mother’s day

I actually think of my Mom on Mother’s Day. Instead of me. That’s only normal. Case in point. One year when Scott was in college the bishop called long distance and asked him to speak in our ward on Mother’s Day as a big surprise for me. But I drove to my own Mom’s in Ogden and Scott drove all the way from Laramie to Lyman, to speak to an empty bench. Lots of people told me he did a wonderful job! I’m sure he did. He usually does. But I wasn’t there. I forget sometimes that Mother’s Day is also for me.

My Mom, though, was the essence of the holiday. She is and always will be the biggest and most far-reaching inspiration to me. She will always be the one person who believed that even though I made huge mistakes, I could over come them and get back to where I needed to be. She never gave up on that goal. She never made me feel like I couldn’t/wouldn’t make it back.

And now, every once in a while I can feel her encouragement through all space and time from where she is. I can feel her wanting me to see the bigger goal. I can sense her wanting me to make it back . . to where she is. Where we all want to be. And it’s a mother’s love that makes me want that too. I don’t want to disappoint her. I don’t want to be the one who doesn’t make it. I don’t want to be the one who messes the whole plan up.

So, Mom, thank you for all you’ve done to show me it’s worth reaching for. And when I feel like I’ll never make it, thank you for the nudges and the reminders and the example and the boost. And thanks for always painting that silver lining. Guess you’re getting quite the opportunity from up there! Keep painting!

And I’ll keep trying.

Love you!

hbd2tracy!

H A P P Y

B I R T H D A Y

T O

T R A C Y !

I’m always doubly blessed when it’s her birthday because she never failing writes me a BIRTH day note! Here’s what she said this morning.

Happy Day to you! Thank you for giving me life and loving me and
singing and laughing and camping and reading and playing and hiking
and walking and swimming and driving and teaching and hugging and
rubbing and holding and braiding and rescuing and cooking and feeding
and shopping and laughing and loving some more.

I am so grateful to have you for my mom and to journey through this
life together!

See what I mean!

This daughter is very dear to me. She has been so fun to raise and watch as she grows and learns how to raise her own little family. She has made some hard choices in her life which have drawn some ridicule but I’m so proud of the way she sticks with her convictions and continues on her path of goodness.

She’s lots more outgoing than I have ever been. Has hardly any inhibitions at all. She thinks nothing of walking up to a total stranger and striking up a conversation and then exchanging phone numbers. Pretty soon she’s calling her her new friend and they are off to Green Canyon for swim camp. She has organized lots of drives, fund raisers, celebrations, fairs, Seders, ice skating extravaganzas and many more events — enough to make your head spin. She’s involved in many good projects and adventures, much to the amazement of those around her.

She’s supportive, loyal, true, fun, outrageous, smart, hilarious, often wet, competitive, loud, impulsive, crazy, honorable, courageous, humble, prayerful, and a little messy, to be sure.

She has lightened my load on many an occasion, lifted my spirits, cheered my heart, and comforted my sorrow. She’s encouraged me and prodded me. She’s taught me and convinced me. She’s loved me and amazed me!

One of my favorite memories of her is when we were at Green River Lakes one summer and a hiker came through the camp and visited with us for a couple hours. Apparently he was from England and was hiking the Continental Divide. He spoke with quite a strong accent and after a few minutes Tracy started talking just like he was. HUGE  English accent with lots of affectations. We, of course, were mortified and thought she was making fun of the guy, but she didn’t even knew she was doing it and continued to do so until long after he left.

She speaks in her fake accents on many an occasion. Sometimes it’s Russian, German, Scottish, Australian, or Hopi Indian.

Yah. It can drive you nuts.

Another time she was convinced I was in Idaho Falls for the day but didn’t want her to know, for some reason. And she was convinced I had gone way out of my way to conceal the fact that I was there. She thought I had turned my license plate upside down and around backwards so that she wouldn’t recognize my car. Pretty ridiculous, but her brain put all those parts together and I had a hard time convincing her I was actually in Lyman with my licence plate on correctly.

Here we are at Mikelle’s wedding.

I wish I could even begin to explain how many times we have been talking and it progressed into falling on the floor and laughing our guts out. I know there are little automatic sayings like lol and fotflol and rotflol, but in our case we really are falling on the floor laughing out loud. We laugh out loud in movies when no one else is making a sound, in church when no one is making a sound, in meetings, in stores … lots of places. Sometimes all we have to do is glance at each other — and believe me the sound we make when we are trying to not laugh is much worse than the happy sound of laughter. It turns into something happening in our noses when we try to hold it back.

Another time we were all sitting in my tent playing Rook. A few people had the toots and a few people had already laughed until they p**d. The tent did not smell good. And we laughed until we all had severe laundry situations going on.

I hope you realize what a special daughter Tracy is. And Mikelle is absolutely so completely special too. I have been so so blessed by having these two in my life. I love them both so much.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

Love, Mom

PS: Here’s what she got for her birthday. She’s becoming such a sewing woman!

Both from Etsy! The crafter’s description:

These big, beautiful sunflower and rose emery pincushions will make sewing a breeze. 

In my never ending quest to create the ultimate pincushion, I took a little survey to find out the most desirable qualities in a pincushion. The top 5 were:

1. Large – room for lots and lots of pins
2. Heavy – so it doesn’t move or tip over
3. Not too deep – so needles don’t get buried inside
4. Lots of sections – for sorting different types of pins
and needles
5. Stuffed with materials that will sharpen,clean, shine 
and condition your pins.

Sew clever!

hb2usweetpea

This is such a special day to all of us. Mikelle’s birthday! She’s all grown up at 21! I wish I could have driven to Logan to surprise her but I was just there three days ago and gave her hugs and a little crafty gift from our favorite shop. We tried to talk her into going and getting a really good blender for this summer, smoothies, crushed ice, etc., but she said “I don’t really want a blender for my birthday!” [I had to italicize four words in that sentence to give an accurate sense of her emphatic statement.]

If I had to sum up all my feelings about her in one thought it would be this:

You are nothing short of our everything!

I wanted two more kids. I knew I had two more kids, but I had gone through a really nasty divorce [actually a really nasty marriage, too] and when I remarried, I had Stephen at age 36 and then Mikelle 18 months later at age 38. These two have been such a joy [a teensy bit of heartache along the way] and such a blessing.

They are both grown up and I’m proud to be their Mom. I have no clue where the time went! It’s seems very recently they were both in diapers, both in elementary school, both in middle school and then both in high school. I have loved every minute of raising Stephen and Mikelle.

Here she is in a beautiful blessing dress Yvonne Warnick made for her.

Several other granddaughters have been blessed in this very same dress. I’m not sure where it is now. I hope it is being taken care of, wherever it is so that other baby girls can wear it.

BTW! Breaking news! Mikelle and Logan are preggers!

My favorite of all her school pics!

Such a cute kid. I just went through a bunch of albums and enjoyed all the memories that went along with the pictures. I remember Lisa Bradshaw fixed Mikelle’s hair that morning. Being a working Mom all through their lives, I wasn’t home most morning when they got up and went to school. Lisa was a very good neighbor and did many motherly things for both these two.

This might not be her favorite picture. Before braces. Still cute!

I know exactly where this picture is taken. At our favorite fishing hole
at Green River Lakes!

Same place. Different guy. Different hole.
This is the only guy that matters now!

Same guy. Different place. No hole.

Graduation Day!

At age about 14, I think. It’s the year she absolutely had to have a guitar. I’m pretty sure she has carried it around for the past seven or so years but never learned to play it. Someday . . . there’s still time!

Total goofballs! But notice the very expensive teeth!

Love you!!!!! Happy Birthday Sweet Pea!

Eileen

Happy belated birthday to my little sister, Eileen! I’ve written about her before and just want to say again how blessed my life has been by having her for a sister. I remember a few years ago she was in charge of the brother/sister family reunion. She went all out cooking like a crazy woman and reserved the Bar H near their home for our extravaganza. It was decorated cute and was welcoming and homey. We had milk can dinners — meaning, I guess, that they cooked the whole meal in milk cans. I never heard of such a thing. We slept on her lawn in tents and played games til the cows came home.

Eileen is a lot like my mother. She cooks, sews, serves, works alongside her husband, Mel, has many children who have all grown up into wonderful, responsible, talented adults. Eileen looks like mom, as well. She’s a happy person with a smile that never ends. She tells long stories and laughs at herself. She is a good sport and works overtime to make things just right for everyone else. They often have a huge group going to Green River Lakes in the summertime. I remember one time their group was way over the limit in the campground but instead of moving to two different sites, they were willing to pay for the two sites if they could just all stay together. That says a lot for their family!

Happy day to you! Happy year. Happiness, and Blessings

nailing it

Years ago, shortly after my father unexpectedly passed away, I spent several months seeing a Psychologist. I was struggling with a personal problem, harassment at work, depression, and now grief.

I am, to this day, grateful for the experience. I learned so much about myself, all those onion-y peel-y layers of teen hood and my young adult life. I learned about some of the reasons I became self-sabotaging, self-destructive, self-loathing. I learned why I packed on the pounds and hid under all that weight. And I also learned, along the way, [this took me years!] how to let myself love me again. How to let others love me. I’m still not all that great at it but I’m better than I was at that point in time.

One of the things Dr. Cook taught me and worked so hard to get me to do was to nurture myself. We talked about the empty cup syndrome — how you can’t ever fill someone else’s cup unless you take time [and whatever it takes] to fill up your own cup first.

As women we are taught our whole lives [at least we were in my generation] to put others first. And let’s face it, we are great nurturers. We are great friends and mothers and sisters and daughters. But at a cost to ourselves. We feel guilt and embarrassment to admit when we spend too much time on ourselves. We’re viewed as selfish or conceited or self-absorbed or self-promoting when we primp or pamper or preen. I especially have had a hard time spending money on myself partially because I was raised in a family of nine children who saved every penny we could on sales, reduced-cost items, damaged items, etc. We sewed our own clothes, canned from our garden, and learned to not waste. We lived within our means. We were provident before provident was in!

Now I try to do a few little things for myself that I’ve never done before. I try to take time for lotion. Isn’t that silly? Isn’t that ridiculous that I’ve spent part of my life thinking, believing, I was not important enough, deserving enough, to spend time slathering wonderfully-smelling, soothing lotion into my dry, old skin.

And this past year I’ve been doing my nails. [Yah, those hands are 60 years old.]

I can’t begin to tell you how empowering and healing it is to spend two hours a week soaking, cleaning, filing, strengthening, polishing, buffing, and painting my nails.

They don’t last a whole week. I’m a custodian, so by Saturday they are in pretty dire straights. But every Sunday or Monday for the last couple of months I have looked so forward to this time to primp and pamper and preen and not give a hoot what anyone else says or thinks.

[Maybe someday I'll work on the age spots!]

two more days!

Mikelle and Logan went up the canyon and got wedding pictures today. 10 degrees!

Are these just precious or what!!!!

Love the red socks!

I can’t even tell you how happy our little girls is. Oops. not so little anymore!

Priceless!

Love, love, love!

just three more days

I just got this picture of Mikelle’s nails and her ring . . . .

She’s one excited girl!

Happy New You!

Just wanted to say Happy New You one and all.

Happy journey to b.e.t.t.e.r

Happy journey to h.e.a.l.t.h

Happy journey to c.o.n.t.e.n.t.m.e.n.t

Happy journey to a.n.s.w.e.r.s

Happy journey to p.e.a.c.e

Happy journey to l.o.v.e

Happy journey to j.o.y

Happy journey to y.o.u

Love, me

new new new

It’s the beginning of a new week. The Sabbath. I weigh 142.5 after a week of company, holiday goodies and too much food around the house. In a few days it’s a new year and a new decade — a great time for a new outlook and a new beginning. A while ago I posted the phrase “a new look, a new outlook.” And I know the two go hand-in-hand. Got to have the new outlook in order to stay with the new look. [Wow. 9 'new's in that paragraph! -- so obviously it's my point!]

Mikelle and I were just discussing yesterday how many clothes I have stuffed in the closet. She recognized it’s because there are four sizes in there! I look at some of the clothes I wore six months ago and they are huge. Huge. And I don’t want to go back there. Even all the clothes I recently bought from Christopher and Banks that I thought were so attractive and complimentary are gigantic now, so I really need to pass them along, give them away, let go of them, even though I spent a whole lot of moolah.

Really, got to get rid of them. [Just trying to convince myself!]

My new way of thinking can’t be about ‘better hang on to them just in case . . . .’

We were goofing around and were wondering which one of us was smaller so we challenged each other to put on the other’s pants. Wow. They both fit perfectly! I am the same size as my 21-year-old daughter! I felt so good!

That’s what I’ve got to hang on to. Not a bunch of too-expensive, too-big clothing. I’ve got to hang on to what it feels like to be where I’m at. This is where I want to be until forever. 140 pounds, [still working on that!] size medium, size 10.

That’s the new me.

Yea!

whew . . .

Before

Notice, no Christmas tree this year. I put everything under my darling [handmade] red table in the corner on which sits a favorite Nativity I made years ago. I wanted to take one chaotic activity out of Christmas and the easiest for me this year was to forget the tree.

During

After

What a fun day. I so enjoyed having Scott, Stephen, Mikelle and hubby to enjoy the day with. We spent way too much money on each other. We ate way too much food. We drove way too far for the movie, Holmes. [It was wonderful, though, to see Shelby again for a while at the Evanston Cinema!] Now it’s 8:00 and I’m pooped and they’re all heading to the high school for some round ball.

EVERYONE got vests. Carhartt, of course. Even boyfriend, Logan, who sports matching hats with Mikelle. We really should have taken a picture with all six of us in assorted colors and styles. Vests mean security to me. They mean future, safety, warmth, vacation, hunting, camping, fun, preparedness, quality, unity. They probably shouldn’t mean all that, but they do.