Tuesday Triumph

You might notice my new blog schedule. Yesterday was Marriage Book Review Monday. And if that wasn't too much excitement, today is Tuesday Triumph. I promise not all days will be full of (slightly overused) blog title alliterations. Potpourri Thursday has no poetic effort! Friday will have something to do with Friends and Wednesday will be dedicated to the Work In Progress. But as for Tuesdays, I thought I'd share some triumph, large or small or somewhere in between. And I'd love to hear about yours too!

So here goes. Drum roll please. . . I am learning Yoga. 
You can stop laughing now. Okay, now? 

Why is this my triumph? Let's just say I bought some very comfortable exercise "yoga" pants, I don't know how many months (ahem, years) ago with the intention of signing right up and getting all stretched out. Never happened, until now. I'm learning slowly, but it feels good to do something I've been wanting to do for a while. How about you?

Marriage Book Review Monday

Have you ever noticed there are a lot of marriage books out there?

It took me a while to figure out I loved reading books on the subject. (Someone may have pointed out to me I might be a marriage book junkie :) I've decided to dedicate Mondays on the blog to marriage book reviews. Why? For the fun of it, or maybe I think happy marriages are important, possible and worth the work! Or maybe I miss doing book reports in school. . .

(This post also appears at Making Marriage Merry - an awesome marriage blog! Check it out!)

For Starters:

Title: Teens, Temple Marriage & Eternity

Author: Allan K. Burgess

Publisher: Deseret Book

Year: 1988

How I found it: Christmas Gift

Available on Amazon: Here

Audience: LDS teens and their parents, great for youth leaders, too.

Hardcover, 105 pages

                

This little gem of a book is an easy read. The writing is straightforward and organized into concise chapters with summaries. Burgess draws on experience as a Seminary teacher and counselor, as well as teachings of latter day prophets and general authorities.

I received this as a Christmas gift as a teenager. I think it was the first "marriage" book I’d ever read. I was 14 and of course, I hadn’t met my future husband and though I wouldn’t be married for years to come, I read the book within a day. What can I say? I’ve been fascinated by marriage for a long time. Time and experience has only increased my interest in, as well as my deep appreciation for, the gift of marriage.

               

From the front flap:

“Why should I get married in the temple?” “What happens when I go to the temple for the first time?” “Why are the covenants made there so important?” . . . Allan K. Burgess, a seminary teacher with considerable experience in counseling teenagers and young adults, answers these questions and puts to rest some of the myths and concerns you may have about the temple. Besides learning how to prepare for your first visit to the temple and what to expect from it, you will also learn the importance of the covenants you make and the rich blessings in store for you if you honor those covenants.”

What I appreciate:

The concept he teaches about the difference between a temple wedding and a celestial marriage. The wedding is an event that takes place during one day and ends. The marriage can last a lifetime and for eternity if it is celestial. It is a process that requires two people motivated to keep their covenants.

        This idea might have been the most beneficial for me to learn as a young woman. Our youth are taught much about planning to marry in the temple, and rightly so, but sometimes the focus can be on the event of the wedding instead of the covenants or the quality of the marriage relationship after the wedding day.

     

Quote from Chapter Two, page 25:

                “Many young people labor and live under false notions, feeling that a marriage contract , and especially if it is a temple marriage, solves all the problems; and many people further think that marriage is a sort of perpetual motion program. Once set in motion by a marriage ceremony, it will never run down. I want to tell you that there are no marriages that can ever be happy ones unless two people work at it.” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982], p. 307.)

 Quote from Chapter Six, page 60:

                “He helped her kneel at the altar, and then he walked around to the other side of the altar where he knelt across from her. As their eyes met, I noticed tears. . . .  You could both see and feel the joy that they felt at that moment.”

My two cents:

                Great read for teens and their parents.  Keep in mind the book was published before the digital revolution – so no advice regarding the internet, facebook, etc. Also, he discusses temple worthiness and uses a number of real life stories (names changed, of course) that include serious topics-therefore probably best suited for mature teens.

Up Next Week:
           The Five Love Languages/Gary Chapman

Work-In-Progress Wednesday

The day wherein I think of my manuscript as a sculpture and I know exactly how much clay to remove and where it needs to be added. And I know precisely how to smooth the rough spots and I get to watch it take shape. Beautiful, breath-taking shape. Yeah, that kind of day. A girl can hope, can't she?

Come On Forty, Let's Do This

Come On Forty, Let's Do This
Birthday Thing


I've been waiting for you for how many years now?
For the record, it wasn't easy getting here.
Remember Horse Neck Beach when I was seven and tried to swim out to my brother, who was six-foot-four, I'm sure. Those waves and that water were way over my head. Somehow he heard me call his name and I got to see my eighth birthday. A few close calls like that are reasons why I appreciate you.


And I like that you've arrived to grant admission to the shores of the land known as the second half of my life. If you were a jersey, I'd wear your numbers like a badge of honor. I suppose when it comes down to it, I owe the lofty world of academia for the prestige I can now carry with me. Wasn't it there that you, the lovely 4.0, were deemed perfect?


And last, but not least, I'm glad you bring a reason to celebrate life. 
Which is code for eat cake, take time to notice the tallest trees and the smallest butterflies, and dance the electric slide as only a proud new forty-year-old can--but probably not all at the same time.


Come On Forty, Let's Do This










I didn't know I was going to make a habit out of posting on my birthday, but it looks like that's what I've done!

http://whyigetup.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-i-really-get-up.html

http://whyigetup.blogspot.com/2011/06/simple-gifts.html

Last Day of School, Anyone?

Some mothers get soo sentimental about the first day of school. There is no shortage of pictures and posts about babies growing up too fast and 'how did we get here' and a few confessionals that include how free a mother feels when her youngest is in school for a full day.

I'm not going to pretend that I don't experience a handful of those emotions. But you know what really gets me? The last day of school. As in a son's last day of high school. Wham! Or my daughter's last day of kindergarten. Double-wham!


I said 'I love you' and before she jumped out of the van, she turned and smiled at me with the slant of her head and the squint of her eyes that said, in a sweet way, "Aw, mom!" I watched her walk fast and focused through the criss-cross of playing children. She knew exactly where she was going. She didn't look back, she didn't look lost. Gone were the 'What-am-I-in-for?' expressions of Day One. See? It's the last day. She's doing exactly what she is supposed to do--learning and gaining confidence and preparing for what comes next. I sit in the van with parents behind me waiting for me to move and I wonder, am I?


And then there is the son. If I can feel the swell of motherly love from witnessing a ten month transformation of my kindergartner, then what is it I'm feeling as I watch my son don his cap and gown? I try to reconcile it with pictures in my mind of the superman PJs he loved to wear as a two-year-old, so much that he wanted them as his Halloween costume. This cap and gown is no costume. It's the authentic rite-of-passage uniform he gets to wear, declaring to the universe, what? That's he's grown up, that's what. And that's what gets me in the back of my throat, in the pit of my stomach, and what sends tears cascading down my cheeks, as he walks, accepts the diploma and the passport to the rest of his life. Swells of love combine with bursts of pride and form waves that pick up pangs of hope. I wonder if anything I've done in the last 18+ years will make any bit of difference for good in his life. 


The graduates march, and like hands on the clock, there is no turning them back. Forward, always forward. 


I feel marvel and wonder, some sadness for mistakes every mother can't help making, mostly gratitude for all the sweet memories swirling.


If it's freedom a mother feels when she sends that young one off to school and returns home to her life, and whatever fills it, what does she feel when that child graduates from school. More freedom?

Not exactly, for me. By the time I take my seat in the bleachers, I realize--I'm the mother. He may leave and live his future any where and any way he wants, but I will always be his mother and I won't be 'freed' from that. That's what gets me. And I'm glad. Happy glad. Wait, I think it's joy. Yes, pinewood derby, first church dance, last piano recital, one-hundredth silly pun, --and one unsolicited 'thanks, mom' hug in his cap and gown, and I feel it. Joy.

Chocolate Chip Memories

I mean cookies. Well, memories of making chocolate chip cookies. You know what I mean? Saturday nights my sister and I would commandeer the kitchen and make Toll House cookies. Okay, she would make the cookies and I would do whatever she ordered,er, instructed. Usually set up and clean up and occasionally I'd get to crack an egg or mix--once she taught me how to make sure none of the flour was left in un-stirred pockets on the bottom of the bowl. I wasn't complaining about the division of duties. She worked her magic and before I knew it there was plate full of six dozen warm, ooey-gooey, perfectly semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies. And no one in the house could eat one until the last one was lifted off the cookie sheet. It was a smart system of labor and rewards. We'd pour tall glasses of milk and devour half the plate.

A few things have changed since then. My sister and I live on separate coasts - so we aren't together on Saturday nights. However, I still LOVE to make chocolate chip cookies. I don't always make them from scratch. This is quite a departure because for years it was hard to use anything but the Nestle Toll House recipe and chocolate chips. It might have had something to do with growing up close to the original Toll House. (Notice the picture is of the sign, not the restaurant? Sorry to disappoint, but the place burned down in 1984. Now there is Wendy's in it's place. *Sigh* ) No question that made-from-scratch cookies are the best.

But as a mom, scratch baking isn't always practical (read-doable!). SO, I admit to using a cookie mix here and there. Right now I like a chocolate-chunk variety and I add white chips. I still use real butter. (Pause the cholesterol lecture. I don't eat two dozen in one sitting anymore!)

And did you know, we have the mistake-slash-improvisation of Ruth Wakefield to thank for the chocolate chip cookie? She worked quite a deal with Nestle after the cookies and recipe became a hit--a lifetime supply of chocolate! Think of that next time you run out of an ingredient and something doesn't go like you planned.

Meanwhile, I'd love to hear about your chocolate chip memories -- or recipes. 

You Know Spring Has Arrived

when birds are chirping,
in your dryer vent.
Okay, not chirping so much as fluttering.
That was the sound I heard coming from my laundry room as I sat at my keyboard, minding my own business, typing away.

You know, I was getting too confident in my ability to stick to my writing schedule despite the many varied distractions and interruptions life can throw at me. I don't know what you would have done, but I pretty much ran screaming out the door the second that bird spread it's wings and started flying through my house. Don't ask me why. I don't have time to analyze how I can reach into the disposal bare-handed but not stay composed in the presence of a small lost sparrow.

So Happy Spring to you. Hopefully all the birds & animals at your house are invited guests and not surprise drop-ins!