How I came to be . . .

I guess I should mention how this blog came to fruition.

Last Christmas an old college roommate of mine sent her yearly family update and mentioned that she had started a blog. So throughout this year I have been a casual reader, keeping up with her growing family. Then one day in my googling, I happened to stumble across another personal blog of a person I know nothing about. BUT I loved the way she wrote. It wasn't your casual day-to-day type entries. They were funny and witty and well-written. After several months of lurking on her site, I desired to become a better writer.

I've kept a journal, but I don't write consistently and my writing is very haphazard, jumping from one thought to another without any real cohesion. I don't plan my words or sentences when I journal write. My entire objective is to get my thoughts on paper without worrying if I'm using the best word or sentence structure, without worrying if I'm being too redundant. Confession: I'm a lazy writer. Correction: I was a lazy writer.

So I decided a blog would be an experiment for me to see if I could indeed be a better writer. I loved the idea of being able to add pictures. I discovered you can print your blog entries in book format (a definite plus for posterity's sake!). I don't care so much if anyone reads it now. In fact so far no one has read a single entry, but I try to write as though everyone is reading it.

The hardest part of this entire process has been coming up with a blog name. There were several days where I stalemated. I couldn't move beyond the naming game. I started one day just writing down everything that came to me: Joyful Mother of Children, Becoming, Miscellaneous Musings, Ramblings, Simple, Small and Simple, Creating Roots, Remember Remember, Family Is Everything. Nothing stood out to me. Then I remembered listening to a talk by Dr. John L. Lund where he described me perfectly. I am A HUMAN DOER as opposed to a human being. I am a visual person who tends to see everything that is not done (Dr. Lund is also very quick to point out that there is no such thing as DONE. There will always be something to do). So while I am intrinsically a doer, I am working on becoming.

Separated at last

New bunk beds for the boys arrived last week. Both Nate and Erik acted a little forlorn as if they were losing their best friend rather than their bed partner. How could Erik not enjoy his own bed! I've slept with Nate before and was never so glad to kick him out when morning came (snoring, kicking, moving). The morning after I asked Nate how he enjoyed his own bed. He looked at me, sighed, and said rather wistfully, "I don't know." Erik piped up and replied that he and Nate used to wake up in the morning and talk. I quickly assured them they could still do that. I'm sure all this sadness will disappear sometime, but right now I'm feeling a little blue with them.

Advent Stockings

In with new and out with the old. I wanted to try something different this year instead of our usual pull-the-ornament-out-of-the-pocket-and-velcro-it-to-the-felt-tree advent calendar my mom handed down to me. I came across this idea on familyfun.com and decided to try it.

1. I bought 24 different socks, 24 mini clothespins, and some Christmas ribbon.

2. I wanted to hang them in front of the fireplace for aesthetics, but had a difficult time keeping them up because of the weight. Every morning I would find my string of socks dangling. Tyler solved my problem by finding a way to tie the ribbon up.

3. I had to come up with 24 different things for each stocking. I wanted to read a scripture every day, so that was easy. I found a 25 piece Miss Spider puzzle and put a piece of the puzzle in each stocking. And then I just made a list of different activities or things to do each night. I love that Christmas creates that feeling of anticipation and wanted my kids to feel that every day. To have something to look forward to.

At first my kids balked at this idea. Erik even asked me if he could put up the old calendar, but after several days they were heard to say, "Can we do this again next year?!" Waking up to something in their stocking has given them a little bit of Christmas morning every morning and I have loved it.

Ideas I came up with
1. Start the 12 Days of Christmas to a family in our neighborhood

2. Watch Christmas devotional with popcorn

3. Christmas crossword puzzle (placed in the stocking)

4. Gold chocolate coins

5. Write Santa letters

6. Pick out our Christmas tree and visit the zoo for ZooLights

7. Camp out around the Christmas tree

8. Visit Santa

9. Breakfast for dinner with candelight

10. Visit the library and donate box of shoes and coats to charity

11. Ornament for each child to hang on the tree

12. Sudoku puzzle

13. Make snowflakes

14. Christmas music quiz

15. Get out of Sunday dishes (mom and dad will do them)

16. Go to Logan

17. Leary family Christmas party

18. Sing Christmas songs around the piano

19. Decorate gingerbread house

20. Game night

21. Movie night

22. Make cookies

23. Visit Temple Square and see the lights

24. Shop for each other for Christmas Eve present exchange

25. Drive around and look at lights

26. Read Christmas stories

27. Over the river and through the woods to Grandma's house we go

My Happy Place

Yes, this is exactly what I look like when I vacuum. Notice the heels, the nylons, the dress, the ruffly apron, but especially the gleeful smile.

Okay, I may ditch the heels, the nylons, the dress, the apron; however, Tyler will attest that I do vacuum with a smile. Vacuuming takes me to a happy place where neither kids, nor phone, nor doorbell can intrude. I just like to vacuum and proclaim myself an addict.

November Reads

A posting I made on Learyfam.com.

Posted on October 29, 2007

TWILIGHT, NEW MOON, ECLIPSE

Okay, so my Primary program is over and we were gone for a couple of days last week and I wanted something easy to read. So I decided to see what all the hype was about Twilight, a book about vampires. I put off reading it for so long merely because of the subject matter. And everyone I talked to said the same thing: "I didn't want to read it. It's about vampires." BUT I read it in three days (500 pages)! The book is definitely a page turner, but also somewhat cheesy (written for teenage girls and lacks a lot of substance) and not really your typical vampire book. It was a fun escape novel although I now have books 2 and 3 to read, equal in length to the first.

*******

Twilight was actually finished by the end of October. I really thought I would have the next two books in the series read within the week. A month later I finally finished Eclipse, the 3rd book (New Moon is the 2nd in the series). So many things came up that kept me from reading (Christmas shopping and wrapping, Thanksgiving, family newsletters, neighbor gifts delivered, Primary). Book two was slower, but still readable. Book three had more conflict. Overall, all three were very readable books, but I can't say I'm so drawn to them that I would read them again. For our book club we read a book titled These Is My Words by Nancy Turner, a book I had read in February and took liberty to add it to our book list. Comparing the Twilight series with These Is My Words, These is much more believable with depth that Twilight doesn't even come close to. Both were page turners for me, however These is a book I'd reread more than once.

Posted on October 29, 2007

LIFE OF PI

I'm also nearing the end of Life of Pi, a book with a lot more substance than Twilight. So far I have thoroughly enjoyed it, but am having a hard time deciding if it is a true story (maybe the end of the book will shed further light; it does say he was shipwrecked on July 2, 1977 and found on February 14, 1978.). A 16-year-old boy from India is shipwrecked on his way to Canada and finds himself in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger for company. He describes his survival at sea without getting eaten by the tiger. My favorite quote from the book (so far): "Things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to, but what can you do? You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it."

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Life of Pi -- a very memorable book that still has me scratching my head. I think it's a book that should be read more than once just to catch everything you might have missed the first time around. Book club is at my house in January. I'm contemplating reading this to give myself the chance to read it again.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Today was one of those warm woolen mitten, hot chocolate, sit by the fire kind of afternoons. We all live for the first snow of the season, and it finally came. Not much, but enough to fill the air with feelings of Christmas and cold hands, toes, and noses.

Nemans, Hancogg, and Qua Quaf

You just hate to see your two-year-old get older (unless you're in the throes of the terrible twos, something I've seemed to have missed with all four kids). I love two. I've made my kids promise to never grow up, but they do it anyway.

Ashlyn is two, not quite three, and I've become her sounding board since Nate is no longer around in the morning. It is delightful to get a glance at the world as she sees it through her use of expressions and words. Nemans (pronounce the "e" as in egg and the "a" as in aloud) are M&Ms, hancogg is eggnog, and qua quaf (pronouce the "a" as in awesome) is a wash cloth.