January Clips

A few journal clips from the past week:

Sunday, January 24: Before church, Jay came into the kitchen all dressed in his khakis, white shirt, and self-tied necktie. "Are there any fashion laws that I'm breaking?" he asked. I laughed and told him "nope, you look good." 

Monday, January 25: When I picked up Amber from school today, I resisted asking the classic "how was your day?" while we walked to the van because she often doesn't want to answer or seems uninterested in elaborating about her day right away, and I was trying to give her a break. When we were halfway to the van though, she said "aren't you going to ask me how my day was?" So I asked, and she told me all about it.

On the way home from school, Rose told me all about playing "noodle tag" at second recess once the snow had melted. Noodle tag is pandemic friendly tag, played with long foam pool noodles to tag people instead of actual touching. Another pandemic memory, haha. She said it was really fun, though, so that's what matters.

During dinner, Amber took a mini Snicker's bar that she got at school, opened it under the table, ducked down, and tried taking a bite of it right there in the middle of dinner! I barely managed to grab it out of her hands before she sunk her teeth into it. That girl is wily, even right under my nose! She didn't want her soup, so she took matters into her own hands. I am so totally against candy hand-outs at school, especially in elementary school.

After dinner, the kids and I watched Days of Harmony, a 25 minute church-made video about Oliver Cowdery helping Joseph Smith translate the Book of Mormon. (Jeff was at parent teacher conferences.) Amber was brimming with mischief and uninterested in the calm slow video, but Jay, Rose, and I enjoyed it around her capers. While we watched, Jay said "I think I know just how Oliver Cowdery felt when he went to see Joseph Smith: excited, nervous, really happy, and the spirit." I don't think I captured his unique words exactly, but Jay described such tender sweet feelings, I had to save them as best I could. My sweet faithful tender hearted boy. I love him. 

Tuesday, January 26: Scripture thoughts--Revelation comes in different ways:

- Enlightened thoughts (D&C 6:15)

- Peace spoken to the mind (D&C 6:23)

- In your mind and in your heart by the Holy Ghost (8:2)

- The Holy Ghost will dwell in your heart (8:2)

- "Your bosom shall burn within you" (9:8)

- "You shall feel that it is right." (9:8)

Peace, mind, heart, light, bosom, burn, feel, right. I love these specific descriptive words. 

Wednesday, January 27: I took my bike out for a spin this afternoon to test out my home repairs to the chain. That blasted pin popped back out of place so my ride was drastically truncated in a most unsatisfying way. When I got home, I traded my bike for Jeff's to at least get up to five miles for the ride, and when I was turning the bike around on the paved pathway behind our house, I lost my balance and tipped over, almost in slow motion, landing on my side in the soft dirt of the mint field with my legs ridiculously tangled in the bike frame. It was an embarrassing moment of clumsiness right behind our neighbor's house, haha. Biking will always be my call for humility.

Cross country practice was another bone chiller today. I ran/walked with the beginners and barely generated enough body heat to "break even" in the cold. I don't think I sweated at all, and it took more than half of the run before my hands warmed up enough to stop tingling stiffly. After the run, I stood outside in that damp cold for another 15+ minutes waiting for the other teenagers to return from the run and saying goodbye to them as they left. I am drained to the bone from the effort of staying warm for that whole 90 minutes. I even wore my fluffy down trench coat while I stood there, but once I'm cold, it seems to be permanent until I get inside under hot water.

Jeff had parent teacher conferences after cross country practice (all spaced out via Zoom appointment), and didn't get home till after 8pm. He picked Jay up from his church youth activity on the way home, which worked out nicely for my still-cold bones. 

Cute Jay came in from his church young men's activity full of light and enthusiasm. He told me that the young men and women have planned a primary meeting for the kids at church this Sunday, so instead of having their regular youth Sunday class, they will all contribute to a primary meeting in the chapel. Jay showed me a closely-written half page in his journal of his thoughts about the temple that he wrote at the activity. I didn't ask to read his private journal entry, but he told me about it. He said "I felt very inspired when I wrote about the temple, about what I think it's like inside and how it feels to go there." My boy is growing up before my very eyes! It comes in spurts, of course-- after dinner Jay was telling pee jokes to Amber. It all balances out, right? I mean, what adult doesn't still giggle at occasional potty humor?

After dinner, Rose and Amber took a shower together (Rose has mostly taken over bossing/teaching Amber how to wash her hair--unable to resist the allure of parent-sanctioned bossing). The girls were all done with their shower within 20 minutes. Normally it takes them at least twice that amount of time, so I asked carefully if they washed specific areas with the right soap. They said yes, and Rose told me "we figured out a super efficient way to do the shampoo and conditioner." Ok, then! Let's do that kind of showering more often, girls! I let them watch a cartoon after their shower, an incentive which may have contributed to their washing speed.

Parent teacher conference weeks where Jeff is gone a lot shift my parenting priorities slightly. Cartoon incentives become my secret weapon.

Thursday, January 28: Tired. I ran 3/4 of the tempo workout with Kaylee at xc practice today, which was 2 miles in 14:52. It was fun to run with Kaylee again! It was also super hard, especially in a mask. My ankle felt great, and still feels good now a few hours later, so that's encouraging too. I'm feeling the running bug bite. My bike chain issues plus my ankle feeling good are going to make it hard to keep my biking muscles up to snuff!

While Jay was in his piano lesson, the girls and I stopped by the library and discovered that the governor has closed libraries "until future notice, due to Covid." As if our library was ever crowded! We were so sad. It seems like the library just opened a few weeks ago (oh wait, it did just open a few weeks ago!) We can still do curbside book pickup at the library, but that doesn't appeal to Amber. She loves going in and browsing before choosing her books, not ordering them online! Rose does too! Sigh. I have been patient and on board with most of the pandemic closures and restrictions, but the library does not make sense at all. 

The grocery store right around the corner from the library is always packed with people in close contact. The library is spacious, quiet, and mostly empty. Sigh. Isn't feeding the mind just as vital as feeding the body? Also, apparently double masking is the new mask. Two masks?? How is anyone supposed to breathe at all? Sigh. So far I'm sticking with one mask, although it is discouraging to be told that all of my efforts to dutifully wear masks for almost an entire year is not helping as much as it could, if I would only buy more expensive filtered masks and wear two of them. Sigh. I don't want to start feeling oppressed and rebellious about this pandemic stuff, especially because it's so far from being over, and I agree that the only way we can make it better is to follow guidelines and restrictions. But it seems like it's still getting harder. Sigh.

Also: I had yet another Relief Society address label creation meltdown today as I was performing my secretarial duties, but I'm too irked at the blasted things to give a full accounting of the downward spiral of that 90 minutes of my day. I told my Mom, my friend Danae, and Jeff all about it individually, in vivid detail, and their sympathetic ears helped. Each time I recounted the dastardly drama of my battle with the computer and the computer's battle with the printer, a bit of the poisonous angst dissipated from my system.

Also also: Jeff is finally done with parent teacher conferences! It's been a long week for him. And his wife.

Saturday, January 30: It was a momentous morning! We visited Grampa Dan and Grama Leslie in person for the first time in two months! Jeff's sister Steph works at an assisted living place, so when she got the Covid vaccine and administered it to her staff, she was able to give extra doses to Dan and Leslie. Now the Grandview White family is protected and we feel able to visit them again! Since the cousins are young, the risk seemed low enough that we were ok with getting the kids together again. So we gathered for Grampa Dan's weekly Saturday morning pancakes and it was jubilation galore. We have missed seeing our family in person. Even though Jay and I are allergic to their pets, we were still glad to be there.

Pictures from all of January: 

Ambraids after school, asking me to play a game of Sleeping Queens--Amber's hair curls while it's braided, so her braids get shorter and shorter all day as her hair retracts.

Playing Sleeping Queens before school. The girls often put their masks on long before we arrive at school. My little in-house bandits.

January 2021 was the SUNNIEST January we've had in the dozen years since we moved to this valley. Winter sunshine is always WELCOME.

Sometimes Amber joins me for yoga.

On the first day of online school after Christmas break, Amber kept sneaking off of her class meeting and assignments to mess around on her school iPad. So I took it away and made her do the work that she was supposed to do on the iPad, using paper instead. I gave the iPad back to let her have another chance, but she goofed off again, so I took it away again and made her practice writing her name. She was very mad at me, but she hasn't had a problem staying on task since that day (knock on wood), so my tough love worked.

Our library opened up for a few brief weeks, and we took full advantage, browsing and checking out dozens of books. We miss it!

My cute little wild-haired ragamuffin daughters: Amber refuses to acknowledge winter and continues to wear shorts, only donning a jacket under duress. Poor Rose is willing to wear pants, but the fuzzy fleece leggings I ordered for her ended up being fuzzy fleece capris on her long legs--defeating their warm fuzzy purpose.

My hair is getting out of control long. It's been nearly 18 months since my last haircut.

It's worst when it's static.

This squirrel routinely hangs upside down on the bottom of our rope swing and chews on the end of the rope. Essential pandemic entertainment, in our very own front yard.

A sunny Sunday walk. Every time the clouds roll in, I miss the sun. 

Sunburst over card game. Amber is obsessed with Sleeping Queens, the card game the cousins gave us for Christmas. She is always up for a game.

Rose came to Costco with me a second time in January so we could listen to our audiobook, Sammy Keyes, in the car together. And so she could get a big drippy piece of cheese pizza for lunch on the way out of the store.

We've had a few dustings of snow mixed in with the sunny days this month. Amber insists on riding her tiny bike, even though she has a bigger one.

Amber likes company outside, so I often go for a walk while she rides or plays.

The Roomba, vacuuming hands-free. It has gotten stuck once or twice, but generally it does a pretty good job cleaning our floors.

Amber, crossing her ankles in her big clunky roller skates while reading books and listening to my piano playing. She mostly wears her skates inside, and since it's winter, I don't mind much.

Playing a solo game of Sleeping Queens with her skates on. Amber is bursting with passion and personality.

The kids all gathered around to watch the squirrel climb our rope swing last Sunday. Jay wanted to take a video of it, haha.

Freezing on the sidelines of cross country practice.

January-mas! We meant to have Christmas every month until spring, but thanks to parent teacher conferences, we forgot about January-mas until January 26th. We pulled Christmas crackers after dinner to celebrate (given to us by a kind friend).

We had the bin of big legos out for over a week.

When I tell Amber to get dressed in the morning, I have started specifying that she wear pants because it's winter. So she wore pants and long sleeves underneath her shorts and t-shirt.

On night 3 of Jeff being gone at parent teacher conferences, we had a "whatever dinner." Jay and I had leftover ham pea soup, and the girls had pita chips and hummus. The girls were overjoyed to have chips for dinner. I honestly don't know how Amber ate all of that crunchy stuff with so few teeth, but she managed it.

Rose arranged her carrots around the plate to frame the hummus and chips.

Roller skates make Amber tall enough to do dishes.

Rose painted this picture of a polar bear on a real canvas in art class at school.

Amber colored, cut, and glued this pink birthday cake with paper candles and paper sprinkles at home.

A mid-walk view over the mint field toward the corn and grapes and distant hills.

Our skinny house, viewed from the paved path out back.

Rose opened her birthday gift from Grama Meri and Grampa Charley when it arrived a week early. Birthday books!

Saturday morning White family reunion in Grandview. These four girl cousins love to color together.

Seven-year-old Tate prefers to hang out with the oldest cousin Jay, because he's a boy too. Jay brought his 1200 page Brandon Sanderson book and told Tate all about it. It made me smile because Tate would rather be out BMX biking or skateboarding, but intelligent book-loving Jay has a way of telling stories that captivates kids.

Jeff was too tired from his long week to fully commit to a game of Sleeping Queens with Amber, so he hid under a blanket and played blind. It was ridiculous and hilarious and he still won. Amber loved telling him what to do.

Coloring the temple pictures they got from church.

Amber wore a nice red dress to church today. When we got home from church, I noticed something lumpy on her leg. Turns out, she was wearing cargo shorts underneath her church dress! That's Amber, always prepared for an adventure.

Solo parenting fatigue from parent teacher conference week had me tell the kids they could watch a cartoon before bed. They were ready for bed and kneeling for family prayer in the blink of an eye! They folded their hands and clustered around so sweetly, like they were so excited to have family prayer. Even though it was cartoon-based enthusiasm, I took a picture anyways. A win is a win, regardless of motivation, right?

Right.