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."]

Punctuated with Kisses

(Ya, that's right, I'm posting this picture again.  It's the best kissing picture I've ever taken.  So there.)

This morning David kissed me and I said, "Stop kissing me with punctuation."

To which he said, "What?"

It may be the writer in me overstepping her bounds, but sometimes I can see the punctuation in his kisses.  And this morning it was all periods. 

And I said, "You know what I mean."

And then, because he did know what I meant, he said hopefully, "Was it a comma?  Or an exclamation point?"

And I said, "You know very well it was a period."

And he said, "I think you're wrong."

And then he kissed me some more to prove me wrong and just as the punctuation was starting to turn into an ellipsis, the phone rang.

It was the hospital.  Wondering if they could function without him.  The answer was no.  And just like that my ellipsis turned into a dash.  For later.

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.

Word of the Week: Detritus

detritus  /n./  rock in small particles or other material worn or broken away from a mass, as by the action of water or glacial ice.  any disintegrated material.  debris.  fragments.  garbage or waste.  matter.  rubbish.  scree.  silt.  tuff.  rubble.  shavings.  leavings.

detritus  /n./  1.  I have always loved this word.  The letters themselves, put together in this combination, sound like the leftover sand and rocks rolling around in the bottom of a beach bag.  And in addition to that, it is my constant companion.  Detritus and entropy dog me ceaselessly.

detritus  /n./  2.  I have to admit I almost discontinued "word-of-the-week."  It felt almost like the detritus of another time, and that maybe I ought go in a different direction with my blog this year.  But then I realized I had only posted once between my last two SPT's.  Apparently, I need more reasons to post, not less.

detritus  /n./  3.  Last week was rough.  Re-entry into regular life after two weeks vacation with my darlings was harsh and shocking.  It always is.  When I commented just that, David only said resignedly, "I knew it would be."  Last Monday, when I found myself surrounded on all sides by detritus of every kind (laundry, holiday decorations, suitcases and boxes from our trip to Michigan, ashes in the fireplace, and new toys with no "home") and simultaneously deserted by everyone I live with, a small rebellion ensued.  Not to mention a hearty resentment stew boiling away in my hard heart.  There was enough there to last more than a few days.  But eventually, I cleaned up both the detritus and my heart (you can guess which one took longer), and by Saturday night, it was livable here again.

 detritus  /n./  4.  By the end of last year, working (blogging and editing pictures) on our home computer was just about impossible.  There is so much detritus on there from programs the kids have uploaded and downloaded and generally unloaded on there, that it has brought it to an almost excruciating standstill when you're trying to do anything requiring even the least bit of memory.  David, seeing my plight, bought me a brand new Dell laptop for Christmas.  And in particular, a red one.  He was very specific about that last point.  I was so shocked and confused when I opened it (I thought it was an electric skillet?) I started bawling from the surprise.  (I'm sure that will shock most of you, considering my decidedly un-lachrymose nature.  Last night I did start bawling while I was making hamburgers, but my blood sugar was low, so there.)  Anyway, I am feeling extremely blessed to be using it.  In addition to all this, David spent a good two and a half hours on the phone and on the computer getting my wireless internet hooked up on Thursday night.  I know how lucky I am.  (Especially considering everything in the paragraph above.) 

detritus  /n./  5.  It seems we barely put away the detritus of the space station project, and Caleb is already nudging me to help him start his science project.  He told me yesterday, "Mom, I really think we need to order those petri dishes today."  I really think Target should have a petri dish section.

detritus  /n./  6.  In an effort to clear up some of the detritus leftover from last year and "start fresh," we finished reading the Book of Mormon this past week.  We read the last chapter of Moroni together on Tuesday night and then ate cake.  We believe in celebration around here. 

Tales of a Prop Manager

I have a confession.

I've been grumpy for days.  Re-entry is always difficult for me.

I told several people this week, (David included), that I feel like a "prop manager."  Everybody else I live with has a big, full life that they are the stars of and I manage the props.  And when my darlings need clothes for a new scene, I wash.  Or when it's time for the dinner scene I make the dinner and set the table and we eat.  New scene, new props.  You get the idea.  This week, prop managing was especially trying with all the Christmas props and travel props and new toy props to put away.

This morning Olivia called from the school and told me she had forgotten her viola again.  The second time this week.  Could I please bring it to stage 6...she has a scene coming up later in the day that she needs it for.

And I thought, "I can't do this for another year.  We're only 9 days in and I'm done."

And then, there was a tender mercy.  Just in the nick of time.

And I do mean just.

I talked to a friend who told me about a talk she recently heard about love.  She said the returning missionary said that service without love is just servitude.

Oh.

And I could suddenly see why my job felt like servitude.  Like all I was was a prop manager.  And underpaid at that.  I wasted my week in servitude, because I forgot about why I was doing it in the first place.  Oh, love.

A week wasted.

But I'm good at rallying.

And delivering violas with a smile.

The Loneliest Day of the Year

(My fireplace this morning.)

The first Monday in January is always, for me, the loneliest day of the year.

Everyone left without a backward glance,

leaving me alone with the detritus of the holiday.

I'm not sure which one bothers me more, the leaving or the piles of detritus left in their wake.

There's no help for it, but I sure hate being alone again.

Ring in the New Year

We are working our way backwards.

Passing the quiet snow-covered barns of Michigan and Indiana, the quiet fields and bare trees of Illinois, and the arch on the banks of the Mississippi in St. Louis.  The air is warming with every mile.

The gloaming is just coming on now, turning the Missouri sky purple and blushing.

There is something reverent about watching the sky all the way from the slow black-to-blue of early morning to the rosy embers of the coming night.  The beginning, middle, and end from my seat in the car.

It makes me wistful and pensive.  Full of the regrets of last year and the yearnings for this coming one.

I don’t do well with starting lines.

I get too nervous and tense waiting for the gun.  Which always results in a bad start, and too often I grind to a halt, knowing inside that the race is already lost. CIM is too often “all or nothing.” Poor RIM.

Clean calendars and new days are full of pressure and anxiety for my inevitable failure.

I do better in the middle:  the middle of conversations (just ask David…answering his first questions of “How was your day?” completely stymies me and turns me to stone), the middle of the day (so much more cheerful and productive once the morning chores are done again and the real work can begin), the middle of the week, the middle of dinner (after my blood sugar has risen a bit).

That said, I have only one resolution for 2009.  I am in the middle of something.  A seed planted last year, that I hope will continue to grow into a life of less regret.  I only want to continue to nurture this one seed.  And that is enough resolution for me.  More than enough.  The rest of the "new year's list" always dissolves and disappears amidst spelling lists and laundry piles and emptying the dishwasher and science projects.  I know this now.  I have had enough fresh starts to know this for sure.  But my resolution to change my heart can be (and in fact must be) accomplished amid the sprawl and chaos of regular life.

Last week in church we sang the song: Ring Out, Wild Bells, which we only sing on one Sunday a year.

Which is right, I suppose.  But which I still think is a shame.

It touched me to tears, and seemed to capture the essence of my resolution, particularly verse 3.  And so my word of the year is RING.

Here are Tennyson's words:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

The larger heart.  The kindlier hand.  The vast landscape of my own heart in need of more light.  

RING.

I hope I am positively vibrating this year.