On Thursday it was really rainy and I was tired, so I spent a lot of the day just reading my fantasy escape novel. Eli came over and played with the kids, who dressed him up:
I also stayed up late emailing, despite my best intentions to get to bed early. Abe got in around 1am from his flight. I was so relieved and happy to see him. It was thundering and lightning off and on throughout the day, and I just got really scared he would die on the plane or in a car crash.
On Wednesday Lydia sent the cutest email to Abe, who was out of town:” dear daddy, Have THE BEST trip to Phillawhatevery. See you later alligator!
”
On Monday my mom gave away the foxglove, much to Lydia’s joy.
In the evening I drove to Lehi to meet up with my friend, Michaelann Bradley. She is going through a lot of things, and we have mostly been online friends for the past several years. But with all of her transitions and mine, we decided to meet up and talk. I loved spending time with her and learned SO much.
Michaelann is the president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. Transhumanists believe that technology develops at exponential rates and that at some point we will change from homo sapiens to homo deus–human gods–because of our technology. Mormon transhumanists try to impose an LDS ethic on transhumanism, which is interesting. It was also great to hear her take on Joseph Smith because she has been married to Don Bradley, the number on historical researcher in the Church. They believe Joseph Smith was a kind of alchemist who took very normal things and turned them into things legitimately more precious. For example, they believe he probably made the BOM plates himself but through either the occult, translation or something else created the Book of Mormon, which is legitimately precious scripture. This was very interesting for me to hear. I also just loved talking with her and getting to know her personal story. She is such a brilliant woman and I have admired her on FB for so long–it felt like a treat to have an in person conversation!
We talked until the restaurant was past closing time and agreed to keep in touch so we can get together again more frequently. When I left for dinner Abe said, “Make a friend!” –and I did! 🙂
I went to my meditation today and learned to be content with being content. While we were in Sundance, I felt frustrated that I wasn’t completely cracked open to joy. Today in my meditation I learned that being happy and content is more than enough. I realized while meditating that I was alive, that I was content, and that I did not need anything more than that. And then I realized that being discontent because I am only content is ironic and counterproductive. Also, I love my Sunday meditation group practice.
When the kids came home, I helped Lydia bake brownies and then helped her make some summer excel spreadsheets for harp practice and baking and then helped her start her own Goodreads account. When I signed on to Goodreads tonight, I about died of cuteness overload reading the little reviews she typed up for the books she’s rated.
In the afternoon we headed to Salt Lake to the Miners for their fun May and June birthdays celebrations. The weather was beautiful and Clarissa loves their swing.
Lydia is such a sweet soul. Abe was showing my mom a picture of the foxglove Clarissa got at the nursery yesterday, and my mom exclaimed that foxglove is poisonous to children. Lydia started crying and wouldn’t stop until we promised to move the foxglove to the front where Clarissa can never touch it without an adult near to stop her. Lydia was just unable to handle her fear of Clarissa eating the foxglove. (Then later my mom convinced us to just give the plant away, so we’re going that route instead. This should make Lydia very happy.)
On Saturday my foot hurt so I basically took it as easy as possible. I did go to yoga and then in the evening we went to the greenhouse to pick out more plants for our garden, but other than that I was pretty much nursing my foot in bed all day.
Lydia baked blueberry muffins all by herself. She accidentally doubled the butter, which made the batter really watery but the muffins were…so rich and delicious. I am thinking that’s a mistake worth repeating.
