . . .


Yeah . . . I thoroughly love Autumn . . . and I am DELIGHTED to welcome her, once again. Oh, I am sure the hotter weather will be back, periodically . . . but once the cooler nights move in, it is a losing battle, even if the battle is long and SLOW . . .


Now all I lack is a big pile of dried leaves to kick . . .

NEW LIFE . . . NEW HOPE . . .

One of the quotes I love best about children is by . . . hmmmm . . . I used to know, but it is late and I am tired and old, so I have forgotten who said it, but someone famous . . . I am sure you would recognize the name if I could remember and told you . . . but they said something like "each new baby born comes with the reassurance that God is not yet discouraged of man" . . .


Yeah . . . that is pretty close, I am almost certain . . .


There is SO much depressing news flooding our inboxes and newspapers . . . the dismal economy . . . wars and rumors of wars . . . political bumblings . . . natural disasters . . . personal tragedies . . . It sometimes takes a miracle -- a literal MIRACLE -- to get us to stop focusing on the negatives in life and realize just how very precious life truly is . . .


It is an INCREDIBLE gift . . .


And nothing reminds you of that more than the birth of a sweet new baby . . . all purity and innocence and HOPE . . . a new baby in a family brings a LOT of exhausting work and sleepless nights . . . but SOOOO muchlove and satisfaction . . . A brand new baby helps you to focus on what is most important . . .


Careers come and go . . . No matter HOW well and long and hard you prepare for the career of your choice . . . opportunities can slip through your fingers . . . there can be set backs and layoffs and doors slamming shut, despite your very best efforts . . .


Money comes and goes . . . It is nice to have the choices that come with money . . . You can do lots of fun, interesting things . . . eat well . . . dress nicely . . . travel extensively . . . there are, literally, COUNTLESS distractions that money can buy . . . but no matter how much you have, you can still end up alone, dissatisfied, and only wanting more . . .


Even friends can be fickle . . . Sometimes they get busy with their own lives, and leave you alone when you need them most . . . stab you in the back when you least expect it . . . disappoint you in any number of ways . . .


But if you surround yourself with FAMILY . . . despite their imperfections and weaknesses . . . you have people who will stand by you through EVERYTHING . . . They will be there to share your triumphs and cheer you on . . . They will also be there to share your heartaches and disappointments and setbacks, whatever they may be . . . You are linked, forever, with people who WANT you to be happy . . . who may be praying for your success and health . . . who enjoy hearing about all the little details of your day . . . who enjoy your sense of humor . . . who may very well roll their eyes at your antics . . . but who would take a bullet for you if the need arose . . .


A beautiful little baby boy has joined our family this week . . . I saw a picture of him in his first moments of life, and my heart absolutely FLOODED with a sense of awe and gratitude . . . for his safe arrival . . . for his good parents who love him and want to raise him to be a strong, capable, honorable man . . . for the opportunity *I* will have as his gramma to just LOVE him and cheer him on through all his accomplishments in the years ahead . . .


I am more thankful than I can express . . . for my life . . . for my family . . . for my children . . . for those they have brought into our family circle . . . for each new baby that lights up ALL our lives and reassures us, once again, that despite all the heartaches and hardships and selfishness and evil in the world, that God is not yet discouraged of man . . . because he has shared yet another of his precious children with mankind . . .


Welcome, little Gabe . . . We are delighted with your safe arrival . . . and we are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOO ready to love you . . .

FAMILY TIME . . .

The recent heat has REALLY been getting to me . . . Every single year (about this same time) I wonder what the HECK I am doing still here in the southern California desert . . . I am SUCH a pansy in the heat . . . Even with airconditioning in my house and car . . . I just never feel really GOOD all summer . . . I get just sort of listless and blah . . . I guess, sort of like SADD (seasonal affective disorder -- most people get it in the winter or in areas that don't get much sun -- but I get it in reverse, I guess. I don't want to cook . . . don't want to clean . . . don't want to do much of anything . . . It makes me feel SICK . . .


Today we are heading up to the cooler mountains, though, for a family day . . . I am so excited, I can hardly stand it. I really, really, really hope that some day I get to live in a cabin in the mountains . . . to just breathe in that cooler, crisper, pine-scented mountain air DEEP into my lungs . . . listen to the sounds of nature, not traffic and sirens . . . That has been my dream for years and years . . .


I don't know if it will ever come to pass, but for TODAY, I get to live my dream . . . kind of . . .


YAY!!! =o)

BEEN FEELING KIND OF 'UNBLOGGY' . . .

I have been feeling VERY unbloggy lately . . . I think about writing and my mind just goes BLANK . . . I don't know if it is because I feel so frazzled and busy lately . . . or because I have run out of things to say . . . (HA!!! Like I would let THAT stop me!!) . . . or because I actually have too MUCH to say . . . and simply can't put it all in words . . .


School is going well. I mean, it is REALLY busy . . . even with just two classes. But I am weirdly beginning to actually enjoy the challenge of Math . . . I am definitely out of my comfort zone . . . but I am okay with that. I have a lot of areas of my life where I feel like I am competent and can do well . . . and Math is not one of them . . . but it is like something in me has relaxed, and I can let go of my death grip on my lifelong mathphobia . . . and just be content to explore this unfamiliar territory.


I worked into my schedule a three hour block twice a week to spend at the math lab on campus, and that is quickly becoming my new favorite place to hang out. There are always math aides on duty (and usually one professor, too) so there are people there who can help me work through things when I get stuck. I can't believe that I never used the math lab last Spring . . . it is SO helpful.


Yesterday, I hit a snag and worked and reworked the problem and finally decided it had to be an error in the textbook, and went on to the next problem. When I checked that answer, that one, too , was wrong . . . and so was the next. So I called a lab aide over and he read the word problem, and said 'oh you solve that like this . . .' and came up with the exact same answer I had. I showed him that, and then the answer in the back of the book, so he looked at the problem again . . . looked at his calculations . . . and then said . . . "well, sometimes the book makes mistakes" . . . so I showed him the next two problems, and the answers in the back of the book. I felt MUCH less stupid after watching him struggle with the same problems and not be able to get the book's answer, either (though I think HE felt stupid, then). He finally gave up and apologized profusely for not being able to help me. I finished that section (minus those three problems) and by then a different lab aide had come on, and so I called her over and she looked at them and worked them out (coming up with exactly the same answers I had) and when I showed HER the answers in the back, she spent twenty minutes trying to figure out what they had done to get those answers. She was stumped, too. Finally she wrote down the ISBN, the page number and problems number and promised she would look into it and get back to me. I couldn't, at that point, ask a professor, both because I was out of time and needed to get to my next class, and because the professor on duty was involved in a study group so I couldn't interrupt her.


I still don't have a clue how the book came up with the answers they did, but I felt a little better that the lab aides (who are VERY good) had been baffled by the problems, as well. I also took my first quiz in my Math class and ACED it . . . in fact, I was the first one done. Speed doesn't matter, but I know that I did well, and it WAS kind of fun to finish first. (Though it was a little unsettling . . . when I stood up to take my paper up to the teacher, I kept looking around trying to figure out why all the math brains around me were still working . . . I was SURE I had forgotten some problems on the back or SOMETHING . . .


So . . . yeah . . . Life has been busy . . .


I guess that is as good an excuse as any for not blogging . . .


Or maybe I am still just kind of feeling my way through this 'blog' thing . . . and I am still not yet quite sure what I will be comfortable sharing here . . .


Time will tell . . . I suppose . . .

JUST DID IT . . .

I am proud of me . . . I did it . . .


A few weeks ago . . . No, wait. Like ten days ago, I got an email notification of a contest for writers, with the deadline of August 31. I glanced through it, and thought, 'oh I wish I had more time . . . this would have been fun to try', and didn't delete it, but had no intention of trying to write something to submit in less than two weeks.


I knew the contest was legitimate, because it is one that one of my professors told me about and encouraged me to enter a few years ago. Every three years it is open to writers and poets in California. I entered it (both categories) three years ago, which is undoubtedly where they got my email address, but without more time to prepare, there is no way I could prepare something in time.


I promptly forgot about it until a few nights later I was looking through my hotmail account and deleting old messages because I rarely do, and noticed that I had at some point in time made a folder in my inbox called 'writing'. Not remembering it, and curious I clicked on it, and found only ONE item inside . . . an email about that same contest, sent back in late May of this year.


I was stunned. I had NO recollection of ever hearing ANYTHING about it before the email reminder in mid August, and yet not only had I received one, I had noticed it enough to make a folder JUST for it . . . and saved it, even though I couldn't remember doing any of that.


Late May was at the worst of Spring semester, with me CERTAIN I was failing my Algebra class and frantically busy writing a research paper and memorizing formulas and science facts for my finals which were rapidly approaching. Shortly after that, some really sad things took place that shoved everything else to the back corners of my mind, and I COMPLETELY forgot.


Apparently, though, I got the notification with MONTHS to prepare and I must have intended to try to write something, because I saved the email (in a special folder!) . . . and promptly forgot about it . . .


Coming across that original notification did something to me . . . It is hard to describe, but it felt like this HUGE, pyschic 'nudge' . . . inspiration? a reminder of what I love to do in the midst of the regular chaos of life? the allure of an old, cherished dream?


I looked at how much time I had and thought . . . for whatever reason, it feels important on a level I don't even understand to enter this contest . . . I don't have time to write anything new (short stories are difficult to write -- let alone edit and revise and polish in so short a time) but perhaps I can look through old things I have already written and find something I can tweak or polish to submit.


That worked for a couple of days, but in looking through and rereading things I had written and saved . . . nothing jumped out and grabbed me. I mean I liked the things I had written, but it felt like 'well those were me THEN . . . not me NOW' . . . so I decided that if nothing else, I would submit something old, just for the practice and to act on what felt like a prompting . . . but that would be my default strategy. I would TRY to write something new, even though time was SO short . . .


For at least a WEEK . . . I struggled and started story after story . . . jotted down ideas . . . phrases . . . plot summaries . . . tried SO hard to just write SOMETHING. ANYTHING. And absolutely nothing would come . . . Talk about the dry heaves of creativity. I felt VERY uncreative . . . and it is HARD to write . . . or draw . . . or sew . . . or do anything creative when you just don't FEEL it . . . Maybe others can do it, but I cannot, which is one of the reasons that advertising art has NEVER appealed to me as a career field.


Creativity on demand simply doesn't work for me . . .


But with some encouragement (and concrete suggestions for weeding out distractions) and definitely under the gun with the contest deadline LOOMING . . . I just sat down late one night and WROTE . . . I had a vague idea of where I wanted to go, or at least what I hoped to accomplish (I wanted to write about death in a way that wasn't sentimental . . . maudlin . . . creepy . . . horrific . . . or goth . . . more, simply as a rite of passage). I know that sounds like a weird goal, but I have had a few friends dealing with life or death issues in this past year, and I wanted to try to do that . . .


I did it . . .


I wrote something . . . and not only did I write it, I actually like what I wrote . . .


Oh, I have no expectations about winning the contest . . . but I am more pleased than I can express that EVEN when I had almost NO time . . . EVEN when I was feeling pressured and desperate . . . EVEN when I was not feeling even the TEENSIEST bit creative . . . I could write something that holds together as a short story AND something that I actually, genuinely like . . .


As soon as I figure out a title for it, I will print out four copies . . . fill out the paperwork . . . and mail it in . . . not to WIN the contest . . . but VERY pleased with myself for even trying . . .


YAY . . . go ME!!! =o)