Feeling Blue

I've been a little worried about some stuff around our house, and without going into details, it has me feeling down. I'm beginning to worry about what I should have done differently.

Maybe I should have been one of those 'churchy' moms - and not me. Not a mom who listens to Kiss occasionally, who turns up the car stereo as loud as it will go when a rocking song comes on. Not one who makes fun of the Disney channel. Not one who let her kids watch rated PG-13 movies, even if they did want to see Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings. Not one who sleeps in every morning and lets her kids get off to school on their own. Not one who can take an hour to soak in the tub and wanders around the house, neglected chores and children, for the sake of a good, or even mediocre, book. Certainly not a mom who has no idea at all of how to keep a house clean.

Maybe I should have been the mom who knows all about that 'churchy' music, the one who listens to Kirby Heywood and well, whoever else there is. I don't even have a clue! One who watched all that Hannah Montana stuff and The RM. Maybe I should have been the one getting up at 5 am for a run and then coming back for scripture study before making breakfast for my kids every day. One who cleans the bathtub regularly, and mops the floor and all like that. Maybe I should have made them attend every single church function, whether they wanted to or not. And have family council, although I'm still not sure what for. And had them memorize scriptures and bear their testimonies in family home evening and do service projects.

I know it's too late for some of this. I can hardly start now! I still don't know how to keep a house clean, and my kids would all laugh at me and think I was kidding if I took them to see Hannah Montana. They would howl in protest if I started playing 'churchy' music. There's no way I can get them to go to all their church meetings. Having them there on Sunday is hard enough as it is. And if I quit reading all the time, they would suspect I had been brainwashed.

I'm not really asking for support from my friends. I have great friends, and I'm sure you'll be very sweet. I mentioned something about this to my kids, and naturally they weren't going to tell me that I should have been stricter all along.

I'm just wondering if I have wasted all my time. Did anything that I did do matter? Did I matter? Did I get anything right at all?

Motherhood is a little like launching a rocket, I think. You plan and prepare, and then you send it into space. And once it's gone, it's too late. You can't go back and add more fuel or fix a defect you should have spotted earlier. And I'm getting to the point when my kids are truly launched. I have no idea where they will end up. I know where I wanted them to go, but I am not feeling very confident that I did everything I could to get them there.

What's In a Name? challenge 2

I mentioned this reading challenge at the beginning of the year, but I just wanted to post about it, now that I've finished it.

Here's the official challenge for What's in a Name 2:

*The Challenge: Choose one book from each of the following categories.

1. A book with a "profession" in its title. Examples might include: The Book Thief, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Historian mine: The Faith of a Scientist, by Henry Eyring.

2. A book with a "time of day" in its title. Examples might include: Twilight, Four Past Midnight, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time mine - Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast, by Jane Yolen

3. A book with a "relative" in its title. Examples might include: Eight Cousins, My Father's Dragon, The Daughter of Time mine - Founding Mothers, by Cokie Roberts

4. A book with a "body part" in its title. Examples might include: The Bluest Eye, Bag of Bones, The Heart of Darkness mine - Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett

5. A book with a "building" in its title. Examples might include: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Little House on the Prairie, The Looming Tower mine - Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron

6. A book with a "medical condition" in its title. Examples might include: Insomnia, Coma, The Plague mine - Life's Handicap, by Rudyard Kipling

Looking at the list, I really enjoyed all the books. Probably my favorite was Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast. It's a collection of short stories by Jane Yolen, and there are no wimpy girls in these stories. They are all smart and independent. My favorite story was the last one, a sort of feminist twist on Peter Pan. I could really recommend all of them, especially the Terry Pratchett book.

This is an easy challenge, only 6 books! So if you want to try something like this, it's a fun place to start. You don't have to sign up to be official, just jump right in. But let me know, because I want to hear about what you're reading!

Easter Egg Hunt 2009

Happy Easter! (Slightly late) Here's how we celebrated. We always want to have the Easter egg hunt on Saturday, and since we had other things we were busy with, we couldn't do it until late afternoon, when it had started to rain. So here are our pictures of our wet Easter Saturday.



The whole crew, Mandy, Xander, Sarah, Ellen, Will and Randy. Notice that Xander there is prepared for the weather!






And he is the first one to find an egg! We had several with candy and a few with money! We also had random peanut butter eggs hidden in the yard. (In the wrappers still!)






And here are my girls! Both hamming it up for the camera.


Then we came back inside to open up the eggs and see what we got.


Easter was a high sugar week for us, with a nice family dinner at my mom's on Friday, the Easter egg hunt on Saturday, and Easter baskets on Sunday.

Sili Cupcakes!

Just found these cool little gadgets at Williams-Sonoma. They are called 'Silicups Brights' and they are silicone cupcake liners. We tried them out today and they work great. You use them instead of regular cupcake liners, for cupcakes or muffins or whatever. You fill them up and then bake. You can just put them on a cookie sheet, no muffin pan required. Then you just slide the baked goodie right out - no need to grease or spray. They are reusable too. We paid $24 for them, which I thought was a little pricy, but Randy pointed out that they are reusable forever and that's only $2 a piece. And they really do work great. Just wash them out when you're done. You can even put them in the dishwasher!

Oh, and the cupcakes were great. Sarah made dark chocolate cupcakes and Will and I made the chocolate sour cream frosting. (We ate most of it, too).

Not Motivated

So I got off track on my diet, with Dad being in the hospital, and I can't seem to get back on track now. I was going to get strict again this week, but since the kids have been home for spring break, we've been eating out and I've been HAVING SODA AGAIN. Oops. And of course, I've gained back 5 pounds.

I'm not sure how to get back into the diet. I guess I'll give it another go Monday. Maybe once the weather is nice, I'll get out more. Yeah, right. I won't hold my breath on that one! The snow broke of a big branch on our willow tree. Now we've realized that the whole tree will have to come down, as the wood is rotten in the middle. Another big storm and who knows what will happen? I'm so sad about it too.

Cleaning Up

I'm not entirely sure about this weather, but something has got me ready for spring cleaning! There's just something so great about getting rid of stuff. I've already filled the trunk twice with stuff for the thrift stores, and I'm sure I'll have another couple of loads. Which makes me wonder, where did all this stuff come from? OK, a lot of it is mine, but honestly, not all of it! Why did we ever keep all this stuff? It's not like we're going to miss any of it!

And since it's my house, at least half of the stuff has been books, and another large part has been magazines. Then there are other assorted things. So I've cleaned off one bookshelf and now I'm ready to fill it up with stuff that's sitting around, on the carpets and every other available flat surface in the house. I've made Randy promise to spend one evening going through some of the boxes downstairs here and helping me clear out stuff we don't want.

But really, if you were to come over, you'd never know I'd gotten rid of anything! There are still PLENTY of books left. And yet I keep buying more! What can I say? We may not be nominated for House Beautiful, but at least I could stock a library, just in case they ever run short.

Book Review: Though Your Sins be as Scarlet

Brent Top takes on the topic of repentance in this short book. The problem with some attitudes towards repentance, he says, is that too many of us try to do it by some checklist. Recognize sin, check. Feel remorse, check. Confess sin, check. But real repentance is not just an outward change, it must come from within.

One of the 'r's we need to use is Redeemer. To be truly repentant means to truly commit to following the Savior and remain faithful, no matter what.

I really enjoyed this book and found a lot to think about. It is written for LDS, but I think any Christian would find some helpful insights. I found some great ideas in here for family home evening. This is an older book, published in 1989, but still worth reading. He quotes from The Miracle of Forgiveness quite a bit, but uses his own stories and experiences to illustrate his points.

Dad's Funeral

Thursday was a hard day for us. Poor Mom, who is Dad's ex-wife, flew out here to support her kids, but left most of her stuff at home. So we had to take her to the store to buy some necessities. Then the elders showed up to give Randy a blessing.

The funeral was at Camp Williams up in Bluffdale. The weather was horrible. It had been fairly nice at home, so I didn't bring my coat. Mistake. We were freezing with the wind. But other than that, the ceremony went really well. There were more folks there than I expected, which was a big comfort. The Disabled American Vets did a ceremony for Dad, with a gun salute, a message from the chaplain, and the bugler played Taps. I had been sniffling through the whole thing, but once the song started, I just lost it. Sarah was standing by me, crying, and Randy was crying next to her. It was a very emotional moment.

Then we sang Dad's favorite song, How Great Thou Art. Dad liked the song, because of the words, and because his name was Art. After the song, things got a little better. Randy delivered the eulogy, telling all about Dad's life, his love of musicals and old movies, his favorite foods, his bad cooking, and some of the fun times they had together. Carol also spoke, calling herself 'The Ex-Wife.' Then Vicky shared some memories. Poor Rita tried, but couldn't say much. Ellen spoke and paid tribute to Dad, for being such a great grandpa. I was very proud of her. A few other people spoke, some of his neighbors and someone from Deseret Dairy where Dad worked for the church once a week. It was a very nice ceremony, but so many tears.

Here's the obituary that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune.

"Art Bohn "Gone 6 Wheeling" Orson Arthur Bohn, 71, passed away March 31, 2009 in West Jordan, Utah. Born March 2, 1938 in Murray, Utah, son of Orson and Mary Moyes Bohn. Married Carol Pennington April 13, 1962 in the Salt Lake Temple; later divorced. He was an electrician and volunteered at the LDS Church Welfare Square Dairy. He loved old movies and the out doors. Survived by children: Michael, Vicky (Keith), Randy (Cindy), Rita, April, Sandra (Scott), Tracy (Evangeline); 13 grandchildren. Preceded in death by daughter, Maria; brother, Richard. Graveside services will be held Thursday, 1:00 p.m. at the Utah Veterans Memorial Park, 17111 South Redwood Road. Arrangements under the direction of McDougal Funeral Home."

Tender Mercies

I was sitting at home, with the kids, dreading tomorrow and the funeral and everything else. Then I had a few things happen that made me feel so much better. One was that I got to talk to my college roommate, Stacey, who is in town for a mission reunion. We haven't talked in a few years, and it was so good to speak with her for a bit. Thanks to Facebook, I've been able to find all my roommates, and I am so grateful!

Then we had a knock at the door, and there was Brothers John Ure, Doug Anderson and Tyler Wright, all coming to check on how we were doing. It really was like an answer to a prayer I hadn't even thought to offer. They stayed a bit and then prayed with us.

I've just been grateful for how good everyone has been to us. I still had to cry a bit tonight, but I am so glad for our friends.