Santa Ana winds

Does anyone remember the national coverage that the terrible CA fires got last year? A lot of it happened because fires broke out right during these Santa Ana winds that come every year.

When I was jogging this morning invisible pieces of debri kept getting stuck in my eyes. I still snapped all these pictures, and that's just of my little neighborhood from last night's winds. The wind was so furious this morning I thought my bedroom window was surely going to break.

The first picture down is an entire tree trunk uprooted.

Magic! Getting out grease stains.

It's magic, and I love it. I read a household tip from a dear friend's blog, and tried it, and IT WORKS!! It works worthy of all caps and two exclamation points!

And the kicker? It works even IF the stain is set (meaning you've already washed and dried the clothing before). Magic, I tell you. Just remember to rub the grease stains well with dish soap first, then soak it in some distilled water for a day, then wash. (First I only used distilled water and missed step 2, the dish soap, to no avail)

Three ruined favorite shirts and one jacket are now no longer ruined. I'm telling you, this is life-changing laundry advice for a mom with three little boys. ; ) Thanks Rebecca. Who knew!

Spring Flowers

Though it's fall, look at these beautiful spring flowers! The date on the link is May of '08. There's nothing like beautiful flowers to brighten one's day.

Wow!

"Wow!" is the theme for the national Reflections contest this year. (Can you tell the due date for entries is tomorrow, so we have Reflections entries on the brain right now?)

It is a perfect title not only for all the pictures my boys drew/photographed, but for General Conference. Several years ago, when I would watch/listen to conference, I would think, ok, ok, nice topics, good advice, good to remember. Somehow now, though, it's as if my spiritually weak self needs this nourishment, and the topics are on fire, uplifting and rejuvenating me every six months. I think, "What can apostles and our prophet say that haven't already been said? How could it get any better?" and then they out-do themselves every time.

Even though our router broke Saturday in the middle of Sis. Allred's talk, Rob bought and installed a new one by nightfall, and we watched Sat. morning's session about 8 pm last night.

Today we watched Sat. afternoon's session in between Sun.'s morning and afternoon sessions. One might think, 6 straight hours of listening to church talks, are you crazy? But it was just what I needed. (Not to mention I was just switching my addiction from watching hours of Alfred Hitchcock on Friday, to hours of conference today)

I can't even point out a favorite yet, but I have already re-listened to Pres. Monson's "Change/Enjoy the Journey" talk (Sun. morning session) and ate it up. Of course, I love Harriet Beecher Stowe's book Uncle Tom's Cabin, and I love Our Town, especially deceased Emily's observations about wanting to scream to her family to stop and look around at them, and realize what they've got while they're alive.

Two side notes:
1. I really loved President Hinckley, and though I missed hearing him in April, today several times I would hear a talk start and think the voice could almost be him; I missed him more this conference.

2. One song that was sung was "Faith in Every Footstep," the exact arrangement Rob and myself and my family sang in the 1997 Susquesential Celebration. It's amazing how when you've sung a song, it reaches you, it becomes a part of you. My heart was full and I cried while I sang the song with the choir today from my family room. I don't know how to describe how I felt I was worshipping God through song. The feeling was so strong. I know all you music-lovers out there understand; my mom is one of them, so is Rob's dad.

Busyness

As a society we are running around, busy as bees. Religious persons often really speak of their busyness (I'm guilty as charged) because we're afraid of being idle when scriptures point to idleness as sinful, or at least as wasting our earthly probation. We seek to be anxiously engaged in good causes, but sometimes we miss the point (guilty as charged, again).

I happened to look up the definition today:

bus·y·ness/
–noun
1. the quality or condition of being busy.
2. lively but meaningless activity.

Did you catch that? Definition #2? Astounding, isn't it. How often do I run around lively involved in meaningless activity? Yes, a lot of my activites are quite meaningful, but I'll sure think twice before I promote how "busy" I often feel (while in my mind specifically not mentioning the hours I waste in trying to wind down from said busy activities).

But here's the thing. Sometimes we NEED to waste time. I don't mean reading or relaxing leisurely activities that refresh and renew, I mean letting the brain just veg on autopilot with any number of sundry mind-numbing activities or lack thereof.

So why are we afraid (ok, why am *I* afraid) to admit to having lost a whole day to reading the archives of someone's blog, or catching up on an entire season of a tv drama in one sitting?

Bloggerdom

You know you've transferred to a blogger mindset when you think throughout the day, "Ooh, I've got to take a pic of that to post," or "I could write a clever post about this" (ok, ok, maybe not so clever, just humor me, de-lurk, and keep telling me they're clever). ; )

On several different occasions I've meant to blog about this or that this past few weeks. But, school is in full swing, as is scouts, so I haven't gotten to it. I really hope blogging doesn't become something I feel like is just another thing I can't seem to get to. I want it to be something that refreshes me. For now, the following should have been several individual posts.

So. Funny comment. First I'm pleased that Nathan is pulling out scripture stories in sacrament meeting. Then I hear him, whispering quite loudly: "Mom, where's the blood? I want to find the one with all the blood, mom!" as he was looking through the old testament scripture stories, trying to find one of the ten plagues when Pharoah of Egypt tried to have a showdown against God. It took Rob and I a bit to figure out what he meant by wanting to see the blood, and then we quickly found him the part where all the water in Egypt turned to blood, to quiet him up.

Jeffrey on Friday: "What? It's already Friday? The week goes by so fast!"
Me: Depressed that he's already starting to feel that at only nine years old. I don't think I started saying that until high school. Come on, Jeffrey, just enjoy being a kid!

FHE three days before school started:

I think the picture says it all. And you think your Family Home Evenings go badly sometimes? We thought this was pretty funny. Every year before school starts, Rob gives each person a blessing, a special tradition in both Rob's and my family. Since we convinced the boys not to wiggle and be rowdy during the blessings, after each boy got his blessing, he went over to the couch and sat quietly for the next boy's blessing, and promptly fell asleep. First Nathan, then Bryce, and then while Rob gave me a blessing, Jeffrey. What does this tell me? Reverence = Sleep. At least for now. ; )

Polka-dotted FHE:

On a Sunday before another FHE night, Bryce decides he really wants to make cookies with dad, a favorite past-time of theirs. Bryce insists on chocolate chip cookies though Rob can't find any chocolate chips. I'm amused at their non-chippy cookies, but it's just not the same w/out the chips.

Monday evening, while we are playing dominoes as a family, I slip over to the kitchen, find a bag of choc. chippers (I'm so sneaky, heh heh, only I knew where they were), stick a whole bunch of them into the already-cooked cookies, and place them in the oven on 200 degrees to warm them up.

Dominoes + chocolate chip cookies = Polka dotted FHE.

And lastly, gripe of the week: Why does it have to be such a fight to be a parent? You spend enormous amounts of energy convincing your children of expectations that need to be met. It's so frustrating. And sometimes it's things I think they would want to do, and they put up this big fight. Once I make them do something, and they realize it's going to happen, they finally do it, but by then I'm worn out and want to just bite all their heads off. It's with morning routines, evening routines, jobs, running errands, walking to school, doing homework, getting out the door for anything, playing outside sometimes, etc etc. They resist with such consistency, it really wears a body down! They whine, pout, grump, drag their feet, and then half-way through they get into what they're doing, and the thing is finally bearable. In fact, a lot of times, it ends up being fun and gets done quickly. So why all the drama to get to that point?

Quip of the Year

My dear friend was talking to me in passing. I offered to pick her son up from school because she wasn't feeling well. Then I remembered I had a time conflict. She was very forgiving, and kindly but frankly quipped,

"You think with your heart. Your brain eventually catches up."

I laughed so hard, I nearly fell over, partly because of who said it, my sweet Hindu friend. Plus, this is SO me. In fact, I don't necessarily think. Whatever I do, my brain does eventually catch up, though....