Counting

This weekend I noticed lots of everyday situations that have gone right lately. When I started making a mental list of all these superficially simple blessings, I kept thinking of more until my brain couldn’t hold them all and I had to write them down. “Count your blessings, name then one by one…” While I understand the idea behind this phrase, I am not really a fan of actually counting such multifaceted things as blessings–numbers are far too bald to convey the depth of the benefit behind a bland numerical label. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful gift to step back from the thick of life and notice God’s hand in the details.

Recent tender mercies, aka everyday blessings, in ten unnumbered anecdotes:

*Mixer: About two weeks ago, a gear inside our trusty 11 year old KitchenAid mixer got stripped during an ill-fated attempt to mix Oreos into rock solid ice cream. The mixer motor would run, but nothing would rotate. We frantically researched possibilities: cost of parts, videos on how to open up the motor, DIY repair videos, and potential repair services. Nothing yielded useful results. The DIY repair videos showed Jeff that this was more than his limited skill set could handle (we couldn’t even get the mixer open to look at the motor), and taking it in to get repaired was too expensive to be worthwhile. We probably should have called around and asked friends for recommendations, but a quick search of internal parts for KitchenAid mixers told us that the parts were nearly as expensive as the whole. Our poor old white mixer sat sadly on our kitchen counter for a week while we considered options. We had just used our July flex-funds to purchase a sturdy roof rack for our van, so it seemed prudent to wait to replace the KitchenAid until next month at the earliest, since we are on a snug savings schedule to fund the travels we enjoy so much.

Then a few days later we received a check in the mail for $241. It was from VEBA, a recent benefit added to Jeff’s medical plan that reimburses employees for out of pocket medical expenses. During July, Jeff had finally gotten around to submitting the receipts from our long sick winter of copays and prescriptions, and the reimbursement check arrived just as we were resigning ourselves to a few weeks without any handy KitchenAid mixing muscle in the kitchen. Since we had already long since paid for the fees that the VEBA check was reimbursing, we used the money to buy a refurbished KitchenAid mixer for $200 on Amazon. Our shiny new mixer came in the mail yesterday.

A fancy mixer is not a necessity of life in any way, but I feel so grateful that it worked out so smoothly anyways. When things fit together so obviously well, I have learned that it is never a mere coincidence. Neal A. Maxwell did say:

“…coincidence is not an appropriate word to describe the workings of an omniscient God. He does not do things by ‘coincidence’ but … by ‘divine design.”

It will always amaze me that God is interested in the small details of my tiny speck of life amidst this big complicated world.

*Jam: My apricot jam set up beautifully! My father-in-law Dan and I usually pick apricots together every summer, but this year he had access to a much smaller number than usual. He gave me enough apricots to make exactly one batch of jam. After last year’s large-scale multi-batch epic apricot failure (think gallons of brown mushy sludge), I was not in the mood to make large quantities of jam. I felt able to handle one single batch, so I quickly threw it together one afternoon, anxiously tilting the jars every few hours to check if the runny hot jam had set. Over and over it was still runny, until the next morning when POOF, it was firm! My jam-confidence began to be restored.

I took it easy on myself and didn’t use the water bath canner; I simply ladled the hot jam into jars, let it set overnight, and then froze the jam. It was the best of both worlds: cooked apricot jam tastes better and sets better than plain uncooked freezer jam, but I didn’t have to go through the difficulty of hyper-sanitizing jars and all of that sweaty exhausting time-consuming difficulty in my tiny kitchen. I am glad to have a couple of pints of summer sunshine in jars. When it comes to preserving the bounty of our valley, sometimes I get stuck in a “go big or go home” rut and think it’s not worth doing if I don’t preserve enough for the entire next year. Not true! Something is always more than nothing, and I would much rather have six pints of beautiful bright orange apricot jam than two gallons of runny brown apricot mush.

*Piano: Our ward primary program is scheduled for ten weeks from today, at the end of September. I have plenty of time to fine-tune the songs I’m playing in it, but I feel unexpectedly confident in how well I can play them already. It soothes my nerves to have the basics all figured out this far in advance.

*Singing: At least once each time I practice piano, I hear one or both of my daughters’ sweet voices singing along with the primary songs while they are playing in the background. It is tender.

*Potty: Amber is really getting the hang of daytime potty use! Our bargain of watching a show or movie after every time she poops in the potty has been excellent motivation. Just this week she has really started taking on responsibility and going to the bathroom without being told. It’s been close to ten days since her last accident! It is truly an answer to countless prayers. Potty training Amber has been a brutal ultramarathon and it’s not over yet, but after months of teeth-clenching patience, it is finally working! I could weep with relief.

*Injury: The scraped, bruised kneecap I sustained during my mid-run fall on Wednesday kept me from running for three days. (I’m so glad it wasn’t longer!) During that time I turned to biking for exercise, which I ended up enjoying immensely, much more than I expected to. My ankles had been aching for weeks when I ran, but after those three consecutive weekdays of rest, they didn’t even creak or twinge once on my first run post-injury! I am so glad that my bruises and scabs were healed enough to allow me to run on Saturday. Running is the key to balancing my inner zen, but I am terrible at taking time off for minor “niggles” as my college coach called functioning injuries. A tennis ball sized kneecap bruise forced me to rest enough so my ankle aches eased.

*Cubs: Having the summer off from cub scouts has been a tender mercy in and of itself, but there’s more. After the draining weekly meetings with eight 8-year-old boys all last school year, I was feeling frazzled and ready to be released from the calling. At church a few weeks ago (July 15th), however, I had several unanticipated gentle promptings to stick with cub scouts. The sweetest one was when I was standing in the hall while the senior primary kids were waiting to enter the primary room for sharing time. Jay’s large class of cute, energetic, now-nine-year-old boys clustered around me and kept telling me Things with their wide intent eyes.

One sweet boy said “I wish I was still in wolf scouts with you. I miss being there with you.” and others were describing projects they had created and activities they had done over the summer. They were all talking over each other, clustered around my waist and clamoring to Tell All Of The Things to me, just like in our den meetings, but the summer of time away from the weekly dread of cub scout chaos allowed me to see the sweetness of the situation. I marveled that they like me so much and had so many good memories with me when I mostly felt so frazzled and pulled in 100 directions at every meeting. I was feeling the love and it softened my cold hard cub scout heart just enough to recognize the feeling for what it was: you can do this hard thing and stay in cub scouts for one more year. Then it will be a different, (hopefully more palatable), church-inspired program instead and hey, maybe I’ll love the new program!

Here is what I wrote in my journal about these thoughts: “Three separate times during church today I had a specific prompting to stick with my cub scouts calling. Ugh, I can barely write it in those bald words, but it is true.” Hah! I crack myself up. Sometimes (too often) I am dragged down the right path kicking and screaming. While I still have the same old issues with the cub scout program (not the boys, never the sweet boys), I feel renewed and supported and understood in regards to the institution. A divine vote of confidence goes a long way!

*TRIPS: I simply adore having a juicy list of trips on the horizon, and August is looking absolutely prime in that regard. I try to keep things in the past and present online, so I will resist listing all of the trips I am excited about over the next month and year, but suffice it to say that I adore traveling, near and far and it is a blessing to be able to do so. As with most blessings, it requires plenty of work on our part, but when careful planning and hard work pay off that only augments the joy of the result!

*VISIT: This morning we visited our old ward in Prosser to hear Peter Cook talk about the mission he just returned from. Jeff was Peter’s home teaching companion from the time Peter was 12 till he (Peter) left on his mission. Peter’s mom is our kids’ piano teacher, and we have always felt a kindred connection with their family. We went to church in Prosser to support the Cooks, but I felt so much while I looked around at all of the other dear faces in the chapel too. Close to half of the people there were complete strangers to me, but mixed in with the new faces were so many solid-gold-souls whom I served, served with, and have been served by countless times during one of the most challenging stages of my life–my childbearing years. Those people were an excellent support system to me. I was astounded to feel such a bright bonded connection with them, even after all of this time (ok, a year) away from them. I did not get to talk to everyone I love there, but I made the few conversations I had count. It was an encouraging reminder of how time and service build a strong, complicated, beautiful bond.

Now, for the grand finale…

*CORN DOG: Yesterday (Saturday), Jeff went to pick up two kayaks and other miscellaneous items from the lakehouse that my parents are giving away before they sell the place (that’s why we invested in the fancy van roof rack). On the way, Jeff wanted a corn dog so he stopped at a Safeway grocery store (of all places) in Enumclaw, WA. But when he tried to pay for his corn dog, all of the cash registers in the entire store malfunctioned. He waited for 15 minutes but finally gave up and continued on his journey to the lakehouse without buying a corn dog.

On the way home, he stopped at the same store to try for his corn dog again. This time he was able to purchase the corn dog and he ate it in the car while he drove. Further down the narrow mountain road (highway 410), he came upon a line of traffic that was just beginning to move forward when he arrived. As he drove through, he saw that the reason for the car clog-up appeared to be some sort of flash flood or mud slide with lots of visible damage on and along the road. He learned that the flood had happened 15 minutes before he passed by that stretch of road. Broken cash registers and a persistent corn dog craving saved him!! Well, those were the means by which he was spared from the danger. I always pray for safety when we travel, (in fact sometimes it seems redundant), but this time was an especially dramatic answer to that average prayer. Jeff arrived home safe and sound a little before 8pm that night.

The Great Summer Catch-all

The freedom of summer break allows us to engage in a variety of small-but-fun activities in between the big trips and excursions. Here is the day-to-day of June and July, all thrown together:

• Dirt piles forever
• Running with Rosie
• Family walks in June
• Potty training the Amby
• Hair cuts for the boys
• A trip to the dentist
• Grama Leslie’s birthday
• A bike ride or two
• Falling on a run
• Ward Pioneer Day party
• Lounging

Now, for the photos and stories:

THE DIRT PILES. Our neighbors are having a pool put into their backyard, and a large amount of the excavated dirt was dumped back behind the barn behind our house, next to the irrigation creek. When the kids discovered the mounds back in June, they were in heaven. They visit the dirt piles several times a week, even during the recent heat wave. It does my heart good to see my kids rolling in, sliding on, digging in, and relishing good old fashioned dirt. Then they come back caked in dirt and shedding clouds of it all over the house and I start to re-think that good-hearted feeling just a little. We’ve employed communal hose-downs, wading pool wash-offs, shake-and-scrapes, feet-in-sink scrubbing, and full-on soapy showers to combat the varying degrees of dirty-ness they return in. I try my best not to lament too forcefully whenever I step out onto the side porch and its covered in dirt, or worse, when I see a brownish gray dirt-coated child walking through the house on the carpet with poofs of dirt floating off with each step. One day in mid-June, I went out back so the kids could show me their beloved dirt.

Jay gets a very intense look on his face when he’s describing something to me. He had to have been baking under that hot sun against the dirt, but DIRT!

I love that cute face, silhouetted against the blue sky.

Up and down, leaping from pile to pile, sometimes sitting to slide down one side.

RUNNING WITH ROSIE: During the first month of summer break, Rose and I went on about 2 runs per week together, trying to get Rose ready for the Shoreline 2 mile race. Her vigor and enthusiasm for running waned proportionally to the heat index, though, so we ran slower and slower, and shorter and shorter each day. But it was still good for a seven-year old! Amber liked to come sometimes. One morning I let Amber try to run with us instead of ride the stroller because I thought we were going so slowly she’d be able to keep up. But while Amber has boundless energy, she does not have the attention span to focus on running in a straight line for 5 minutes straight without stopping to dig or pick up a rock or run in a different direction. So I spent the majority of the run jogging back and forth between my daughters. Eventually we made it home.

Amber completed her half mile run in pink rubber boots and a dress.

FAMILY WALKS: back in June when it was bearably hot (mid-80’s), we liked to go on family walks after dinner. One week we ate outside on our front porch two or three times and then went on walks afterwards. Doing normal activities like eating dinner outside makes me feel so peaceful. I like the calming feeling of being outside, even if we are only on our front porch. Our walks were chaotic and sweaty, but they were an excellent way to spend the last bit of the witching hour before bedtime. Summer time is family time!

Dinner on the front porch.

A pleasant postprandial stroll along the canal. We thought Jeff looked like a narwhal or a unicorn with the way Amber was holding her stick by his forehead.

To battle!

Here’s a pretty panorama picture I took of the canal road west of our house.

Then it heated up a LOT too much for family walks and on the fifth consecutive day in triple digits, I considered renaming our side of Washington WArizona.

Rose, building. These plastic discs are called “Brain Flakes” which sounds kind of gross to me, but they are a fun connecting toy. Rose appreciates the bright colors and thoughtful engineering that goes into each masterpiece.

POTTY TRAINING. After our last failure at potty training in early May, I resolved to keep working on it but without any expectations. I let Amber decide if she wanted to sit on the potty or not and accepted her decision, even if she chose not to do what I wanted. Giving Amber the feeling of autonomy was a turning point. She is not completely potty trained yet (whatever that means) but she is doing pretty well. To motivate her to stop pooping her undies, I told her that anytime she poops in the potty, she gets to pick out a movie to watch. Amber adores our shelf of old-school Disney VHS tapes, and watching a movie is the absolute only potty training reward that has worked on her. Normally we limit screen time to afternoons, but that rule does not apply to potty training movie-rewards. A few mornings in, when this deal was still new, Amber went into the bathroom every ten minutes for an hour, trying her hardest to pinch out a little poop because she wanted to watch a movie right after breakfast. When she finally got a tiny bit into the toilet, it was jubilation galore and on came the movie.

For some reason I cringe less about extra screen time if the kids are watching a classic like Snow White. Amber’s favorites for a while were Sleeping Beauty (aka “Sleeping Aurora”) and Snow White. Then she shifted to Aladdin and Little Mermaid. She watches these movies over and over and over. Sometimes when she poops twice in one day, she chooses to watch the same movie twice in the same day! Whatever works! She knows how to pop the tape into the VCR and start it on her own (she loves doing that) and I have finally taught her to “be kind, rewind.” (we have a rewinder machine). Old school technology is much simpler and more durable than digital and DVDs. Big clunky video tapes are very 3-year-old-friendly.

In the past week or two, Jay and Rose have introduced Amber to their current favorite cartoon called Voltron, and currently when Amber does her potty business correctly, she chooses a cartoon or two to watch instead of a full on movie. This past week has been the best week of Amber’s 1.5 year-long potty training process.

Where does Aurora-barbie’s hair end and Amber’s hair begin?

The Ambride with her preferred mode of transportation. I think this crown-veil combo she concocted is supposed to resemble Ariel’s wedding veil and crown at the end of Little Mermaid.

HAIR CUTS. The Sunday Morning Shaina Salon does its best.

A WAVE of babies flooded seven of my friends in one week during June, and I couldn’t resist bringing home a “baby” of my very own.

DENTIST: I dread it. I much prefer to brush and floss my own teeth, thanks, and those pointy sharp scrapy tools of gum-puncturing pain should be reserved for interrogation rooms. I love our dentist and the office and all of that, but boy do I hate surrendering my mouth to those sharp medieval instruments of torture. I had my teeth cleaned the day before the kids had their cleanings. No cavities for any of us!

The waiting room has a row of old school desks.

Amber was impressively well-behaved.

No cavity rewards: bouncy balls!

GRAMA LESLIE’S BIRTHDAY: July 18th. Her thoughtful daughter Steph got 63-ish pink flamingos and we all helped stick them in Leslie’s front yard as a birthday surprise while Leslie was out shopping. The kids swam together before we went home, then later that day we gathered for a family birthday dinner.

The cousins, proud of their flamingo handiwork.

Rose ferried Tate and Grayce around the pool.

Leslie LOVED her flamingos.

Happy birthday, Grama! Steph makes such good cake.

BIKE RIDE: I rode my bike to a chiropractor appointment two weeks ago, just for fun. I have battled some sort of misaligned something in my infrastructure, and finally made an appointment with our friend Chad at his office. I have gone twice so far and it is helping. Never underestimate the relief of a well-set spine! This was my first bike ride in at least two years and it was also the first time since I became a mother that sitting on a bike didn’t cause me severe agony. It was just bearable enough for me to go on a few for-fun bike rides around the bumpy canal roads near our house. Our next door neighbor is a big mountain biker, and he always takes pictures while he’s biking. I accepted that challenge and tried a few shaky selfies, and nearly crashed into the canal in the process. Hah! I am a beginner and might stay that way for a while, since I don’t fancy a bike wreck.

A post-run ride with Rose.

Riding home with Jay.

FALLING ON A RUN: Last week I was running with a member of Jeff’s cross country team when I tripped over an uneven sidewalk fragment and fell hard onto my left kneecap. I walked it off and then finished the final 4.5 miles of our run while the blood slowly dripped down my leg. When I stopped running, I had an impressively gory knee and it started to bruise and swell something fierce. OUCH. I couldn’t run for three days afterwards. It has been years since I tripped and fell while running, and I felt pretty ridiculous about it. After Amber was born, I started doing a full-core strengthening program that includes my hips, back and deep abdominal muscles. Strengthening my all-around core really helped with my stability while running. Before I did these exercises, I used to trip on nothing and fall, but that stopped once I beefed up my core. This week’s fall was a straight-up trip on uneven painful pavement. But it is healing nicely, right next to my other run-fall knee-scars. [scroll fast if you don’t want to see the gore]

PAIN.

WARD PIONEER DAY PARTY: We had an outdoor ward potluck picnic to celebrate Pioneer Day, and a ward swim afterwards. It was my first time in the pool all summer and how refreshing to plunge into cold water on a blazing hot evening after sweating and chatting at a picnic. We have a good ward. Every time I swallow my inner “hermitude” and show up to do my best to socialize, I learn a little bit more about people and get to know them a little bit better.

Post-swim picture.

LOUNGING: Not everything we do is energetic. The harder we play, the harder we lounge.

Watching The Little Mermaid and hiding from King Triton’s wrath.

Watching a cartoon on Jeff’s phone.

I got back from my run to this scene: these four love Saturday morning cartoons. One of the things I love about Jeff is how much he enjoys watching cartoons with our kids.

Swim team, season 1

Jay’s first season of swim team is done! He went to swim practice every weekday during June and July (minus our 1.5 week trip to the beach and lake). When he joined the team, Jay could barely doggy paddle across the short side of the pool. Within a week, he was swimming the entire 50 meter pool without stopping, and he has kept improving steadily with every week of practice. It has been fun to watch. Jay has never had an “athletic passion.” He is a naturally cautious, quiet calm boy who enjoys reading and playing with Legos best of all. But he loves swimming!

Jay sometimes participated in the 200 medley relay, but mostly during meets he swam the breast stroke, the back stroke, and the freestyle (all single races are 50 meters, or swimming the pool once longways–this may be obvious to many, but I am a complete newbie to swimming, so it feels necessary to explain these details). Jay told me that next year he will probably be ready to swim the butterfly at meets too.

Jay’s swim meet milestones:

• Swimming the entire 50 meter backstroke race without zigzagging noticeably.
• Lifting his arms all the way out of the water for the entire 50 meters during the freestyle–this happened about halfway through the season.
• Not getting disqualified by the stroke judge during the breast stroke. Jay managed to keep his legs and arms kicking in the right pattern for the first time during the last meet of the season!

Aside from the daily 7:30am practices, probably the hardest part about swim team for Jay was the late night swim meets. On swim meet nights, he had to report at the pool for warm-ups at 5:45pm and the meets never ended before 10pm. We always left before the meets ended, but there were still some very late nights for our early-to-bed son. The season was half over before Jeff convinced Jay to stay for the 50 meter freestyle race, which usually began around 8:30 or 9pm.

Jeff told Jay, “if you stay for the freestyle, we can stop at Dairy Queen for Blizzards on the way home.”

“Make it a large and you’ve got a deal.” Jay replied. HAH! Mr. Negotiator! Jeff agreed, and Jay added freestyle to his list of races. He got a large M&M blizzard and saved half of it in the freezer for the next day.

During the last two or three weeks of swim team, Jay started feeling a tad more tired and reluctant to go to practice each day, but he persevered with a certain amount of parental persuasion. The league championships are this weekend, but Jay did not feel ready to go and his parents were 100% ok with that decision! Sitting around at swim meets is a lonnnng haul for the spectators too! Another crucial variable in the swim meet equation is The Little Sisters. The emotional fallout of keeping Amber and Rose up past 8pm can often be nearly nuclear, so we stayed home from some of the meets while Jeff went and supported Jay.

Now that swim team is over, I’m searching for ways to keep Jay active to try and maintain at least some of the fitness he has gained via swim team! I’m not sure he realizes it but he is so much happier and he sleeps much better when he exercises. I have  certainly noticed it. This morning he and I went on a bike ride together. Jay was happy to go on the bike ride, but unhappy that I wanted to ride for an entire mile. We rode one mile in 12 minutes. It wasn’t the most…aerobic of bike rides, but something is better than nothing!

Waiting to swim freestyle in the medley relay: Jay is on the right next to the guy in white.

Freestylin’ it

Cute wet triumphant Jay, after the first time he got his arms out of the water for the entire 50 meters of freestyle. Post race talk: nobody but volunteers and swimmers were allowed inside the pool fence, so I always felt like I was conversing with a prison inmate when Jay talked with me through the fence.

Lollipops for the sisters: anything to help them stay up late!

Getting ready to start another race. Jay is next in line here, in lane 3 with his trademark lime green goggles.

Backstroke (Jay’s arm is the middle one of the three kids visible in the water)

Sometimes he would lean on the fence in such a sad tired longing way, I wanted to scoop him up and take him home!

 A few meets I stayed home and took selfies with the little sisters instead.

I derived deep satisfaction from packing Jay an array of colorful, healthy swim meet snacks. Aren’t they pretty? Sometimes I had him pack his own snacks, but when we were in a hurry I packed them and enjoyed the rainbow.

For the final meet of the season on July 25th, I finally remembered to bring something other than lollipops for the girls to play with while we waited around in the 100 degree heat for 3 hours: bubbles! Four and a half minutes after we got out the bubbles, Rose accidentally dumped all but an inch of the bubbles out while bending over to catch a bubble on the wand. She still attempted to blow bubbles determinedly for nearly an hour, but it was slow going without much fluid to work with.

Hot sun, long evening shadows, and sputtery bubbles.

Amber reached her hands up close to Rose to try and catch any tiny bubble before it popped. (Rose did her own hair)

Lounging and laughing.

Last meet! I took this picture accidentally while sweating a river, but it about sums the evening up. I loved watching Jay swim, but I’m not going to lie, it was rough sitting in the heat with two crazy-tired girls for three hours to watch less than six minutes of swimming!

Race prep after sunset. Jay’s goggles were the only lime green ones on the team, and they helped me pick him out of the crowd. This picture was taken zoomed in through one of the chain link diamonds. Not bad!

Jay drooled over the snack shack all season, and at the last meet I donated some $$ for him to get a snow cone. He ate some of it but got tired of the icy sugar and handed the rest of it off to Rose (Amber didn’t like it).

Snow cone dregs: summer.