Fall Funk

  Of all the seasons Autumn is my favorite.  I know, I know I said the same thing about summer at its start, and the same thing about spring when it finally arrived. Okay, Autumn is definitely in my top three. Winter and I have a love hate relationship.  Winter is a necessary evil like pantyhose and the dentist. Without winter the other seasons would never be so dramatic, so anticipated and shocking in their delights.   Back to Autumn.  There is nothing that gets my creative juices flowing like a crisp fall morning.  I love watching the leaves turn bright and then brittle with anticipation of all the excitement to come.  From September to new years my life is a literal flurry of activities and parties. My birthday, Canadian thanksgiving, Halloween, Ella's birthday, American Thanksgiving,  CHRISTMAS, my anniversary.  (One of the best things about being a Canuck living in the states is two thanksgivings!)  This year my creative juices refused to flow.  Each time I would sit at the computer to write, or pick up a paint brush, or even browse through pinterest: c r i c k e t s.   Only me and the sound of silence.

  I haven't been able to figure out or overcome this mountain of blah for weeks.  The whole creative hiatus has left me a little out of sorts.  I need creative outlets to stay sane,  keep myself from locking children in their bedrooms and throwing heavy objects at husband.   This morning the fog finally lifted and I know who is to blame.  Uncle Sam.  The election has been wrecking autumn, one of my three favorite seasons! A huge political haze has been hanging over us all.  There has been so much political static electricity in the air, poor facebook has become a landmine of opinions.  I think my inner-self decided to duck and cover a couple of months ago.  I don't have any opinions or political sound bites to share with you this morning. (I have them I just refuse to share them.)   Consider that my early Christmas gift to you.  This is an open invitation to all my friends no matter which side of the fence they sit on.  Pop on over to my house.  There are pumpkin muffins in the oven,  craft projects spread out across the dinning room table and Christmas music on the radio.   Everything is going to be alright.


PS  -  A brave princess and her wise little owl showed up for Halloween :)

 

Renaissance of Wonder

                We need a renaissance of wonder. We need to renew, in our hearts and in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that life is miracle and magic  -E Merrill Root

 What is being a mother if not a revival of our own childhood?   My daughters do me the great honor of letting me see the world through their eyes.  When I catch a little moment of their magic,  when I get caught up in their wonder,  it fills me up.   All the world is set right.  On our trip to the zoo my baby girl stood up against the aquarium with the big kids.  She pressed her nose to the glass and chortled as the sea lions sailed by.   She kept looking back at me as if to say "Are you seeing this?   Hey mom,  are you really seeing this?"  Yes baby girl,  I see it.  And it is wonderful!

How to watch Downton Abbey season 3 NOW!

I really wanted to call this post "Do it like a Brit."  But then I thought that might drive the wrong kind of traffic to my blog.  If you do want to watch Downton Abbey like a Brit,  with our friends across the pond, then you have come to the right place!  Since the new season doesn't air in the US until January and I never was known for my patience I did a little research and came up with a couple of fool proof plans.  First, some eye candy.

 

Been raiding my closet again ladies?

 

 

 

 

                            Oh Mathew, don't look at me like that! (on second thought, please do!)
                                      
If you want to watch, here’s all you have to do:

1. Download Tunnel Bear.

2. Install TunnelBear.

3. Create an account for TunnelBear and pay the $4.99/month for unlimited bandwidth– the free 500 MB is not enough. 

4. Turn on TunnelBear and switch the dials to “On” and “UK”

5. Open a new browser window

.6. Go to the iTV player

Click on the Downton Abbey _ watch, let the english grandeur roll over you, as you salivate and wonder why you couldn't be born in the 1920's

If you have an HDMI cord for your tv then you can hook up your computer to your tv and watch it in full screen glory.  Also on iTv the adds are British which I feel is an added bonus. Commercials with an english accent are so less irritating than ones without.

Call you sister or best friend to brag that you got to watch the new season, and after sufficient bragging direct them to these instructions.

Love letters

I recently came across a beautiful blog where the author shared some of her old love letters from over the years. They ranged from comical to deeply romantic and personal, as different as each love. Feeling inspired I decided to brave our very scary basement, digging through boxes of old memories. I hunted and sifted through piles of saved treasures from over the years, sure that I had saved and could thus unearth some romantic old letters. Curated so that I could someday show them to my daughters and remember the breathless flush of my first young love. What I excavated with was not exactly what I expected.

My first ever "love letter" was a note passed to me during math class in the seventh grade. The cutest boy in school told me in the note that he really liked me (squeal) and then proceeded to go on and on about the girl he use to like that he didn't like anymore. Looking at it with grown up eyes it was more a hate letter for her than a love letter for me. Maybe it was a bad omen of things to come. The letters and notes didn't get much better. There was one scribbled on a napkin by a boy I briefly dated during university. It read "You smell good and your butt looks good in those pants, when do you get off work? I need a backrub." What a Casanova. I sifted and searched and sifted and searched some more. There were letters from one guy who told me that some girls were like Christmas lights, and I was like the lights that twinkle. Sweet, but probably directly off a Hallmark card.

I uncovered a few longer letters with guarded hints of love and adoration. Dozens of sweet letters until one day they proclaimed a new indifference. Indifference, I think, is the worst way to feel about a person. I would take hate over indifference any day. I sat on the cold basement floor, staring at this letter. I looked at a picture of me and this indifferent boy that had been carefully folded inside. I felt a twinge of remembrance, the slightest pain of sadness and mild annoyance that my love letter hunt had devolved into such a bust. Just then my seven year old peeped over my shoulder.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Who is that?" she demanded before I had a chance to answer.

"Oh, that is a boy who use to be my boyfriend a long long time ago before I met your daddy." I told her a bit too wistfully. She leaned her head on my shoulder gently and then.....burst into laughter. Huge bursts of laughter that made her little belly shake. "His head", she puffed and squealed. "His head is the size of a water melon." With that she bounded out of the room still laughing to herself, pausing at the top of the stairs to call back down with dramatic hilarity "the siiizzze of a WATERMELON."

My daughter, my sweet darling daughter. In many ways my one true love. So funny. So loyal (to her most romantic and handsome father who has written me many many a love letter, and a few very bad poems.) I shoved all the sub-par romance from my past back into the box and kicked it for good measure to the back of the storage closet. I ran up the stairs to my room and grabbed a different box. I dumped it on the bed... a hundred or so love notes from Ella. Precious little scraps saved since she was tiny (which was five minutes ago as I have already established.) Pictures she drew for me, birthday cards, little notes she use to hide around the house. Scribbly squiggly barley readable characters written by the chubby clumsy fingers of a child just learning to write. I love you mommy. You are the best mommy. Thank you for being my mommy. My heart began to flutter and dance. My little true love. Turns out I didn't need to dig so deep. My very best love letters, the ones worth saving and sharing are definitely part of my present.

Ella: Mom you can just drop me off right here.
Me: Whhhattt? (equal parts whine and panic)
Ella: Come on Mom, I am in second grade, I am way to big to have you walk me into school.

And then she gives me that look. That look that says - I am not willing to deal with your over-protective neurosis right at this particular moment. And she is right, I know she is right. Its just that she was my baby like five minutes minutes ago. "Just a second" I shriek out the window as I fumble for the camera on my phone. And this is it, the only first day of school photo I manage to snap. Out the window of my minivan. Mom fail. She already seems so big, and so far away from me. As I round the corner at the bottom of the hill it hits me and the tears start to fall. They surprise me because if I am honest I have been counting down the days. I mean, despite summer camps, and swimming, and trips to Nana's I am apparently the most boring person on the face of the universe. Please second grade teacher take this child off my hands and teach her some manners and appreciation if you don't mind. But the tears come anyway. I call my sister who is in the hospital holding a precious three day old baby, Rosemary, against her chest. "Brace yourself", I manage through hicuppy sobs, "you will be sending her to second grade in about five minutes".

Homecoming

Every year it's seems like my visits home to Canada get fewer and further. I love spending time with my family, but we most often meet at the lake in Montana. It is fun and alluring and "home" gets neglected. I have friends who have moved far away that get the shakes about going home, and others that love it. It is always a mixed bag for me. I seem to have grown up in spite of myself, but when I go home I can never keep track of how old I am. It is only in Lethbridge that I am catapulted backwards. I am suddenly a tangle of emotions. I am brash and brave as I jump off a bridge into murky irrigation waters. I am in the throws of my first broken heart. I am running wild with ranch grown boys long after the hour that my parents would like me home in bed. Time is no longer linear but fluid and tricky. It is so hard for me to get a grip on time there that I stare hard at the faces I pass by at the store, trying to get a glimpse of myself. Is she older or younger, do I have wrinkles like that or not yet? Please not yet. As my husband laughs and laments I can't walk five feet in the mall without running into someone I know. These are my people, not the faceless crowd I am used to in Salt Lake. After ten years they are as much strangers as kin. Coming home is usually comforting and disconcerting all at the same time (if that is even possible).

When I feel myself lost in time, as I do there, my capacity to embrace change is challenged. I find comfort in the vast surroundings of Lethbridge that never seem to change. Miles and miles of precious ranch and farmland, made more romantic by tales of ancestors who lived on it, worked it, and loved it. My heart fills and I wax poetic- be forewarned. Driving through the mountains and down out of the foothills the prairie unfolds and then breaks open into unspoiled vistas that can shatter the ceiling of your imagination.

Visiting Waterton on my trip home felt like coming back to an old love. I apologize sweet Waterton for cheating on you with Montana and Glacier park. ( you know you've always been my one true love!). Standing with my toes in the lake there I think for a minute I can almost glimpse eternity. Isn't the trickiest thing about this life being born with eternity in your heart and a ticking clock around your neck? We are forced to live within the confines of time while thirsting after immortality. For me, it is there, the two can almost meet up for a moment. As I watch my daughter throwing rocks in the lake, rippling ceaselessly outward, I don't mind that my handle on time is not the firm grip I once believed it to be.

I realize that going home gives me a chance to be all pieces of myself at once. Daughter, grandchild, sister, mother, adult. All the time changing, all the time staying the same. As I drive back south to a crowded city where everyone is always in a hurry, I have the wind in my hair and a song in my heart. I am thankful for the place I still call home.

I'm a Mormon and a Christian, but I wish I was Hindu.

I have a confession, I'm not that political. Lately there has been a lot of political chatter. Politics, religion and politicals, Mormonism and religion, Mormonism and politics. Thanks a lot Mitt Romney. I try not to get involved in that discussion, but it is kind of hard. Especially since I am a Mormon and the Mormon church has this new campaign "I'm so and so and I am a Mormon". Where normal people and famous people who are Mormon can go online and enthusiastically share their beliefs in attempt to make us (Mormons) appear more normal. How is that working out I wonder?

As crazy right wing Christians and atheists and everyone in between love to point out, Mormons aren't that normal. That is a sentiment I can get behind. We are a little unique in our religious beliefs and down right quirky in our social customs. We tend to take ourselves too seriously and sometimes blur the lines between righteous and self-righteous. We do believe in Jesus Christ, the technical name of our religion is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. Kind of a mouthful, so I don't mind if you just call me mormon. I know lot of Mormons who spend a lot of time defending our Christianity. They get into heated debates and toss around scriptures and historical references to things like the Nicean creed. I don't really understand the debate. Obviously, we believe in who we believe in. Not obvious, why we spend so much time getting so worked up about proving it.

The other day I was on the phone with this guy in Montana who wanted to rent our house up there. He was pleasant, excited and interested and then right as we ended the conversation he threw out "by the way, your not Mormon are you?". Uummm, yes it just so happens I am and it was kind of hard to stifle my inner chuckle. He got all gruff and serious and was all "never mind, it won't work out". To which I replied "would it help if I wished I were hindu". And then he hung up on me. I guess he's had a bad experience with a jerky Mormon. I know a few of those myself, sometimes I even am one. Almost every Mormon I know is imperfect in some way or another. Same with every Catholic, Jew, Protestant, Muslim, ect ect. It's true, almost everyone I know is imperfect...... and beautiful. Maybe made most beautiful by their flaws, or at the very least by their differences.

If I count up all the differences and the similarities between my religion and other religions and put them in a pile, I don't know which pile would be bigger. The older I get the less I think it matters. The less I want to pay attention to the differences pile. This might be a little un-Mormon of me. Mormons are typically a little hard nosed about towing the line and keeping the rules. You know, the getting into heaven rules. I am not that great at keeping rules. That's what makes me wish I was Hindu. I might need to come back a few times before I get it right. I like how we believe in immortality, but who really knows what heaven ( or hell depending wink wink) is really like. I know this life, I love it. I can't get enough of this crazy, messy, imperfect life or this fantastically beautiful breathtaking world. I would like to experience as much of it as I can for as long as possible. Even if it is as a cat.

P.S. : Don't worry about the rude Mormon hater too much. I had his address on his application and got karmic retribution by sending him a Book of Mormon in the mail.

PPS: if you are interested in learning more about the Mormon religion from a more credible source you should visit Lds.org

Dear Daughter,
I wasn’t there on the day you were born. I was six hundred miles away watching the sky explode with colorful Fourth of July celebration. I had escaped to my happy place, a family cabin on a lake tucked away in the mountains. After months of emotional turmoil and years of waiting for our baby I thought I could use recharging, some carefree time with your sister and a hug from nana. Really, what I needed was you. I didn’t yet know that you were mine to celebrate. I didn’t know that in less than twenty four hours I would board an airplane home, heart in throat.
Walking through the hospital with your dad I felt so small and crowded. There were people hurrying everywhere in a frantic bustle and I just needed to get to you. When I saw you, everything else faded into the background. I scooped you up and studied your perfectly round face for recognition. I searched your big almond shaped eyes, and whispered in your ear over and over “mommy is here, mommy is here.” I sat up all night long watching you, afraid if I blinked you would vanish. I promised I would be there for you every moment, from that day forward.

Over the last year I have become prone to fits of unwarranted tears, emotional outbursts of gratitude and love that cannot possibly be contained. I hear you giggling with your big sister, or see you grinning at your daddy as you scoot happily across the room and giant tears of gratitude begin to well up. There’s the way it feels when you lay your sleepy head on my shoulder. I become a human waterfall. I don’t know why our little family has been so blessed, or what we would do without you. I only know that you are ours and we are yours, and I hope with everything I have that you will never question where you belong.

Exactly one year later and we are back at the cabin on the lake. It gives me such sastifaction that you will know somewhere that is still wild as it is beautiful. That it might become your happy place too. Fireworks explode once again outside the window and I have you tucked in close to me, stroking your hair. You are scared and I whisper in your ear, “It’s okay, mommy is here, mommy is here.” You blink up at me with love and a toothy smile. You know you are safe and loved and that I am your mom.

Quack Attack

A couple weeks ago Ella was begging me to take her to Sugarhouse park. She and her daddy had been a day earlier and it was “so so cool” {sidenote: everything is way cooler with dad}. It had a bike path and playground where she has almost mastered the monkey bars and a skate park! Steve had let her ride her bikedown the big ramps and I think we may have a little shredder in the making. There was also a pond with ninety hundred million baby ducks. So we loaded the stroller and bike in the back of the trusty minivan and headed over. We made our way over to the pond trying not to disturb any of the nice sleeping homeless people (seriously, what was Steve thinking with this park?) Ella’s duck count turned out to be almost accurate. Crammed into this tiny pond were hundreds of ducks with loads of fluffy adorable little babies. They swam dutifully behind their mamas and waddled cute and clumsy along the grass. Ella chased along after them and Annika squealed in delight. One mama duck with about twenty babies waddled right past Elle, and the little fluff balls of temptation were more then she could resist. She reached down and scooped up a darling little duckling. Her pride and delight in her new catch lasted about a millisecond. I was twenty yards away and turned just in time to see Ella firm grasp on the little duckling and mama duck honking, feathers flying right in Ella’s direction. Everything from that point happened in slow motion. The mama duck with precision of a heat seeking missile went right for Ella’s face. “Drop the baby, drop the baby,” I screamed as I ran/stumbled towards her baby buggy in tow. Ella who previously had a death grip on the poor little baby flung it unceremoniously. Baby duckling sailed through the air as mama duck continued her assault, giving Elle another peck on the cheek for good measure. Then she loudly gathered up her babies and hustled them back to the safety of the pond. Poor little Ella just stood there bewildered and covered in feathers. When I got to her she burst into tears more out of embarrassment than pain. I hugged her doing my best to swallow down my laughter but at last I couldn’t hold it in and I burst out laughing. Ella did NOT find it amusing. We had a long talk about how the mama was just protecting her baby. “What would I do if someone tried to take you?” I asked.

I’ve thought a lot about our protective mothering instincts before. While motherhood brings out my soft and nurturing side it also evokes a ferociousness in me I didn’t know I was capable of. There have been times when somebody just says the wrong thing about my child and I picture myself biting off their head and swallowing it whole. If someone ever tried to hurt one of my girls…….. I like to think I could show no mercy. The truth is, I don’t have superhuman strength. I won’t be able to protect them from all the kinds of hurt out there. I want to shield them from the ridiculous way our culture objectifies women. I want to fiercely guard their individuality let them know they don’t have to be anything but themselves. I want to make sure they never have broken hearts or dashed dreams. But I can’t go around all the time feathers flying loudly honking “away from my baby you!” I hope I can be just like that mama duck, keep them close, and then teach them to fly.

The summer I was twelve I went to girls camp. Despite much prepubescent girl drama, and having to leave my crimping iron at home, I thought camp was fantastic. That was until I heard some of the camp leaders talking about me. Whats this, I thought, grown women gossiping about moi? To my shock and horror they were discussing what a complete disorganized mess I was. They didn't see me because I was crouched behind a bush with the contents of my backpack dumped on the ground, frantically searching for one of my sneakers. The only shoes I had, where in the hell heck(we were NOT allowed to swear)..... I logically concluded a wild animal had run off with one in the night. So what if I was constantly searching for a lost item, lagging a little behind on a hike, sun burnt and covered in mosquito bites? I was having a good time! Then one of the evil leaders chimed in "I am so glad she is not my daughter!" I was devastated. I could not imagine any grow-up not finding me the sweet, lovable, absolutely charming child that my mother did. That night with the nylon sleeping bag pulled tightly over my head I cried myself to sleep. By the morning I had concluded the problem was not me, could not be me. It was not my fault wild animals were stealing random pieces of my clothing and that I was the only one to burn my hand with the glue gun during craft time. That leader was a salty old beast that would be lucky to have me as her daughter.

Fast forward twenty years and I have dumped out the entire contents of an enormous purse on the passenger seat of my minivan. I can't find my cell phone and I need to turn it off before we go into church. which we are late for. Also my hair is still wet, my little peanut has crusties on her face, and it is Mothers Day. Big sister groans, she has learned from experience that it can take mommy obscene amounts of time to locate her cellular device. I slam my head against the steering wheel and wonder when I am ever going to get it together. I know there are moms inside right now with perfectly styled hair and clean matching children. I know that their houses are clutter free, and dinner is probably in the dang crock pot. I know as sure as I have spit up on my blouse they got to church on time, cool as cucumbers.

I spend most of church wondering to myself why my wheels are always spinning in the mud. I get a big fat F on the responsible, organized and efficient columns of my motherhood report card. Needs Improvement is my only comment. A child across the isle is throwing a tantrum which I am seriously happy about. When his sister starts in unholy harmony their screams are an angelic choir to my ears. I want to run over and give their frazzled mother a big kiss. Whoopee, you get a D- for having naughty children, welcome to the club. Tell me sister, have you ever been on girls camp?

sister for spring break.

It has become family tradition to visit my sister ( Aunt Janni) in Texas for spring break.    Usually it is just the girls, but this year Steve came with us and we had a blast.   We love spending time time with Jan, Matt, and Wheeler.   Houston feels down right tropical in early April next to Salt Lake.   This year we went to an Astro's game, the Houston Zoo,  San Antonio, and Sea world.   It was a lot hauling around our kids, and pregnant Jan was a real trooper.  We wondered in awe many times at all the moms out there that have more than one or two kids, and still manage to make it out the door in one peice every day, let alone on big adventures.  Here are a few pics of the trip.

Bucket List

Volunteer at a children's hospital

Visit Italy, and then decide to stay a while

Have something professionally published

Learn to play the guitar and piano

Dance at both my daughters weddings

Graduate with a masters degree

Kiss my husband on top of one of the pyramids

Ride in a rickshaw

Become talented at writing love letters

Buy an entire new wardrobe and get rid of all my old stuff all at once.

Rock a grandchild to sleep

Look in the mirror and be proud of my wrinkles

Grow an amazing vegetable garden

Own beautiful art

Travel the USA in a motor home

Take care of my parents when they are old half as good as they have taken care of me

Live in the same city as my sisters

Be 100% comfortable in my own skin

Star in a Broadway musical ( it could happen)

The Comet

It was by all standards an ordinary Sunday evening. All four of us snuggled together on the sofa. Steven held Ella, and my hand, and I held a beautiful sleeping Nika. As we watched Star Wars (Ella’s request) something told me to catch this moment and hold on tight. So as they watched the movie, I watched them. And my heart was filled with happiness. So this is what it feels like to be perfectly content I thought.

A couple weeks later I found out I was pregnant. A couple weeks after that, I found out that I wasn’t any more. It can only be described like a comet. It was a brilliant comet that shot through my sky and illuminated everything. It was unexpected and beautiful - and then it was gone. When I first found out we were pregnant, I felt so proud. Almost victorious. Like we had endured enough struggles and had shown faith, and been blessed with our miracle, Annika, and now we would be blessed with as many children as we wanted. I was almost smug about it. But it was not to be. Losing a pregnancy is a strange thing. I went from loving my body that was cradling this new little life to hating it in a second. My body was a traitor. How could it do this to me? Why was it letting this precious thing go? So I curled up in a ball as Steven rubbed my back and wished for it to stop, prayed for it to stop. It would be just as easy to call back a comet that has already flashed through the sky.

What was the point of that, I thought. Had I not just been perfectly content? Why was I given this precious, long awaited gift only to have it snatched back away so quickly? I waited for sadness and disappointment to give way to bitterness. But to my surprise bitterness did not take root. Something else, sweet and strong washed over me and soothed my soul. So this is what it feels like to trust God, I thought.

Mother

My life has been blessed. Not always easy, not always perfect, but definitely blessed. Sometimes when I am having a bad moment I start making the list of all I am grateful for in my mind. When I do this my mother is always on that list. My mother was very young and very beautiful when she made the choice to be a wife and mother. I have watched her carry out that job for the last 32 years with more selfless love than I have ever witnessed in another person. I remember fresh baked muffins for school almost every morning, and elaborate birthday cakes for each birthday. I remember her always being there to help me with my homework, wipe my tears, and celebrate my victories. She was (and is) creative and resourceful, tender and loving, patient and kind and the hardest working person that I know. Now that I am a mother I cannot count the situations when I think "what would my mom have done?" and then I know what path to take. Whenever I am too tired, too selfish, or too lazy I think about my mom and try to dig a little deeper, love a little harder and serve a little more.
My mom just celebrated her birthday yesterday and even twenty years younger I still have a hard time keeping up with her energy and spunk. She is still young and still very beautiful.
Happy Birthday Mom!