Thanksgiving thoughts…

Amy did a challenge to write down our thoughts for thanksgiving. I intended to do it anyway, but it was a really good reminder, so here goes!

• Thanksgiving Eve was spent making rolls. I loved that I was making rolls, while my sister and mom were simultaneously making the same recipe. Even though we weren’t eating together, it made me feel very close to both of them. And a little jealous that they were making pies and I wasn’t (chickened out!)
• It is so nice having only one family dinner to go to. We have had more to go to in the past, and usually our holidays are spent running from one county to another, driving forever, and getting home really late, exhausted. This thanksgiving, we only had one family to visit, which was lovely. We had a great meal, the rolls I made were so good (if I do say so myself!), and we were home and in bed by 8:30. What a peaceful holiday!
• I didn’t have really anything to get up at any sickening hour of the morning for on Friday, so we slept in until 9am. Lovely! That is one nice thing about my kids: they may not go to sleep at night, but they will sleep til 8:30 or 9 with no problem. I love that!
• All of my Christmas decorations were up by noon on Friday. My kids (all three, the biggest one was the most excited! Shane LOVES Christmas) helped me decorate everything. It was so fun! I love seeing my stuff come out each year, and adding new items to treasure. I love decorating for Christmas most of any holiday.
• We braved the craziness of the mall on Saturday afternoon just to get out. I can’t believe there are that many early shoppers! It was packed.
• I spent a quiet evening sewing on Saturday night while Shane went to a movie at a friend’s house. Before the kids went to bed, Thomas, Ben and I watched Bridge to Terebinthia, and I thought I would cry my eyes out. Thomas kept wiping my eyes for me and asking me if I was okay. I love movies that make you cry!
• I tried out the “new” Sunday school class, and it’s okay. A few friends are in that class who I can sit by, so even if the lesson isn’t that great, the company is. I guess it is good to change things up every now and again.

I loved this year’s thanksgiving, and felt so blessed. I think that the lists and entries I did leading up to the day really helped me to make it a special year. It is always nice to count your blessings! I hope you got to count yours, too.

Gratitude, Day 10

Well, I should have about 15 of these gratitude entries, but life happens, so I can just be “grateful” I wrote as much as I did, and be happy about it.

Ever since last night I’ve known what I want to blog about today. A little history: in September, I had a bunion taken off my right foot. The thing was bothering me a bit when I ran, and I could get it done for free through a drug study, so I did it. I am pretty much done with doctor appointments and stuff, but I hadn’t really gotten back into my “Tuesday running day” routine.

Until last night. I thought I would just get on the treadmill and walk, but it felt so good that I ran and ran, and then ran a little more. I ended up doing much more running than walking, and a good bit of the time was at a level that I used to run at a lot when I wanted to be speedy. There I was, flying along on the treadmill, a grin from ear to ear as I ran to all my favorite songs on the mp3: “Read my Mind” by the Killers, “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol (I always see Izzie in my mind, wearing her pink dress! Why did Denny have to die?), “Head on” by Jesus and Mary Chain. I’m paying for it today; my toe is a little swollen and sore, but it is so worth it.

I can run again! (cue the angels singing “hallelujah” in the background, beating their wings and smiling down on my smiling face!)

And with that, I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving Eve, when rolls and turkeys and pies are prepared in the quiet of the night. May all your pies be flaky, your rolls fluffy, your turkeys juicy (and de-gibleted; I will only make THAT mistake once!) and your gravy unlumpy. Yay! It’s Thanksgiving!

Gratitude, Day 9

It has been a crazy couple of days. I'll just do a list of stuff today.

• I am grateful for our country, and the system that we live in. It isn't perfect, but it is what all other countries strive to emulate. I sat on a Jury last Friday, and it is amazing how our system works. What a blessing it is to live here, where people have a chance at proving their guilt, rather than their innocence.
• I am grateful for holiday cleaning. I have done some deep cleaning lately, and it feels so good to dig in and really get something clean. Note to self: it may be a good idea to pull the couch away from the wall every now and then. The cats tend to lose hair against it, and you don't want to spend another hour vacuuming it. Just a suggestion.
• I am grateful for good friends, and how good spending time talking about life with them feels.
• For bedtime, when my little ones are asleep, and I can blog for half a minute.

And with that, I am going to head to bed myself. I am so excited for Thanksgiving this week, and I hope this is a great week for everyone.

Gratitude, Day 8

I have a busy day, so I'm going to keep this short. Who knew I could write anything short?

A few years ago, when my dad was first diagnosed with Alzheimers, Amy and I spent Thursdays visiting him. On one such Thursday, I took my dad to a little bookstore on main street in the town where my parents live. I showed him some books that I love, and I read a passage out of East of Eden by John Steinbeck (the part where they talk about the Jewish scholars all trying to decipher Genesis and Cain and how we have the freedom to choose our paths). My dad decided he wanted the book, and even though I knew he probably wouldn't be able to read it, I still bought it for him.

Last year, my mom brought the book up to me when she and my dad came to see Thomas play in a soccer game. I don't know if he remembered the book, or if he tried to read it, but she wanted to let me have it (I was grateful for her thoughtfulness!) Before I took it, I had my dad sign his name in the front. "Don", written in red ink, underlined and in handwriting that still seems so familiar, adorns the inside cover of my copy of East of Eden. I love that I have this book, and this little momento of my dad. That signature means so much to me, more than any letter he could write. I have his name.

I am grateful for my dad. I miss him more than I can say.

With my boys, shortly after he was diagnosed.

Gratitude, Day 7

So, yesterday I was home again with my kids, since we had to give them time for antibiotics to work before they could go back to the babysitter and daycare. One of Kelli’s challenges was to organize drawers and closets before the holidays. I decided that my closets could definitely use some sprucing up.

Now, you have to understand something. I am not a neat-freak. I have tried to fit into my husband’s view of having a clean house, and I can keep the house in a clean-ish state that will not completely drive him nuts. My two places of solitude where I can be slovenly are at work (my desk is usually trashed, but I never lose anything!) and my closets. Shane’s closet is perfectly organized: shoes are matched and lined up; hangers are a finger’s width away from each other; all work shirts, t-shirts, pants, long sleeve shirts, and any other designation of clothes are each hung in their allotted spots; and the top of his closet has perfectly folded clothing in piles according to type. My closet is a disaster, and it doesn’t bother me a bit. As long as the stuff isn’t falling out onto the floor in front of the closet, I am fine with it. At this point, you can pretty much conclude that this approach of closet-organization exists in the rest of the closets in my house. Shane cringes when he opens them, but is generally a good sport.

So, yersterday I decided to give him some warm fuzzies by going through the hall closet, which houses sheets, picture books, cameras, sewing implements, gift bags, a laundry basket, and other junk. I threw out tons of old shopping bags, because why do I really need them, right? I made room on one shelf to put the cameras so that they no longer perch precariously on the edge of another shelf. It was so nice to get rid of some of that stuff.

(So now I’m getting to the point of my post, hold on!) In the midst of my purging, I found a few items that I had forgotten about or just never dealt with before. One plain box on a random shelf housed all the cards that had been given to Shane and me when we were married. I read each one, thinking about how some of those whose words I was reading had passed away or had fallen out of our lives in the nine years since they were written. I kept all of the insides of the cards, the parts that people we love (or loved then) had written to us, and put them in page protectors.

I found a card from Shane that he had written to me the night before we were married. I had forgotten how he had insisted after our reception that we stop at our apartment for something before going to the hotel where we would spend the night. Inside the fridge were the card and a bouquet of roses, bought with the intention of giving to his new wife on the first night of our lives together.

I found two packets full of pictures that I had completely forgotten about. These were a true find. When I first met Shane, I lived in a little dive apartment on 700 south in Salt Lake City. I initially lived there with roommates who I didn’t know, but eventually I grew to love them. I also had one friend or another live there for short spans of time. I did a ton of growing up in that apartment, and I have nothing to show for it but memories. But yesterday, I found a picture of me in the room I occupied there. To see my young self and the way my life looked then was such a treasure. A few pictures later I saw myself at my last Grateful Dead concert in 1995 with two friends I still love but don’t have in my life anymore. A few more pictures and I saw me performing with the Ririe-Woodbury summer dance workshop the summer I got together with Shane.

There I was, sitting in my thirty-something body, in my suburban house with my two children playing with play dough, bulging sacks of junk all around me, and all of a sudden I was remembering the girl that I used to be. I remembered all my transformations, and the decisions that made those transformations happen. I felt both a distance and an infinite closeness to her, and wondered what she would think if she knew how it all turned out.

Today I am grateful for memories. I am grateful that a box of old cards and pictures can bring back my younger self so vividly that I can almost feel her sitting on my shoulder. I am grateful for all the pictures of my babies, and that I don’t have to rely on memory alone to remember who they were when they were young. I am grateful for days when I can unearth these treasures and have time to roll around in the feelings they invoke. I am grateful for the person that I am, and was, and one day will be.

And I am grateful for clean closets, of which there are now 2 in my house.

Gratitude, Part 6

Kelli at There is No Place Like Home, is doing a "Giving Thanks" week. I thought I would link this post to her site. Thanks, Kelli, for helping us appreciate this time of year!

Today I am grateful for sisters. As the youngest of three girls, I feel that I have been very blessed to know all the great things that come from having sisters.

My sisters are Michele, who is 9 years older than me, Suzette, who is 7 years older than me, and Amy who is 3 years older than me. I still have a slight case of hero worship attached to them; if they say it, inevitably I will want to do exactly what they said. When we were little, the older ones seemed so knowledgeable and so capable. I can remember them helping cook dinner with my mom and helping around the house. I remember when I broke my arm and my mom was out of town on business. Michele left work early and took me to the hospital to get my arm fixed. The things they did that I watched, like driving a car, graduating from high school, going on dates with boys, seemed so grown up.

Amy, on the other hand, was a true sister. One early memory I have is when I left one of her records (I think it was the soundtrack from Mary Poppins, but I can’t be sure) out where the sun could reach it in our shared pink bedroom. When I discovered that it was warped, I hid it under her bed so that she wouldn’t find it immediately when she came home from school. Another time, we were both standing outside our hometown gymnastics gym, waiting for rides that would take us to another gym 2 towns away. We were both with our friends, and we were fighting about something. I was mad at her, and wanted to do something rash, so I reached out my hand scratched her forehead with my thumbnail! She was furious, and I was frightened for my life. I don’t think she retaliated, but it was scary (and strangely exhilarating!) all the same.

I have tried to watch and learn from my sisters. I followed the same educational path as Amy by majoring in English. Books and reading and writing are some of our favorite things to talk about when we are together. I also watched her go through some impressively tough trials, and I saw her emerge stronger and more focused than I had ever imagined a person could be. She has been a great example to me in many ways. I watched another sister lose her young husband and take up the trial of widowhood with 4 young daughters. I am still amazed at how she put her life back together and has raised them so well alone. I also watch a sister battle alcohol dependence, and have watched her very personal trials become very public in our family. I know she battles her demons each day, and is trying to overcome them with all that she has.

My sisters lives are so tied to my own, and their trials will always be my sorrows. I wish with all that I am that I could make it better, but we all have to work out our lives on our own. I just hope that they know how much I love them, and that my life would be diminished without them in it.

In August of 2006, Amy and I hiked Timpanogas together. We had a wonderful morning hiking the mountain, and reached the summit pretty early. It was a popular day to hike, since it was the weekend before Labor Day. As we were at the summit, eating our lunch and talking to one another, I saw Stephanie, my friend Melanie’s sister. Stephanie and I had only met a few times before, but we still chatted for a while and she took a picture of Amy and me together. When I went to introduce Amy to Stephanie, I introduced her as Mel’s sister, and we remarked on how we were each from families of 4 daughters. Amy and Steph liked that they were both in the “prime” position of being the third daughter in the family. As we chatted, I inwardly smiled that the three of us were linked in our understanding of being and having sisters, and recognizing that part of ourselves in each other. I feel blessed each day that God gave me sisters, and I hope they know how special they are to me.

Gratitude, part 5

I was a slacker and didn’t get a post for yesterday. I’ll just say that yesterday I was grateful for family time and sewing, because that is how I spent my day! It was a nice Sunday.

I have been thinking all day about what to put on my blog for a good entry. I feel like I’ve set myself up for these grand schemes of things to be grateful for. That is exactly the opposite of what I had intended when I decided to write about a gratitude each day. To worry about composing some huge epitaph that will go down in the history books is so not my intent, but yet I have put all this pressure on myself. So, today, I am going to keep my gratitude simple, and list some “simple” things that I am grateful for.,

• Being able to get back into bed this morning when I realized Benny was still sick. Thomas was asleep in my bed, and Benny was barely awake. I cuddled up to them and we all slept for another hour, all warm and cozy in my bed (for a change!).
• That I had stayed home today, since I got a call from the pediatrician saying that Thomas’ strep culture had come back positive. I wouldn’t have gotten the message until after work, and poor Thomas would have been miserable all day at school.
• How kind Thomas' teacher is. When I went to pick him up, she gave me enough work to keep him busy for two days, and was so relieved that I had come to get him, because she knew he didn’t feel well. She is great!
• My awesome job that lets me do things from home when my kiddies are sick.
• The fun sewing project I worked on yesterday. It might not get completed in time for Christmas, but it was a delight to work on! I hope one day it will be an advent calendar, if I ever finish it.
• Eating pizza and watching a Christmas-y DVD with my kids on a cold autumn night.
• That I live in a time when kind doctors can help make my kids better when they are sick.
• The internet that allows me to keep a weekly, if not daily, account of my friends and family’s lives.
• That it finally is starting to feel like Thanksgiving time!
• Thomas’ face when he saw me coming to get him from school. He was at recess, and his little face just lit up and was so glad to see his mom. One day, the thought of me coming to his school will horrify him, but today, he loved it. He’s big, but not too big yet!
• Benny’s excitement when he got to put on pajamas (jammies to him!) at 4pm. When I asked why like them, he said, “Because they’re WARM!” If he could, he would live in pajamas.

And with that, I’m going to go and try to spend some time with my kids, who have fended for themselves while I have worked today. They are such great boys!

Gratitude, part 4.

I have to say that today I am grateful for good health. This is because I am longing for my kids to BE healthy again! Since Wednesday, Ben and Thomas have both been fevering, coughing, and being miserably sick.

When I first had Thomas, I was such a worry wart. That kid would sneeze and I would make him an appointment at the pediatrician; I have had the number memorized since he was 2 days old! Anyways, I as he grew, I’ve gotten better at determining the level of sickness they are at before subjecting them and myself to the doctors office. And now that we have Ben, I like to think that sickness is just old hat. I’m an experienced mom, right?

But then they both got sick with the same symptoms on the same day. How often does that happen? Anyhow, when we are nice and normal feeling, we get some pretty good sleep around here. But the past few nights have been really awful. I am guilty of putting my kids in my bed at the drop of the hat just because I am too lazy to miss out on sleep, so them being in my bed is no strange feat. This week, that laziness has resulted in a bout of sleeplessness that has left us all really grumpy.

Example: last night, no one was asleep at 11pm when Shane and I finally decided to go to bed. Ben was in his bed, but having trouble sleeping, and Thomas was sleeping on the floor of his room, propped up on pillows, coughing his head off. So, Ben starts crying, so I go and lay down with him. I went back to my bed after he was asleep. An hour later, everyone was in my bed, and Shane gave up and went into Ben’s bed. Me and the boys were content for a while, but Thomas started coughing again. After dosing him with cough medicine, I grabbed a blanket and went in search of a bed. Shane heard me and invited me into Ben’s bed. So, an hour of so later, Ben joined us (and my, isn’t it special to sleep in a twin bed with 2 adults and a toddler!) Shane (are you seeing a pattern?) got sick of being stuffed into the corner and went and got into Thomas’ bed. Another hour passes, and Thomas wants to get into bed with Ben and I. I had to draw the line, and so I told him to go back and get in my bed. He ended up in his own bed with Shane. My bed remained vacant for the remainder of the night. Ah, it makes me tired just writing about it.

So, tonight I want to express my gratitude for our normally healthy house. I am glad that we don’t spend as much time as in years past in the pediatrician. I am grateful that my boys little bodies are strong and healthy.

Maybe in a few years I’ll be able to post about my gratitude for a good nights sleep. It sounds pretty far off tonight, though!

Gratitude, Part 3

I was trying to decide what to be grateful for today. Since I’m not putting these in any order necessarily, I could write about anyone or anything in my life, but I think Shane should be next.

Ah, my Shaney, as I like to call him. When they say you should marry your best friend, I know exactly what that means. Years before we were kissing on one another (or even thinking about it, much!), Shane and I were friends. We worked together at a little dive of a copy center in Salt Lake. We flirted like crazy day in and day out. Our favorite thing to do when we were bored was play games with whatever implements were handy. One that sticks out in my mind involved flipping a pen that was positioned on the edge of the copy counter into an awaiting garbage can half a room away. We probably played this game for an hour one day, inviting all our coworkers to join in as they came into the copy center. We also used to sit next to each other on top of this table that was in the back room of the store. He would swing his legs, and I would position myself so that I could kick his foot forward as it swung back. I love thinking about those times together, when we were just friends. He knew me so completely by the time we finally got together that it felt like slipping on an old glove, one that is warm and soft and knows the hand it is enveloping.

Shane and I have so much fun together in this life we have created. He is the best dad, and he never wants to waste a second of the time he has with our boys while they are young. Once he is home from work, he wants to spend time with them, playing and watching movies and teasing and playing the infamous tickle game. I am grateful that he has worked so hard to allow me to be home with my boys 4 of the 7 days of the week. Everything he does, he does for us, and I can never repay him for that. Our boys repay him for that by loving him so much that they never allow him to sleep. Poor Shane spends a lot of nights on the floor or squeezed onto approximately ½ of an inch of the bed due to the fact that three others are sprawled out on the rest of the bed, snoring and twitching and stealing all the covers. My poor sleep-deprived husband!

Shane has taught me to love running. If it weren’t for him, I probably would still hate it. One of my favorite memories is the time we spent together before we had Ben, training for the Salt Lake City Marathon. We spent every Saturday morning for months running together. I loved the talks that we had during these times. Since you are out of breath, you tend to not put a lot of wordiness into the conversation, so we were able to talk about so many things that were important in a very concise manner. I loved finishing that marathon holding his hand, knowing that we had accomplished yet another great feat together. I love him very much, and am so proud of the man that he has become in the nearly 14 years I have known him. I am so grateful to have him be my kids Dad, and he is my partner through this life.

Oh, and I have a hard time getting him to pose for pictures, so here are a few I have managed to get of him with the boys.




At the zoo.

This summer at his Aunt's house.

Gratitude, Part 2

Today I am grateful for Ben (well, not just today, but I will write about him today!) Benny is my fierce child; he has a will of his own, and has been that way since day one. I can remember at six months old, he would throw a fit if something were taken away from him. He is still that way; if you take it, he freaks out, but if you ask him very nicely, with a “please,” he will happily hand it to you, his sweet smile lighting up his face. Ben wants respect, plain and simple.

I’ll be the first to admit that we totally babied Thomas, but this hasn’t been the case with Ben. He wants to be big, and has reached milestones earlier than Thomas did out of sheer determination. I think it helps that there are older children at his babysitter’s house who have showed him how to be big. It’s nice in that I don’t have to do everything for him; he likes to feed himself, get himself dressed, go to the potty by himself, but I sometimes I miss helping him a little.

I think Ben wants to be just like Thomas. His first words in the morning if he can’t see his brother are “Where is Thomas?” He is happy to follow Thomas around all day, but he won’t take any crap from his brother. I used to worry about Thomas hurting Ben; now I worry about Ben hurting Thomas. Like I said, it’s all about giving him respect.

What I remember best about Ben as a baby was how content he was. He loved to be cuddled and held close, but he was equally as happy to have his own space to look at the world and figure things out. This has translated into him being able to entertain himself very well now that he is older. When he gets bored of watching mom all day, he will go and play in his room with his toys and be happy as can be.

I never expected to have two boys together. Coming from an all-girl family, I pictured boys as loud and obnoxious, with bulls-in-a-china-cupboard mentality. I’ll admit that often my boys are like that, but I have loved being a mom to boys. I’m learning to reach them on their level, and to appreciate their physicality and love of the rough-and-tumble. Ben is happiest playing what we call around here “the tickle game.” Apparently, nothing makes my boys happier than tickling and attacking their dad while he tickles and attacks them back. Personally, the tickle game doesn’t do much for me, but they love it, and I throw in a few attacks myself when they play, and they get so excited.

I am so grateful for my little Benny. He knows what he wants, and won’t let anything get in his way. I love him for how fierce he is in all that he does, including the love he shows me. I feel so blessed to have him in my life.

Ben at five months, his first 4th of July.

My little superman.

Gratitude, Part 1:

Today, I am grateful for Thomas. Here are a few reasons why.

Before Shane and I were married, I wrote in my journal that if we got married, I felt like we would have a son first. Four years later, Thomas joined us. He is so much like me; we butt heads all the time because we are both so stubborn and so determined to do things the way we want. This alikeness presents challenges that I try (sometimes not so successfully) to use to help me grow as a parent.

Thomas is a pleaser. He will do things just to make others around him happy. This can be good and bad, but it shows me what a good heart he has and how much he loves others. He also never wants to miss out on anything. I could never cradle him as a baby; he always had to be held upright so that he knew what everyone else was doing. The curiosity always gets the better of him, and he will run to any situation going on in the house just to be in on the fun (or not so fun, as it sometimes happens!) I am grateful that I can understand these things about him.

One of my favorite memories of Thomas happened on his first Christmas Eve. When he was born, he had a club foot, which meant each week he got a new cast that would stretch his foot into a better, straighter position. We had expected 6-8 weeks of casts, but he had a stubborn foot, and by Christmas at 4 months old, he was still in the middle of his treatment. On that particular morning, I got completely fed up with having a baby with a cast. Going off information from a girl I met at the pediatrician’s office, I grabbed a bucket from the garage, stuck it in the sink and filled it with water about a dozen times as I soaked off Thomas’ cast! It took about 45 minutes of propping him up on the side of the bucket, but I finally prized it off. For 4 days (of course, he had to go back to the doctor, and another cast was put on!), I had a baby with no cast on his foot, no plaster to keep dry as I bathed him. Shane thought I was nuts, but I was so happy to have my baby and feel all his little limbs under my fingertips. I am grateful that those days are over, and that he has a wonderful working foot.

I took this picture that night; it is one of my favorites of him, ever!

Thomas is my experiment child. Since he was born, I have been figuring out things as I go, and bringing him along for the ride. The six years I have spent with him have been filled with so many wonderful moments: the sweetness of him as a sleeping, well-nursed baby, heavy in my arms; the joys of all his first teeth, first steps, first words, first days of school, first lost teeth (as of last night!); the excitement of watching him learn to read and write and spell and add. It has such a wonderful thing to be his mom. I miss the time that we used to spend just together; since Ben was born, the moments for being with just Thomas aren’t as many. But I am grateful for his kind heart, enthusiasm, and excitement for life. They say your firstborn is your best foot forward, and he has been all that and more.

The morning after he was born.

Playing with Ben on his cousin's 4-wheeler.

I love you, Thomas!

And just because.

Every year on the night the Steelers play on Monday Night Football, I take a picture of Shane with the boys, each wearing their Steeler Jersey's. Here is last night's picture. Aren't they all so cute! Not sure what the sign is that Thomas is doing, but whatever.

Thankfulness...

It’s November. It’s been warm, but that hint of campfire smell that comes with fall is in the air. The radio stations have completely bypassed Thanksgiving and moved on to Christmas (and I have to admit, we have been listening since the day after Halloween! We love Christmas music). But here we are, a few weeks away from the holiday that calls us all home, not for presents or wrapping paper or decorated trees, but for family, warm smells from the kitchen, our mom’s apple pie.

We have the tradition to trade off houses for Thanksgiving. One year at my mom’s, the next at Shane’s. This gives us the best of both worlds, it seems. At my mom’s, the house is bursting; my parents, me and my three sisters, two husbands (and sometimes an extra ex-husband; hey, he’s still part of the family!), our combined 13 children, my married nieces’ husbands (quantity: two) and their babies. My mom cooks and cooks, and once we sisters throw in our culinary offerings, the result is a lot of noise and food and kids and love.

On the other hand, dinner at Shane’s moms is a quiet affair. It will just be us, Vonnay and her boyfriend Phil, and Phil’s sweet mom Margaret, whom we have adopted in our hearts as a grandma and great-grandma. Here, the tradition of going around the table and saying what we are thankful for will precede the prayer, and more than one of us will bow our heads with tears in our eyes. Quiet one year, chaos the next. I am grateful for both, because they contrast one another so completely.

But here I go again, spilling out words that don’t say what I intended. Thanksgiving Day, as wonderful as it is, as much as I look forward to it, will come and go. The food will be prepared and eaten, the leftovers warmed up that night as we bemoan our bursting waistlines, and we will move on to the next holiday. But the things that make Thanksgiving Thanksgiving are always in my heart, regardless if it is the 4th Thursday of November. Hopes for my family’s well-being and happiness crowd my heart. Desire for a peaceful life is in my prayers. Laughter at the silliness of my boys echoes in my house. But the business of Christmas comes so fast, and tends to diminish the feelings of gratitude that come from that day. If I save it all up for just one day, it goes too fast.

So, it is my goal this year to feel Thanksgiving for more than one day. I want to fill the next few weeks with the things that I am grateful for, so that when the day comes, I can feel that it hasn’t come too soon: Thanksgiving Day will be the culmination of a fortnight of gratitude. Therefore, I am going to try a few new things to add to this wonderful season. I don’t know everything I will do yet, but I have a few plans. One that I can commit to now is to put something on my blog each day that I am grateful for. Another is to tell those around me how I feel about them. Maybe I can even mend a few bridges, (we will have to see how brave I am; some stones are better left unturned, but you never know until you look!) Hopefully, my efforts can make this a great Thanksgiving season, bursting with warmth and love and hopes that are inherent in it.

So, is there anything you are wanting to do to make this holiday special?

Line upon line…

I don’t usually write much about my faith. I feel like it is personal, and I don’t want to put myself out there and say things that could be read as trite or silly or inconsistent. But I feel like I have grown lately, and I feel like I want to put it on my blog, just so there is a record of it somewhere other than in my head and my heart.

A lot of times I feel like I just go through the motions of church. I go, I try to pay attention to the speakers, try to get something out of their messages. If I can, I hide in the back corner during meetings, except for during Sacrament. There, Thomas, Ben and I are front and center; seriously, the FRONT row. I don’t know why, but it’s our place, and I defend it fiercely. But in Sunday School or Relief Society, I happiest where I can sit and be invisible in the back, writing in my journal (where is a better, quieter place to write than in church? It’s bad, I know, but hey, you take peace wherever you can!), or watching those around me. I don’t really “put myself out there” in any way. If I have a friend to sit next to, I sit by them, but it is just as easy to sit alone.

But today, I felt different. I still hid in the back row, but I wasn’t as satisfied. The Gospel Essentials class I have attended for, oh, five years, didn’t quite keep my attention. I sat, thinking that maybe I’m ready to move up, maybe it’s time to take the plunge and try Gospel Doctrine. I know why I am reluctant: I feel conspicuous, like I stick out because I am by myself. But I am no more or no less alone in Gospel Essentials, so why does it matter? There are many other people sitting without a spouse for no other sinister reason than their husband has a Primary calling and they don’t. So my reasoning doesn’t really work. I think I may try it out.

But this blog entry is getting away from me. What I really wanted to write about is how today, I didn’t feel like I was going through the motions. The events of the past few weeks, and the wonderful examples of faith that I have seen made it so that I felt like I was really supposed to be in church today, that I wasn’t treading water for three hours, being inconspicuously or conspicuously alone. I felt like God’s plan was real, and that I have a purpose in it. I felt like the Savior had given me a moment of clarity, a moment that stood out from the mundane, going-through-the-motions type of church attendance and let me see that it really does matter, that I really do belong there.

We are taught gospel principles: that families can be forever, that God has a plan for us, that our trials make us stronger, that the Atonement was for all of us, that God loves us. For me lately, these principles have been real. I have seen people’s faith in God at the darkest times, and seen their gratitude for Him and His plan for them. I have seen them put their lives in His hands and say, I don’t understand why you have given me this, but I will accept it and try to grow from it. That they can do this makes me marvel at them. But I feel these principles as more than principles: they are realities my life, I just have to humble myself enough to let them work for me. I am more grateful to Heavenly Father today and I feel his love and guidance more than I have in a long time. And I know if I can feel it in this degree, my loved ones are being taken care of in ways I can’t imagine. I just have to keep trying, keep watching for the moments of clarity in between all the treading. Hopefully I can see even more.