When things weren’t feeling quite right during girls’ camp, I asked myself what was wrong, what was missing?  Sometimes I don’t feel right and I have to think about what I am feeling and then analyze why I am feeling that way.  Sometimes I find that my feelings are wrong, i.e. something I thought wasn’t right, or I didn’t have all of the information, or even though those were my feelings, I wasn’t thinking about the situation properly.  I needed to adjust my feelings.

Other times, I recognized that my feelings were trying to tell me something.  Such was the case at camp.  As I pondered on ‘day 2’ what my feelings were, I realized that in all of my camp experiences (up to that point) there had been no mention of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Now, it is pretty hard to plan an entire camp based in spirituality and not talk about the Savior.  To be honest, it should be difficult for all of us to have any kind of a lesson and miss the point of testifying of our Savior and His Atonement.  However, sometimes in our culture with the vast amount of information, scriptures, videos, quotes, commentaries, personal experiences, that can accompany our lessons, it is pretty easy to talk for 20-50 minutes and not talk about the Savior.  Yet, when we do that, we are doing a huge disservice to Him and to our audience.

This is His church, His doctrine, His way.  2nd Nephi 31:21 states:

And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen.

The preface to that is pretty much the entire chapter, teaching about Christ’s baptism, and obedience, and how if we want the life He lives, we need to become the kind of person He is by following the example He set and repenting of the things we have done wrong and changing to become like Him.  And there is no other way.

If that is true, that there is no other way, then how important is it that in all of our teaching and testifying we should always bring our audience back to the Savior and His atonement?

I just wanted to add my witness.  I love my Savior.  I love Him because I understand that without Him and what He did, I could not return to live with my Father in Heaven, ever.

I would write more, but I am late 🙂

Remember this post?  It shouldn’t be hard.  It was two days ago. 

I had planned on posting something totally different today, however, as circumstances would dictate, another topic would give you greater clarity into my emotional status.

I received my first traffic ticket EVER last night.  It was 10 p.m.  Drew wanted to go and pick up his check from work to deposit it into the bank right then and there, so he could pay the bills.  I usually go to bed at 10.  I did not want to go.  I was not amused.  But because it was important to him and he wanted my company and with his work schedule we have not been able to spend very much time together, I decided to go.  It is not like work is far away.  10 minutes, seriously.  Half way there, I noticed the car following me closely.  I was trying to decide if it was a police officer when he hit the lights.

My husband was ecstatic!  He has been waiting for me to get a ticket.  He is sure I deserve one.  I think he is wrong, and sick and twisted.  But now he was here to witness the event.  Yea for him.  I was tired, frustrated, nervous, and didn’t feel very supported.

I don’t have any idea why he pulled me over, but he wrote the citation for expired plates.  Not even a speeding ticket—-HA!!  Take that, Drew! 

We had registered the car in September, so I didn’t have any idea why the plates were expired, except that the registration only went through February of 2015.  Usually, here in the United States, especially in California, about a month before your plates expire, they send you a little notice that says, “Hey your plates are going to expire, send us money today!”  Then Drew and I send the money, get our little sticker, put it on the car and we are good to go.

Neither of us looks at the registration, ever!  We just pay the little notice when it comes and that is how it works.

The little notice didn’t come.  So neither Drew nor I thought anything about it.

This morning I went to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) to register the car this morning at 8 a.m. when they opened.  If you wait any amount of time, the line at the DMV is huge and they take forever!  You can be there for hours!  First thing in the morning is best if you do not have an appointment.  The first available appointment was August 26th, by the way.  I checked first.  Drat!  That meant I had to go and stand in line.  It was 7:45 when I realized I would have to go in.  So I ran to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, took off my pajamas, threw on some pants, gave Scuff instructions to help Spike and ran off to the DMV.

The line wasn’t long.  I only waited, maybe 15 minutes…….Awesome!  And it only cost me $182!  Awesome!  (Total sarcasm that you cannot hear in my writing!)  Registering the car normally costs $30—only $132 fine.  Fabulous!  And I found out why I didn’t pay the registration when it came in the mail.  Because they never sent it out.  There was some kind of a hold on my record that prevented them from mailing it and that I was unaware of and they didn’t tell me about (so I could correct it).  Isn’t that great?!!  Ugh!!

By then it was 8:30 a.m.  So I ran down to the police department, because I also had to have them sign off that I had corrected the problem.  They get busy the later the day goes too.  Might as well take care of that now.  It was empty.  The lady behind the counter said, “I am just now entering your citation!”  Yes, I do not like things left unresolved.  I do not have that kind of time to try and remember all of those pesky little details that I need to do something about.  I would rather just take care of it now.

I still have to go to the courthouse now and pay the ticket.  Lovely.  More money.  Ugh!

When we arrived home last night we told the boys who were still awake.  Sport, as always, was the comic relief, “Dishonor Mom!!  Dishonor in our Famiry!!”

I still wasn’t laughing—not today either!

It looked like this one.

I cannot believe summer is almost over!  We have had a super crazy summer!  It has literally flown by.  June, we all finished out school, seminary and participated in seminary graduation.  The first two weeks home were just trying to adjust to not having a defined schedule and Speedy and Sun got to attend EFY!!  Plus we sent Spanky back to Utah.  July we had girls’ camp, and a crazy week of Dani and Richard’s wedding and family photos (I haven’t seen them by the way, when they show up, I’ll let you know).  Now it is the middle of August and we are already starting school, with seminary a little more than a week away, and then sending Scuff back to Utah and BOOM–back into the swing of school and seminary!  Wow–whirlwind, I tell you!

copyright: Karen Larsen photography

Right before camp, a girlfriend asked me if I would substitute for two weeks teaching the Sunbeams (3 year-olds at church).  She actually asked me to sub for four weeks–two in July and two in August.  I told her the two in August were too close to seminary beginning and I would need to focus on that.  No problem.  After my two weeks in Sunbeams, my friend was sick, didn’t come to church and the Primary President asked me after sacrament meeting if I could substitute one more week.  OK sure.

The next week, they asked me to teach Relief Society (adult women), which I did last Sunday.  This week and next week, they have asked me to teach the youth Sunday School class (12-18).  I was going to tell them ‘no’ but had the thought that it really is just my kids in the class and the topic is on the family.  Who would do a better job teaching her own children about the family?  Oh ya—their mother!  Duh!!  So that is what I am doing this week and where I will be.

copyright:  Karen Larsen photography

Seminary starts a week from Monday.  So much for any time off, huh?

Quick update:  Our youth Sunday school teacher is going to be here this week!   Her plans changed!  So I will only be substituting next week.  I can breathe!

One of my boys found this video on youtube and since we found it so humorous, every time someone in our family does something that may not be ‘quite right’ we make big jokes about “Dishonoring our Famiry”.  You just have to listen to the first 30 seconds to see why we use it and what it means.

Well, Sunday, we had occasion to use the phrase more than once.  Unfortunately, in the moment, it really hurt more than one person’s feelings.  I will share what happened because now we are all laughing about it, but it wasn’t super funny on Sunday.

During Young Men’s class, they were trying to discuss the differences between men and women and how each gender compliments and completes the other, given their individual and independent roles.  The particular phrase they were using was “Your dad can do some things better than your mother and your mother can do some things better than your dad.”  Now, just to set the stage, it is important for you to note that the new member of our stake presidency happened to be visiting and was attending the young men’s class.  He was the one expressing the point.  Drew, as the Bishop was also in the class.  When our stake presidency member said to the class, “Your mom is better at some things than your dad,” my son Speedy turned to his father and said, “Mom is more intelligent than you.”  But our son Shorty quietly said, “Ya’ Mom’s better at yelling!”

To which our stake presidency member said, “You mean they both yell, but your mother is better at it?”  And Shorty agreed.

Now, if you know me at all, you know I am not a yeller.  I grew up in a yelling household and determined long ago that I was not going to be a yelling person and I don’t do it.  Period.  Drew doesn’t do it either.  He also grew up in a yelling household and neither of us yell.  Here is a secret:  My kids do not know what yelling is.  They have never heard it.  Seriously.  But they are sure what they have experienced, raised or stern voices, constitutes yelling.

Just to make the point more clearly, Shorty actually had a teacher yell in class one time and it upset him so much he started crying in class and then to cover up the fact that he was crying, he told the teacher that he was having an asthma attack and couldn’t breath.  She sent him to the office.  They called me to come and pick him up.  He was fine when I arrived, but I took him home anyway.  After forty-five minutes I finally got out of him what had happened in the classroom.  That is how sensitive Shorty is to yelling.

However, the newest member of our stake presidency doesn’t know that much about me or Drew.  So now, he, along with anyone else in the class, believes I am better at yelling than my husband.  Great!

When Drew got home on Sunday, he said to me, “Did your son confess?”

“Confess to what?”

And then he told me the story.  It took me a minute to have the feelings sink in and then for me to evaluate them, knowing that I shouldn’t allow them to be hurt, but knowing that they were.  I then had a decision to make, how should I speak to Shorty about what happened so that it doesn’t happen again?

I was pretty sure if he knew that my feelings had been hurt, his would be hurt.  He is a fairly sensitive guy.

So Drew and I were discussing something else with the other kids around and Shorty walked in and Drew informed him that he needed to apologize to me.  He was confused, so Drew explained with the others listening in.  As he got to the point of Shorty’s comment, Sport yells from across the room, “Dishonor!!!  Dishonor in my Famiry!!!”  Drew and I started laughing.  Scuff bonked Shorty on the head with a plastic baseball bat–not enough to even hurt him.  But as we were all laughing, Shorty’s feelings were hurt.

I spent the next hour trying to get Shorty to speak to me about his feelings.  It was a lot of work.

I think I am just going to have to live with the member of our stake presidency believing I am better at yelling than my husband.  Oh well.  I guess sometimes we all have to face ‘Dishonor in our famiry!”

Dani sent me this photo yesterday.  Can you believe it?  The first photo is Slim and Richard when they were probably 14 in front of the temple.  The second photo, ten years later, taken in front of the same temple for Richard’s wedding day.  Holy cow!  It is hysterical!  Same stance, same faces, better hair, better shoes, better clothes, both cutting off Richard’s foot.  It just hit me so funny.  They are the same boys, just older and now men.  I cannot wait to see what the next 10 years will bring.  Can you just see them at Slim’s wedding?  And then with their wives and little people?  Oh I cannot wait!  I just thought it was too funny not to share!

My sweet daughter and I have been really bonding lately over quilting class.  She comes with me every week and we work on it together during the week.  One of us always has the sewing machine out, working on our quilt.  Sun, currently, is just making quilting squares.  She does not have a larger picture in mind and she just keeps adding to her pile.

Me, on the other hand, I have been trying to finish the project before seminary starts in two weeks.  I will have the quilt top done this week and then I have to figure out what I am using for the backing, choose batting, then quilt them together and bind it up.  That, realistically, will not happen completely before seminary starts.  That is just the reality of the situation.  But I am trying to pump it out, nonetheless.

I love the time we spend together.  It is usually over our quilting projects that Sun starts to share some of her more private thoughts.  She is worried about attending high school.  It is big and scary.  She is worried about the workload and if she can keep up with its demands.  Will she have any friends?  What if people don’t like her?  She is having some drama with her current best friend and we talk about that too.

Last Sunday she came home and stormed off to her room, threw some things down and disappeared.

 I went and found her, turned her around without any words, and she just started sobbing.  Poor girlie.  Spike was with me and he said, “Mom, what’s the matter with her?”  I just told him that she was sad and I didn’t know what was wrong with her.  But we can just love her and hold her and when she is ready she will tell us what is wrong.  So that is what we did.

She was sad off and on the entire week.

At one point, about 2 in the afternoon sometime last week, she was super grouchy and snappy at everyone.  As the boys called her on her nastiness, it got worse and more biting.  She was trying to quilt.  Finally I asked her if she had eaten anything.  She hadn’t.  So I made her get up from quilting and come and sit by me.  She gave me the death glare and I asked her if the drama with her bff was still bothering her.  She just started sobbing again.  The boys tried to help her out and make her laugh.  All of their efforts were not conducive to what she needed.  I told them to leave her alone and just let her cry.  She cried for about 20 minutes.  Then she talked just a little bit.  I told her to go and eat some food so she would feel better.  She finally did.

Then she said, “Hey Mom, you were right.”

‘About what?’

“I cried and I ate and now I feel fine.”

Yep.  Too True.  Low blood sugar mixed with sad and hurt emotions makes for a nasty sister.  She apologized to her brothers—many of them.

Over the week we discussed how to handle her drama.  Today when she gets home we will see how it went and if she was able to apply the things we discussed.  Because drama is drama right?  It doesn’t really matter if we are four, fourteen, or forty–or more.  The same principles apply.

1.  Be kind.
2.  Think about the other person
3.  Pray for help about how to handle the situation and approach the others involved.
4.  Review what happened and what you know. Is it possible you have said or done something offensive that you did not recognize?  If you know what went wrong, could you have handled it differently?  Should you have taken other things into account?
5.  Pray to know when and where to ask clarifying questions and apologize—even if you didn’t do anything wrong, sometimes apologizing for the person’s feelings being hurt will help to open the way to communications.
6.  Recognize that you cannot control other people and/or their feelings.  You may be in a place to rectify the situation.  They may not.
7.  Be willing to accept how the other person feels about it and be prepared if they do not wish to rectify the situation or the relationship.
8.  Pray for personal healing whatever happens and pray for the other person’s heart to heal also.

There are probably others, but this will get you started 🙂

PS  She got home.  She tried.  There is still unresolved drama! (Sad face 😦

The last week I have occasionally taken some ibuprofen because the muscles in my neck are stiff and tight.  At first I chalked it up to pulled muscles from exercising.  I figured since it isn’t something I have been doing too often, when I do it, it causes some adjustments.  But as it has been going on for days now, and I am really not doing any more or less exercise than I have all summer, I am probably just stressed out.

There isn’t that much that I should be stressed about, at least that is what I tell myself.  But I also know myself better than that.  I do tend to put all my stress in my shoulders, lucky me.  I think my underlying stress is all the crazy stuff going on at Drew’s office and what that means for our family and our future.  Yep.  There it is—relaxing.  Just saying the words out loud relieved some of the tension.  It is scary that I do that to myself.  I am protecting myself from the possibility of my husband losing his job.

At this point, there is no indication that that will happen.  I just know the last 16 years personnel decisions of this court and when they don’t think things are going well, they drop management and start over.  I feel like that is where we are………only today, Drew is management. 

I smell smoke!

Can I just tell you how much easier it is to figure out what the problem is and relieve the stress than it is to take medication?  I have been stressed for over a week, muscles tightening, stiff neck, sore back.  I am still sore, it isn’t gone, but geesh!  I am less stiff and more comfortable just admitting that Drew’s job situation is stressing me out!

I probably haven’t told you because, well, this is a public blog and those are private issues.  But, a little over a month ago, things blew up at the court.  Within the week, the CEO had resigned.  She finished out the month, but Monday, the interim CEO began, as they begin to recruit for a new CEO.  Things are crazy.  My husband is an extremely loyal man.  He fulfills his job responsibilities and supports his superiors.  Because of his support of the previous CEO, they (let’s just leave that a huge, nebulous ‘they’) lump him in as a bad apple that goes with her.  It doesn’t matter that he has worked here for 16 years.  It doesn’t matter that the CEO who hired him put him into the entry level jobs when he was totally over-qualified with promises of management changes coming, and then it didn’t happen that way and he stayed anyway.  It doesn’t matter that we took another job that supported our family better, they fired him, and he came back to the court and put together all of their payroll everything when the county had just dumped that on them with two weeks notice until payroll needed to come out and Drew figured it out and fixed it.  It doesn’t matter that they hired a finance guy over him, and he still stayed anyway.  It doesn’t matter that they fired the finance guy, gave Drew all of that finance guy’s job and nothing close to his pay or title, and he stayed anyway.  And now they have given him a promotion, above that finance guy’s position, still nothing close to his pay, six weeks later the CEO quits, and he is staying anyway.  Are you sensing a theme?  I would have walked away a long time ago, but not my loyal sweetheart.  He is ready to ride out the waves of change and make the best out of a not very promising situation.  Usually he would be the one stressing about this and I would be telling him to relax and just not get too excited.  ‘Just take a deep breath!  Gosh Dad.’

the fire is coming

I guess I need to take my own advice and just take a deep breath, Carin.  I feel like my spiritual receptors are out of focus, which happens when I am blocking my feelings.  I just get into this survival mode and go through the motions of life.  It doesn’t help that life has been so very busy lately.  It makes it really easy for me to put my head in the sand and just quash the little fires I have some kind of control over, while I sit back and watch the bigger fire rage, knowing my little bucket of water won’t make much difference.  Wow, there it is.  I feel like our life is out of control, when in fact, our life is fine, it just may become out of control.  I am stressing about what the future may bring.

Bless those men and women who battle this anyway!

I do need to just take a deep breath!  I can relax!  Why?  Because my Father in Heaven is in control!  He knows our family.  He knows me!  He knows all the people of the court, what they are thinking, what they are going to do with their thoughts and how everything is going to turn out.  Maybe that is why I have had the ‘Maybe Moving’ feelings.  So I guess I had better get on with that too.  But, of course, my sweet and ever loyal spouse thinks I am crazy.  But then, he often thinks that and I am not wrong always, just sometimes 🙂

I cannot believe how much better I feel!  Still a little sore, but mostly tension free.  I really just need to turn this over to Heavenly Father and let it go, let it go……  (Anytime anyone at my house says, ‘let it go’ we all break into the Frozen song…….much to the chagrin of the boys–they are not amused!)

This is His game, His earth, my life, but He is in charge.  And you know what?  I can trust Him to take care of me and watch out for me.  I do not have to do it by myself.  So now I need to quit trying to.  I am going to go take a jacuzzi bath–because I can!  But here is the positive side of the issue, I am not eating–which is usually how I have handled this kind of stress in the past.

I hope we don’t look like this when it is over.  If we do, we’ll rebuild!

Now I know what I need to do.  Thanks for listening!

• After coming up to my bed at 4 a.m., Spike asked to sleep with me.  I took him back to his bed and lied down next to him.  With tone and attitude, he said to me, “Mom, your hair is messing up my sleeping.”
• On his birthday, Scuff says to him, “Spike, you need to quit being so cute and having birthdays.”  To which Spike, in all honesty and sincerity, replied, “I just can’t help it.”
• After Speedy slept on the couch that night, Spike went running into his room after him, and said, “I slept in your bed………..ALL night!! Ahahahahahaha!”
• And my all time favorite, still:  Drew arrived home from work, a little cranky.  He was snapping at people about the state of the house.  He really had only been home about 2 minutes.  Spike was sitting on the living room couch with me looking at a book.  (The back ground is that Spike gets really upset and super emotional about anything.  So often, I tell him to ‘take a deep breath and try to calm down’.  And then we practice doing it.  This works for Spike and it helps him to control his emotions.)  Without even looking up, Spike says, “Gosh Dad.  Just take a deep breath and relax!”  It caught Drew and I both so off guard that we started laughing hysterically and it broke the tension in the moment.  So funny!!

And that is our little man.

What a whirlwind of a week!  Life has been super crazy at our house.  I thought it was busy with the wedding/reception, and it was, but it was also structured and orderly.  This week, we have been cleaning up the stuff around our house, organizing our time and family business things.  Drew’s boss’s last day was Friday, so there has been a bit of emotional drama there.  His interim boss arrives on the job today.

Dani broke her ankle on Monday.  We have not had much to do to help up to this point, but Richard returns to work today and Dani is in a cast up to her mid-thigh.  She sees her doctors today with family, but tomorrow and the rest of the week, she will probably hang out here while Richard is working.  I feel so bad for her!!  Married four days when she broke her ankle!  Ugh!  Oh the great learning experiences start so soon sometimes.

copyright: Karen Larsen photography

Yesterday I got to teach Sunbeams for the third week in a row.  I wasn’t suppose to teach yesterday but their teacher was sick, so after Sacrament meeting the Primary President said, “Could you?” and of course, I could, just maybe didn’t want to.  But it turned out alright and it was fun, not stressful.  This week I am teaching Relief Society and on Saturday, last week, we had a four hour training meeting for Seminary which will be starting in three weeks.  So ya, life is a little crazy right now.  Not to mention that school is also beginning within the next two to four weeks for all of my kiddos.  I used to look forward to August as a kind of quiet month to get things prepared for the school year.  This year, I think it is more stressful, probably because of the work necessary for seminary.  Plus Spike got sick this week and then gave it to me.  Three days of feeling nasty with a head cold.  Lovely.

That is part of the reason there was no post on Friday.  Crazy, crazy!

So, how do I keep my sanity during these times?  Prayer and Scripture Study.  It is the only way!  I get up early, say my prayers, read my scriptures and spend some quiet time pondering about life.  I am convinced that if I did not have that as a regular part of my daily routine, there is no way I could be as effective as I am or as sane in what is accomplished.  That morning ritual gives me clarity.  It helps me to know what is important for me to focus on that day and I usually include in my morning prayers, that I will see and do what the Lord needs me to and be able to set aside my own agenda.

Because we will be studying the Old Testament this year, I have been trying to get a handle on the timeline in the OT and understanding some of the history, geography and words of the prophets then.   Yesterday I read the words of Isaiah, specifically chapters 42-49, I think.  In these chapters, the Lord pleads with Israel and Judah to acknowledge him as God.  He tells them the gifts and blessings he will give them.  He offers them comfort and compares His ability and willingness to shelter and love them to the inability their wood idols have to do those things.  In one verse, he specifically states that these idols increase their burdens, they do not lessen them, like He can.

As I was reading these chapters and feeling the sorrow these words evoked, I realized that it is that way today as well.  We may not have idols of wood or stone, (or maybe some of us do) but we do have idols of wealth, popularity, position, prestige, health, etc…There are many things that we feel are important and we put our time and money into hoping that whatever we are pursuing will make our lives easier, more enjoyable, and bring us happiness.  We allow these things to consume our time and our resources, but they do not always relieve our burdens, sometimes they increase our burdens. 

copyright: Karen Larsen photography

Then, this morning, I read this article:  Sustained by God’s Love.  Only her relationship with our Savior sustained her through this trial.  Yes, the love of others helped her, but why did they assist and serve and love her?  Because of their relationship with Him.  Our modern idols would have done nothing to comfort her heart and heal her grief.  But the Savior not only has felt her grief, he also knows how to succor her grief.  Turning to Him is what allowed for her healing and understanding.

This is kind of a rambling post.  But I know the Savior lives.  I know He loves me and is aware of me, my efforts to live consistently with my beliefs, and knows the burdens I face.  He perfectly knows how to nurture me, comfort me, guide me and direct me.  He can do more with my life than I can.  And when I reach out to Him daily, through prayer and scripture study, He sustains me and helps me to manage the responsibilities I have before me, and can tell me where to put in my time and energy–where it will matter the most.

Have a great day!!  This week is also crazy, but I will try to keep blogging.  No promises 🙂

I already reported to you that I didn’t have my cell phone the week of camp.  Here are the only photos we took!  I am a little sad for that part, but it sure was nice being unconnected for a week.  I checked my phone three times during the week.  Once Sport called me to find out how long to cook baked potatoes.  I got the message the night after he was cooking.  I guess he figured it out.  There were a few messages for the bishop, which I just deferred and told them I was at camp, they would have to call the house.

All in all, it was a wonderful week!!

Here is my cabin: