Snow fellows

I grumbled a bit at the snow dumped in my lap this week. Winter or not, it had been dry most of the month, and I was spoiled. The new snow made my muscles ache just thinking about shoveling and driving in it. I again questioned our summertime purchase of a house on hilly terrain.

Once outside after Monday's storm, though, it took only minutes to remind me why we chose this home. The house itself, Jeff and I often say, was an afterthought. It was the neighborhood that clinched the deal.

We had only gut feelings then, but how right we were to believe this is a place where neighbors are truly neighborly. We've seen it in countless acts of service, all year long.

Monday's storm was yet another occasion for me to watch my neighbors digging each other out, clearing walks that aren't even theirs. I've seen one neighbor push his snowblower all the way to the elementary school to clear a path for the children -- my children. All of his own are grown.

I've lived in snowy places all my adult life, but nothing like this. Some places, I'm sad to say, I never once saw someone shovel another's driveway. Here, snowstorms aren't marked in inches, but in the measure of goodwill.
I love it!

****

Taking a break to enjoy the details really helped me on my crazy morning Wednesday. Sometimes snow falls in just a wet mess, but these snowflakes were discernibly unique. It was a challenge for me to take a picture of them with only my camera's basic lens, and they melted so soon after landing on the black railing. Still, I'm glad I took time out of my day to watch and to try. We live in a beautiful world. I was refreshed.

Please remember

Did you know today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day? I did not, until reading of it in the newspaper.

Yet the Holocaust has been on my mind quite a bit this month. I recently read The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak, a remarkable work of fiction set in Nazi Germany. At a discussion a couple of weeks ago, I was deeply disturbed when one lady said it was a ludicrous plot device to have the German characters harbor a Jew. No one would have done it for real, she said. She based this on public sentiment when she lived in Germany in the 1960s. The Jews were despised and had it coming to them, she claimed, supporting her far-reaching assertion with the story of one cheapskate American Jewish man who cheated her husband in a carpool.

I was too shocked to respond then. But I'm responding now. This woman is someone I respect very much, which is perhaps why her views shook me so much.

No one deserves the treatment meted out by Hitler and his minions. No one person, no one group. No matter one's views on the victims, the Holocaust was a tragic blot on our world's history. To dismiss the tragedy is as bad as denying it every happened.

We must remember.

I need to believe that there were good people during that period, who stood up for what was right, even if not many chose to tell their experiences. Or lived to tell them. My faith in human nature is too shaken otherwise.

Perhaps that's why Corrie ten Boom's autobiographical work The Hiding Place ranks with The Book Thief on my list of all-time favorite books. Yes, ten Boom's family suffered terrible consequences for hiding Jews, but this tale will leave your spirit soaring. I highly recommend both of these books. You'll never forget them.

Tongue twisters

Elise is our exceptionally sunny* child, so cheerful, so friendly, so boldly extroverted that she once prompted my dad to ask, "Are you sure she's yours?" *There's such a thing as sunburn, though.

Yesterday while all of her siblings were bouncing off the walls (typical Sunday afternoon fare), Elise stole a few quiet minutes in our room. She was excited for her baptism preview that night, and had already gotten herself dressed and ready for it without being asked. She giggled when we talked about how grown up she's getting.

"Lisee, you are a delight," I said.

"What's a delight?" she asked.

"Well," Jeff offered, "when moms and dads get down about all of the things they have to do, it's so nice to have someone like you to make them smile."

She thought this was terribly funny. "But other families don't have an Elise!"

No, that charge is ours alone.

****

In addition to the baptism preview, Sunday marked another growing step for Elise: a graduation from the whisper-fed talks in Primary. No matter how hard I try ahead of time to rehearse talks with my young children so they can somewhat give them on their own, it always boils down to this. You know the drill.

Parent to child's ear: whisper, whisper, whisper
Child to microphone: mumble, mumble, mumble
Child to parent (in loudest voice yet): What?

This time, though, Elise read her talk all the way through by herself. Which was a good thing, considering she didn't let me know of her assignment until Saturday. When you wipe out any time for rehearsing, it sure is good to have someone who can read!

Here's her talk:

Many people say that my brothers, sister and I look a lot like our dad. My brothers and I have big dark eyes like my dad does. My face and my sister's face are shaped very much like our dad's. When I was little, my hair was curly, kind of like my little brother Samuel's hair is. This is something we got from my dad.

My dad Jeff is my earthly father. Many of the thing about my body and the way I look come from him.

I have a Heavenly Father, too. The scriptures teach us that Heavenly Father created our spirits before we were born. Our spirit is the part of us that thinks and feels. It is our personality. It is the part of us that can learn and develop a strong testimony.

Moses chapter 3 verse 5 says, "For I, the Lord God, created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually before they were naturally on the face of the earth."

As spirits, we lived with Heavenly Father before we came to earth. We received a body when we came to earth. Our bodies are very special and we should talke good care of them.

Heavenly Father gave us families to help us learn the gospel. If we live a good life on this earth, we can live with Heavenly Father again. I am very grateful for my earthly father and for my Heavenly Father because I know they both love me very much.

Mother math

Here's my husband having a grand old time at his grandparents' home, circa 1972. After a recent similar experience (read on!) I'm amazed that his grandmother paused to take a picture before yanking him away. I suppose that's a grandparent's privilege!


My husband permanently excused himself from any sort of advanced homework help when he glanced at our then sixth-grade son’s math worksheet and airily said, “Oh, I don’t know how to do that. Go ask your mom.”

Far from admitting any weakness, this move of my husband’s was pure genius. I wish I’d thought of it first.

Like it or not, I’m now the sole information desk for kids with ages in the double digits. It can fry the brain cells, I tell you. (Not to mention the nerves.) Concerning math, my career ended in high school long, long ago. I have the dubious distinction of having graduated from college without ever taking a math class. (Yay, AP calculus!)

Yet math is everywhere, right? So in an effort to brush up on my skills, I present the kind of math that abounds in our household. I can thank the first vivid equation for inspiring me to think in such mathematical terms.

• A 4-year-old who seldom flushes + 1-year-old who loves to splash = a 97-decibel scream of discovery, 15 towels and a mid-afternoon bath (thus rewarding 1-year-old who loves to splash). Sigh . . . (and no, I was not calm enough to take a picture!)

• Kid with candy + dad in the room = “Daddy tax.”
This sum is the same as: Kid – candy.

• Teenage boy’s hunger is directly proportional to amount of food in the house.

• Teenage boy burns more calories repeatedly opening fridge and pantry doors than can be replaced by the food he hopes to find.

• No matter how many days, or even weeks, a child knows about a school assignment, homework can be done in one hour – as long as it’s the eleventh hour.

• There is no way to evenly divide a pan of brownies among five kids. Especially when you factor in one chocolate-loving mom.

• A 1-year-old + a clean room = a messy room.

• Each pair of so-called helping hands in the kitchen increases meal preparation time by 25 percent. Clean-up time increases by 75 percent. (Amount of helpers now drops precipitously.)

• Number of laundry loads rises as the temperature outside plummets. (Who ever promoted dressing in layers, anyway?)

• Items normally used as pairs will become fractions the minute you need them: shoes, socks, mittens, etc.

• Every new child adds 20 minutes to estimated departure time – forget arrival time!

Welcome!

Wow! 

I've finally entered blogging land, after teetering on the fence for a long time.  I enjoy reading friends' blogs but sometimes, on bad days, catch myself in a depressing game of comparisons.  I think blogs are a great way to reconnect with faraway friends, yet I've also seen how they limit next-door neighbors' interactions to behind the screens.

Not to mention the weighty question of if I'll even have anything interesting to say!  What to do?  In the end, though, the fact that I keep dwelling on whether I should start a blog suggests I should at least try.

I visit certain favorite blogs when I need a pep talk for motherhood. One friend's accounts contain such a zest for life and a genuine love of her role that I can't help but be inspired.  Even the mundane becomes sparkling in her retelling.

I want to be able to see my life in such a positive light, too.  (And, truth be told, to see the beauty and wonder in shadows.)  If I can convince myself with words, all the better.  Through this blog I hope to channel a lost love of writing into a new love for living.

I've deliberated over the public aspect of a blog.  Why this extension of a personal journal?  Is it because I feel the need to be validated by feedback?  Will I be the soundless tree that falls in the forest without witnesses?  Perhaps.  Still, I've decided that I need to write for myself -- if only myself -- but do so as if others are reading.  We all stand a little straighter when we think someone is watching.