Perot Museum

The entire 5th grade at McKay's school visited the Perot Museum of Nature and Science today.  It's been awhile since I've been on a field trip with him, and I've never been to the Perot Museum, so this was the perfect opportunity to fit in both.   

I remember watching this building when it was under construction a couple of years ago, thinking it was the oddest thing I had ever seen.  That glass protrusion on the side of the building, we found out today, is an escalator.

"...designed for visitors who enjoy heights and aerial views..."  Yep, that sounds just like something I would enjoy.  No wonder McKay thought this would be the perfect thing to do!

The escalator ride was pretty manageable actually, and I didn't even mind looking out the window, until McKay dragged me over to this one and dared me to lean right up against it and look straight down...eek!  Amazing, but scary.  The boys loved it!

They also loved all the exhibits.  This museum is vast!  We could have easily spent another couple of hours taking more time with some of their favorites.  The remote control vehicles were, by far, McKay's favorite. He got to build one, connect it to the power source, and then try it out on several different tracks.  If the other boys hadn't been anxious to move on, I think McKay would have been content to stay there the entire day.

We fit as much as we could into the brief time we had in the museum.  We will definitely have to visit this place again over the summer.  

Hanging out with a bunch of fifth graders at a science museum is a pretty great way to spend a spring day.  

Community Helpers

We finished our Citizenship requirements in Webelos this week with the help of these two awesome community helpers.  

Shawn - Jr Volunteer Fire Fighter

I left several messages earlier in the week with the Allen Police Department, but started to panic when I still hadn't heard from anyone by late Tuesday night.  Shawn is Megan's friend and I vaguely remembered her telling me some time ago that he went on frequent "ride alongs" as a student fireman.  So in a desperate attempt to secure a guest speaker for our den meeting, I asked Megan to text him and invite him to come talk to the boys.  And guess what!  He was not just willing, but thrilled to do it.  He packed a bag of equipment for them to look at.  He went through his Firefighter Academy manual with them.  And he had pages and pages of notes that he had jotted down sometime between Megan's text at 9:00 last night and his appearance at 4:30 this afternoon.  The boys loved talking to him and he was a wealth of information.  I made sure to send him home with a big bag of chocolate chip cookies as a thank you!

...and Officer Mike - Allen Police Dept

Late this morning, I got an email from one of the officers I had contacted, saying that he would be able to come to our den meeting, but not until after 5:00pm.  Perfect!  I could have Shawn talk for the first half, and Officer Mike cover the second half.  An over abundance of community helpers is never a bad thing.

I can't even say enough how impressed I was with Officer Mike.  He was personable and related to the boys.  He answered all of their questions and even brought stickers to pass out to everyone.  After he talked about road safety and car safety for a little while, he showed the boys some of the things he carries on his very cool motorcycle, including his speed gun.  He showed them how it worked and then one of them asked if he could clock their running speed with it.  And he said, "Sure!" as if he had nothing better to do on a Wednesday evening than watch 6 little boys run the 50 yd dash.  What a nice man!  (Incidentally, 10-yr-old boys apparently run about 12 mph.)

I'm so grateful for the things these boys are learning about life and career options and people who are generous with their time.  I'm grateful for two community helpers that make me feel a little safer in my neighborhood at night.  And I'm really grateful for a den meeting that came together better than I pictured it in my head.  

Sunny Days

Thank you so much to my dear friends who read my last post and found some kind, uplifting thing to comment despite it's dreary content.  Thank you to all the people who emailed or texted to see if I felt any better.  Thank you to the people who reminded me that perfect is not only unattainable, it's also really boring.  And thank you so much to the people who unknowingly listened to the Spirit today and were inspired to be the tiny little whispers of encouragement that I needed.

I just want to assure all of you that I'm fine.  I don't really hate Mother's Day.  And I probably will go to church next year because I just really like church.  

I considered taking down that Mother's Day post, but I'm not going to because it's genuine.  This blog is the way I record my days.  Most days, I'm overwhelmingly grateful for the life I've been given and the people and gifts I've been blessed with...and some days I forget.  Every now and then the clouds cover over the sunshine and my perspective is blurred.  Someday in the future, when my kids have an interest in this blog and in my thoughts from my 40s, they should probably read both the 95% positive as well as the 5% not so positive.  Because even though I have bad days, and even though some of them are so bad that I lose myself and hide in bathrooms and then write about it, I want my kids to be able to turn the page and read the next post where the clouds drift away and the sun comes out.  Because it always does.  

I'm back to my normal state of mind, and sunnier posts will follow.  Thanks for sticking with me through a couple of clouds.  :)

Mother's Day

I really don't love Mother's Day.  

I've been trying to figure out how to acknowledge this day without being negative, but I'm not sure that's possible.  I just don't love it at all.  I don't love the expectations.  I don't love the talks in church.  I don't love the inadequacy and the pressure I feel.  

I love being a mother every other day of the year...except this one.    

My mom and I weren't very close when I was growing up, and I maintained a sort of respectful distance from her most of my life.  She was a great, great woman, but so unattainable and such a mystery to me.  I don't know if we would have become closer or more understanding of each other as we aged because we didn't get to age together.  She died in 2008 when I was 38 years old.  And I knew nothing then about relationships or being understanding or seeing the good in people.  

I remember sitting in church every Mother's Day as a child and listening to sermons on the compassion of mothers, the tenderness of mothers, and the blessings that our mothers bring to our lives.  And I knew in my head, even when I was little, that there was something incongruent about what those people believed about mothers and who my mother actually was.  My mother was strong and powerful.  She was stoic and hard working.  She knew how to pull herself out of the mire without assistance.  She could move masses of people.  She had no tolerance for weakness, vulnerability, or tears.  She was neither compassionate nor tender.  She didn't believe in being "friends" with her children.  She did not apologize or cry.  She was guarded and suspicious of people.  I learned many. many things from her and I am eternally grateful for the sacrifices she and my dad made to adopt me.  But I didn't then, nor do I now, gush with overflowing feelings of tenderness and love when I talk about my mother.  Most days I wish I could dig deeper into my heart to find those feelings.  

When I became a mother in my mid 20s, nothing about my new job was innate.  I didn't instinctively know how to kiss a boo boo, give a compliment, or nurse a baby.  I didn't have years of deeply rooted family traditions to pass down.  I didn't have parenting plans for my children's future.  What I knew was how to organize stuff, keep people safe, and make dinner.  The rest, I made up as I went along.  Fortunately for me, I was blessed with children who weren't rebellious, demanding, or adventurous as babies.  

Along the way, I have figured out how to use my small handful of gifts to benefit my family, and that is a very good thing.  But not one of those gifts includes the "refining of little spirits" or "being an example of faith and righteousness."  I am not an "angel mother."  I do not have a soft spoken, faithful demeanor that makes my home a "holy place to live."  I have not shown anyone how to "love unconditionally."  I actually cringe when I read those things or hear them in talks because they are attributes of a group of women in some mothering club that I definitely don't qualify to belong to.  

This morning, some very well meaning teenagers and a very nice man gave talks in church about the virtues of motherhood. The primary children sang three lovely songs about mothers.  I tried so hard to stay in my seat during those songs and see the sweet faces of those kids.  And I tried to hear what those teenagers MEANT to say in their talks and not what they actually said.  And then the kindest man in our ward started speaking about the righteousness of mothers and how we refine our children like little pieces of coal, or something like that...  When he started listing the characteristics of mothers...faithful, divine, righteous, charitable, virtuous, selfless...I couldn't stand it anymore and went to hide out in one of the bathrooms.  I am not all of those things.  I fight every single day to try to be, but even with great effort and a lot of prayer, I don't even come close.  

Do you know who is all of those things in my home?  Craig.  He is the one who is selfless and kind, faithful and righteous, patient and compassionate, unconditional and unflappable.  I mostly just try to follow his lead and keep up with him.  I'm grateful for his example, and for kids who love me despite all of my flaws.  Those five people have taught me more than I could ever teach them.  I'm grateful for a smelly diaper pail and uncomfortably warm temperatures in that bathroom that made it impossible for me to hide out in there for long.  I'm grateful for all those wonderful teenagers in my Sunday School class who seemed genuinely happy to see me when I finally wandered into class.  And I'm really grateful that we had cake BEFORE dinner tonight.  The day got a lot better after I left the bathroom.  

I think I might just stay home from church next year and enjoy a quiet Mother's Day in my jammies...with the cake.  

The Pine Tree

When we lived in Mendon, our little yellow house came with a giant 100 year old pine tree in the front yard.  

I loved that tree so much.

I loved that it was our primary source of shade in the summer and that it covered a good chunk of the sidewalk which meant less shoveling in the winter.  

I loved the way it looked covered in frosty snow.  I always thought it would have looked so beautiful decorated with little white Christmas lights, if only we could have figured out how to get them up there.  

I loved that it was too big to fit in any photographs.  I loved that it was a landmark on Main Street.  I loved that everyone knew it.  And I loved that it had been there even longer than our house.  The things that tree knew about Mendon...  

My mother-in-law called us to let us know that the current owners of that little yellow house have removed the pine tree.  I'm sure it was infested with bugs.  I'm sure it was a huge hazard in stormy weather.  I'm sure it's massive root system had become problematic and invasive to the plumbing, the sprinkler system, and the sidewalk.  

But I can't tell you how sad I was to hear that that giant beautiful landmark tree will not be in Mendon when we get there this summer.  That house doesn't even belong to us anymore.  We have a more abundant life here than we ever did in Mendon.  But that house and that giant tree provided stability and security and a safe place to land during those tumultuous years in Utah.  I am heartbroken that it's gone.  It's a tree, I know.  But I hope it knows how much love and respect we had for it.  100 years is a long time to protect and guard a little house filled with many, many treasured memories.    

The Temple

So I have this reccurring nightmare that probably won't sound very nightmarish when I write it down, but when it's rattling around in my head in the middle of the night, it's pretty scary.  

If you've been here for awhile, you probably already know that I'm not a fan off high speeds, roller coasters, sharp turns, bridges, tunnels, or highway ramps.  That's really not as limiting a life as it sounds like it might be.  

In this dream, there's a car.  Sometimes I'm driving it.  Sometimes I'm not.  But it's always going way too fast.  Usually there is a bridge or a sharp turn involved.  Once there was a circular ramp, like the kind in parking garages.  But whatever the incline, it always happens to be under construction in this dream.  Can you see where this is going?  Speed + incline + construction = nightmare.  There have been minor variations.  Once, Craig was driving the car.  (And boy was I mad at him when I woke up.)  Once, there was heavy snow and zero visibility, and I was driving.  But the recurring part is that there is a car, and I'm in it, and it is careening wildly out of control, about to go off the end of a very high ramp, and then I wake up.  ugh...     

Well, that has been what my life has felt like for the past few weeks.  I've gotten up excited and hopeful about each new day, and poof! somewhere between 9:30-11, it starts to feel like that car in my dream going too fast up a ramp to nowhere.  

I seem to recall a similar feeling last May and probably the May before.  This is the month when I officially surrender my life to the extracurricular activities of my children.  I'm mostly driving.  And rushing.  And doing last minute things my kids have forgotten to tell me about...like birthday presents, money for field trips, money for t-shirts, money for auditions, rides to and from places I didn't even know they were going, and the list goes on and on...

This morning I had a similar list of last minute things that needed to be taken care of, but I had promised a friend that I would be the driver for our weekly Temple visit.  When I looked at my list today, I started to panic.  When I looked at the sky and could feel the storm coming, I started to panic.  I couldn't remember how to get to the Temple.  I couldn't figure out how it was all going to fit into the 18 hours that I had left in the day.  There was nothing practical about adding a three hour Temple trip into my morning.  

But the Temple isn't practical.  It isn't quick.  It doesn't fit into my schedule most days.   But it is so necessary.  For me, today, being in my car with two people I love was the best way to calm me down and start my day positively.  And being in the Temple was the best way to make those crazy ramps in my life feel more like vast stretches of peaceful, country roads.  

The Temple is perspective for me.  It quiets the running lists in my head.  It is fulfilling and uplifting.  It calms me and makes me less anxious about the things I can't control.  

When we left the Temple and I turned on my phone, there were more unexpected interruptions to my day.  But the calm lasted well into the evening and the day never felt rushed.  

I'm so grateful to have a Temple near enough to visit on a regular basis.  I'm grateful for good friends to go with.  And I'm grateful that I had made a commitment to go today when all I really wanted to do was stay in my jammies.  

Crawfish Boil

So this happened over the weekend...

Our wonderful "across the street" neighbors, who have become our very dear friends, invited us over for a CRAWFISH BOIL.  

Well, that's the short version of the story.  That man up there in that picture has been HOUNDING us for a couple of months about coming over to eat crawfish.  He's pretty adventurous in the kitchen and just likes to cook for people, which I can totally relate to.  He's made venison jerky for us.  He brought homemade tamales to Thanksgiving dinner one year.  He's introduced McKay to sardines, mushrooms, and fried bologna sandwiches.  His influence is vast.  So finally, finally, after acquiring all the necessary equipment, and practicing a couple of smaller crawfish batches, and inviting our kids over to test everything, he felt comfortable enough to set a date for the official CRAWFISH BOIL!  We agreed to go, but I made it pretty clear to him that I would not be eating any crawfish.  

Because...well, ew...

Here's what they looked like BEFORE the party started.  Yup, they're alive.  And active.  And not at all happy about swimming around in salted water for 20 minutes.  Apparently that's some kind of cleansing thing that you have to do.  (Oh, the process for all of this...)

Here's what they look like in relation to a human.  They're like small lobsters (...or really big roaches...but maybe that's a good thought to just keep here on this blog...)  

After the brining process, they are dumped into a strainer and lowered into a vat of boiling water.  

After 5 minutes of cooking, and 20 minutes of simmering, they look like this...

After everything was cooked, we dumped it all onto the tables and everyone just "dug in."  Seriously.  There were no utensils.  There were no plates.  I managed to scrounge up a napkin, but no one else felt the need to use one.  

McKay apparently just used his white shirt.  :(

I was a little bit shocked to see how heartily my little family ate those crawfish.  I'm pretty sure McKay ate at least 5 of the 25 pounds that were cooked.  He wouldn't even look up from his seafood-eating frenzy long enough to smile for a picture.  

I ate one very small piece of a crawfish that Craig carefully cleaned and peeled for me.  (I didn't love it.)   Here's what I ate instead... 

Three batches of crawfish and a couple hours later, here's what was left...carcasses...ew...

Even though my opinion of crawfish didn't change much after cooking them and watching my family devour them, the thing about this crawfish boil that qualified it for the "Stuff I Love" category was the part where four families in our neighborhood got together with our little contributions and turned it into not just a great, adventurous dinner experience, but a really awesome afternoon.  I loved sitting out in the neighbors' driveway with all of our kids hanging out and just connecting with them.  They are amazing people and I am so grateful to know them.  I can't think of a single day that's passed since August 2010 that I've not felt immensely grateful for this place where we live and for these people we get to associate with. 
    
Disclaimer:  Many, many crawfish were harmed in the making of this blog post.  :(

Behind the Scenes

There were some really fun, really crazy, and really amazing things that happened last week both before AND after the DMCO concert that I didn't mention in my previous post.  But I don't want to forget a single thing about that experience, so here are a couple of glimpses behind the scenes.

So...you know how stuff finds me?  

Well, it does.  

It's always the greatest stuff, but it's also the most obscure stuff...like playing the part of a Lamanite mother in the Book of Mormon pageant, or being an adult leader for a youth mini mission, or playing the organ for Stake Conference (that was a total disaster, but such a great experience.)  Anyway, somehow Heavenly Father knows just the right people to whisper my name to so that I get to have the best experiences in my life.  Obscure, and totally unexpected, but oh so amazing experiences.

A couple of weeks ago, the DMCO Grand Chorus Manager, who I love and admire and just really really think is awesome, sent me an email and asked if I would be willing to head up the Decorating Committee for the concert.  That job description included: receiving the shipment of decorations that was being sent from EVMCO in Mesa, AZ; transporting it all to the Meyerson on the Thursday before the concert; and being in charge of getting everything set up in the concert hall.  I told her that I would be happy to receive and transport everything, but that I had no innate decorating ability and pitiful leadership skills.  She was undeterred and I was officially named Decorating Chair.  On Wednesday evening four very large boxes arrived at my house with more patriotic stuff than I've ever seen in my life, all of it on loan from the City of Mesa.  Craig and his dad skillfully loaded all of it into the van, along with all four of us, and we made the trek in ridiculously heavy traffic, down to the Meyerson Concert Hall to start decorating on Thursday afternoon.  

Three hours later when we started our final rehearsal, it looked like this...

Oh, I can't even tell you how fun it was to climb all over the balcony boxes in the Meyerson and to become intimately acquainted with that gorgeous building.  I had an awesome committee of very talented, helpful women, and we had a great time transforming the place into Americana Extraordinaire!  

After all the decorating, we started a speed run through rehearsal that lasted until 10:00pm...which wasn't actually very speedy.  But it was fulfilling and exciting and made me want to hurry up and get through the next 48 hours so we could just sing in that concert already!

On Saturday night, there were more memorable things that happened...

In that picture up there, I am the blue dress third from center in the very front row.  There were a handful of times during the concert when the entire choir left the loft and either exited to wait in the mezzanine lobby so the kids' choirs could sing, or we exited to run downstairs and sing in the middle of the aisles in the audience.  Can you see the stairs on either side of the choir loft?  Those were our exit and entrance routes...across the front row, and all the way to those far stairs.  They're not steep, but they are heavily lacquered, and in the dark, a little difficult to navigate.  (OK, fine, they probably aren't at all difficult to navigate but I can't see a thing in the dark.)  

I purposely wore flats on Saturday night because I knew there would be a lot of motion and a lot of standing throughout the evening.  On our first exit, I made it swiftly out of the choir loft, out to the lobby, down the marble staircase and into the aisles to sing To Be American with all the kids' choirs.  It was spectacular, and I kept thinking how grateful I was to be included in that beautiful song with those amazing kids.  

After the song, we had to make our way back up the stairs, through the lobby, and back into the choir loft...quickly!  As I got to the shellac-ed wooden stairs in the loft, I held onto the rail, and visualized myself gracefully walking all the way down and to the center of the front row.  But, somehow, I missed the second to the last step, and even though I saved myself from going right over the rail, or falling down completely and holding up the rest of the women coming in behind me, I twisted my ankle a little on the way down.  I heard a crunching sound that my ankle has made only once before when I signed up for a 6 week Boot Camp class and ran through a giant tire course.  And holy cow, did it hurt!  I hobbled to my spot, and then the room started to spin, and my head felt all fuzzy, and my ankle ached every time I put my weight on it.  I could see Glenn Beck moving around, but I missed everything he said.  I was mostly just trying to stay in an upright position and not pass out and distract anyone from the concert.  I prayed silently to keep it together, to keep standing, and for Glenn to hurry up and finish so I could sit down.  He didn't hurry.  And then there was a song...I'm not sure which one, but I made myself sing something just to remain coherent.  And right in the middle of it, I started to sway a little too much.  I had no choice but to grab the hand of the sweet older lady who sings quietly next to me and rarely says a word to anyone.  I've only talked to her a few times so I'm sure she was shocked that I was clutching her hand so tightly in the middle of a song that wasn't even one of the emotional ones.  But she kept holding onto my hand, and together we managed to keep me from falling into the percussion section, and for that I was very, very grateful.  We sat down after that song.  She smiled a concerned smile at me.  And eventually the room stopped spinning.  

I talked to that sweet lady (whose name I don't even know) just briefly after the concert and she was so kind and so concerned about me.  She stayed pretty close to me while I made my way through the bowels of the concert hall and found my way to Craig.  When I told him about my ordeal, he reached into his coat pocket and handed me two Naproxen...don't even ask me why he happened to have those with him.  I made it through the entire second concert and the take down afterward with no ankle problems.  None.  Miraculous, indeed.  When the Boot Camp incident happened in 2010, my ankle was bandaged, swollen and bruised for over a week.  

So here are the handful of things I learned from those (and a couple of other) choir experiences over the weekend:

Perspective.  Prior to the concert, I was really, really, really (you can add about 12 more reallys) stressed out about the one choreographed song we were singing.  Oh Susanna.  I hadn't once gotten the clapping and the words to come together in a rehearsal for me.  And all I could see in my head when I tried to visualize the music was the big giant word EMOTE that I had scribbled in pencil over the top of the whole song!  That's not my strongest skill.  I worried about that song all Friday night and all day Saturday.  Until I had the little ankle problem.  After that, I didn't care one bit about looking silly or messing up the words or the clapping sequence.  Once I made it to the Oh, Susanna part of the program, I only felt complete relief and gratitude that I was still standing in that choir loft.  Isn't it amazing how one little thing can shift your entire perspective in an instant?

Being Part of Something Big.  I loved helping with those patriotic decorations.  Not one person said, "Oh wow.  What beautiful decorating!"  Not one of the directors commented on the decorations at all.  I didn't hear a single person in the lobby after the concert talking about the spectacular decorations.  But I knew that I had contributed to the overall effect of the evening, both in the choir and on that little decorating committee.  As I was climbing around the balcony, I felt like one of those little mice in Cinderella...unobtrusively making things beautiful while everyone else was busy contributing in other ways.  And to look out on all those pretty stars and stripes out there while I sang made me infinitely happy and fulfilled.  That's the thing about MCO...it isn't about being a soloist or being seen.  There is no part greater than any other.  Every single voice, every instrument, and every behind-the-scenes organizer is necessary and essential.  

We Can't Do This Alone.  More and more often lately, I have experiences that remind me in very big ways that we are not intended to do things on our own in this life.  We were not sent to this earth to be independent and self contained.  We need committees.  We need companions.  We need friends.  And we need helpers.  I tried hard during that little ankle mishap to say positive things in my head, to think happy thoughts, and to will myself to keep standing when all I really wanted to do was let myself fall down.  And that worked for a little while.  But eventually, my individual strength and determination wasn't enough, and I had to reach for someone else's hand, and then hold onto it really tightly.  There are people standing by waiting to be that hand when we don't have enough strength to do it on our own.  I hope to have the opportunity to be one of those helpers the way that lovely woman helped me on Saturday night. 

I'm so grateful for the tiny little things sprinkled among the grand and the ordinary days in my life that remind me of a loving Heavenly Father.  I'm so grateful for all the experiences I have had with this choir so far, and for the many that will come in the future.  What an amazing thing to be part of something extraordinary and meaningful.