I've Been Avoiding My Own Blog

I meant to come on here and blog about something nice and light, but my subconscious typed the above title without consulting with me first. I didn't even realize I'd been avoiding my own blog until I typed that out. But it's true. I've been avoiding my own blog. Why? Well, let's see.

A week ago last Monday began what I'm starting to think of as the Week from Hell. (I had Holy Week in the summer, so fair's fair I guess.) It all started with a visit to see one of my dearest friends. She lives clear out in Anthem, so we don't get to see each other much. When we do, we usually make a day of it. We spend the entire time chatting and the time flies all too quickly.

Well, while I was there, she told me about a man named Peter Singer. I do not have the heart to blog about him or his flat-out wicked "ethics" (his argument that it's okay to kill disabled babies is the worst) and I'm not even going to link to him. If you feel like getting shocked, outraged, and depressed (about this freaking Professor at Princeton University no less), feel free to Google him yourself. I was so stunned by what I learned, it was all I could think about all the way home. You know when you're so deeply affected by something that watching the world go on it's merry little way just feels wrong somehow? That's how I felt.

Then came all the research on the homosexuality curriculum taking place in Massachusetts (and elsewhere, I've since discovered, but I don't want to talk about that either).

Every single day for a week, I found a new, deeper way to be shocked. I thought blogging about it would help. I thought it would help me feel like I was doing something at least. But it didn't help. I mean really, who reads my blog anyway? Is it really going to make any kind of a difference? By Sunday night, I literally couldn't sleep. Every muscle in my body felt permanently clenched. I couldn't relax at all. No matter what else I was doing, some part of my brain was thinking about all I'd learned.

My heart especially hurt (still hurts) for all the children who, for years now, have been subjected to the curriculum in Massachusetts. These children are innocent. Innocent. They are being tainted by the very people who should be protecting them. It's wrong, and no matter what happens in my own neck of the woods, I worry about those little kids. We should all worry about what they'll do in our society when they're teens. Just how, exactly, are they going to push the envelope?

Over the entire weekend, I knew I couldn't go on stressing about it to this degree. That's just not healthy. But I also knew that I'd learned too much to go back to pretending like the problem isn't there (my preferred method of survival). I'd prayed for balance and for relief, but none came.

Finally, as I was venting about all this to poor Brian, something clicked in my brain. I felt kind of stupid, but I said it aloud anyway: "I feel like I've been traumatized." And I really did. I felt I had been attacked all week long. Not physically, but in every other way.

He said, "That's why you can't relax. You're not one to lie down and take a beating. You're one to fight back."

As soon as he said that, I literally felt half the muscles in my body just let go and relax because I knew he was right. It was a relief to understand it. (The other half of me was thinking, great, now what?)

I still haven't figured out the answer to that question. The very next day, I felt mostly normal again. I felt like I had my life back. I felt happy. I could think about other things. It's been nice.

But every time I come to my blog, or even think about it, all the emotions start to come back: horror, rage, fear, nausea, determination, stagnation. My emotions are too convoluted and mixed up to be productive. I don't think the analytical part of my brain has attacked this problem at all. I need to figure out what I'm going to do about this. Because I just can't let it sit. And yet...

For now it feels like it's all I can do to keep those posts at the top of my blog, and to put links everywhere I can think of in the hopes that some random person checking out my dutch oven apple cobbler recipe (which is fabulous, by the way) will turn into one more person aware, outraged, and prepared to fight (or at least VOTE) for what's right.

It doesn't feel like enough. But right now, I don't have the courage to do anything more.

Recipe: The Best Bread Recipe Ever

I've tried a lot of bread recipes and receive frequent requests for my dinner rolls. This recipe is my new favorite. It's easy, fast, delicious, and makes two huge loaves. It's the bread recipe that has it all. (Thanks to Amy for tipping me off to this.)

2 1/2 cups warm water

2 Tbsp yeast

2 Tbsp sugar

2 cups bread flour

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp salt

Note: you can use just all-purpose flour if that's what you have. The way I measure flour is to tap the measuring cup A LOT before leveling off.

Combine the first three ingredients and allow to sit and get bubbly (about 5 minutes).

Stir slightly, then add remaining ingredients. Stir to combine ingredients until you can begin to knead.

Knead for 5 minutes by hand or 2 minutes in your Kitchenaid mixer using a dough hook. (The dough may be sticky and "climb" the hook. Normally you would add more flour, but I believe the bread turns out better if you don't. The only batch I've ever had that turned out less than fabulous did not have a sticky dough.)

Cover bowl with a towel and let dough rise for 15 minutes.

Divide dough in half and roll each half into a rectangle. The dough will be sticky, so use plenty of flour. Roll up lengthwise and tuck the ends under.

Place on a cookie sheet sprayed with PAM, cover with a towel, and let rise 15 minutes.

Slice dough with a sharp knife right before baking.

Bake in a 450 oven for 12-15 minutes. Immediately brush with butter for a soft, golden crust.

NOTE: The original recipe calls this French Bread, but I don't think it has the flavor of French Bread. It does, however, make an excellent-tasting white bread. I also tried brushing the dough with egg whites for a crunchy crust and it didn't work. I probably did something wrong, but I'm just as happy with a nice, soft crust, so I'm not that fussed about it.

And for all those who have asked for the recipe, sorry it took so long!!

Bear Hugs

Last Saturday I took my munchkins to Build a Bear at the Fashion Square Mall to help stuff bears for kids at Phoenix Children's Hospital (if you missed it, see my original post about this here). We got to meet Jacob, the 10-year-old who put this whole thing together, and he told us there would be over 100 bears stuffed that day. On top of that, his most recent fundraiser was so successful, he's raised enough money to have a second session. Saturday, October 25 at 2:30 pm they'll be stuffing over 70 more! Woo hoo! Contact Jacob if you want to help: jacobagoldfeld@resourcesforhealth.org

This is what we did. First we received a story/tag to fill out with our names.

(Sorry about the bad picture - but I'm too lazy to retype this. It's a cute story.)

Then we stood in a long line of people waiting to stuff bears:

While waiting, we rubbed the hearts that would be going into the bears, to make them warm.

(They got plenty of kisses too.)

Then we stuffed the bears:

Took them to get stitched up:

And gave them a "bath" and brushed their fur so they'd be nice and fluffy for their future owners.

Then Jacob's helpers attached the story to the bear with a ribbon.

(As an aside, we got to choose which color ribbon we wanted. See the colors, blue, orange, yellow, and red? Guess which one I chose. Go ahead guess. Red? No. The word that came out of my mouth was "yellow." I watched the girl grab the yellow ribbon and I thought to myself, "Yellow? What the?" I almost changed it to red, but then I realized I really wanted it to be yellow. Go figure.)

Chris gave his bear an extra hug and extra love for the little child who'd be holding it after him:

Then we turned in our bears to the young man behind the counter, who looked absolutely overwhelmed by all those boxes of donated teddy bears. To me, it was the best thing I saw all day:

I'll be honest, this did not feed the desire to do good that Three Cups of Tea inspired in me. I still feel like I want to do something. I want to do something that will make a difference, and that will not get done if I don't do it. Those bears would have been stuffed and delivered whether we showed up or not.

However, I'm really glad we went. I'm glad my children spent part of their Saturday doing something for someone else. I think this was a good learning experience for my kids; a good start. I hope we remember to look for ways to serve, and I hope this helps nurture a sense of compassion and responsibility in my children's hearts.

P.S. The answer to the Name That Foot post is forthcoming.

P.P.S. John McCain smoked in tonight's presidential debate! Even the commentators couldn't deny it afterward, though they did their best to downplay it. I'm very concerned about who our next president will be. When America is relatively healthy and strong, she can survive a bad president. But America is on dangerously unstable ground right now - we NEED McCain to win.

Name That Foot

Apparently, it's rather unusual for your second toe to be the longest toe. But this little oddity doesn't bother me because I know I'm not the only one. Here's photographic evidence:

Any guesses as to who I wrangled into joining the Foot Hall of Fame? Hee hee.

Jackson Pollack Inspired Art Project

One of the art projects I wanted to do this summer was inspired by Jackson Pollack. It wasn't until we were actualy doing it that I realized we weren't doing it the Pollack way at all, LOL. (Yes, I do realize that I'm a WEE bit late in posting this - it's been sitting in draft form forever.) Anyway, Pollack was the guy who drizzled paint on the canvas, walked all over his canvas, splattered paint on the canvas, flicked his cigarette ashes onto the canvas, and just about every other unorthodox thing you can think of.

His art isn't my favorite, let's get that straight right off the bat. But I can appreciate his skill in color, movement, and composition. People who don't like this stuff tend to say "it's just a big mess." But really, it was Pollack's understanding of artistic elements that keeps it from being a mess. I may not be crazy about the style, but he really did know what he was doing.
Anyway, this was the project I needed the marbles for. We also used balls of various sizes for variety. While I was setting everything up, this is what Ben painted...

...using not a paintbrush, but a ball...



Hee hee. Anyway, here's our paint trays and marbles...




The marbles didn't roll around as easily as I anticipated. That was when I realized Pollack didn't use marbles, he drizzled. Oh well. Anyway, this did get a little messy:








Christopher's final product:

Ben's:

John's:

Mine:


It turned out this was the only art project we did all summer, which makes me sad. Especially since it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. The kids seemed to like it, but I wanted my marble to roll better. Maybe I should have thinned out the paint or something. Hmm. Anyway, there were so many more projects I wanted to do with the kids, and still do. Maybe over Christmas break.
Want to try your hand at creating a Pollack inspired work of art? Click here for the virtual version. Seriously, do it. The entire screen is a blank canvas, and as you roll your mouse around, paint "drips" onto the canvas. Click to change colors. Whether you're into art or not, this is fun. My kids had a blast with it.

Here it is...

I really like this one. Consider it added to the collection. :) They are learning the sight word "the" so Chris wrote "the" on top.

And I'm pretty wiped from helping my mom unpack, so that's the extent of my blogging today.

Dead Poets Society

After my recent post about Miss Potter, I've been thinking about other great movies I love. For some reason, Dead Poets Society has been going through my mind a lot. I LOVE this movie! I've seen it about a million times, but haven't seen it in a few years because we got rid of our VHS tapes and haven't replaced it on DVD yet. Anyway, if you haven't seen it, you should. It's fabulous. (Warning Deb: this will make you cry.)

Here's a couple clips. First, the flying desk set scene:




And the fantastic YAWP scene! (If you only watch one clip, this is the one to watch.)

You've Got to be Kidding Me

In our neighborhood we have a problem with people letting their dogs run loose. It drives me nuts. I'm not one to cause trouble, but it's been so bad that we've even called in complaints on the worst offenders. Nothing ever changes though, so we don't bother anymore.

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Well last night, our dog Ashley got out through the side gate. It was closed, but not latched like I thought it was. The neighborhood kids came running up to tell us she was out because they know she's not supposed to be. The kids were all in a frenzy, about six of them all talking at once, so I couldn't tell what they were all saying. It sounded like Ashley was in a dog fight or something. She's an old dog and doesn't have an aggresive bone in her body. I knew if she was in a fight, it would only be because she was being attacked by a really vicious dog.

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I scrambled for my shoes, ran down the street and what did I see? The dog catcher. What is she doing? Loading MY dog into her truck.

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I caught up to her just in time and she didn't impound my dog, thank goodness. But guess who, out of all the people on this street, ended up with a freaking citation for "dog at large"?

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Me.

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And guess who has to appear before a judge at the end of the month for this CRIMINAL offense? Me.

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Yeah. I'm ticked.

P.S.

Freaking ROME!! I about jumped out of my seat when President Monson announced there's going to be a temple in Rome!! As if I needed any more reasons to go! Oh my holy. My frenzied thoughts went along the lines of: "I'm SO going! I'm gonna be at that dedication! I'll save every penny between now and then. I want to be there. I'm GOING to be there! What more worthy reason could I find? I'll set a goal and I'll do it!" (Repeat about a hundred times.)

Then Elder Perry talked about financial prudence and being debt-free and I thought, "Oh, well, I guess that would be a better goal." So maybe I won't be going after all.

But if I win the lottery, I'm SO GOING!!!!

General Conference and Me

Weren't those primary children magnificent?? I actually found a blog entry by someone who works behind the scenes of conference; click here if you want to see her crazy schedule.

I've debated whether or not to post my thoughts about conference, just because it's a little more personal (or more spiritual) than what I usually post. But I'm going to anyway, mainly because I want to hold myself accountable. How many times do we set a goal only to forget about it or leave it half-done? I've had several impressions during conference (particularly during Saturday's sessions) that I want to follow through on. I'm hoping making them public will help.

Family Home Evening:

Many, many times I'd be listening to a talk and think "we should do a FHE on this." I made a note of it each time, along with any ideas that would come to me for related object lessons or activities. While there was a (brief) time when I was pre-planning our FHE's, these days more often than not, our FHE's are thrown together about five minutes before they start. I've been unhappy with this and resolving to do better, but... well... I haven't.

I like to work on things in big chunks when I'm feeling motivated. So what worked for me before was to plan out several FHE's at once, print them out on one sheet of cardstock that I kept near my computer, and pick our FHE's from that. I'm going to do that again, and be better about restocking my supply of planned FHE's as they get low. (By the way, that was how we got a lot of John's scout stuff done too.)

I also feel we need some sort of loose curriculum to help me put all my ideas and goals into a format that's not too overwhelming (while eliminating the need to reinvent the wheel every week). For months now I've been wanting to steal an idea from a friend of mine, and utilize this great book called The Other Eminent Men of Wilford Woodruff. I have the book, but that's as far as I've gotten. Now I have all these ideas from conference too. So, to try to get it all organized in my brain, here are my thoughts about this so far:

I'd like a monthly testimony meeting (the Monday before Fast Sunday would be perfect) where we review principles of heartfelt prayer and testimony. We've discovered our children need frequent reminders about this (just like adults do). I think for the first several lessons, I can focus on a single principle from Elder Bednar's fantastic talk (Saturday afternoon session). The activity will be bearing of testimonies.

I know a lot of people spend the six months in between conferences re-reading all the talks. I think that's amazing. It's something I'd like to do myself (especially with President Monson's admonition), but I've had that thought before and never even come close. (Translation: I pretty much never re-read any talks.) So, believing in baby steps, I'm going to select a few talks for us to review for FHE, once a month or so between now and April.

On my list right now:

• President Uchtdorf's Saturday morning talk on Hope (isn't he the most amazing speaker ever???)
• Elder Oaks' great talk about Sacrament meeting worship. (I've tried before to sit quietly before the meeting starts, but it's such a huge part of the culture to talk to and greet each other during that time. How are we supposed to say "I'm trying to contemplate and prepare for the sacrament" without sounding rude? Then it came to me: have my scriptures open on my lap, and either read them, or look like I'm reading them while actually pondering my own thoughts. I don't think people will interrupt that. So that's what I'm going to try. ... Getting there early will probably help too.)
• Neil Anderson's story about the little girl born deaf and the little boy in the wheelchair. I want to share that story with my children again. I may or may not add more to it, using that little girl's statement "Jesus will make everything alright" as our theme.
• President Eyring's talk on unity, particularly family unity.
• I had already planned on a "What's Great About America" FHE (inspired by a scout requirement) that we'll do the Monday before Veteran's Day. I'll also incorporate some thoughts from President Packer's talk on pioneers, persecution, and patriotism.
• Stripling warrior FHE with the theme about how we should not be "consumers of vice" but rather "guardians of virtue," as in Sister Dalton's talk. We'll talk about the 13th Article of Faith too.
• I want to re-read Elder Cook's talk about the two pioneer women. That may be a good FHE as well.

We (I) need to make a set of cards for the apostle memory game. I want all of us to know their names and faces better than we do. That can be our go-to game for FHE when I don't have anything else planned.

Personal Application:

Well... no, this is too personal. I'll keep this goal to myself, but I will say I found Elder Bednar's talk incredibly inspiring.

I also need to revisit Elder Christopherson's talk, because the kids were really distracting me and I missed most of it. I want to see what the three things are we're supposed to do to build Zion.

I loved what he said about being content with what we have. I do believe that is a true principle, and I think I live it for the most part. But there are times when I find myself comparing what I have with others, which is never a good idea. It's good to be reminded of all the great reasons to be grateful and happy, and to focus on the things that really matter. When we leave this earth, what do we really take with us anyway?

I also want to remember what our prophet has counseled us to pray for, in both personal and family prayers.


And those are my thoughts about general conference. It was, as always, an amazing experience. Whenever the last session of conference ends, I always have the same thought: "I can't wait until next time."

General Conference and My Kids

This weekend is General Conference, something I look forward to every April and October. It's always such an uplifting, inspiring, and encouraging experience. I just love it.

Last Sunday we had a number of talks about conference, and one in particular (Sean A'lee's) inspired me to make conference a truly special experience for the whole family. My children are still pretty young, but not as young as they used to be. I decided we could step up our efforts, and get them on the next level so that someday (hopefully) they'll be listening to each speaker with their ears and their hearts.

We had a FHE about it on Monday, and everyone got really excited. We each have a copy of Genny's fabulous Conference packet, along with various plans and ideas intended to get the children really involved. In the past, I was happy if they were just quiet (my primary reason for using packets in the past). On Saturdays, I didn't even make them watch at all if they didn't want to. That certainly made it easier for me to pay attention. But this time would be different.

The children were excited about it all week. An improvement right there. And they eagerly participated for the first hour of the Saturday morning session.

The second hour, not so much. I heard more complaining and cries of "when's it going to be over?" I started to wonder how we were going to get through the next three sessions. More than that, I didn't want their enthusiasm for conference to turn into dread.

Then, something miraculous happened. The closing hymn was "I Need Thee Every Hour." This is the hymn we've been memorizing as a family, the first hymn we've ever done that with. I love this hymn for so many reasons, the most recent of which is that I've come to think of it as "our family's" hymn.

The children's enthusiasm returned as they recognized "our" hymn and began singing with the choir. I felt encouraged, and grateful. How wonderful to end the session like this, I thought.

But the choir was singing it very, very slowly. It was beautiful, but about half way through my children were bored again. So much for ending on a good note.

But that's okay. I still felt encouraged. I felt I had been reminded that life is a process. My children are still young. We have plenty of time. We'll get there. It may be years before we have the family general conference weekends I envision, if we ever do at all. But we're trying our best, and that's all I can ask for.

Miss Potter

I have a new movie to add to my favorites list: Miss Potter, the biography of Beatrix Potter, author of the Peter Rabbit books. Roccy lent this movie to me (a long time ago, I'm afraid) and I finally had a chance to watch it. I LOVED it! I love period movies (Little Women is another one of my favorites) as well as anything that has to do with the creative process (Finding Neverland is about the author of Peter Pan, and that's another fantastic movie).

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Watching Miss Potter made me (and the kids) want to read her stories, and it made me want to know more about this woman and her life. I wasn't crazy about who they cast for Miss Potter, but other than that, I thought this movie was very well done. I highly recommend it.

Actually, I recommend the others as well:

Creatures, Beetles, and Boys, Oh My!

Between Julie's post about pink bows and shoelaces for the girls' soccer team, and Amy's post about sisters (including the clip for a song I've never even heard before) I thought I'd share what
my life is like.

One morning, John discovers a beetle on the back patio. It's on it's back, little legs flailing. Does John scream or come running to me that there's a bug? No, he does what any little boy would logically do. He grabs a piece of chalk and draws a circle around it.

Then he notices another beetle (I have no idea where these things came from) likewise on it's back, and he draws a circle around that one. He writes the word "one" next to the first circle, and "two" next to the other circle.

(These pictures were taken after the beetles were long gone.)

This sets off a coloring spree on my back patio. All three boys were happily drawing pictures and writing words, completely unpeturbed by the gross beetles in their midst. In fact, they drew a picture of a beetle:

Chris drew a picture of a "creature."

This is a favorite pasttime of his lately. He has a notebook filled with more than a dozen different drawings of creatures. For each, it is apparently my motherly duty to assure him that these creatures are "awesome" and "freaky."

You can tell this kid has older brothers. When John was his age, it was all Sesame Street and Clifford, play-doh and Little People castles. Not so for the younger brother of a nine-year-old. Ah well.

In school, Christopher's class had to draw a picture of an animal. The teacher then wrote underneath it the word for what they drew, and posted these on the bulletin board outside the classroom door.

I see why she labeled them, because with kids this young sometimes you can tell that's a picture of a "fish" but other times, you'd never know you were looking at a "lion."

There were lots of fish, dogs, rainbows, etc. There were two drawings of "Transformers" and I'd wager a guess that those artists have older brothers as well. But I'd say Chris had them all beat in the "I'm a BOY" department. What was the label underneath his picture?

"Creature with many arms."

And nary a pink bow to be found.

More Mandalas

I'm a little late in posting this, but I was inspired by that Mandala Madness site (see my mandala post from August) and decided to fill in one of their coloring pages. I started in the center, with no real plan, and just built it a layer at a time. It was fun and I want to do more.

I just went back to the Mandala Madness site, and it's now closed. You can still see all the old posts and download coloring pages, but she's not maintaining it anymore. I also found another cool mandala site. This lady uses a CD to trace the initial circle, and I like the idea of starting with something small. My mandalas are twice that size. She also has an easygoing, encouraging post about how to create your own mandala.

Fun!

False Kiva

Did I say Italy? Nevermind, I want to go here:

A true image from False Kiva

(For an enlarged picture, click this link for the APOD explanation:) "Is there any place in the world you could see a real sight like this? Yes. Pictured above is a single exposure image spectacular near, far, and in between. Diving into the Earth far in the distance is part of the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, taken with a long duration exposure. Much closer, the planet Jupiter is visible as the bright point just to band's left. Closer still are picturesque buttes and mesas of the Canyonlands National Park in Utah, USA, lit by a crescent moon. In the foreground is a cave housing a stone circle of unknown origin named False Kiva. The cave was briefly lit by flashlight during the long exposure. Astrophotographer Wally Pacholka reports that getting to the cave to take this image was no easy trek. Also, mountain lions were a concern while waiting alone in the dark for just the right exposure."


Wait, did he say mountain lions? Scratch that, I'll keep Italy. ;)


Here's another spectacular photo of False Kiva :

This archaeological site is not on the official maps. The trail is treacherous and not easy and the site is not protected from vandalism. There is a good chance you won't meet a soul on the trail and at the ruins. Hiking along the canyon top is not for the faint of heart, but the destination is well worth the effort. (Photo and explanation found here)