My latest poetry

Ever since second trimester began, I've begun this magical life where I do strange things like vacuum the stairs and have people over for dinner and scrub the bathtub and write loooooooooong blog posts. Apparently I had a lot of thoughts stored up. (And I've got at least 2 more big ones still churning in my brain.)

So I thought I would favor you with a short post. Each time I read a fun rhyming book like "Little Blue Truck" or Dr. Seuss or listen to some silly kids' song I think, "I want to make something up!"

And then yesterday morning as I was dressing Matthew the inspiration came. It's . . . pretty epic.

"I always have a happy feeling 

When I wear a shirt.

My organs covered by its threads

I tiptoe softly, turning heads,

My teachers never call the feds

When I wear a shirt."

Okay, and since I have the real words pulled up here, I'm going to try to do the next verses.

"I like to raise my hands in singing

When I wear a shirt.

I fold my arms, my elbows hid,

And also covered is my mid.

Of chilling breezes I am rid

When I wear a shirt."

And, looking at the third verse, it looks like I'd have to deviate pretty far from the real lyrics to make it fit the theme, so I'll just stop at two.

With the right illustrations this should probably win a Caldecott or two.

I know this is just what you needed tonight. You're welcome.

Song as old as rhyme

One afternoon in November, I woke up from a nap with a sudden burst of inspiration. I was going to make a mashup of Beauty and the Beast songs! I had fiddled earlier that week with an arrangement of "Something There" with Chopin's Raindrop Prelude, but now I knew I needed to do a whole slew of songs.

I was excited and got to work finding Chopin pieces that would fit each of the major Beauty and the Beast songs. I quickly ran into a difficulty -- most of the songs were in 4/4 whereas most Chopin was in 3/4. The 4/4 songs were slow and peaceful, and I needed upbeat! I considered branching out to other composers, but I felt like it would lose some of its magic and cohesiveness.

This was also the time that I was feeling sicker and sicker with each passing day, and when I had a free minute to myself I wanted to spend it sitting on the couch instead of practicing. I began to worry. How would it ever come together in time? How would I perfect it in time? I knew the movie wasn't coming out until March, but I wanted to get the movie made well before then. I knew there was a Belle dress and good pianos in Utah, and I wanted to take advantage of them during Christmastime. Besides, if I waited too long I might not even fit into any dress!

I would remind myself of that and gradually chip away at the difficult passages and unnatural key changes until I had something that maybe, just maybe, might be ready to perform when I was with family.

Once in Utah, I practiced more and more, gaining confidence with each run-through. I contacted my aunt Jackie who let me borrow her beautiful dress she had made. Now I had no choice. I had to make the video!

My parents were incredibly helpful. When the bright piles of snow outside made strange glares on the piano, they hung up tablecloths to block some of the windows. My mom worked and worked and worked with my hair to try and get something looking like the movie hair. We spent hours fiddling with camera angles and tripods, testing different cameras and phones to see what would make the best image.

And then when the afternoon was through, we just decided there was too much light in the background, resulting in graininess near my head, and it wasn't going to get any better that day. So we were back to work the next day!

Finally, after so many takes, after finally improving enough that I felt confident in what I was doing, we had a working video! For the first time I ever, I decided to actually say "thanks for watching my video!" which I had promised myself I would never do. People had to see the beautiful dress, after all!

At the end of the day, it might not be the most professional, simply because we didn't have all the equipment for that. But it was great to see a pretty good video come out of a lot of work from a lot of people. After several weeks of wondering if this would ever come to fruition, it was humbling to see it come together.

And after nearly a month of waiting to get closer to the movie's release date, I'm so excited to share it with you! After all, what could be better than Beauty and the Beast and Chopin?

Wins All Around

Life has been funny lately. There have been a lot of things that make me burst out laughing or at least bite my lip pretty hard.

I know there's lots to catch up on about life, such as Christmas, our trip to New York (not quite the city), and at least 1 or 2 Facebook albums I should make about life in New Haven if I want to be consistent with albums the way I have been for nearly 5 years . . . but I think I just want to get this all down first. So I don't forget it.

Two other pregnancy symptoms

I forgot to mention these in my other blog post, and I think they will work pretty well here. The first is my memory. When we first moved here, I was so grateful for my good memory. I felt like I immediately learned most people's names and they stuck. I kept track of things pretty well and felt like I got the hang of my calling pretty well the first few months.

Now I feel like my memory has gone out the door. Each week that I stand in front of Primary I panic a little because I have to remind myself every kid's name. Sometimes I ask a kid if they are a visitor, and they say no. But they kind of are because they're not on class rolls, but I guess not enough to justify singing the "Hello" song. (It's complicated.)

And it's not just kids I have trouble remembering. People are always giving me information about all sorts of resources and I have to remind myself that I can't just sit there nodding and not absorbing any of it. Then there all sorts of questions about teacher manuals and the pictures that went along with them and I had no clue what they were talking about. And I realized I had gone through my entire life (including a year in Primary) without touching a physical Primary manual. Haha!

So, I guess I feel like I'm drowning all over again, just like I was during scout rechartering and the Primary Program. I'm not sure how much to blame on the calling and how much to blame on faulty memory, but I figure as long as I keep a sense of humor about it it will all work out.

The other thing that I keep a sense of humor about is all my crying. So, like I said earlier, I don't cry in public. But in my house . . . all bets are off! What usually does me in is music, so I have definitely had times where I turn on music to work out and just find myself sobbing as I exercise. It's not that I'm sad at all. Just a tiny bit of nostalgia mixed with a lot of hormones.

I mean, some things are understandable. Mr. Kruger's Christmas is a nice old Christmas story. But sobbing my way through it twice while Joseph was watching it felt, well, a little embarrassing. And it gets worse. My mom bought a bunch of music we listened to as kids and gave it to us as Christmas presents (Scripture Scouts and the like) and . . . hoo boy. All I have to hear is music recorded in the late 80s or 90s and there I go, turning my head away so no one sees me cry. And rational me is saying, "Ack! Ack! Ack! They're even singing out of tune!" and still I go on like I'm cutting onions or something.

And finally there was the Christmas Chatbooks ad. That one I was watching at my phone til I said to Kevin, "Take this away from me." Because I was not going to cry about a Chatbooks ad. And I think I didn't. Barely.

Joseph

Going back to exercise, Joseph is a huge fan. I once exercised when he was at Joy School and told him about it. His face fell. "You did it without me?"

I mean, it's not real exercise. It's finding songs on the computer and doing the kickboxing/aerobics/zumba moves to them that I remember long enough to bring my heart rate up. But for Joseph it is a magical experience involving lots of jumping and punching and spinning and superhero moves.

His favorite song right now is "Larger Than Life" by Backstreet Boys. That one was kind of an accident. He made up a little ditty called "Bu-uzz Lightyear to the Rescue" to the melody of the main instrumentation, and once Kevin and I recognized it we played the song to compare it. So now of course he loves it. We've cycled through worse songs, and we'll get through this too.

Matthew

Matthew loved his grandparents lots while we were in Utah, and he learned how to say "gamma" and "gan-pa" pretty well. Perhaps having two of each was confusing for him, because now he calls most adults "gamma" and "gan-pa." We can just be walking somewhere and walk past some man of any age and he starts shouting "gan-pa! gan-pa! gan-pa!" and I just have to hope they're not offended.

And then sometimes he mixes it up and calls men "gamma" or women "gan-pa." Every time Donald Trump shows up in the news, Matthew gets really excited and starts shouting, "Gamma! Gamma! Gamma!" And I just have to change the subject as fast as I can. Because I'm not teaching him his real name.

He's also mastered several animal sounds, though he gets cows and horses and neighs and moos pretty mixed up. There was a while where he wasn't eating much of anything that wasn't a grain, so it was a surprise when we put some chicken on his tray and he began to eat it. "Chicken!" he said happily. "Chicken! Cluck cluck!"

Ever since, he says "Cluck cluck" for any meat he's given. I don't know how much he really understands, but so far he seems to have no qualms.

Joy School

On the other hand, I feel like I opened a can of worms at the end of Joy School last week. We were reading books about Thanksgiving because the lesson was on gratitude (I know, we're way behind), and one page had a picture of the Pilgrims carrying a dead deer on a pole over to a fire or something.

Joseph's friend asked, "Why is that deer upside down?"
"They probably hunted it in the woods and now they tied it to that pole."
"What are they going to do to it?"
"It looks like they might take it to a fire and eat it. It'll be meat for them."
"What????" She looked shocked. "I didn't know meat came from animals!!!!"

Who says kids don't learn useful stuff at Joy School?

The whole day was really funny, actually. We started out by looking through some magazines and catalogs for things they were grateful for. Unfortunately, I hadn't planned ahead so most of our magazines were already out in recycling. I found a coat catalog, an engineering magazine, and a Michigan alumnus magazine. I gave some examples of things to cut out.

"I'm grateful for trees, so I'm cutting this tree out," I explained.
"I'm grateful for Legos," Joseph said. The Lego he had in mind had a very distressed face as it was an illustration for an article about mental illness, but I cut it out anyway.
"I'm grateful for rocks."
"I'm grateful for walls."
"I'm grateful for this coat. And this coat. And this coat."
"I'm grateful for that necklace."
"I'm grateful for that street."
"I'm grateful for that pink ribbon."

That ribbon was part of an illustration of an article about breast cancer research. The rest of the picture showed, well, a rendition of a mostly topless woman (tastefully done, I must add . . . it fit the purposes of the article without being graphic), covered mostly by that pink ribbon. I nixed the pink ribbon.

So that was our grateful day.

Primary

Keeping up my tradition of stellar teaching, I found out a half hour before church that I needed to sub for a Primary class. I wasn't too worried -- these were kids whose names I actually remembered, I'm not too bad at last-minute teaching, and I feel like in general I work well with kids. I had even spent some time the night before rereading The Happiest Toddler on the Block, so I clearly totally understood kids. So I scanned the lesson, grabbed a few supplies, and headed to church. In spare moments I worked on my puzzle and wordstrips, and I felt pretty good about things.

After a hectic Sharing Time, I followed the boys to their classroom. A few of them instantly darted under the table. I started to panic. I knew how to handle kids Joseph's age, and I knew how to handle 10-year-olds, but what about this in-between age?

"I'm going to count to 10 and I bet you guys can set up the chairs and sit in them by the time I'm done." I counted and by the time I was done they were all under the table. So I set up the chairs, looked them sternly in the eyes, and somehow got them in their seats for the lesson.

"I don't like that you're our teacher," one of them said. I tried to get them interested in the attention activity -- all the fun facts about Joseph Smith taped over his picture with lots of puzzle pieces. They kept pulling pieces off and not guessing Joseph Smith, and they were getting antsy. I decided it was time to reach down into my stores of knowledge.

"What do you guys know about volcanoes?"

Four or so minutes later, I had learned a lot more about volcanoes than I was anticipating.

Somehow I got them back on track (trying to ignore major glares from the volcano expert who could have talked forever), and told them about the volcano Tambora which had erupted, filling the sky with so much ash that 1816 was called "The Year With No Summer." And so Joseph Smith's family had to move from New Hampshire to New York! No, the volcano wasn't in New Hampshire. ("Most volcanoes are in the Ring of Fire in the Pacific and . . . ") It was just ash that filled the sky all around the world. Etc.

They got antsy again, and they headed under the table. I panicked again. Then I remembered a suggestion from the lesson to sing "Love at Home" since Joseph Smith's family loved each other. "I am going to sing until you guys all get back in your chairs." And I began. "There is beauty all around, when there's love at home." Most of them hurried back to their chairs, wincing and plugging their ears. So much for perfect pitch and voice lessons. It was pretty hard not to laugh.

One boy stayed under the table, unperturbed by my voice. Everyone begged him to please, please sit down already, but he stayed. I started into the second verse. I forgot how the third began, so I just started the first over again. "She's never going to stop!" one boy said in dismay. "She's just going to repeat it and repeat it forever!" Then the younger boy who technically wasn't even supposed to be in that class began to cry at that horrible prospect. I stopped. I could handle someone under the table better than tears.

So, on went the rest of the lesson. I showed them pictures from times we visited Palmyra and Kirtland to give them a sense of what things were like back then. We talked about what it was like to be farmers back then, with no electricity, no bathrooms, no cars. (They were most interested in the "no bathrooms" aspect and were very curious about what they did instead. I tried to not let them dwell on that.) I described all the hard work that went into a farm -- how they would have to plow and plant and weed --

"Ew!!! Weed is gross!" one boy said emphatically. So I got to explain how "weed" could be a verb. We went through the rest of the lesson (spending a little extra time on the infection in Joseph Smith's leg because they were pretty interested in that), and then all of a sudden I had run out of material! Oh no! The rest of the class was a mess of hangman and watching my homemade puzzle pieces get thrown around and trying to access any church video on my phone with no success. I double checked the lesson -- I had done everything the lesson suggested, and I thought with regret about all the junky old matching games I had just purged from the Primary cupboards last week. Although, who knows if they would have kept their attention anyway.

At any rate, we were all pretty glad when 12:30 rolled around.

Spanish Sunday School

Meanwhile, Kevin was doing what he does best -- using apps put out by the LDS church in intelligent ways. He had gone down with Matthew to the nursery to get him used to nursery, and also so he wouldn't have to teach Spanish Sunday School. But they found him, so he did what he always does when he's called upon to sub last minute in a foreign language -- pulls up the lesson in Spanish, reads it in Spanish, asks the questions in Spanish and sort of understands the answers people give in Spanish. So pretty much we're just the best teachers ever.

Cauliflower and Eclairs

(This one has nothing really to do with anything. Maybe it's just funny because I'm tired.)

I have paid a decent amount of attention to the women's marches, to the point that they made it into my subconscious. Last night I dreamed that I was in a march with my sisters, and one of them was handing out little sprigs of cauliflower to everyone she saw. Then I looked down at the table set up in the center of the march and it was full of eclairs and cream puffs. I don't think I held onto the cauliflower anymore and just piled my plate (where did I get a plate?) with cream puffs.

I'm not sure what the meaning is behind all this. Probably that I should eat more cauliflower, but I probably won't.

Texting

And, of course, the last win is that I texted my visiting teachee about herself. I meant to text my companion.

It really wasn't a bad text, just a "we had dinner and so I think that counts" kind of text that you could laugh off if you think eating dinner counts as visiting teaching and get offended by if you don't think it counts. (She's in the former category, thankfully.)

While this wasn't a win, I've definitely thought of way worse things I could have texted someone about themselves without realizing it, especially when visiting teaching is involved.

So, yeah. I guess I will put this in the win category. And it also fits in the "laugh at myself" category, just like the rest of life lately, which makes it a double win.

Goal for 2017

A kind of funny thing has been happening since my last blog post. Out of the blue, I have been thinking of all sorts of nice notes and emails I got during the first trimester when I was feeling down.

"So . . . why did you feel like you didn't have any friends?" I ask myself.
"Um, I don't know."
"You focused in on a few unanswered emails and texts and ignored everything nice that happened to you???"
"I guess so."
"Well that seems like a recipe for sadness."
"I knew I wasn't being rational."

And that much is true. I would be sometimes catch myself in the negative thought patterns and wonder what on earth was going on. But at the same time I couldn't get out of it. I couldn't convince myself that I could possibly be wrong about something like that. Because once you're wrong . . . it means you've made mistakes. Possibly even ones that have hurt other people.

So instead I made a narrative around what I wanted to believe, and the parts that didn't fit, well, they were nice but had to be set aside. No wonder I was feeling so lonely!

Which I guess leads to my 2017 goal that I've finally decided on -- gratitude.

Yes, good old gratitude. Last year's goal was on being more willing to give (and I think I really was better, though perhaps it was easier with less accompanying and babysitting and feeling more needed in this new ward), and now this year should probably be about being grateful for what I've received.

I like what President Uchtdorf says about aiming at the right target in this month's Ensign. We need to have our lives centered on Christ and on loving those around us, not just painting targets where we think they belong.

What does having good aim look like in practice? I think it looks like gratitude. I know some incredible people who have been through horrific experiences, and they might mention them, but their hope is still on Christ and so they rarely complain.

As I listen to them talk, I kind of laugh to myself, remembering the times where most everything was great, but I still felt so lonely I could hardly stand it. I would try to make something good come from it -- "No one should ever feel this lonely! I should make sure to be a friend" -- but as I think about it, I'm included in that "no one" who should feel like that. And it really might have been self-inflicted. And I really think it's possible to be compassionate and caring without continually going back to a dark place. So while there is some good that comes from feeling lonely every now and then, I don't think it's something we need to subject ourselves to.

So here's to a year of hopefully focusing on the good, laughing off the inconveniences of mortal life (especially in New Haven, haha), and trusting God in any circumstance.

It might not be easy (especially since I'm so good at finding problems), but it does sound more fun. And more rational than what I was doing for a few months.

And I'm all for being rational!

First Trimester

Now that my secret's out, I can finally talk about the last few months!

Joke is, there's really not that much to say. Because I hardly did anything. Haha!
(Second joke is, it's a really long blog post anyway!)

This pregnancy started out interesting because for the first time it caught me by surprise.

November 8th was a very bad day. It started out with a negative pregnancy test, then discovering I returned books to the wrong library, and every time I tried to renew them the website wouldn't work so I owed $1.20 on them (the indignity mattered more than the fee), and then I hadn't confirmed things with a friend so they weren't having us over for dinner. And then of course I was right about the election (I have the texting conversations to prove it) which, well, I'd already begun being depressed about that back in like March so I mostly had a dark sense of humor by that point.

I'd had plenty of negative pregnancy tests recently (bodies are fun, tricky things, especially when a nursing/weaning toddler is involved), but this one really upset me. So suddenly, I found myself crying at the park with all these people around.

Guys, I'm pretty sure the last time I cried in public was the day I thought my sister was going to die of cancer in February 2009. I don't cry in public. I was embarrassed and confused. Surely a library fine and cooking my own dinner didn't warrant this! I hauled my kids back into the car, calmed down, and drove to a different parking lot of the same park since my kids still wanted to play there but I didn't want to see the same people.

***

The next few weeks were rough. I was stressed about scout rechartering and the Primary Program and visiting teaching and other various things (that I made into a highly detailed list). The whole time I kept fretting about not having a period, and why was I suddenly so tired after just a few minutes of exercise? Why was I so tired? Why did I have to eat breakfast the minute I woke up? Why was I so cranky?

One day, I agreed to watch a little girl in the ward while her mom was at work from 6 am to 4 pm. 6 am is several hours before I wake up on a normal day, and it was a long stint, but I felt way way way way more exhausted than I thought it warranted. Also nauseated.

So then I started to finally catch on. But then it was Thanksgiving, and I didn't want to find out while family was in town. But when all of our fun plans sort of turned into me sitting/sleeping on the couch, they figured it out anyway. ("It was just like the time you visited us in Chicago," they told me. Glad they know I'm not usually this lame.)

***

Overall, I think it's been easier than either pregnancy with Joseph or Matthew. Most days up til about 11 weeks I felt mildly to moderately nauseated all day, but I never threw up, and just dry heaved a few times. (To my poor dear friends reading this who can't keep anything down, I am so so sorry! I can't quite say I feel for you, but I feel at least a little of your pain and it is no bueno.) Most days I tried to take a nap, but I didn't always get one. Even during Matthew's naps, Joseph would usually choose to watch a Mr. Rogers episode instead of the 116 wonderful minutes of Lightning McQueen that I suggested, so I would only get sleep in 27 minute increments. If that.

I actually had to tell him pretty early because he was getting mad at me for being so lame. I wasn't quite ready for him to tell his Sunbeam teacher or other Joy School moms, but I felt like he ought to know that the baby in my tummy was stealing all my energy. And he was good at keeping it a secret and good at being patient with me. I did have a good laugh the other day when he asked, "Do you know who the laziest person in the family is? You!!!!! Because you have a baby in your tummy." I mean, he's right.

***

We kept things on a need-to-know basis. I only told two people outside the family before my official blog and Facebook announcements, and only told my mom (because she somehow already knew) and my sister I saw for Thanksgiving (almost as an apology for being so lame). I normally tell another sister everything over gchat, but I spent several weeks not complaining about every physical malady, which is unusual for me. I told Kevin's parents within minutes of walking into their house for Christmas, because I figured they needed to know why I was going to be little more than a useless lump, especially in the mornings. I held out til Christmas with my family, but I was grumpy and tired enough that it didn't come too much as a surprise when I started handing out the pioneer clothes as my announcement. Except for my brother. Then again, he's in Spain.

I also kept it a secret from the ward, in contrast to last time when I started announcing before even the 4 week mark. As far as I know, only one person suspected, and that's because she once heard Kevin ask me if I was feeling okay ("husbands only ask that if you're pregnant"). The day after my positive pregnancy test, I was singing before church with the ward choir to prepare for a performance that day, and I did not want to stand anymore. I felt lightheaded and hungry and nauseated, and all I wanted was a chair. But then I saw every other pregnant soprano grabbing a chair. "You can't give yourself away like this," I chided myself. "You've known about this less than 24 hours!!!" I managed to pull myself together with the help of a few trips to the drinking fountain, and all was well.

Same with stake choir. I was more than happy to do any and all accompanying (ended up doing two songs) if it meant I didn't have to stand. Pleased to say I never passed out.

***

Emotionally, it was a little bit of a roller coaster. I spent November pretty anxious (well, as I've thought about it, I'm pretty anxious most of the time) and probably pestered 2 out of the 3 members of the bishopric more than I should have about callings and scouts. Actually 4 out of the 6 if you start counting ward clerks.

But by December I just didn't have energy to be anxious. After Kevin's surprise birthday party (which I was relieved I did not throw up for, haha), I barely cared about anything, except about missing socks in the laundry. I also was less likely to panic after a close call, whereas I usually fret about what might have been long after the danger is over (which made the minute or two my purse was left in the terminal when we were on the airplane with the doors about to close less stressful, as well as the time a car slid in the snow and barely missed crunching right into us). I wasn't even that anxious about potentially miscarrying again. Matthew was fine, so this baby was probably fine too. And sure enough, at my doctor's appointment, there was a heartbeat. And a baby that was a week smaller than the estimated due date predicted, but that also made sense given my negative pregnancy test. It just meant one more week of morning sickness. And one more week of being pregnant in the summer.

I was a bit depressed though, which wasn't fun. I think I walk around with a rubber band attached to my leg, and sometimes the rubber band just gets stuck on pegs and I stay fixated on them for a while. This particular peg was called, "I have no friends!!!!!!!!!" Which is silly. And false. But I was compiling a pretty impressive list of people in both Michigan and Connecticut who weren't responding to texts, emails, phone calls, invitations or anything, so I began to believe it (even as Christmas cards, emails, and texts from other friends came rolling in). (If I had written the Beatitudes one would say "blessed are all they who respond to emails, for they shall inherit the earth.")

And to be fair to myself . . . I'm probably not the type who gets invited to all the girls nights, or meets up yearly with old friends, or is able to call friends to shoot the breeze the same way I talk to my sisters and mom. And perhaps that's what's terrifying -- to feel so attached to people but not have the familial ties to them that will ensure we'll actually see each other ever again after we live different places.

So yeah. After a bright sunny October with plenty to do outside, November and December rolled around with significantly less socializing. And I began to long for the days the past few winters where I could just go with Joseph and Matthew to a friend's house and have a play date there for a few hours, often unplanned. I sadly realized that sitting in someone's house being able to talk for hours didn't translate to being able to connect with them in a different setting such as phone calls. That combined with the mood swings of pregnancy made for a lot of angst as I felt like I had lost something extremely precious, and I was actually pretty angry at Ann Arbor for a while. (Not New Haven, which would have made more sense.)

This dark mood regarding friendship made it so that I didn't bother seeing any friends while in Utah, and I also stopped emailing friends that I'd been emailing regularly for months. Overall, I think these were good decisions to stop my victim complex, and I don't think anyone missed me or my emails too much. Ultimately, a really good email exchange with a friend from a long time ago helped me get out of this funk, and I was finally able to pinpoint the causes of my anger and sadness, and even find them kind of funny.

And hopefully being in the second trimester will help too! After a week with hardly any pregnancy symptoms, I've gotten back to the nausea and exhaustion, with headaches thrown in too. But I've also enjoyed some of the baby's movement already, so the best is yet to be!

Oh, 5 is such a pretty number

Today's message is brought to you by Pentatonix.

To recap,

Oh, 5 is such a pretty number

I'm awf'ly glad that I've

got 5 people in my family!

1, 2, 3, 4,

5!

1

2

3

4

5

We are so excited for baby #3 coming July 24th!

Articles November-December

I'm late sharing these articles, but that's okay because I forgot to record a lot of what I read! So it's probably not representative anyway.

I'm also feeling like this might be the last time I gather lots of articles like this. It was fun for 2016 but I'm feeling like it's time for a change on the blog. So, enjoy! (It's not an epic finish, I'm warning you.)

Stories


I at first labeled this section "faith-promoting," but I feel like that phrase has lost some of its meaning in overuse. But these are stories that offer faith and hope amidst tragedy.

Finding Annie Schmidt -- It is always so inspiring to me to know of people so willing to listen to God. Even when doing something as difficult as this.

Mountain View Credits Higher Power in Saving Lives -- Back in November, a boy stabbed several classmates in the Mountain View locker room. This story hit close to home because I know one of the boys who was in the locker room, so I am glad for the protection that came from angels.

On Losing Our Daugher -- You might make it through this without crying, but likely not. Still worth a read.

Thoughts on Two Baptisms -- This is a sweet story that exemplifies turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers.

Michael McLean Opens Up About His 9-Year Faith Crisis -- This was a great read, and it resonated a lot with things I have felt at times, especially on and off over the past few years. Like him, I have really grappled with the thought,

What was I going to say? ‘Hey, all of you who bought my records, just kidding! You are alone. Quit holding on—the light’s not coming.’”

and these feelings have been just as baffling as unsettling. Why on earth would I wonder these things with so many examples of God's goodness staring me in the face all the time? But it can happen, and the key is to hold on and press forward.

Food

On a lighter note, if you, like me, have been on the hunt for the holy grail called the perfect pizza crust and still not found it, this pepperoni pizza roll recipe is a good way to get your pizza fix. And it's fairly fast.

Politics

Okay, there is plenty to say about politics and foreign affairs (oh, Putin, you trouble me), and goodness knows I have read my share of it all. But I forgot to save most of the links. Suffice it to say I think we are headed into an interesting time where we can look at Eastern Europe as a pretty good model for some things. (Actually, if you read President Monson's biography, there's bunches about Eastern Germany which gave me perspective on how the Church might behave during a Trump administration. I don't buy the Trump=Hitler perspective, but I still don't like having a lying, bullying narcissist as commander in chief [pro tip: the more attention you give his Twitter the more power you give him], and I can understand the Church wanting to stay on his good side . . . sigh.)

Anyway, here's the main article that sums up how I feel about political articles these days -- No More Cheap Outrage. I don't think I am particularly guilty of sharing anything incendiary. But, I think I could do better at reading less news. I know that reading more news from a variety of sources makes me more nuanced and compassionate. (Equally important for me developing nuance and compassion is spending time listening in rural Utah, to be honest.) But it is also time I am not reading books. And books last longer than this petition or that editorial or this mild controversy. And at the end of the day, with all the news I read, I still don't know what to think! I don't understand policy all that well. I don't know how to fix things in this country or that.

Sigh. And writing this is convincing me I should keep reading it and staying informed. But maybe if I can predict that a controversy has a half-life of less than two weeks, then I'm not reading about it. Because there's still that Hamilton biography to read.

Books

Lucky for me, I do get to read books sometimes! Joseph loves chapter books these days, and as of yesterday we've finished the first two Little House books.

I still think Caddie Woodlawn is more entertaining than the Little House books if you are looking for 1860s-70s adventures in Wisconsin, but something about this read-through with Joseph has had me totally fascinated. The most interesting character to me has been Caroline Ingalls. In the books, she's portrayed as less fun than Pa, since more of her role is to remind Laura to behave and less to play the fiddle, but she's often laughing and smiling along with them.

And I just sit there in awe at how stoic and happy she is through it all. How did she put up with leaving all her family in Wisconsin and moving to Kansas just because Pa wanted to? How did she manage to feed them all every day without a grocery store nearby? How did she keep things going when she was pregnant? There are subtle things I wonder too looking at the family tree. Why was she married so long before Mary was born? Why was there a gap between Laura and Carrie? Did she ever really get over the loss of her baby Frederick?

And then I wonder about how equal her marriage with Charles was, or really any marriage back then. Laura records nothing but tenderness and good humor between the two of them. But then it also seemed like they moved whenever Pa wanted to. I can think of several authors -- Laura Ingalls Wilder, Louisa May Alcott, and Maud Hart Lovelace -- who wrote at least somewhat autobiographically, and all their parents seemed to have happy marriages. So were they the norm? Or was it just that female writers who wrote children's books came from homes with gentle fathers?

I also wonder why there were no tornadoes while they lived in Kansas.

(Also I confess I skimmed some parts of Little House on the Prairie with Joseph. Sometimes I looked things up and discovered they were probably not true stories, such as several tribes of Indians wanting to kill the settlers, so I figured there was no reason to introduce that stereotype.)

Anyway, these books definitely have helped me try to not be so wimpy about our cold apartment and feeling isolated sometimes. And, when I was sick of our long flight to Utah, I just thought of Caroline spending weeks going from Wisconsin to Kansas instead of hours, so that helped. If she could be happy through all this, maybe I could too!

Other books . . . while at my parents house, I suddenly found myself finishing David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. And since then I've been reading Planted by Patrick Q. Mason and The Vision of All by Joseph M. Spencer and A Reason for Faith by Joseph M. Spencer. But it's late so I will maybe talk about all of these another time. It might even be a cohesive post. But probably not. Haha!

And then instead of reading Bands of Mourning while there (my parents own it) I read a chapter of Arcanum Unbounded (which we own) which was not very strategic since I couldn't find Bands of Mourning at the library last time I looked.

and . . . I think I need to branch out of LDS non-fiction and Brandon Sanderson.

This post is long enough, so I will end with one final article.

The Onion -- Once again, the Onion is not very funny, because it is scarily accurate. This sums up every single playgroup I have ever attended everywhere I have lived. And several baby showers, for that matter.

Although, since I'm obviously wandering around with so much random stuff in my head, it's probably safer to just smile and nod!