Month: February 2019

Today I went to both hot pilates and bikram in the morning while Abe managed to hold down the fort at home. He was exhausted so they all watched Lilo and Stitch and were about to start lunch when I got home.

I helped Lydia through another difficult practice and then drove her to a friend’s house for a play date.

Then I showered, Abe took down our Christmas lights (we’re early according to our normal standard, which is, um, May), and we did the pretty jigsaw puzzle again. We accidentally put it away before Mary saw the finished product, so I spent most of Clarissa’s nap happily and hurridly re-assembling it.

After that I helped Mary practice. During that time Abe did an AMAZING job cleaning the house. Afterward we drove to Barnes and Noble to get the rest of the books in Lydia’s new series, Percy and the Olympians. We also got her a book of Greek Myths because she is learning about them in school and loving them in her new series. I got Mary two little books too because she feels left out a lot.

Then we stopped at Trader Joe’s, put the babies down, and now I’m blogging and Abe’s working. It was a very relaxed day (practices and almost dying in my workouts aside…).

On Friday we went to the Blosils’ house for a pop up restaurant that their son, Alex, put on. They had completely transformed their home, and their whole family and some friends were working the house like a restaurant. It seemed the entire ward was there, along with a lot of other people.

When Abe and I got there, we were seated a table with Craig and Shannon Young. We spent the next two hours enjoying great food and the lovely company of the Youngs. Nic Blosil played Un Sospiro on the piano, some of the ward young women serenaded Randy with a cappella singing, and it was an all around delightful evening. We enjoyed it so much.

We came home and watched some art history documentaries together, which we love. It was a great start to a THREE DAY WEEKEND!! So needed, so needed.

We forgot to take more pictures than this one of the grilled cabbage course. But this was super delicious and makes us want to grill cabbage from now on, like maybe every day.

On Valentine’s Day I still felt bad, which was so sad because I love celebrating this holiday with my family.

I took the kids to the library in the morning, though, and then I did some errands even though I felt like death.

We came home, I put the Clarissa down for a nap, and then I can’t remember what I did after that. I probably did laundry or took a nap myself.

Then we picked up the kids and I took them all to the new Crepery restaurant in the Riverwoods. I was going to make crepes for Valentine’s Day dinner, but since I had no energy, we just bought some instead. There was a really nice older man there who happened to be the dad of one of Abe’s coworkers. He really took to the kids and talked to us a lot while we ate our crepes.

Then we took our leftover crepes home and discovered Abe had come home early! He brought a big beautiful bouquet of flowers home and was puttering in the kitchen. We did piano and harp practice with the girls and then had chocolate fondue with strawberries for dessert with the kids.

Afterward Abe was so wonderful and talked with me and listened to me until I actually stopped feeling so ill. It was very healing to just enjoy the loving presence of my amazing, wise, infinitely kind husband. I love him.

Then we watched It Happened One Night, because we have a goal to work down the list of best romantic films of all time over the course of our future Valentine’s Days. This film would have been great but the misogyny in it was honestly disturbing. I’m so glad I’m alive now and not back then. Happy Valentine’s Day!

On Wednesday I decided to forget the fact that I STILL feel so sick and sat down at the harp with Lydia. We have not done proper practices for a while, so we squeezed a painful one in before ballet and jazz.

I don’t remember anything else that we did all day. I know that I wanted to go the library in the morning but literally had no energy, so mostly I spent the morning sitting on the floor watching Clarissa and Ammon play. They bring me a lot of joy.

On Tuesday Abe had to do the stake finance audit and I wanted to attend my friend Jill’s training on emotional health, so we got our neighbor to babysit our kids at the last minute before we both ran out the door to church.

Jill did a wonderful job training us all to feel our feelings and sort between what is circumstance and what is a thought. Sometimes we confuse our opinions for circumstance. For example: “When someone compliments me, I feel good.”  That is a thought, but it seems so true that at first you might think it’s just a circumstance. But, in fact, we can choose how we think about EVERYTHING, and how we think determines how we feel. So somebody else’s compliments don’t necessarily translate into a good feeling–it’s just how we think about those compliments that determines our feeling.

The audit went well for Abe, except for the hilarious fact that the only check without a receipt was one he had written to himself for the Father and Son’s campout, for over $200! Thankfully all he has to do is find the receipt, which he has, and turn that over. But we thought it was pretty funny that on the audited the only detail that was majorly wrong was him writing a check to himself without a bishop’s signature or receipt. Now all of our financial problems, Abe jokes, are solved. He can just write himself checks from the church and voila! Haha.

I was feeling sick all week and so am back blogging almost a week late. But I do have this picture from Monday!

We played in the basement after I spent the morning cleaning like crazy. The cleaning people came to clean the house, but we’ve been so sick that I had to tidy every room so they could actually clean the rooms. I had big laundry ambitions Monday, but after all of the tidying, I basically spent the rest of the day collapsed in various rooms while the kids played around me.

I.Love.Sundays.

Lily and I both had a week that was exhausting on all levels, so today provided much needed respite for both of us. We both rolled out of bed around 8:00 after sleeping 10 hours (Lily did get up once for Clarissa) and somehow we managed to almost get to church on time at 9:00.

Clarissa woke up in an over-the-top good mood today. She was so cheerful, and when I got her from her crib and changed her diaper, she blurted out one of her new favorite sayings, “it’s a poo!”. Even later in the day, she woke up from her nap so happy, and just giggled and squealed to herself in her crib, without any toys or anything to entertain her. She was a complete delight today.

I left sacrament meeting early with Clarissa to write down a bunch of thoughts I was was having about baptism and how to teach Lydia for her upcoming baptism. I did that in the clerk’s office while Clarissa busily got into things . During class, I stayed in the clerk’s office with Clarissa to stuff envelopes for year-end donation summaries that I was passing out to members for tax purposes. After church, I cut some expense checks and keyed in the weekly donations, so yeah, I spent a lot of time in the clerk’s office today.

At home I had a pizza and spinach salad lunch (Papa John’s is so good with the butter dipping sauce!) I also had a delicious smoothie that Lily made and had leftover. Then I read scriptures, napped and chatted with Lily about the scriptures. It was a seriously low-key day.

Around 4PM Lily and I got dinner ready. We had salmon, but wanted to mix things up a bit, and chose a recipe from the New York Times grilling cook book Lily gave me as a gift. It was a salmon recipe that included a delicious red-wine sauce with clam, garlic, thyme and more in it. It was delicious!

Then we all went to Lydia’s “Great to be 8” baptism preparation class. Lydia and the other kids turning 8 this year sang a beautiful opening song. Sister Pribyl and the Bishop both spoke and the there was beautiful music and everyone got to see the font and there were treats at the end.

Afterword, Lily drove me around for an hour to drop off the end-of-year donation summaries to ward members.

At home, my dad and Suzanne called Lydia to talk to her about her baptism meeting.  It was so sweet to have their support and involvement in her baptism preparations. Then Lily and I relaxed and now I’m blogging.

I guess that’s the blow by blow. Nothing earth-shattering today, just a really really nice Sunday!

**

My Testimony:

At the risk of being too personal for general audiences, I have decided to share a piece of my testimony each week in the Sunday blog.  I especially want for my children to come into contact with the truths I know and care so deeply about as they review these blogs.

**

Entry 1. There is a God.

A year and a half ago, I made the decision to examine both my faith in God and my faith in my church. It was a dark time for me, because among other things, I felt that to do it authentically, I had to be completely open to the possibility that maybe God didn’t exist, that maybe I was just believing in him because I was conditioned to believe in Him. I wanted to stop living based on the assumption that God was real and really consciously think through if I believed it and if so, why.  During my pondering, I remembered many experiences from my mission that clearly manifested the reality of God. One experience was particularly powerful, and to this day, I draw from it to remind me of the reality of God. I quote from a journal entry from 2006 on my mission:

“I had a very spiritual experience last week. I was ill and very weak. So weak that I had not the strength to stand up and take a shower and so (because we had no water plug for the bath) I laid down in my feeble, miserable state and just let the water beat upon me. Then, like in the sky, when all is black cloud yet there is one opening where the sun comes beaming through in a glistening ray, so came the thought into my being, “If you rely on me, I will guide you to the end.”

I say the thought came into my being because it was not just received by my mind, but my heart, my lungs, my ears, my arms, my feet, at this moment all harmonized with this inspired tone, and for one moment in time I was in perfect synchronization with the Lord.

Then it left. I continued life as normal. Yet, not the same, for I have that celestial nugget now in my spiritual treasure pile. It’s a treasure that expands every time I look at it, or think about it, or reflect on what it means. Eternal.

When He says, “rely”, does that mean, all the time, in everything? I’ve found the answer to be “yes.” When He says, “to the end” does He mean to the end of this transfer? Does He mean to the end of my mission? Or is it possible that the Lord just blessed me with a piece of knowledge to bless and guide me for the rest of my life?”

(end of journal quote)

I do not fully understand yet how to interpret or apply the wisdom God spoke to me in that occasion. But what I did learn with complete certainty was that God lives, because the way those words came into me was an experience like none I have ever had before or since.  I knew God was speaking to me, directly. I felt His voice. My re-examination of my belief in God a year and half ago came to a quick “case closed” as soon as I remembered that experience as well as other experiences from my mission.

I testify that God lives. I testify that He loves us. I testify that He wants to be involved in our lives and to help us through this mortal journey. I also testify that I looked more to Him for help and guidance after the invitation He gave me, and I have always, always, always found it from Him. God is so so so so good. May my children always know that I know with certainty that there is a God and that He does communicate with His children.

On Saturday, I (Abe) went on a 30 minute run at 8:00 and got back in time for Lily to go to Yoga. All day, Lily was still feeling sick, but I was finally feeling on the mend. While Lily was at Yoga, I was moving slow, but OK with that a I felt I was recovering from the week. I did some cleaning and made lunch for the kids, but mostly was just around, which turns out to be plenty busy with 4 kids 🙂

When Lily got home, I took Lydia to take the exam to get into the gifted program. I hope she makes it! Whether or not she gets in, I know that that sweet girl has many special gifts. She is incredibly responsible, self-aware, loving and the thing that has been most apparent lately is that she is an incredibly gifted reader. Today, she finished book 7 of Harry Potter. So yes, she is a gifted reader, but she is also very gritty.  What I mean is that one year and a half ago, she was barely decoding words. She was one of the worst readers in her first grade class, and scored a 1 out of 4 on her first report card. After getting that score, she told us that she did not want to be the worst reader in the class and that she was determined to get better, and from that point forward, we would find her buried in a book, sounding out words, and forcing herself to learn.  By the end of last year, she had a 3/4 on her report card. An now, almost a year later, she just finish reading 3,500 pages (approximation) of Harry Potter and I think she did it in about 3 months. Towards the end, she was reading about a book a week, and those last books are crazy thick, like 800 pages. This has really been a wonder to behold in our family, given where she started. Lydia is so much like Lily in this respect. Lily was slow to start reading when she was a child, but once she started reading, she never looked back. She was reading War and Peace, Charles Dickens and other great classics as a youth, and she continues to read veraciously in her adult life. She, like Lydia, is a very fast reader, and I’m so grateful Lydia takes after Lily in that respect! I’m a slow reader and I don’t really enjoy reading, but I force myself to do it, because I know it’s good for me, and I do love knowledge.

I should also mention that Friday evening and Saturday during the day, Lily and I had very intense discussions about the church. She is very distraught at some of the troubling things in the church, and I tend to be fairly conventional, and so it took us some time and energy to work through our points of view together. In the end, and after much discussion, we both had Spiritual promptings that helped guide us to a good place of both our faith and our relationship with each other. I am so grateful for God and the way He helps guide us in all aspects of our lives. I.love.Lily.

Around 5:00, Lily and I went to dinner at Andrea’s house. We haven’t spent much time with her recently and she invited us over. My dad also showed up, which was great! We spent most of the time sharing jokes. A great one from my dad was this image below:

I also shared two of my favorite comedy bits (about 5 minutes each):

–Louis CK, Everything is amazing and nobody’s happy

-Jay Larson, Stand-up

Then Andrea shared some near death experience videos with us. There is a trend on youtube of people posting their near-death experiences, and they are absolutely amazing. All the ones I’ve heard of and seem have striking similarities, including that God is the embodiment of love.  Here is one we watched that we particularly loved. (16 minutes)

Andrea’s dinner was amazing. I loved the Indian soup and the place settings were fabulous! Thank you Andrea!