Heartsick

We are going through a rough time with quite a few of our extended family members right now. At least three or four of them are going through very serious struggles - some with health issues that we know now will not be healed, some have problems caused by very bad choices they made, consciously or otherwise. At least one or more has issues they've dealt with all their lives but are now intensified to an almost unbearable level.

One problem has the potential to break up a young family and destroy an individual, another has pushed a caregiver almost to her wit's end. Still another has offers of help all around, yet literally cannot figure out where to begin to fix a life that seems out of control, they are too afraid of making a wrong move - almost paralyzed by fear.

The situation I learned about yesterday has just knocked all the wind out of my sails. I ache for this person and the series of choices that has led up to this point in their life. I hurt for what it means for them and others close to them. I want to place blame on another person who I think was selfish and mean and the cause of many of the problems. But I know I shouldn't. These people are all adults and should be accountable for their actions.

Just because someone is basically a good person doesn't mean they won't make terrible mistakes, out of spite or by slowly getting into dangerous situations, one little step at a time. I literally feel sick to my stomach thinking of all that has happened and all that will need to happen in the next few months or years to help repair this sad situation.

And through this, I am now starting to realize that there is not much I can really do. That awful helpless feeling is just devastating.

I've always tried to help "fix" other peoples' problems. I would give what I thought were good, rational suggestions as to what they could do. Now I realize that it is not my job or even my place. I need to be there to love and support, lend a listening ear where needed and keep my mouth shut. Instead of saying, "You should....", I need to say, "What are you going to do?" or "What are your plans?" and then possibly follow up with, "What specifically can I do to help you accomplish this?"

Some problems will only be helped with time, some can never be "fixed" back to what they were before. Some can hopefully be made better once a decision is made and then followed through on.

Until then I can only love these individuals and pray for them as much as I can. And try to learn from some of their mistakes. And also not repeat some of my own, for I've had my share of personal pain, both from circumstances and also from situations I've put myself in. That's why I feel so badly for the ones who are going through it right now.

It's true, nobody gets through this life unscathed. I know this was supposed to be the plan but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt.

Oh Dear, It's Compulsive Now

So today after church I had to take Ally back for her 12-year-old interview with the bishop (a.k.a. her dad).

It all seemed to go well until we got back into the car and were driving home.

I looked at what I had just set down between the front seats: a church magazine that belongs in the foyer of the church that I had been thumbing through while I was waiting for her - one I already have at home.

And NO, I did not turn around and go back. I'll send it back with Hal next week.

If I come to your house, HIDE ALL YOUR MAGAZINES. I am now doing this subconsciously!

Guest Blogger: Morgan

Hello, everybody, this is Morgan Fronk, your guest blogger and humble correspondent from the Fronk residence. Today's topic is Harry Potter.

Austin is as obsessed with Harry Potter as Grandma Gail is with Twilight and "Robert". (See post on Thursday, May 14, for more on this subject.) Austin plays Harry Potter, watches Harry Potter, draws Harry Potter, has me read Harry Potter to him, and practically lives on Harry Potter.

A while ago, after reading some Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Austin asked if he could watch the movie. We (Ally and I) put it on downstairs for him and decided to stick around as neither of us had seen the movie for quite a while. Austin loved it. This was, I think, the first time he had seen that particular HP movie and he loved pointing stuff out that he remembered from the book.

When Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the rest of the first years have their first flying lesson, Neville manages to injure himself and is taken to the hospital wing. Malfoy picks up Neville's dropped Remembrall and says, "Maybe if that fat lump had given this a squeeze, he'd have remembered to fall on his fat arse."*

I turned to Ally. "Did he just swear?"

She wasn't sure, so we rewound it to check. Sure enough, Malfoy had sworn. Ally and I were in a state of shock for the duration of the movie.

I forgot about it until Austin, a few days later, was quietly playing Harry Potter by himself in my room. Suddenly he looked up.

"I know what Malfoy said in the movie," he said brightly. "When Neville fell off the broom."

"Oh...you do?" I asked warily.

Putting on his best British accent (which is really quite good for a four-year-old), he said, "Maybe if he'd squeezed this, little fat owls would have come out."

Feeling highly relieved, I replied, "Why, that's exactly what he said, Austin! Good job!"

I even managed to add this memorable line into the Harry Potter book when we reached the flying lesson.

"That was from the movie!" Austin said excitedly. (He has a very good memory for what was and what wasn't in the movie and is very critical when one or the other leaves something out.)

"It sure was, Austin," I said, returning to the book.

*Just for the record, Mom and I had a lengthy discussion on the most tactful way to post this last word. We came up with nothing. So if you are offended, I'm sorry, and if you have any ideas, do share.

Remorse

That's it. I'm taking the magazine back. I feel too guilty to keep it after my confession yesterday.

I didn't sleep very well last night. (Maybe it was because I stayed up late reading it from cover-to-cover.)

It's true, crime doesn't pay.

The One Thing That May Just Land Me In "The Big House"

I have a confession to make. A really big confession.

I steal magazines.

Well, I don't really steal them. I kind of just "borrow" them.

Sometimes I even bring them back.

It all started one time at a doctor's office a few years ago, when I had to wait a really long time. By the time I was called back and then waited another big amount of time for the doctor to show up in the room I had started the book excerpt in the magazine. And then, when I was partway through, it was time to go. So I just took the magazine home with me. And I didn't feel bad about it at all. I had every intention of bringing it back, but I just never got around to it.

Well, a while later (probably at the same office) I again felt justified in "borrowing" their magazine to finish it. They were wasting my valuable time, I figured they owed me SOMETHING in return. And their magazines were usually old ones.

One day I was in the orthodontist's office reading a magazine and I ended up "borrowing" it. (It was for either another book excerpt or some recipes that I wanted to try. It's those darn recipes, they get me every time. I used to always try to write them down but it can take a LONG time to write down more than one recipe.) When I got home I realized that it was a brand new magazine. I felt so guilty that I made a special trip back the next week and returned it. I also left them one or two of my own magazines that were fairly new. (There used to be very few good magazines in the orthodontist's office, usually only sports and kid magazines. I was really doing them a public service by adding to their collection.)

Today when I "borrowed" a magazine from the doctor's office I took some time to ponder my criminal intentions.

I noticed a pattern.

I only take magazines (and feel somewhat justified in it) from doctor's offices where I don't really like the doctor. (Or maybe I'm actually angry with the fact that I am kept waiting so long EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. at these specific types of appointments.)

I have NEVER taken a magazine from my dentist or orthopedic surgeon.

I have only taken two magazines from the orthodontist and felt so guilty that I have taken at least one of them back (I can't remember about the other, but I do remember feeling guilty again) and actually added more magazines to their collection.

I have never taken a magazine from the clinic where I see the woman physician's assistant I usually see for any female-related issues, when I have been there to see her.

I have probably taken well over 10 magazines from the very same clinic waiting room when waiting on any one of the various actual doctors at that very same clinic. (And felt justified in most of those cases.)

Is there something psychologically wrong with me? Do I have a deep seated resentment that needs to be explored?

(Actually, now that I think about it, I've probably visited this clinic well over 100 times in the last 20 years throughout all the pregnancies (4), miscarriages (3), infertility treatments for a total of 8 or 9 years, post-natal care, biopsies, yearly check-ups, hysterectomy related issues, etc. )

I wonder if maybe I have a lot of pent-up hostility for being kept waiting so long for so many years.

Personally, I think they got off easy, losing a few measly magazines.

(Oh no, isn't justification the first step down that slippery slope that can lead to a life of crime? Somebody please save me from myself!)

Note to Self

Children are very literal.

I need to remember this so I won't ever tell my four-year-old son that I'm going to "hurry and slap some sunscreen all over him" again.

It took me a minute to figure out why he ran screaming from the room.

Making Learning Fun

You know how we're supposed to be teaching our kids how to lead music? (At least in our church, we are strongly encouraged to do so.) Well, they always complain about it and make a huge fuss.

Tonight we found a great way to do this without the kids even knowing they were actually learning. Hopefully this is a skill that they might even use in the many, many (many) church-going years ahead of them.

Here's our secret:

Use non-church music.

We were all sitting in the backyard listening to the iPod at bedtime and the song Hooked on a Feeling by B.J. Thomas came on. It had kind of a good 4/4 beat to it so, without thinking, I started leading. This is a skill that I am just learning myself, since I'm not particularly musically inclined or talented.

From there we moved on to Hot Blooded by Foreigner and before I knew it, we were all sitting around the patio table leading music. It was actually quite fun. The kids even seemed to enjoy it. Next came Winning by Santana. It was a little slower, but still had a good beat. I think Hot Blooded was our favorite of the night. We tried really hard to find a song with a 3/4 beat but were unsuccessful.

We decided that next week in church we should have those be some of the songs for Sacrament meeting.

Can't you just hear it, "Brothers and Sisters, please turn in your hymn books to page 314 for Hooked on a Feeling and then after the service we will close by singing hymn number 224, Hot Blooded. The closing prayer will then be given by Sister Smith."

Do you think we'd have better attendance at Sacrament meeting?

Blast From the Past

Yes! I finally got a new scanner. It looks like it should be a pretty good one and fairly easy to use.


In honor of this momentus occasion, I will post the first (well, actually the only) photo I have scanned so far:

This is my husband with his two brothers, probably sometime in the late 70s.

My husband is the little one on the left (is it just me, or does he somewhat resemble Bobby Brady?), Thom is in the middle and Skip is on the right.

Weren't they groovy?

Perspective

I don't know why I keep waxing philosophical these days, but another big issue keeps showing up that I want to share, mainly with girls and women who are younger than I am.

I'm not in photos very often for a couple of reasons.

1. I'm the unofficial family photographer, both because I do a little better job of it, but mainly because I am the one who usually THINKS of getting out the camera and using it.

2. I don't always feel like I look good enough to be in a picture. (I don't have on make-up, my hair isn't done, etc.) and when I do think I look okay, I'm too embarrassed to ask someone else to take a picture of me.

Well, I've just started developing all our old digital photos from when the kids were little, a month or so at a time, and guess what - I think I looked pretty good, much better than I do now.

It's that way with professional family pictures too. There are some that I really hated of me at the time, but now, five or so years later, I realize that I looked a lot better then than I thought I did, but I didn't appreciate it.
Even haircuts that I hated then look pretty good to me now, since my hair hasn't really gotten better with age.

One other thing I noticed is that I somehow always look mad or grumpy in photos at times when I didn't think I looked good and someone wanted to take a picture of me. I've finally also realized that I ALWAYS look better when I smile, even without make-up. I don't want my grandkids and great-grandkids to look at pictures of me and think that I was a grumpy old woman. (Even though my kids KNOW that I am, I want everyone else to at least wonder what I was like.)

So this has led me to just grin and bear it when photos are being taken. I want to look back in a few years and see how much better I look now.

(Oh no, how much worse will I look in five more years?)

Summertime

I had an epiphany the other day in church.

I realized that I will NEVER get anything extra done during the summer. I can only maintain the bare essentials at best; keep us all fed, do the dishes, wash the clothes and try to keep us all from hurting each other - accidentally or otherwise.

I usually start each summer with high hopes of all the great projects the kids and I, or at least I - with the help of the extra babysitters at home, will be able to accomplish.

"THIS will be the summer I get us all organized." I usually tell myself.

A close second is, "This is the summer I will teach the kids how to really work."
(I know I really shouldn't put this here, but the quote from Wayne's World is just begging to be inserted. "And maybe monkeys will fly........." If you know the movie, which I should be ashamed to say I've seen twice, once when it came out and again more recently, you'll know the quote. I hope you'll cut me some slack, I grew up in the 80s.)

Then I mentally list all the projects I just know we're (I'm) going to have time to do:

Go through all the photos and put them into books finally (and in chronological order), yep. Clean out the office (again), uh huh. Go through all the extra storage containers and get rid of some, sure. Go through ALL the old toys and see which ones we don't need any more, of course we can. Clear all the "end of school year" clutter off the pool table so we can actually play pool again, great idea! These are all things that are perpetually on my summer to-do list.

It finally dawned on me that these things will probably not ever happen, at least not during the summer. I'm too busy picking up all the extra cereal bowls and washing all the extra clothes and/or swimsuits and trying to get rid of all the extra grass that has been tracked all over the house. And then there are all the extra dentist and orthodontist and other varied appointments I've been putting off until we got some extra time. Oh yes, and let's not forget the extra neighbor kids I have running all over the place too. All this while trying to keep my three very different kids out of extra mischief. (Or at least two of them.)

So, I decided to make peace with this, adopt kind of a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" sort of attitude.

I'm going to enjoy my summer too.

As long as the basics are covered, I'm going to lounge a little bit. Relax, chill out with some lemonade and a good book. Maybe break into the stack of magazines that has been piling up.

And when I get a little extra time, I'm going to do MY favorite summer activity (next to going to Bear Lake, of course).

I'm going to figure out just how many days are left until school starts and taunt the kids with the information.

(Morgan told me an epiphany should be a religious experience, but since I was in church when I figured all this out, I think it qualifies.)