The Wailing Wall

The priesthood power in my home doubled yesterday. 

I felt a bit like Hannah. 

Both happy and sad.  Both blessed and robbed.  Both humbled and entitled.  Amazed at the opportunity to mother such a son, and tenderly aware that he is not really mine.  Utterly grateful for even one moment with this boy, and equally devastated by the brevity of childhood.

David's voice broke when he blessed Caleb.  Overwhelmed, I think, by the same feelings. 

Yesterday in sacrament meeting, when they asked Caleb to stand and be sustained, one of my friends turned around in her bench and mouthed, "He's twelve?!" to me across the room.  I nodded and she winced.

My thoughts exactly.

Makes me wonder how Hannah made herself get up that morning, what she cooked for breakfast, and if she touched her boy all the way to the temple.  And how she had the faith to turn around and walk home, or if it was Samuel who turned around and walked away first. 

The latter I think.

At least, that is how it is happening in my life. 

I reread her account last night when my house was quiet, but my head was not.  It comforts me some, that Hannah was given to emotional displays.  After all, I have a similar tendency.

But in the end, she took her three bullocks and her ephah of flour and gave thanks.

And after the ribeye roast and the apple pie and the kisses goodnight, in the dark and the quiet, I did the same. 

Be Prepared to Covet

And I mean it.

You're going to be all green and drooly after you read this post.  I'm giving you fair warning.

Some of you, with less-charmed lives, may want to stop reading right here.

Two Fridays ago I received this fortune in my fortune cookie:

I was intrigued.

My mailbox has been in a bad cycle of catalogs and grocery store coupons and, of course, the dreaded bills, and so this harbinger of good mail made my heart skip a little.

And then last Thursday, I received a package with this sticker on the outside.

Another harbinger of goodness.

And this is what was inside:

[Prepare yourself for something glorious.  (I know you're already green and drooly that we often have Chinese food on Friday nights and that I got such a fabulous fortune, but we have not even gotten to the good part yet.)]

My reaction was just this:

Gasp.

And then sobbing.

My very good friends, Amy and Kelly, made a book out of my 52 Blessings project from last year.  All that "gold in the sand" captured in a hardbound book for my nightstand.  And it is just as wonderful as it looks.  I cannot imagine the hours of time and creative effort it took to create, and the generosity in the thought of making it in the first place undoes me every time I think of it.  When I imagine them calling each other and making plans to surprise me, I just give up and weep. 

When David saw it, he got me a tissue and then said, "Wow, sweets, your first book.  Can you imagine having a whole shelf of these?"

Which just made me smile and cry all the more.  We sat down and read it together and oohed and aahed over every detail.

Now you might be wondering how you can stop coveting and get yourself some friends like these.

And I would like to tell you that "To have a friend, you have to be a friend."  But that is simply not true.  I have done nothing, ever, to deserve such friends and such kindness.  Really.  (You can read about how even more lucky I am to have them in my life here.)   

Thank you, lambs.

The Cruel Hand of Entropy

My old enemy, entropy, reared its ugly head last Thursday night and took out the keyboard on my new laptop.

I know.  David was as aghast as you are.

I talked to the Dell guy in India for a couple of hours on Friday morning.  (The weather in Mohali was lovely and he had no plans for the weekend, by the way.)  And after having me investigate the problem with a screwdriver (!) and carefully talking me through taking my new computer apart...

Me:  I'm a little freaked out.

Dell:  It's okay, ma'am.  Take your time ma'am.

Me:  My husband would die if he could see me now.

Dell:  You're doing fine ma'am.

Me:  There are just certain things that I think should remain a mystery, you know.  Seeing the inside of this just kind of takes some of the magic out of it.

Dell:  Um, yes ma'am.  We do this all the time ma'am. 

...he told me I needed a new keyboard and he would send one right out.  He told me to just put it in exactly like I had just taken the old one out.  I confided that I was a little freaked out.  He said that I would do just fine ma'am. 

David was less sure.  And twice as aghast than he was at the beginning of this post that I was going to be replacing my own keyboard on my own laptop.

I said to have a little faith in me.  At which point he made a little speech out of his eyebrows, but didn't say anything out loud.

My new keyboard arrived early this afternoon.

Ta. da.

Sometimes I even amaze myself.  

And now, speaking of lovely weather and weekend plans and general amazingness, I thought you might want to know that we had a near perfect afternoon on Saturday.  We filled the burley cart with softball equipment, the croquet set, blankets and books and Bohnanza, and a lunch, and rode our bikes over to a nearby park.  The weather was as fine as it gets.  David commented later that the only thing that would have made it more perfect was a pillow.  When we shared our "highs and lows" for the week over Sunday brunch, this lovely afternoon made it onto every one's list.

[When Olivia was asked about her "low" for the week, she said, disgustedly, "Fractions."

And when David tried to probe further, she held up her hand to stop him and said, "Fractions.  Enough said."]

CIM Takes Matters Into Her Own Hands

It's time I posted.  Past time, really.

David listed my neglected and missing posts last night in bed.

Surprisingly, I wasn't feeling too amorous after that.  And I may have said something rude.  (I'm not saying one way or another.)

And then this morning RIM and CIM got into an argument about what to post and what not to post, and in what order.  Like that matters.  Obviously, CIM won because here I am telling you all this.  She always wins when I'm tired or haven't eaten recently or I've said something rude to my husband and am therefore feeling out-of-sorts.  (Let's be honest, after all that there is really very little place in my life for RIM.)

And so yes, there are other things to talk about.  Like our date to Othello with my parents (it was brilliant, by the way),

David's new car (no pictures yet),

the word-of-the-week and my SPT (in which I am teaching my kids a *new* game and *trying something new by letting the laundry and the mopping wait in favor of a couple of good games of croquet*),

not to mention the girls' Saturday sewing class with my mom,

 

a talk by Elder Bednar,

an inauguration, and the 100th day of school (which happened on the same day).

But instead,

here is a movie about why it is great to live in Arizona in January even if your bicycle-built-for-two gets a flat tire and it's so warm that you have to run the air conditioner for an hour before bed.

The Magic of My Life

I got a small package in the mail today from Blue Lily Photography.

And may I just say, at the outset, that Wendy Whitacre is a brilliant photographer and all-around gracious lady.  You would count yourself lucky to ever find yourself and your darlings on the other side of a camera from her.  I am sitting here counting myself just that.

There are lots of course, but here are some of my favorites.  I think I may be getting frames for Christmas.  It is obvious from these that I have everything else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am overwhelmed by the beauty and magic of my life.

Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.

~from Carl Sandberg's "At a Window"