Why I LOVE being a Mom

It's half time during a high-stress Alabama vs. South Carolina football game. The girls can tell I'm worried for the Crimson Tide. The score is 21-9 and South Carolina is in the lead and playing a near-perfect game.

Celeste just came over to me with these coupons and said, "You can use them as much as you want, millions of times." From the top left the coupons read, "Masaj," "Masaj feet," "Tickole," and "Play with here." Or, "massage," "massage feet," "tickle," and "play with hair," if you need it translated.

Maybe I should calm down a wee bit. Love my girl. :)

UPDATE: We lost 35-21 and those "masajes" are really gonna feel good.

The Nearly Lost Art of Letter Writing

I have a brown, kind-of rusty metal file box filled with letters from my college days. A time before cell phones and when email was still very new and only the rich kids had a pc. No one in college had laptops. Long-distance calls were expensive and rare. My parents actually paid to have a 1-800 number so my frequent calls home weren't so expensive.

This little box of mine is stuffed full of letters from friends and relatives who kept up with me while I was at BYU. I sat down to go through some of the letters and I remembered friends I'd forgotten and hilarious (and not-so-funny) experiences from my college days. Many envelopes are decorated with stickers or drawings. Some handwriting is sloppy and hard to decipher. I even have a 4-leaf clover a high school friend sent me for good luck.

My little box holds the emotions and LIFE of my past. It is filled with love and heartache and sometimes even silly, bathroom humor. It is priceless to me and I treasure its contents.

There's something uniquely special about opening an old envelope and unfolding the stationery and personal writings of a friend. Something invaluable is lost through emails and texts. The care, the love, the trueness of the message is lacking.

I don't hand write very many letters any more. I even subscribe to a card-sending service that literally does that- I type a message and the card is stamped and sent for me. But, as I reflect, I'm not sure I'm okay with this. How personal can a letter really be that comes from a business- even if my words are inside the card? How meaningful?

I never read my old emails because there are always more in my inbox. I don't treasure them. I might star a couple here and there, but usually even the starred ones are forgotten.

Can I fix this? Will my girls feel the excitement of getting mail in a mailbox when they're far from home? I am determined to make it so.

Ahhh, how I LOVE my letters. They still bring me joy, 15 years later. I can't wait to call up some of my friends and remind them of our college-day DRAMA! And I want to thank my Mom for her words of encouragement. Something I'm sure I took for granted back then. I am forever grateful for so many happy memories, preserved in my little brown box.

A funny

Today at Old Navy Celeste grabbed the buns of one of the mannequins and squeezed them. She thought her risque behavior was hilarious. (and so did I!) When she's being mischievous, her right eyebrow arches up and it is the cutest thing. I love that girl.

Charity Never Faileth

Tonight I had the privilege of listening to President Thomas S. Monson speak to the women of our church. I feel spiritually fed and eager to be better. The theme of his talk was to follow Christ's example and "Judge Not!" He quoted Mother Theresa who said, "If you judge people, you have no time to love them." How true! I love that! I am quick to negatively judge people (especially strangers). He counseled us to "wear the mantle of charity" and to be tolerant, lenient, forgiving, patient, sympathetic, compassionate, and merciful- especially in times of weakness and error of others. He encouraged us to be charitable towards the unnoticed and discouraged. He also quoted Horace Mann as saying, "To pity distress is but human, to relieve it is God like." Love it!!!

I am resolved to be kinder and more loving. Just tonight at the grocery store, the check-out lines were long and I noticed two people in line behind me who darted towards a newly opened line. The woman had been in front, but gestured for the man to go in front of her. The man didn't hesitate, but immediately took her up on her offer and moved to the front. My natural, reactive thought was, "Where is chivalry? I can't believe he had the gall to get in front of her! Pig!" Then, I stopped myself and tried to re-train my thought process. The Christ-like way to look at the situation would be to praise her gesture and her charitable act. And, then to assume that maybe he needs to hurry home to help a sick child or something noble like that. {Sigh} Thinking this way will take some major practice on my part.

I am grateful for my Savior and His sacrifice on my behalf so that I can repent and be better. I wonder how many times I will have to hear His words before I will actually heed them. I'll try today and then tomorrow and hopefully better habits will one day become second-nature for me.

Toooooyyyyota!

We just took our 1992 Toyota Camry in for some repairs and the total came to $1100. Yeah, a pretty big chunk, but everyone says Toyotas run forever and I know Madylin is going to be THRILLED to drive a car that is 7-yrs older than her one day. I think we'll even drive it to the high school on her birthday and put a big bow on it- just to humiliate her! I love planning more ways to harass and embarrass my kids. So fun!

The repairman told me they have a Camry that comes into the shop with 750,000 miles on it!!!! What the?!?! That means ours still has more than a half million miles to go! Makes me think we might actually take ours to get a Maaco-ver. Toyotas rock.

my pestering side...and everyone knows I HAVE one (and inherited it from my Dad)

I've recently discovered a GREAT way to get under my kids' skin. I simply refer to their Furreal pets as "robots". HEHEHEHEHEHEHE, Cackle, Cackle, Cackle!!! Sometimes it is TOO fun to be a parent! :)

Spoiled

When we lived in Trussville, the only place I visited that was within walking distance was my neighbor's house. I became very accustomed to driving around 15 minutes or more to nearly everything: stores, school, parks, etc. Many places I visited frequently were more like 30 minutes or more: church, doctor's office, mall, Whole Foods, etc. This was fine with me! I got used to listening to tunes or talking on the phone during my daily road-trips.

Since moving to Murray, I've gotten very spoiled. We are within walking distance from many of our favorite places to visit: school, church, park, library, tennis courts, pool, ice-skating rink, etc. Within 5 minutes: grocery stores, bike paths, mall, etc. 15 minutes: everything else, including all the hikes I could ever want to explore.

I find myself becoming very used to this new way of life. We wanted to go to a bookstore the other day and I warned Mark, "It's pretty far. I think it's 15 minutes from here." I meant it seriously, but then we both laughed at the absurdity of the statement!

It doesn't feel like we're in the middle of a big city because there are so many trees and our street is quiet and our backyard is private. But, we definitely have everything we need just around the corner. I expect we will really appreciate this when it starts snowing. And then, I'm sure I'll long for those 15 minute drives when my biggest concern was which song was coming on next and not whether I could safely drive through the ice and snow.

I have loved everywhere Mark and I have lived so far: Omaha, Trussville, and now Murray. I can think of things I especially appreciated about each place. While I miss the wind in Nebraska, the mild Alabama winters, and all our friends and family from both places, I will enjoy Murray's convenience and its beautiful mountainous view.