I hope her teacher appreciates her

Y’all should definitely go take a look at this post my sister wrote about my niece’s handwriting.

Richer than the Pharoah (since, as far as anthropologists have been able to determine, the ancient Egyptians were a little lacking in the packaged convenience foods department)

I totally should have sold this for like a million bucks on eBay.

It’s a solid nugget of Dorito seasoning, discovered in the bottom of a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos.

For reference, that’s not even a full-size dinner plate the nugget is sitting on–it’s just a little dessert plate.

I kept the bag on top of my filing cabinet for a month before I remembered to take a picture.  Then I let Dean consume the treasure.  He said it was, and I quote, “Strong.”

Look at me being all ponderous and thoughtful with no (deliberate) stupid humor! Look at my tendonitis flaring up!

Over at Segullah they were talking about how to know if you’re really “doing your best,” and I got a little long-winded in the comments thread, so I thought I’d better recycle my comment here (since being green is the new black.  Or something.)

A lot of what I’m saying here either assumes familiarity with LDS doctrine and practice, or is responding to others’ comments over there, but I’m just going to leave it how it is and let you figure it out.

—

I love that as often as not, by the time I’ve finished reading a thread here, everyone’s covered everything I would have said. I particularly enjoyed the comments in this thread; there is so much wisdom and thoughtfulness here.

I do have a couple things the comments made me think of, concerning motivation. When I’m feeling overwhelmed with all of the things I should do, it helps me a lot when I try to think of which things I actually want to do, and why, and do those things first. Sometimes even if I don’t want to do the task(s), I do want the outcome, and that can be motivating, but it’s even more motivating when I can see a way that the process itself is connected to my righteous desires. My less-helpful usual way of thinking is to think of something like going to the temple as something I should be doing, and probably am not doing enough, and to consider myself to be in a state of failure in regards to the task. Then going to the temple becomes an attempt to redeem myself (instead of letting the Atonement redeem me,) and I’m no longer attending for the experience’s own sake–and I lose my sense of wanting to attend (because it will never be enough; it only erases the debt but doesn’t put me in the black.) If I can re-frame my thoughts to remember that I can be in good graces with the Savior according to the state of my heart before I’ve even made it to the temple, and instead think about why I WANT to go to the temple, and what I will enjoy about going, I’ll stop being hard on myself and instead will start trying to find a way to get there, in order to get what I want. (Sometimes it’s really not within reason to get there that week, and then in the short term I just have to find some other way to meet that desire for renewal of covenants and nearness to God.) I try to adjust my thinking in the same way with other tasks, thinking of why I wanted them in the first place: I want to do my visiting teaching because I need friends and care about those sisters, because I am interested in their lives, because I crave Gospel conversations, and because it is a nice break from my kids. I want to do laundry because I like seeing dirty things get new life as clean things.

This all goes along with all of your great comments about how Satan wants us to feel discouraged, etc. When I can adjust my thinking this way, it helps me live in the moment and let my actual experiences “count” rather than dutifully checking them off the list, all the while feeling that they are not enough and never will be enough.

I can be very task-oriented and pretty far toward the hard-on-myself end of the personality spectrum, so the above way of thinking doesn’t usually come naturally to me, but it does help me a lot when I remember to stop and think about why I’m doing what I’m doing, and allow myself to enjoy the process.

Here’s one more related coping technique of mine: Instead of having a goal to finish a task, I try instead to just plan to work on the task. As the mom of 5 young kids, (which I had on purpose, and am learning things from by accident–love that title,) as often as not I can’t finish what I begin, so if my goal is just to work on something, I can still feel successful even if I have to quit working on it long before it’s complete.

I guess these ideas are just practical ways to make the adjustment from trying (impossibly) to atone for my own sins, versus trusting that the Atonement will take care of them, and doing good because I love the Savior and am allowing my heart to be changed.

Now I’m trying to tie this back in to the idea of whether or not we’re truly doing our best, but I’m pretty sleepy by now–hmmm. Okay: so on the one hand our false “best” could be like Alma’s “Oh that I were an angel . . . but I am a man and do sin in my wish” sentiment of wanting to accomplish things with superhuman power, this being a sin when it denies God’s plan (taking matters into our own hands) and doesn’t accept His time frame or His respect for our agency. On the other hand, our true “best” would be like Nephi’s faith that we can do whatever the Lord truly asks of us (which may or not be what our neighbor thinks they know it to be,) and having our hearts changed so that we have “no more desire to do evil, but to do good continually.” (Forgive the quotes without references; I think my personal best right now might be try to alleviate some sleep deprivation, so I’ll just say that they’re quoted from memory and are somewhere in the Book of Mormon.)

Thanks again for all of your wonderful comments; this was a bit of a feast (or anyway a really filling midnight snack.)

New heights of humor/new depths of self-deprecation

I’ve already more than filled my quota for compliment-fishing this week, so before making this next little foray into the realm of stupid humor, let me be absolutely clear that my self-esteem is actually in relatively decent shape, all things considered.  Like many women, I’d love to have managed to bring my kids into this world without losing my 25-year-old looks, (not to mention that I’d gladly do without my hormone-muddling health problems,) but my gratitude for those wonderful kids far outweighs any regrets about the costs.  But I can’t resist making a dumb joke when I think of it, even at my own expense.

My brain does a lot of misfiling:  I’ve got the number “4″ filed in the same category with the letter “F” (in my defense, if you flip the top half of a capital F over to the left, it makes a 4,) causing me in my youth to sometimes spell the number “4″ as “4our.”  I always accidentally call the series “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” “The No. 1 Ladies’ Home Detective Agency.”  And for some reason the phrases “gilding the lily” and “putting lipstick on a pig” are stuck in the same slot in my mind, so that I can’t think of the one without thinking of the other.  Since I have to think it through every time I want to use either expression, I’ve come up with a handy memory device:  “Gilding the lily” is the reason I give my young daughters for why they don’t yet need to wear makeup, and “putting lipstick on a pig,” is why I don’t need makeup.

P.S.  Lili, I think you should gold-leaf yourself for Halloween next year.

P. P. S. Just so you know that Dean and I belong together (although stooping this low is rare for him, actually,) the other night after reading my blog he said, “What do dishcloths do when they get old?  They get crotchety [crochety].”

P.P.P.S. This post was brought to you by the Committee for Writing Blog Posts Instead of Making Dinner

In the schools these days

I just noticed that one of Rose’s Kindergarten worksheets has the words “visual discrimination” in tiny letters in the top corner.

I knew it–they are teaching my daughter to discriminate based on appearances.

(This post brought to you by the Committee for Starting the Day with Stupid Humor. The committee apparently also places Stupid Humor in a higher priority than breakfast.)

Off with their heads!

Inversely proportional to how he feels about his stripey-fingered gloves

Henry was just stomping around the kitchen, muttering fiercely to himself.  “Rose have a lot of candy, and I don’t have a lot of candy, but her have a lot of candy, and I hate her!”

The engineer and the English major

I’ve never considered myself to have much men’s sartorial expertise, and since generally I like Dean’s clothing choices and am also somewhat overwhelmed just trying to keep my kids’ wardrobes stocked with clean and mended, seasonally-appropriate clothes that fit, (not to mention my own wardrobe–ugh,) I don’t usually concern myself much with what Dean wears.  However, lately Dean’s been asking my opinion on neckties, and I’ve enjoyed encouraging him to try new shirt-and-tie color combinations*, and to resuscitate some lovely but languishing ties.  This morning he held up two ties:

Dean:  “Which should I wear?”

Me, pointing to the one on the right:  “That one’s got to go.”

Dean:  “A little outdated?”

Me:  “It looks like it’s from the early nineties.”

Dean:  “It’s my mission tie.”

Me: “So that would be . . .”

Dean:  “1991.  I guess it was a little naive of me to think something could stay in style that long.”

Me:  “Eighteen years?  Yeah.”

Dean models this year’s hottest accessory, Hazel.

*I can’t figure out why the Firefox spell check doesn’t like my spelling of “combinations.”  Am I blind this morning?  Or is Firefox crazy?  (Crazy like a fox!  A mad fox on fire!)

This might be the first blog post you’ll read about dishcloths. Also the last.

Several years ago when I learned to crochet, the first things I learned to make were dishcloths.

Dean really liked them, (and I’m sure he’d want me to tell the world he had ever expressed an opinion on dishcloths,) so I made several.  I tried out various  stitches and color patterns, and kept accidentally increasing or decreasing my rows, so I ended up with a motley collection of misshapen dishcloths. We proceeded to use them daily for several years.  (We do have a dishwasher, but we use the cloths for wiping counters.)

I try to change our dishcloths out every day so they don’t get sour, which works fairly well in our dry climate.  If they get sour anyway, (which seems to happen in direct proportion to how much I make Ike and Mabel help with kitchen chores,) a trick I’ve discovered is to cover them with water in a Pyrex bowl and boil them in the microwave for about 10 minutes.  Dean also figured out this works even better if you add a little baking soda to the water.  (I really wish my washer or dryer had a “sanitary cycle,” because I can’t fit my kids’ sheets and towels in the microwave.)

But all good things must end, and our much-loved dishcloths had seen their day:

So I’m making a bunch more.  The one in the foreground above was my favorite, and after a lot of experimenting I was able to figure out what stitch I’d used (single stitch, with the hook passing through both loops on the stitch,) and I also got out my crochet encyclopedia and figured out how to keep my rows even.  I still had three cones of crochet thread from Walmart, so I’m using them up (even though the colors don’t match my kitchen’s imaginary color scheme if I ever decorate my kitchen.)  You can see how much the old ones had faded.

I really should have gift-wrapped these for Dean.  Because if there’s anything a man loves better than having his wife tell the world he has ever expressed an opinion about dishcloths, it’s getting dishcloths for Christmas.

Metabloggish in real life

Me:  “You know what I hate?  I hate it when people will only comment on a blog if they feel like they have something significant or worthwhile to say; something that will add to the conversation.  I like it when people will just leave any little comment just to show they were there, even if all they have to say is, ‘I want you to know that I loved this post more than anything, and it has changed my life forever.’”

Mabel:  “But that would be mean.”

Me:  “No it wouldn’t.”

Mabel:  “But it’s sarcastic.”

Me:  “No, that’s how people really sincerely feel when they read my blog.”

Rainbow from Halloweeneen.

(Yes, I spelled it that way on purpose: the evening before Halloween.)

Beautiful, life-changing rainbow.

We love Halloween

I made all or part of each of these costumes. Bear with me; I’m indulging myself by giving the full story behind each costume. But you can skip all that and just look at the pictures. (You do have to look at the pictures, unless you have no soul.)

I had told Ike he was on his own for a costume this year, but took pity when he didn’t find anything he liked at a Halloween store. I made his ninja hood out of an old t-shirt I’d saved for the fabric, tracing the hood of one of his hoodies for a pattern and then modifying it.  After I got the hood cut out, I wished I’d used a sturdier, less drapey knit, but the differential feed on my serger saved me and kept the seams from stretching out too much.  (And the hood is very soft and comfy.)  The face scarf is a segment of a leg of one of Mabel’s old pairs of knit pants.

Although I love the results, I don’t really enjoy Halloween sewing, so it’s nice that by now we have lots of things to recycle from previous years. At first Mabel wasn’t excited to be Red Riding Hood again, but when she found a new outfit to wear under the cape, she was more enthusiastic. (I also made her top, and blogged about it here.) This is a beautiful cape–red corduroy in a half-circle, with a grosgrain ribbon tie and a bound hem. Part of the reason I don’t like Halloween sewing is that I tend to do too nice a job, and spend longer than I think I ought to for a costume. But it’s starting to feel like it’s been worth it, as the costumes have been worn multiple years, and by more than one kid.

Yes, Mabel has a black eye. A kid at school accidentally knocked her down and there must have been a shoulder or an elbow involved. This happened about a week and a half before Halloween. (I told her she should wear a “P” on her shirt and be a black-eyed pea.)

Yes, Rose also has a black eye. She got it yesterday afternoon (Halloween) when she walked hard into our computer desk. I guess she wanted to be like Mabel. My joke last night was that my girls dressed up as abused children for Halloween.

Rose’s lovely dress was made by my sister Susanna and loaned to us. I mended a tear in the front of the dress.  I had bought Rose a plastic tiara, but it was small and slippery and wouldn’t stay on her head. I also found pretty rhinestone-and-metal tiaras but thought they were too expensive for a costume. Finally, I remembered we had one leftover from her birthday party this Spring–and it was perfect. For the birthday party, we had cut crowns from gold poster board, printed and cut out images of gems, and run them through my Xyron machine to make them into stickers for the girls to decorate their own crowns. (The boys stuck gems onto silver posterboard shields.) Rose’s wand was a Cub Scout carpentry project from a few Christmases ago–I asked Dean to let the boys watch him cut the stars and dowels, and had the boys screw the stars onto the dowels, then we spray-painted them gold. The idea was that they could use the stars as a prop to help act out the Nativity. It turns out that eight-year-old boys can get excited about making star wands if you give them a sufficiently masculine excuse for it. (We also made a Christmas tree star from the same pattern, and I get excited when we get it out each year.)

I made this costume when Ike was three, with Dean doing a lot of the designing.  Isaac hated it. We only got it on him after a huge power struggle that we finally won when we said he couldn’t trick-or-treat unless he wore it. He did forget about hating it once he had a bucket of candy, but the costume never got worn much–unlike Ike’s “Ash” (Pokemon trainer) costume the next year, which he wore daily for about a year.

Henry, on the other hand, LOVED being an “ephant.” It was nice for the costume to finally get some love.

Speaking of love, if this little bunny doesn’t melt your heart, you might want to check that you still have one.  (You should have seen my ward members queuing for turns to hold her at the Primary Halloween party.)  (Wow, I just got the spelling of “queuing” right on the first try.)

I made this costume when Ike was a baby and every one of my kids has been able to wear it.  When I was making it, I wanted Dean’s help designing it (he’s better at picturing things in three dimensions than I am,) but I thought if I asked him to design a bunny hat he’d say no, so instead I asked him to draw one bunny ear, suspecting that he’d catch the spirit of the project and take over.  Sure enough, the next thing I knew, he had balled up newspaper to make a model of Isaac’s head to design the contours of the hat.  (The next year my strategy backfired, though–I asked him to help design beetle wings, and his pattern had me sewing about 20 long curved darts in slippery polyester satin.)

I did get a little weary of all the Halloween events this year, especially since I had a lot of other non-Halloween things to keep up with and very little down time.  (I rebelled by staying up nearly all night finishing a book Wednesday night when I had about three commitments the next day–so sane of me.)  I did really enjoy Halloween night and had a great time taking Rose and Henry trick-or-treating, (with Hazel in the stroller, along for the ride,) and visiting with neighbors.  It was a mild night, everyone was out, and it was a classic traditional Halloween night.