MONDAY MUSINGS . . .

In the past few weeks, I feel like I have either been involved in or overheard so many conversations that were filled with various kinds of doom and gloom . . .

I understand that there are plenty of things to be upset about . . . plenty of things to disagree on . . . plenty of things going on in the world, and with the economy -- let alone in our personal lives and situations -- to have reasons to be discouraged and depressed and overwhelmed . . . I understand that . . .

I know that MANY have been dealing with job losses, or cutbacks . . . uncertainties . . . heartaches in relationships . . . bitterness about the loss of relationships or potential relationships . . . and added to all that, this time of year with its myriad of festive holiday celebrations can be added reasons to be sad or maybe depressed or even cynical . . .

I also understand the need to be able to vent freely . . . I am not one that minds when people DO feel a need to express anger and hurt and frustration. Been there, done that myself, a time or two . . .

Still, the sheer level of anger, discouragement and pessimism in so MANY people has gotten me thinking. Some people are angry about the materialism and selfishness of the holidays . . . some are busy decrying the evils of politics . . . or religion . . . or family situations . . .

I want to try to share why -- in such a troubling, scary, uncertain world -- *I* am not discouraged or overwhelmed or ready to give up . . . I know what I say here will not address anyone's life experiences other than my own . . . but I still want to try to share what is in MY heart today . . .

I am grateful for my extended family relationships . . . as imperfect and frustrating and annoying as people can sometimes be . . . The network of support . . . the emotional safety net of knowing that you have a place you can go where you ARE loved . . . where people TRY to accept you for who and what you are . . . where people are concerned about your happiness, and are willing to share both your heartaches and your triumphs . . . is an absolutely incredible gift . . . I know that 'family' does not mean that to everyone . . . but it does, to ME . . . and even if it hadn't meant that in my personal experience . . . that is STILL what I would want to spend my lifetime trying to build for my children and siblings and nieces and nephews and for my friends . . .

I am grateful for the times that I have been misjudged . . . mistreated . . . lied to . . . betrayed . . . humiliated . . . shoved away . . . NOT because any of those things were at all fun, but because it was through those experiences that I came to truly understand compassion, and which deepened my resolve to make sure that I never treated OTHER people in those various ways . . .

I am grateful for the times that I have gone without . . . when money was tight (or nonexistent) because that has made me appreciative of what I DO have . . . and it also has made me willing to stretch outside my comfort zone to share more freely with others -- family, extended family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, even total strangers -- in various kinds of need . . .

I am grateful for my experiences with poor health . . . I have not had nearly as many of those as others have, but those I have had have GREATLY intensified my appreciation of having a strong, healthy body and helped me resolve to do what I can to maintain my health . . . and made me keenly aware of what a PRECIOUS gift life is, and how quickly and easily it can be lost . . .

I am grateful for times of fear . . . and doubt . . . and troubling uncertainty . . . because those have ultimately been opportunities to deepen and strengthen and enrich my reserves of faith . . . It does not bother me when other people roll their eyes at my 'quaint, old fashioned beliefs' or mock what is precious to me, because my faith is between my Lord and me . . . and what YOU (that is the 'royal' you) think about my spiritual understanding and awareness and choices does not impact what I believe and think and feel. Your LACK of belief . . . in no way impinges on MY beliefs . . .

I am grateful for my experiences with bullies . . . because they have hammered home the lessons I have learned about the importance of kindness and respect . . .

I am grateful for the opportunity to know what it feels like to lose loved ones to death . . . though I would give anything to have my mom and tiny grandson back . . . those experiences which broke my heart taught me to cherish every moment I have with the people I love, because there are no guaranteed timelines . . .

I do not enjoy trials and heartaches and disappointments and setbacks and failures any more than anyone else does . . . but I HAVE lived long enough to know that there are nuggets of priceless wisdom and exquisite beauty in each of those experiences . . . if I am willing to patiently look for them . . . and trust that they will be there . . .

Like everyone else, I sometimes get discouraged . . . occasionally feel overwhelmed . . . may at times wish circumstances were different . . . but I have learned how to be content with what I have, where I am . . . and beyond that, to find beauty and joy and warmth and even hope . . . in ALL of my life's experiences . . .

And for THAT . . . I am very, VERY grateful . . .

STUFFED WITH BLESSINGS . . .

November is a month when -- if at no other time -- we concentrate on gratitude . . . I want to share some of things that I am feeling thankful for . . .


I am thankful for my family . . . for my husband who has stayed by side for three plus decades, sharing the ups and downs, joys and heartaches, triumphs and troubles that life has brought our way . . . It is unbelievably incredible to feel so . . . SAFE with someone . . . so KNOWN . . . so ACCEPTED . . . I am also thankful for each of our children and the amazing people they have grown up to be . . . I love that they are GOOD people, and have integrity and honor . . . that they are hard workers and that they are so much FUN . . . I would be honored to have them as FRIENDS . . . I feel unbelievably blessed that I got to be their mother . . . I am also SO grateful for the amazing people -- spouses, friends, babies -- that they have brought in my life, as well . . . Each has enriched me with their personality, their gifts and talents, their love and humor . . .


I am thankful for grandchildren . . . WOW . . . I thought being a mom was an incredible adventure . . . I had NO idea that things could get even better when my babies had babies . . . Each one has filled my heart with joy and love . . . and losing one before we even had a chance to know him was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever experienced . . .


I am thankful for my faith . . . thankful that I know that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and that has a plan for my life . . . thankful for the Savior's atonement that means that despite my weaknesses and the setbacks of my life's journey that I can be healed . . . forgiven . . . strengthened . . . and that my heart can literally be changed . . . I do not have to remain forever damaged and burdened by past mistakes and old baggage . . . and I am VERY thankful for the knowledge I have that I can be reunited with loved ones after my mortal journey is complete . . .


I am thankful for the good mind that I have been blessed with . . . and grateful for the opportunity I have to develop it and explore my talents and interests . . .


It is SO easy sometimes, to get caught up in all the things I wish were different . . . all the things I wish I had . . . all the changes I want to make . . . It is good to take the time to focus on what really matters and how VERY much I have to be thankful for . . .

MOVING ON . . .

Along with feeling (understandably) stressed and frustrated and frantic with school . . . I have realized that I am also feeling . . . kind of restless . . . and I am not sure that I understand exactly why . . .


I strongly suspect it has a great deal to do with school ALMOST being done with . . . My classes have sort of taken over and consumed my life for the past few years, and now that that is SLOWLY inching towards an end . . . I am not sure exactly what it is I will do with myself . . .


You know, I never did quite decide what I wanted to be when I grew up . . .


I am really torn, too. For my degree(s) to have value, I really need to move on . . . and I probably will. Still, I am VERY weary of planning my life around semesters and school projects. Sometimes I cannot even remember (or imagine) what it would be like to just LIVE my life . . . not be frantically scrambling to get everything done that needs to be done . . .


I think it would be nice (though not very practical at this point in time) to do some kind of retreat that allowed me to just step outside being a wife and mom and gramma AND student . . . and just take some time to decide what it is that I want to accomplish with the rest of my life . . .


Oh I do not for a moment regret spending all those years raising/nurturing/launching my children . . . That absolutely was the right choice for me . . . I learned a great deal about myself during those patience-wearing, emotionally-demanding, ingenuity-stretching years . . . and it gave me the opportunity to KNOW my children in a way that wouldn't have been possible on a casual or part time basis . . . I will always cherish the memory of that time . . .


And it isn't like I have stopped being a mom . . . That is an important part of who and what I am . . . and even if I were to go on and be CEO of some fancy schmancy company . . . or write a best selling novel . . . or whatever, I have no doubt that being my children's mom will ALWAYS be my crowning achievement . . . Other things might PAY better, but NOTHING will be more satisfying OR more important, in my eyes . . . but my kids need me in different ways now, changes which are healthy and natural and good.


I just need to come up with a plan of what I want to do NOW . . .


And I have never dealt that well with transitions . . . This is HARD . . .


But then, transitions like these . . . learning to roll with the punches, and deal with the ebb and flow of life IS what life is all about . . .


But knowing that still doesn't make it any easier . . .

DEFYING DEATH . . .

I am sick . . .


SERIOUSLY sick . . . oh, not with swine flu or anything . . . just one of the more common flu bugs making the rounds. Seems like everybody is sick these past few weeks . . . Either sick NOW . . . feeling like they are GETTING sick . . . or just getting back on their feet from being sick . . .


UGH . . .


UGH . . .


UGH . . .


I don't suppose it helps any that I have been pushing myself to get ready for a midterm (took it today and YAY . . . I know I did well . . . I know I lost two points, but I should get most of the rest). I tried to be more reasonable and less 'uber anal' (my kids' term for my 'conscientiousness' . . . such rude people they are!) ;o) but I suspect that even my less obsessive studying is still a LOT more than most people do . . . What can I say . . . us uber anal people are DANGED conscientious . . . =oP


Now I have a big math test (over fourteen different sections, each with a series of complicated formulas to memorize) next Wednesday . . . I am exhausted just THINKING about it. The homework for this class keeps me exhausted and frantically factoring and logarithming my little heart out . . . to add reviewing and studying for a big exam to that list . . . SIGH . . . it wears me out just CONTEMPLATING it . . .


Now that I think of it . . . no WONDER I am sick, huh?


I think I will set my math book aside for the evening and take a swig of nyquil and pass out . . . Sleep is good for sick people, right?


G'night all . . . ;o)

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 . . .