The Trials of a Busy Mom

Month: March 2012 (Page 1 of 2)

Speed! (Now we know how Lightning McQueen feels)

This week was John’s pinewood derby in cub scouts. We had a month to prepare for it, and wouldn’t you know it, but 90% of the car was done on the next to last day.


Ryan even came home from work early on Tuesday to work on the car.

They sanded and painted. And sanded and taped and painted some more. I hear that John even did his own spray painting and did a great job of it!

(You can see the state of our basement in that picture, by the way. Still unfinished, but there is some progress.)

The best part of this project is the time spent with Dad.

Boys need this bonding time with dad, especially bonding time using tools.

This project involved using tools borrowed from two different friends, at least one trip to the hardware store together and two different kinds of paint.

This is my favorite picture. They were using this drill press thingy (yes, that IS the technical term for it, thank you very much) and I said, “Shouldn’t you be using eye protection?” John turned around, and after rifling through the drawer behind him, put on those cool shades. “Here’s my eye protection, Mom,” he said.

Here’s the finished car, ready for racing.
and here he is at the derby, showing off his car.

Now, it’s not easy to get good shots of that little car speeding down that track,
, but Ryan managed to get this cute little video.

I’m proud of my boys for completing this task. It’s not easy to design and make a car, and it can be disappointing when your car doesn’t win. I’m so thankful for Ryan’s willingness to help John build this car.

John’s car won 3rd place overall, and he was awarded “Best Engine Design”.


I’m linking up with Jenny Matlock for Alphebee Thursday, letter S

Happy Birthday, Cole!

First of all, there’s NO WAY that I’m old enough to have an 18 year old. Let’s just put that out there right now.

Ahem.

But, that said, I want to wish my firstborn a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Sadly, the kid was born before we had a digital camera, so most of his baby pictures are still the old fashioned kinds in a photo album, not the digital kind that I can find on my computer. But what a cutie pie he is!

Cole, as the firstborn, has always been a GOOD kid. He never shouted “I hate you” at me, and has always been quite obedient. That’s just how he is. He tries his best to be the best he can. Which is good for a first child, especially when parents have NO IDEA what they are doing. I have apologized to him several times that he’s my experimental child, and I’m sorry if I’ve screwed up with him, and also thanking him for being the first (experimental) child. But hopefully he’s not too damaged. He seems to be turning out ok.

He’s a GREAT big brother. I don’t think the younger kids know how LUCKY they are to have a NICE brother, who doesn’t tease or torment them.

Cole is SO smart. But I already told you that, right. He is a GREAT boy, a wonderful son, and I am honored to be his mom. My greatest hope for all of my kids is that they can grow up to be responsible individuals, good examples to those around them, and happy well adjusted adults. A friend recently shared a quote with me that the end product of raising kids isn’t the kids, it’s the parents. I know I’m not quoting it right, but we as parents are the ones who are learning and growing through this experience. These kids are teaching us. Thank you, Cole, for teaching me how to be a mother.

I love YOU! Happy Birthday

Why do we have to have so many parties?

We have two spring birthdays in our family. Two spring birthdays that are 9 days apart, and usually one or the other is either around Easter or General Conference. When I was complaining to a friend that I have these two birthdays basically a week apart, she said it was pretty much my fault. What? Cole was born two days late, and Megan was born a week early. SO–if we had stuck to the due dates, Cole’s birthday would be March 24, and Megan’s would be April 11th, and they would then be 2 1/2 weeks apart. Oh, well.

Friday night we had Cole’s party. I warned him that this would be the last Mom sponsored birthday party. WHAT? I then explained that when you are in college, Mom won’t be coming over to plan a birthday party. And then on your mission, Mom will send you a present, but can’t plan a party. 18 is pretty much it. You’re getting to be an adult. Deal. So, he thought it would be fun to do a Murder Mystery party. Great. I had given all of my how to host a murder games away, since we had already played them. Luckily, my sister had a few she let us choose from. He invited 4 girls and 3 boys, with Megan as the back up invite. Megan ended up as one of the characters, since one of the girls he invited couldn’t come.

First, I made dinner. Carver’s Spinach salad and rolls, followed by chicken cordon bleu, rice with sauce, and green beans was the menu. Once everyone was here, they started to read their dossiers and learn about the deceased. During dinner they played round one.

Although they told me that there were some inapropriate parts of the game (someone making porn movies, and illigitimate son named B. Astard, and some other such stuff), they had a fun time. It was nice to see Cole’s friends dressed up nice, and I think it went well.

When they finished the game, we paused for brownies and ice cream, and then they broke out another game that one of the boys had brought. After that, one of the girls got some big old foam jousting sticks out of her car (What is this, bring your own entertainment?) and I found them at 10 pm, out on the back lawn, “killing” each other with foam sword thingies. At 10:30, I had to break up the party and tell them it was time to go home.

Exhausted, I went to bed. Only to be faced wtih the task of planning ANOTHER birthday party for the very next Friday night. And Megan was not giving me any ideas. I kept throwing out what I thought were fun suggestions, but she wasn’t really going for any of them. Saturday, I was taking Megan and her friend to the Hunger Games matinee, and afterward, we stopped at Hobby Lobby to see if we could be inspired. She came to me and said, “Mom, what if we did…whisper, whisper, whisper?” Hmmmmm. I can work with that. So, currently we are making up invitations for an “Iron chef/cupcake wars” party that we will put together and throw this Friday night.

Pictures from BOTH parties will follow. Eventually. When I recover.

We’re so hungry

It’s Hunger Games Movie Mania time.


I read the books, along with about everyone I know. Loved the first book, loved the second book less, and didn’t love the third book. Suspense, Action, Drama, a little romance. But I don’t need to tell you that, because you probably read them, too. Even my mom has read the books, although she said she didn’t like them. Hats off to you, Suzanne Collins. May you live in peace and enjoy your millions.

So, a few weeks ago my 15 year old daughter asked if we could buy tickets for the movie. She wanted to give them to her friend for her birthday. We decided not to do the midnight showing (I just can’t go without sleep like that anymore), but bought tickets for the three of us (they need a driver) for Saturday. But then my 13 year old daughter was feeling left out because why couldn’t she come with us, and when was SHE going to see it. Her carpool friend was going on and on bout how excited she was to go to the MIDNIGHT movie with her family, blah, blah, blah, and so I looked into buying another ticket to take her with us on Saturday, although older sister didn’t think that was a good idea at all. Ugh. Sisters.

But then, on Tuesday morning, I happened to be the right caller when radio guy said CALL NOW to win Hunger Games movie premier tickets. I won two tickets to the Wednesday night premier! A day before all those MIDNIGHT movie insane people could see it. He said he would put my name on a list, and knowing that I had rehearsal that night, I put Natalie’s name on the list, and then told her she could invite a friend. She was through the roof excited!


(no, we didn’t win a free shirt. Now THAT would have been really cool!)

So, she got a friend and I talked to the friend’s mom and got it all arranged. Friend came over Wed at 5, and we took off. Yes, leaving at 5 for a 7:30 movie is a little early, but we know from experience that they ALWAYS give out more tickets than there are seats, and if you don’t get there early, you will NOT get in. Seriously. Ryan and I have been to quite a few movie premiers. There were good ones, like That thing you do, Miracle(got a promotional squishy hockey puck at that one, The Astronaut Farmer, Hildalgo (Ryan got a free hat at that one), , and The Count of Monte Cristo (we remember that one because some lady behind us said quite loudly “He’s SO GORGEOUS” right behind us during the movie, and it made us laugh), a re-release of Star WArsWe’ve also witnessed several not so good movies, most of which we have forgotten, like that one with James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall (can’t remember anything about that movie except that it was boring), Along Came Polly, Dukes of Hazard,something stupid with Demi Moore, and I’m sure there have been others, but it’s really about 8 am and my brain can’t really remember them all. But my point is…. If you aren’t there early, you won’t get in. Once, I had worked so hard to win TWO sets of passes to the latest Harry Potter movie (I think it was 5. Or 6. Don’t know), so that I could take all the kids AND the cousins who were staying with us. I gathered them all up in the Suburban, and we got down to the Gateway at about 5:30 only to realize as we were getting out of the car that Cole didn’t have his shoes (we laugh about it now! In his defense, I did say “Get in the car”, and I didn’t mention anything about getting shoes on BEFORE we did so), but that’s beside the point. We rushed into the lobby, only to find that we wouldn’t be able to get actual seats, even though we had passes. Ryan’s brother, of course, got there early enough to get seats. But I’m not bitter or anything. So, you can see why I was rushing to get them down there to the theater.

When we got there, there were already several lines, and when we got up to check our name off the list so we could get in line, ticket lady with bad teeth said that she had no list, and the promotions people have their own list, and weren’t there yet. Ponytail ticket lady said that, no, promotions lady was indeed there, but she had told her she wasn’t working until 6. I looked at my watch, and it was 5:55. OK. Don’t stress out. 5 minutes won’t make or break this deal. So we waited. And waited. And waited, while many other people went in with their little passes. Stress. What if they don’t make it in? What if I have to wait here forever and am late for rehearsal? What if my little girl is left alone at the gateway with no movie to attend? Ugh. Breathe in. Breathe out. At about 6:20, the promotions gal turned up, and looked at her list. Sure enough, Natalie’s name is on it, and she ushers them over to the line where they are guaranteed seats. Big Sigh of relief! I hugged her and said goodbye, told her where I would pick her up, and the ticket lady was nice enough to tell me that the movie would be over at 10:02. That was very nice of her, because then I knew I would have time to park and meet them there at the theater.

To reward myself for getting them into the movie, I got myself a Junior Crown burger combo. Yum. And got to rehearsal in plenty of time. Just as I was going into rehearsal I got a text from Natalie telling me they were taking all their phones, goodbye. What? Like she could record and pirate the movie on her crappy phone. That reminds me…it’s March. Didn’t the T-mobile guy tell me I could get a free phone in March? Got to check into that! AHEM. Ok, I’m back.

AT 10:02, I was there, back at the Gateway, to pick them up. Smiling people were coming out talking about what an awesome movie that was.

Just the trailer makes me cry. You can watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=SMGRhAEn6K0 (it wouldn’t let me embed it for some reason)

They were SO happy they had gotten to see it, and told me a little bit, but not too much. They even made $5 when someone asked them to save their place in line and offered to pay them 5 bucks. Sweet! Junior mints and popcorn!

But most importantly, my daughter got to feel like a rock star. She got to feel like a special person, getting to see a movie premier before any of her friends. It won’t make any difference in her life, or even next month. But today, she can feel special. And hopefully, she will remember how much her mom loves her.

Sometimes you just need some holiday cheer

When I end up sobbing and crying uncontrollably while watching a tv show, it’s a pretty good bet that my hormones are out of whack or that the monthly visitor is coming soon. But in my defense, it was about a woman whose husband died, and it was very sad. So, to cheer myself up, I watched some kid history.

A day of abuse and volleyball? Sounds like fun. Sign me up!

The other day I showed up for a half day subbing job at my kids’ school. While I hadn’t subbed for that class yet, I had done a bit of subbing in that grade, and some of the kids know me from PTA and other stuff. I walked in the back of the class right before they went to lunch. The kids, who were already pretty hyper because they had just been to an assembly, saw me and said, “Hooray!” and “I know YOU”, and “It’s Mrs. Erickson” all at once. Two of the kids I knew from primary (one is John’s friend), and some of them I recognized. Wow! I felt kind of like a celebrity. The teacher, who is actually brand new at that school, and who was probably really looking forward to her afternoon training meeting away from the kids, said, “I’m glad you have a sub you like, now make sure you behave!” After the kids came back from lunch, I explained my expectations, my rewards, and all that stuff, and we went on to have a nice afternoon together. Really. No problems at all. I would sub for them again, no problem. Besides, it’s not often that kids cheer when you show up, right? Little boost to my self-esteem.

Contrast that with the next day, when I was subbing at the jr high in Health/PE. Now, the ONLY reason I took that job was because it mentioned in the notes that she had a student teacher who would be doing most of the teaching, and I would be there to help and support her. Because teaching 8th grade health? Ick. So, when I got there, I looked around for a student teacher, and not seeing one, started to panic JUST a little bit, until I saw that her computer and coat were already there at the desk. I waited until she came in, introduced myself, and asked her if she wanted me to do anything to help her. “I’m good,” she said, and so I set up camp at the table in the corner of the room. She started on her lesson about communication in relationships, did a little activity with relation-SHIPS they had drawn the last class, and then started in on the topic of the day…unhealthy relationships. I was SO THANKFUL that wasn’t MY lesson that I would have to be giving! I’d almost rather have a root canal (which I did, last week, actually) than teach THAT lesson three times in a row with no preparation.

Relief.

She did a GREAT job. She had a power point presentation, a powerful but short video clip about a girl who was in an abusive relationship and how it nearly destroyed her before her parents helped her break up with him and turn him in to the police, and real information about the different kinds of abuse, the warning signs, and how NO ONE deserves to be in an abusive relationship. She did SUCH a great job with this heavy material, and I told her so. But when the first class was over, I asked her if there was ANYTHING I could do to help her out, because I wasn’t real thrilled about sitting through this two more times. It was too distracting to really ready my book, but I was stuck there. So, she gave me a stack of papers that I could grade. Gladly! I ended up grading four classes worth of these papers, which gave me something to do, at least. She was VERY appreciative that I had done that, because, really, it was a couple of hours worth of work that now she doesn’t have to do over the weekend, and it gave me something to do. I did still get a few chapters read in my book, but honestly, who can read with a discussion of abusive relationships going on?

This young teacher did a great job. Except for ONE tiny annoying thing. After every two or three sentences, she would throw in a “K?” Like, “I’m going to tell you a true story that illustrates this point, k?” “These are the six types of abuse I want you to remember, k?” Ugh! After a while, it really started to get on my nerves. I wonder if her mentor teacher has mentioned this to her? I hope so. I wanted to say something, but that’s not really my place, and I didn’t want to sound rude or condescending, so I didn’t mention it to her.

After three classes of health, I had lunch and then went to the gym for PE. It was actually a relief to be teaching PE. Something where I could get up and move around, not just sit in the back of the classroom being bored and listening to the same presentation over and over. Once I called role and made note of who was dressed and participating and who was not, I assigned them their courts and let them play volleyball for an hour. Much more fun than talking about abuse.

It’s all academic!

WARNING….BRAG ALERT. I am about to do some serious bragging about one of my kids here, so if that turns your stomach or gets you all irritated, just click away. You have been warned….

My son Cole is on the Academic Decathlon team at his school. I really don’t know much about it except that since it’s called a decathlon, maybe there are 10 events, and I know it’s for smart people. Seriously. Call me an uninformed parent, but I didn’t really know what was going on. Sure, he stayed after school a couple of times a week and then he went to a few competitions on Saturdays, and that was that. Right? Well, shortly before our friends were coming to visit, I told the kids that Robin and her kids would be coming on a certain day, and Cole said, “That’s when the State Acadec competition is.” Oh, I asked it if was on the calendar, or if he had told me about this before. “Umm..” I guess not. Where is this competition, I asked. “In St. George.” What? So, we quickly found out the info, how much it would cost, when he would be gone, etc.

While he was gone, we kept in touch through short text messaging. He told me he rocked his speech, or had felt really good about a test. On Friday, he told me that they were first in the standings after 5 events. Saturday I got a message that they had won 1st place! Wow! I found out later that they had won first in large school, and also first overall, knocking our Park City, who I hear has won this competition for many years. Our little team of 9 kids were the best in the state! They now get to compete at the Nationals, which will be held in New Mexico at the end of April.


These are Cole’s medals. You may not be able to tell that they are different, but he won 6 gold and one bronze medal in his events.

I am so amazed and so proud of my son! I mean, I’ve always known how smart he is, and he’s always been a good test taker, but this really is amazing! It was so fun to hear him tell about the weekend and his excitement at having done so well.
I said, “Cole, they will put this up on the marquee in front of the school that you are state champions!” He cynically replied that they only put up stuff about basketball, and probably wouldn’t even mention them. But, much to my surprise, they had a school assembly that week honoring excellence from their school this quarter, and they honored both the basketball team (1st in State, by the way) AND this little Academic Decathlon team. While probably most of the kids in the school have no idea who those math geeks on stage were, THEY knew, and THEY know how awesome they are.

I went to a parent meeting this week to find out a bit more info. These kids are going to be so deep in studying for the next four weeks, they don’t even have time to do fundraisers. The coach suggested a “Decathalon-athon” where people can pledge 5 or 10 cents for every page Cole studies during the next month, or look for corporate sponsors. Hmmm. I don’t really have great connections with any big companies who I could ask to donate all or part of the $6,000 needed to take the team, but I do have friends. Maybe if we can get 50-60 people who would donate $10 each, that would about cover Cole’s costs. Or if I had 25-30 people who would donate $20 each. You see where I’m going with this?

If you feel inclined to help Cole and his team out, we would HAPPILY accept your donations. Yes, Ryan and I will probably be paying for most of it, but it would be nice to not have to foot the whole bill, and we hope the community will also kick in with some corporate donations. This is ACADEMIC, after all.

You are already amazing

I went to a discussion group where we talk about the General Conference talks from October conference. We are supposed to be re-reading all the talks, then come discuss our favorite, and how that talk has prompted us to do better. For many of us, Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s talk in the Relief Society General meeting, Forget Me Not, really hit us hard. In his talk, he reminds us all of many things.

First, forget not to be patient with yourself.

I want to tell you something that I hope you will take in the right way: God is fully aware that you and I are not perfect.

Let me add: God is also fully aware that the people you think are perfect are not.

And yet we spend so much time and energy comparing ourselves to others—usually comparing our weaknesses to their strengths. This drives us to create expectations for ourselves that are impossible to meet. As a result, we never celebrate our good efforts because they seem to be less than what someone else does.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.

It’s wonderful that you have strengths.

And it is part of your mortal experience that you do have weaknesses.

How often do we look at those around us and think, “I wish I could be thin and in shape like her”, or “I wish I could have a clean, organized house like her”, or “She does the most amazing furniture refinishing! Why do my attempts always turn out looking so dumpy?”, or “Look at that perfect family and those beautiful children. Why can’t my children act like that?”

When we compare, we are looking at someone else’s best and comparing that to our worst. That’s not fair! But how many of us continue to do that?

One of the ladies commented that she blames facebook and blogs for a lot of these feelings of inadequacy. Let’s face it, when we blog, we try to only show the photographs of the perfect finished project, not the huge pile of disaster that is behind us. Right?

This made me laugh. Do you look at the facebook statuses (stati? statuss?) of your friends, and they are showing pictures of their great trip to Hawaii, or posting about their children’s perfect grades and accomplishments, and feel sadly inadequate? Yes, people do post those things. Nobody wants to post, “just had a huge fight with my husband and I’m afraid my marriage is falling apart” as their facebook status. Or who posts, “Great job, me. I gained another pound?” No? They post that they worked out, or that they finally reached that goal of losing those 5 pounds. They aren’t posting these things to be untrue, or to make the rest of us feel bad about ourselves that we just ate a piece of cake for breakfast and sit blogging in our pajamas with a messy house, but because they are proud of the accomplishment and maybe they are looking for some positive comments from their friends.

Ladies, we need to accept that we are enough. We are good enough, we are smart enough, we are compassionate enough.

Elder Uchtdorf goes on to say,
“Dear sisters, many of you are endlessly compassionate and patient with the weaknesses of others. Please remember also to be compassionate and patient with yourself.

In the meantime, be thankful for all the small successes in your home, your family relationships, your education and livelihood, your Church participation and personal improvement. Like the forget-me-nots, these successes may seem tiny to you and they may go unnoticed by others, but God notices them and they are not small to Him. If you consider success to be only the most perfect rose or dazzling orchid, you may miss some of life’s sweetest experiences.

For example, insisting that you have a picture-perfect family home evening each week—even though doing so makes you and everyone around you miserable—may not be the best choice. Instead, ask yourself, “What could we do as a family that would be enjoyable and spiritual and bring us closer together?” That family home evening—though it may be modest in scope and execution—may have far more positive long-term results.”

Please remember–we all have problems. We all have struggles that we keep private, things that we are battling that only our family or closest friends know about. One quote I love is, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle”– Plato
Be kind to yourself. Give yourself a little bit of understanding if you don’t get the whole house clean today, or if you don’t finish that presentation you wanted to do, or if you only do 1/2 hour on the treadmill instead of pounding out 65 minutes like you did yesterday. Be kind. Be understanding. Be charitable. We could all use more kindness and charity in our lives, even if it’s only from ourselves.

We now have an Eagle Scout

Sunday was Cole’s Eagle court of honor. Having not been to an Eagle court of honor in quite some time, I didn’t really know what to expect, but I knew there must be food. I ordered 6 dozen brownies from the bakery, then made tons andtons of Eagle cookies. We went over to the church at 5:00 to set up.

(Not sure why cup stacking was required, but my kids kept stacking and unstacking the large stack of cups I brought. I blame minute to win it.)

We also had decorations, courtesy of my dad. He had made this set of Norman Rockwell scout pictures a few years back when he was over the scouts in his ward, and they came in handy for this occasion. My favorite is the large scout insignia made out of foam core. I thought it was the perfect compliment to the flags, and classed up the joint a bit.

We had set up quite a few chairs in the room, but it was quickly filling up with family, so we hurried to grab a few more chairs.

After the regular court of honor, they switched to Eagle mode and invited Cole up.

Cole looks pretty serious, like he’s going to be interrogated or something. I guess we forgot to tell him that this was a happy occasion. But Mom and Dad were certainly happy!

There were a lot of kind things said, some awards presented, some pins, and then it was done! It was wonderful to see so many of Cole’s leaders and friends and family members go over to the Eagle’s nest, too. I proudly wore my mother’s Eagle pin (I may wear it EVERY day) and Ryan promptly lost his father’s pin as soon as we sat down. No worries, we found it under a chair. They have a new mentor pin, and Cole chose to give that to our good friend and neighbor, J.B.
Cole thanked him for all the campouts he had gone on, and remembers a few years back when JB made him promise that he would get his Eagle. I didn’t know that, but it’s nice that so many leaders have helped him along the way. It was a sweet moment.

I am very proud of my boy. It was not easy to get all of this done, and many times he wanted to give up, but he stuck with it and finished it (before his 18th birthday, which is later this month). I have learned a thing or two about scouting as well, and I hope to be a better support and more organized about all this when John is working on his merit badges and hopefully his Eagle.

We ended with a slideshow that Cole had made. Funny story about that…I searched our archives of pictures and made a file of all the scouting related pictures I could find, plus a lot more that included Cole. I told him to chose from those pictures for his presentation. I was thinking a 5 minute thing, with maybe one or two songs would be fine. Well, he used ALL the pictures, and his presentation was about 25 minutes long. Oh, well. Although it was long, people watched the whole thing, and hopefully no one was annoyed that it was too long.

Way to go, Cole!

Ring on

There’s a big bell conference going on in Salt Lake this June. We’ve known about it for over a year, as our spring concert coincides with this event. People in our bell choir have discussed going to the event, but I was deterred by the $420 price tag. Yes, that includes 3 nights hotel accommodations, workshops, classes, and a few meals, but it just seemed like SO much. And who can commit to leaving the family for 3-4 days?

But when our bell director told us that it really would be a great experience, and compared to other conferences she has gone to, this was a bargain, I started to think that it could be fun. She also stressed that we need to have some kind of presence there, and that she was going to go, even if it was for only one day.

I mentioned it to Ryan, thinking that he would agree with me, that that amount of money and time were just out of the question. Instead, he seemed interested, asking questions like, “when is it?” “where is it?” “Won’t you be downtown for your rehearsals and concert anyway?” When he was assured that the timing didn’t line up with his upcoming trip to India, he said, “If you want to do it, you should do it.” WHAT? So, then I figured I had better decide if I was going to do it, or not. I emailed my bell choir friends asking if any of them were going to sign up. I don’t want to be there alone, ’cause I’m not quite that brave. I heard back from a couple of them that they were either thinking about it, one had already registered and was planning on rooming with her sister, and one was planning on registering right away.

Sunday night one of my bell buddies called me. “How serious are you about this bell conference?” she asked. I told her that I was thinking about it, but I would want to register with a friend, since it’s double occupancy. I wouldn’t want to be put with just anybody. She told me that she was seriously considering it, and would I want to room with her?

I told her I would discuss it and then call her back. We looked at calendars, and he said he thought I should do it. “I won’t be able to do a play this year, especially if I do this,” I said.
“No play?” he said, “Who do I make the check out to? If I had realized it was this or the play, I would have told you sooner to go for it.” Hmmm. The truth about how much he loves it when I do a play each summer is coming out. To tell the truth, I had already pretty much realized I couldn’t do a play with Alpine Community Theater this summer, even though I really really love being in a musical. With our concert so late in June, and there are many Saturday rehearsals already scheduled in June, and it’s ‘Annie’, and there really aren’t many parts for women except for Miss Hannigan. Maybe I’ll try out just for fun to see if I could get that part….nope, better not. I might get sucked in. I would like my kids to try out, though, since there are a whole bunch of parts for kids, and it would be fun to be involved as just a parent, not an actor/parent.

ANYWAY….

Can I just tell you what a great supportive husband I have? Not only does he not complain when I’m gone every Wednesday night, some Saturdays, some Sunday mornings, and pretty much a whole week in December, but he encourages me in this hobby/calling. Maybe he feels guilty because he gets to travel to strange countries and leave me alone with the kids for a week at a time, or maybe he realizes that I don’t do all that much and he can manage without me for a few days, but he’s awesome. And look! This conference coincides with the week of girls’ camp! That means it will be pretty quiet around here without two of the girls.

So, I did it. Paid the money, choose my classes and signed up for a ringing level, and I’m excited. Although, after this week, with bells four times this week in preparation for our big numbers on Music and the Spoken word, I realize it’s not just going to be fun, it will be exhausting. But good for me. I need to stretch outside my comfort zone and do more things that are a little scary or hard.

And it’s good for my family to see me interested in hobbies, and doing my own things, not just ALWAYS being the mom that does everything for them.

And speaking of bells, we did great on Music and the Spoken word this morning. We played this song, but not the whole song. It was a cut version to keep in under 4 minutes. Super hard, but we rocked it.


(this video is from our concert in 2008, so we have improved since then, by the way).

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