Life is Good

whoa. May I just say that blogger has made some serious changes since I last showed my face around here? Well, I'm not literally showing my face here cuz I avoid that at all costs, you know, I'd wear a mask everyday if I could get away with it and I'm gonna be receiving a lot of mysterious packages from someone who goes by "Anonymous", containing paper bag disguises, maybe a different one for every day of the week. Bring it. Send it. Do it.

Seriously, can anyone digress like me? I dare say NOT.

Has it been crazy around here or what? So many varieties of crazy. It's been the summer of the Wedding, (last year was the summer of the House), and before I know it, it'll be done. Then what am I gonna do? I get all kinds of misty eyed thinking about the aftermath of the wedding. Not the immediate after, the cleaning and putting everything back together, the going back to 'Normal'. The appearance of normal.

I'm talking about the aftermath of the whirlwind of activity bustling its way through my brain and to do lists and the eventual settling of the dust. So much to do and I like having a lot to do and I like having a to do list and checking things off. It is thrilling to me. What it boils down to is that I like people to need me. (I also need people to like me for that matter).

I'll totally deal with the after-the-wedding-shock when it hits. I know I can and I know I will.


Not included on my to do list is writing blog posts.


So, what should do with this post? Why, share with you an Epic Star Wars Battle, of course. These guys are good.


The Battle between "Good and Evil", or maybe we'll just go with "Good and Just as Good", BEGINS!

It appears that Good has an unfair advantage. Two Light Sabers? Hmmmm....

But "Good" soon finds out that brains don't always beat brawn. 

That's right.

And he's down. Game over. 

Looks like "Just as Good" can triumph over "Good". 

I hope everyone learned something today. I think I'll just go back to Pinterest. 

See ya when I see ya.

Dirty Laundry and Stuff

I've started a bunch of posts which I never finish for various reasons. Usually I think whatever it is I've written is either dumb or too convoluted or just the same ole' same ole' drivel so I just never post much of anything anymore. I woke up from a dream today, yes TODAY cuz it was a nap I woke up from, and in this dream I had just finished asking an old blogging friend for advice on how to get myself back into the blogging world. You know. Followers and following, comments... yeah stuff like that.

Well, so many reasons not to...

Today the lesson in RS was on talents and yes, it is what it is, and I have no argument against how important it is to discover and develop talents. On the contrary, would that I would act upon the desire I have to do more some of that. I honestly do not think I any fully developed talent, and very few things that I'm sort of good at doing or being.

My point, and I do have one, is that I've been struggling with this for a while now. Like more intensely than ever before. In a more frantic way than before. Cuz BEFORE I've always had most of my attention and time taken up by just being a Mom and all that entails. I could push away those nagging wishes and desires. The W's and D's would nag at me because I know me and all the thinking in the world that someday when I have the time I'm gonna put some effort into moi and see what I might be good at was just rubbish. I knew then and I know now that I'm so far down stuck in my comfort zone that I need a flashlight. It's a dark place.

Yes, I do still have a child have at home and all the more reason to wonder what I'm going to do when he does go off to mission and/or college and I'm really alone all day.

I began to think over my reasons for staying stuck and I do have a one legitimate excuse. First, before I begin explaining myself, it is important to remember that what one person thinks is worth trying and doing is gonna be different than another's.

Enter my excuse. Now, I know that I really have no ability, or at least haven't developed one, to write. But for as long as I remember that is what I've wanted to do. And if this desire is something so powerful as to stay with me through all the years of not acting upon it, then shouldn't I take that as a clue and make writing a priority? Second part of my excuse. If I sit down to write, maybe I should write while standing?, and I see how fast the time flies on by and someone walks into the room and sees me STILL on the computer, I feel SO guilty for what I then feel like is wasting time. If I was doing laundry or scrubbing toilets for the same amount of time, well, our clothes would be a cleaner and our bathrooms, more sanitary. But I wouldn't feel any satisfaction, and I don't think those are talents I need to develop anyway. (I'm kinda great at laundering actually).

So there. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

Today is Father's Day. Since Kevin is not my father, I'm not feeling the need to say anything about him. Other than that I love him more everyday and he is the best a father can be, no joke. Let me say this, I do feel badly for the inequality between Mother's Day and Father's. And it's not just at our house. They don't do a thing for them at church. Do Fathers care? I dunno.

I have always had a weird relationship with my own father. I notice all the outpouring of praise towards fathers as I troll through the internet today, and I feel funny about it. Not haha funny. More like what happened to me and my father? When did our relationship fail? Sure we talk once in a while, but it's just surface stuff and I never really know what he thinks about life. Other than I probably got my sense of optimism from him. Which I'm not saying is a good thing.

This isn't a recent development, it has always been this way between us. But I find that if I worry about it, along with a thousand other things, it just makes me feel worse. Not to be selfish, but making myself feel guilty about another thing I don't need. I just wonder what it would be like to have a father I knew much about. I was a misunderstood child and a rotten teenager, so I know I must have made it pretty difficult for us to form a real bond.

So, I stop myself there. My father is a good man and has had a lot of crap to deal with, so delving into why things are the way they are is pointless.

Today in church a little baby boy did that little hunch over the back move and slid under the bench in front of us. I looked up at his dad and made the motion of me picking up the baby and handing the child over the bench. He kinda shrugged his shoulders, and baby boy seemed pretty satisfied just standing there at the bench that we silently mutually agreed that he was fine to take a look around.

It reminded me of the things little ones have a tradition of doing at church. Crawling under the bench is one. Facing backwards and staring at the congregation, exchanging grins with whoever their eye connects with. Peek a boo generally ensues. Then there's the ubiquitous sound of a head cracking against the wooden part of the bench and the delayed wail. There are the cries of 'don't spank me' as a child is rushed of the chapel. Although, with Jake it was always, 'please take me out and spank me'. He knew that meant he could run the halls. (For the record, we never spanked our babies at church).  I actually love the quiet murmur of baby noises rolling through the chapel.

Yet, I really don't do babies. They don't like me and they can sense how I feel and usually cry if I make any advances towards them. (MY babies were different, of course. I still want them to sit on my lap and tell me everything, which they don't. Well, Wes still does, but my other babies not so much. Some not at all).

Back to the story. So, cute little chubby baby boy starts inching his way towards me with a chunky lil board book gripped in his lil chubby hands. I felt pretty good about things, cuz baby boy kept coming my way, waving his book in the air, and seemed to be perfectly happy with the way things were going. So, I played with him a bit, leaning over once towards Wes and whispering to him that maybe we should get ourselves a baby, and went back to leaning way over to play with baby boy. He was a darling boy and eventually turned around with his arms outstretched towards his daddy, who quickly picked him up, hugging him that way a daddy will do. Sigh. I didn't make the baby cry. Best part of the meeting for me.

As soon as I sat up straight Wes grabbed my arm and anxiously whispered, "Are you too old to have a baby?". Yes, I assured him. I made his day then. Wes and I share our feelings for the little boogers.

Trust me, I'm not trying to write this well. I'm just writing, that's all.

The Others

You know, a lot of people are just naturally nice. They think the best of who they do and do not know and sincerely wish them well. They look for the good. They lose themselves in the service of others.

I'm not one of those people.

I wonder how I got that way. So quick to judge, to presume I know someone before I really do. Nine times out of ten I am wrong. And it goes both ways. I will prejudge someone as being good when actually they're not so much. At least as far as it pertains to me and to those I love. Some of you will know what I'm talking about.

The majority of the time when I think I've pegged someone's personality, that I know 'who they are', welp, you guessed it, I'm wrong.

BUT there are times when I hit it right on the nail.

I shouldn't be that way, I do not want to act that way. I don't want that to be my 'go to' way of thinking when I meet a person or accidentally or fatefully cross paths with one or two or how many others. It confounds me, and truthfully, I feel shameful that I've somehow let that become part of my nature.

Here's what I think. I think, (and this occurred to me while sitting in a Primary Sharing Time listening to an excellent presentation on the importance of being Christ like and building unity with others), that I spend so much time in the ME box thinking of me myself and I, that I judge others based on how I judge myself. And I don't so much like myself, and so my automatic response is to be judgmental in the bad sort of way, and think I KNOW who this person is, when I don't.

I have heard that what you don't like in others is really what you don't like about yourself. You also buy gifts for people based on what you'd like for yourself, but that is beside the point.

None of this is new, just a reminder for me to work on this problem. Change takes practice, and, I believe, a real desire. I've found for myself that prayer is about the only way I make any progress towards changing. And now I've exposed myself for the judgmental, me box thinking, unprayerful person I be. Just typing this post is indicative of who I think about most.

Dichotomy though... often I will have such an empathetic feeling towards a person that I'm physically, metaphorically speaking, touched. Also, sometimes my gut tells me what my heart doesn't or won't accept.

blahblahblah. What I really want to do is to be a better person. Th-th-th-at's all.

PICTURE TIME:

Poetry in Motion

Now, go shut the front door.