Spread the Love: Valentine Musings and More

As far as make-believe holidays go, Valentine's Day must be one of the best. Or so I've always thought. It's a day for love, after all! A day to show increased kindness and appreciation to those we care most about. How could that not be great? But as usual, there's no better way to examine one's own perspective on a subject than to have that perspective challenged. Friday night when I was out with the sister missionaries, they mentioned how they were greeted that day by their host "mother," the lady they live with: "Happy Single Awareness Day," she chimed as they walked through the door. Ha! Now I barely remember being single or if I liked or disliked Valentine's Day back then, but this made me laugh. Fortunately, the sisters were laughing too.

It was a good day, all in all. Because it is only a make-believe holiday, people don't get the day off work. I taught my regular classes Friday morning and arrived home early afternoon. Waiting for me was a gift bag and Valentine card from Shulamith. She knows I can't eat anything good these days; I managed to gain eight (yes, you read that right!) eight nasty pounds between my birthday October 20th and New Year's Day. As of this morning, I have lost six of those, so I'm almost there, but that process was not one bit fun. Gaining the pounds---THAT was fun! So Shulamith made me a package with all my favorite low-fat/low-calorie snacks including 100-calorie packs of tiny shortbread cookies and Special K Cookies and Cream Pastry Crisps. Mmmm! This should help those final two pounds just melt away, right?

Gerald was already off to work, and all too soon it was time for Shulamith to go too. I'm pretty sure Valentine's Day would cease to exist if she were not at Macaroni Grill. I dropped her off at 4:00 to spend her eighth Valentine's Day there and took Swen home to wait for Mathew to get off work. In the Mac. Grill parking lot was Isaiah's car, a typical sight. He works all the time, way too much in my opinion, especially for a kid finishing his last semester of a computer science degree, complete with a complex senior programming project. But he somehow manages to keep all the balls in the air, and as long as he walks across that stage to receive his degree come May, I'm a happy mom. Valentine's Day is lucrative in the restaurant business. Working a double, Isaiah walked that night with $320 in tips and another $250 the following day. Both he and his big sister have quite a talent for turning those tables quickly while still still providing outstanding service.

Soon after I arrived back home, Matt picked up both Swen and Seth, and they were off to get food and snacks for a night of video-games downstairs. And I was up here alone. On Valentine's Day. Sorta weird? I started to watch an episode of "24," when a text came in from the sisters: "Are you available tonight?" Well, of course I am! Who else would be available on Valentine's Day? They were here almost immediately, and off we went for an evening of driving all over three wards trying to find people to visit. No luck. We found literally no one home but still had a super fun night laughing and reminiscing about our past experiences together. I do love these girls.

I was sound asleep early, waking yesterday with the goal of making serious progress on my "Before Eli Comes Home" list. And for the record, anyone who might be doubting that I'll get all this stuff done in time (Shulamith Ericha Webster!): I will! Let's just highlight how much progress I've made thus far. A week ago, I spent four hours cleaning and organizing our underground storage area in order to find all Eli's stuff, and let me just say to all my fellow OCD friends: It is now a THING OF BEAUTY. Feel free to come over and just sit down there and bask in the organization. Ahhhh! Then yesterday I set out to tackle the scariest item on my list, painting my kitchen wall in preparation for my photo gallery collage. Remember how I can't do these kinds of things? Remember how I've never painted anything in my entire life? I was pretty scared. But the guy at Home Depot was most helpful. He said the best thing I could do was match the white paint as closely as possible to what was already on the wall. That turned out to be excellent advice. I brought home several little cards with various shades of white, and Gerald and I chose the closest match: ultra bright white! Then we selected the proper sheen (who knew?): medium gloss, and I went back to buy the actual paint.

The whole thing was actually far easier than I ever imagined. The paint color was perfect, and it was super easy to touch up all the imperfections on my wall. It looks lovely and is now all ready for my photo display. Tomorrow, Shulamith and I will spray paint the frames black, which should be at least as easy as painting the wall was, and email my selected photos to Walgreens and order prints. I'm so excited to see how this turns out; I think it will be a fun surprise for Eli.

So happy Valentine's Day to all. Or Happy Single Awareness Day. Or Happy Presidents' Day (Gerald, I vote for the apostrophe outside the "s" because I mean more than one president).

Whichever and however you celebrate, most importantly, remember always to spread the love!

Really? You don't think I'll do all this stuff? Watch me!

In my last post, I outlined a list of important things I need to accomplish before March 25th, when Eli comes home. Granted, it's an ambitious list. I know that. It's especially ambitious because at least one of the items requires creative ability greater than anything I possess. A home photo gallery collage? Seriously? So today, when Shulamith and I were driving around running various errands, she seemed to intimate that maybe I wouldn't really do all the stuff on my list. Or maybe I wouldn't get it all done before March 25th. No, she didn't come right out and say this; she sort of implied it. Indirectly.

Really? You don't think I'll do all this stuff? Watch me! You see, hardly anything motivates me more than someone telling me I can't or won't do something. One challenge with this list is the magnitude of some of the projects. I'm the type of person who likes to finish tasks. Completely. Get it done, and cross it off! I hate long-term projects and the clutter that often accompanies them. But some of these "Before Eli Comes Home" projects are just too big to complete in one day. Which is precisely why I hadn't started them.

Until today.

Spurred on by Shulamith's doubts (where is your faith, girl?), I told myself I could not wait for a time when I could finish any of these projects in just one day. Instead, I really just needed to get started. On all of them. Maybe there would be a little clutter here and there. Maybe I'd feel anxious about that. Too bad.

First off, I went to the party store and got a "Welcome Home" banner to put outside our house the day he comes home. Here is the future "Elder Erichsen" displaying it. Cool, huh?

No, this project is not finished. I still need to buy paint and butcher paper to make signs for the airport. I still need to buy balloons, etc. But this is a start.

Next, I decided to tackle the downstairs storage area. This one is particularly tough because I really need knee pads. The area is huge in diameter but only about 3 ft. from hard, cement floor to ceiling. After about 30 seconds walking around on my knees, the pain is too much to endure. So I spent a little time down there just thinking about specifically how I want to organize the space.

I decided I'm going to fashion homemade knee pads using a foam sleeping pad that I will cut to the desired size and attach to my knees with strapping tape. Pretty resourceful, huh? I teach tomorrow morning, so nothing more will happen on this until Saturday, but that is the day! I WILL organize this storage area. I WILL find all Eli's stuff. I WILL put away my multiple tubs of Christmas decorations, which currently sit in stacks in our living room. Oh yes I will.

Finally, and this one definitely triggers the most anxiety, I decided to look for frames for my photo gallery. First I went to Michael's (very scary store, almost as scary as a fabric store!), but frames there are way too expensive even at 50% off. Next stop, the D.I. There I found tons of frames, both 8 X 10 and 5 X 7. Hooray! I will need to spray paint them black, but they should work great.

Where did I get this crazy idea? From someone I barely know. Her name is Nan. Pay close attention here. She is Shulamith's husband's brother's wife's mom. Yeah. Like that. And Dawn was kind enough to include me in Rebekah's bridal shower at Nan's house. So instead of staying politely and quietly in the background among a group of people I did not know at all, I decided to stalk her house and take pictures of her wall. Because I loved her photo display that much. Here it is...

And now I'm trying to copy it.

There is much left to do. I need to paint the wall in the kitchen where my gallery will go. I need to choose photos and email them to Walgreens to print. Then I need to somehow make it look like this. Ahhhhhhhh!

I have now started three projects from my list. THREE.

What now, all you doubters out there?   :-)  :-)  :-)

He's Comin' Home!

Today is February 1st. That means I can now say, "He's coming home next month." Next month. Wow. I'm tearing up this very instant just thinking about it. When a mom sends a missionary into the field, she does so with all her heart. She sends him willingly, with love and pride and honor. She wants him to go. She has prayed for this day all his life; she couldn't be any happier or any more grateful for his worthiness and his decision to serve. Still, there is a pit in her stomach. Down deep. It's heavy and it doesn't go away. She won't see her precious child for 24 months. She can't talk to him, save four times on two Christmases and two Mother's Days. She will have to settle for weekly emails and a very occasional snail mail letter. It's tough. I'm not gonna lie.

When a missionary mom starts talking about her son's impending return, friends say things like, "Already? What? Really? Wow, that went by fast. It seems like he just left." And in some ways that is true. I think the reality for most missionary moms is that the weeks go by fairly quickly, but the days can be long, especially Mondays when we're waiting for that email. For sure, other people's kids' missions fly by. Our own kids, not so much. For me, the time has passed quickly in terms of normal, everyday events. The constant rush of life--deadlines, appointments, meetings, demands--has continued as always, and the pace hasn't slowed. Nevertheless, it has been a very long time since I wrapped my arms around my wonderful son and hugged him tight. The last time was 22 1/2 months ago outside the MTC. That is the last time I saw, in person, that infectious smile that is paralleled by no one. In that respect, time has not passed quickly. Not at all.

I have an incredible support group, though. Some of it stems from the awesome members who live in the mission area. So many times, often when I've been missing Eli the most, I log onto Facebook and what do I find? A picture posted by a member who hosted Eli for dinner or saw him at a fireside or sat with him at a ward activity. Thank you. Thank you so much. Then there's the Arkansas Little Rock missionary moms' super hero. His name is Brother Floyd. Well, he has a real first name. I think it's Richard. But we all call him Brother Floyd. And he is our hero. He watches out for all our kids serving in the Memphis area, gives them rides places, helps them move their stuff around, buys them food (Frosty ice cream club??), takes them suit shopping, and more importantly, introduces them to people he knows who are interested in learning more about the Gospel. But that's not all. He also helps us moms. If we haven't heard from our missionary on P-day, we message Brother Floyd. And he investigates. The man is everywhere. And he also pretty much lives online, so we rarely have to wait for reply. He finds our kids, tells us what's going on, and reassures us that all is well. No matter how long I live, I will never be able to fully express my appreciation for this man.

In addition, I have incredible support online and here at home. We have a Facebook missionary moms' group filled with ALRM moms just like ourselves. Those ladies are there any time I need a friend. Any time I need a boost, a bit of encouragement, or even a shoulder to cry on. They understand. They get it. And while we have moms from all over the country, a pretty healthy bunch of us live right here in Utah. We have had the wonderful opportunity to get together a couple times in the past two years, and we're planning another day just before Eli comes home. Here we are together  if you want to see for yourself! And again here!

A friend recently asked me how much contact I expect to have with this group after Eli comes home. My answer was, "I don't really know." For sure, I won't have the urgent connection that I share with them now. My obsessive interest in every single thing to do with the mission will obviously decrease. Already they are discussing the upcoming change in mission presidents this summer, and I find myself only mildly interested. Still, I hope I don't lose contact with these wonderful ladies. They have become my friends. In so many ways. And I love them.

When I woke up this morning, I made a long "to-do" list. Several items came from my other larger list titled "Before Eli Comes Home," which is displayed on our fridge. So far I have done none of those things. Because I decided to blog instead. Actually, I needed to blog. Nothing calms me or settles my anxiety quite like writing, so I decided it was okay. But now, I really better get on with it. Because you see on March 25th at 2:10 p.m., a flight will arrive at the Salt Lake City Airport. On it will be my Eli. And before I run sobbing into his arms, there is just a thing or two that I need to do:

1. Order "Welcome Home" banners.
2. Frame photos from the mission for his room.
3. Get him hooked up with a cell phone.
4. Put together "Welcome Home" basket with all his favorite things.
5. Create a Facebook "event" to invite people to his homecoming April 13th.
6.  Paint wall in kitchen, and put together collage of family photos all in black & white with black frames. (Yes, I know. This is another one of those crazy ideas that is WAY too ambitious for someone with my woefully low skill set, but I saw it at someone's home recently, and I really want to do it. You should probably try to talk me out of it. Like now).
7. Organize storage area under our house, find all Eli's stuff down there, and put away Christmas decorations. (Yes, I know, it's been over a month, but I need knee pads to do this, which is yet another story, so no judgment, okay?).

I have exactly 52 days to get all this done, in case you're counting.

Ready, set, go!

Ich wählte eine Familie

My love affair with the German language began when I was 17. My best friend and role model was 21 and a senior at Willamette University. She was dating a foreign exchange student from Austria, whom she subsequently married. I entered Willamette, myself, the following  year, after my friend had already graduated. She married her Austrian boy and moved with him to Vienna where they lived for 10 years. And I enrolled in Elementary German at Willamette. I was an uber-achiever German student, doing everything I could think of to learn this language. I listened to tapes to perfect my pronunciation. I pasted 3 X 5 cards with German vocabulary all over my dorm room. I hung out with the new German exchange student. I lived in an international studies house, where I was supposed to speak only German. However, what I needed was immersion. I needed to live for an extended period of time in a German-speaking country if I was to truly master the language. I applied and was accepted to an exchange program, and I prepared to spend my junior year studying at the University of Munich.

Then the world turned upside down. Three months before I was to leave, my dad passed away tragically and unexpectedly. And I decided not to go. Looking back, this is by far my biggest life regret, but at the time I felt too destroyed to do much of anything, let alone leave the country for 10 months. The poet tell us "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." Indeed, I would never have such an opportunity again.

Shortly after, I met Gerald and we were married. Early in our marriage, we continued to talk about travel to Germany and even looked into some long-term study opportunities there. But sooner than we expected, we learned that if you give God half a chance, God will send your children on God's perfect timetable, not according to your imperfect plan. In under three years, we had our first two babies, with the other three to follow.

And the years went by.

And I chose a family.

Dreams of Germany, though still somewhere in my mind, were pushed further and further to the back burner of life, as funding for such a trip was replaced by more immediate needs: diapers and dance classes, braces and ballet slippers, piano lessons and prom dresses. I learned that motherhood was my divine destiny, greater than any pull I felt toward European travel or foreign language study and far more meaningful.

And the years went by.

And I chose a family.

Now I have lived half my life, perhaps even a little more than half; I can't be sure. Today, any thought of travel to Germany is replaced by our financial focus on missions and weddings and college educations. In May when Isaiah graduates from Westminster, we will be able to say "three down and two to go"  toward our goal of supporting all five kids through their undergraduate degrees.

With half my life still ahead, I could still make it to Germany. Maybe. Someday. If I do, it will surely be a dream come true, but if I don't, that will be okay too. And though I can still speak a bit of German and understand lots, I will most probably never be fluent. And that is okay too. Because I have something greater and purer and far more worthwhile. I have something that lasts forever.

Ich wählte eine Familie. I chose a family.

I Have Seen True Love

There is much that is wrong in the world. There is war, poverty, violence, and gross social injustice. There is sickness and suffering. Everywhere we look, we see people in pain; everyone fights some battle. For certain, adversity is part of the human experience, and it must be so, if we are to recognize and appreciate the good, and grow in character toward our highest potential. But with all that is wrong, there is so much that is right. I know, because I have seen true love.

I have seen true love in a Christmas gift. Those of you who know Shulamith, know that she has a crazy aversion to all fruits and vegetables. The mere smell of fruit makes her gag. Just this evening, her toddler was eating a Frosted Strawberry Mini Wheat, and she almost had to leave the room. Yet for Christmas, she gave her husband an electric juice extractor. Why? Because he once mentioned that he wanted one. Now, every day, he goes to the store and buys all varieties of fruits and veggies and brings them home to their apartment and makes juice. Sometimes she has to come upstairs just to escape the smell, yet she is so happy because he likes her gift. I have seen true love.

I have seen true love in a dog. Yesterday our Boxer, Kitty, was sound asleep on the floor, when Baby Swen decided to run over and poke her straight in the eye, and say "eyes," demonstrating his knowledge of facial features. Kitty barely flinched. Swen has also decided that he likes to feed Kitty, except only on his terms. He sits on the couch and throws dog food to her, one morsel at a time. Could Kitty take the whole bowl of food away from him and eat like a normal dog? Of course she could. But she doesn't. I have seen true love.

I have seen true love in two nineteen-year-old missionaries. Relentlessly and joyfully, from the time their alarm sounds at 6:30 a.m. until they fall exhausted into bed at 10:30 p.m., they brave the frozen streets of Midvale, Utah on their bikes. They knock, they teach, they bear witness, they invite. They laugh, they cry, they carry on. Over and over. Day after day. They experience rejection and mocking. They do this unselfishly and without praise, all for the benefit of their fellow human beings. I have seen true love.

I have seen true love in a neighbor. When our second child was born, we had just moved to a new town where we knew no one. I had a 17-month-old toddler, a colicky newborn, and a husband whose brand new job required long hours and allowed little time off. I felt stranded inside our tiny apartment with two needy babes. A kind soul named Jean, who didn't know me from Adam (Eve?), began to visit me. She would load up her mini-van with my two kids and me and take us to the park to play. She would bring us treats. She would hold my baby even when she cried because in her words, "If I don't hold her when she's crying, I'll never hold her." She was there for me at a time when I most needed a friend. I have seen true love.

In my life, just like everybody else, I have experienced adversity. I have felt hurt and misunderstood. I have been sad and disappointed and angry. I have felt unwelcome and alone. But despite all this, I am blessed beyond measure. Because far more often, I have seen true love. 

HE + Double Hockey Sticks

Last evening when I was out with the sister missionaries, we visited a lady who is facing incredible challenges. I won't elaborate, more than to say that her trials are testing her faith in ways I've never experienced and hope I never do. Her attitude was pretty good, considering, and she even managed to maintain a healthy sense of humor. At one point she told us it had been a "HE + Double Hockey Sticks" day. This made me laugh.

While my day was not nearly as difficult as hers had been, I related to the "HE + Double Hockey Sticks" description. It had been a crazy morning for sure. It was the first day of the new semester, and nature sent us a much-needed and beautiful snowstorm to go along with it. The snow was still pouring down at 8:00, when I left for school. I decided to take State Street all the way into downtown, rather than the freeway, because reports indicated that I-15 was terrible from Draper north. That was such a wise decision that others made the same one, so there was still major traffic although I kept moving, albeit slowly. I had rushed so when I woke up and saw the snow that I left my phone at home, so I had no means of communication, were I to be late, which made the situation even worse. I watched the clock count down, as I crept down State Street, wondering if I would make it to my class at 8:50.

Then things went from bad to worse. As you may know, I have a terrible sense of direction. Wait, let's be honest; I have no sense of direction whatsoever. Now I do know how to get to my school. From the freeway, that is. But I was not on the freeway. I was on State Street. And it was so snowy that visibility was terrible. As I reached downtown, it occurred to me that I really had no idea where I was in relationship to my school. With each passing second, my brave face melted a little more.  Fighting back tears (all I needed was smeared makeup on top of everything else), I prayed for guidance, that somehow I might find my school on one of these streets. Almost immediately on my left I came upon the Energy Solutions Arena, which is only a half a block from LDSBC. You can't even imagine my relief. I pulled into the parking lot at exactly 8:49. That meant I would not make it in time; it takes at least 5 minutes to get across the street and into the building, and another few minutes up the elevator to my classroom. I would be close but not on time.

I was wearing heels (dumb, I know, but it's the first day of the semester, and I need to look cute), and it was so slick! I scurried across the street, disoriented from the blowing snow in my face, fearing with every step that I would trip. Then the elevators were jam packed with students, so we stopped on every floor all the way up to eight. I rushed into my classroom, only to find another teacher teaching there! "Did you think this was your classroom during this hour?" she asked. She told me the classrooms were all mixed up because they switched them at the last minute to better accommodate teachers' schedules. Great. I ran into the staircase and up two flights to the 10th floor academic offices to find out where to go. I was told my class was now in 807, just one door down from where I thought it was. Back down I ran and finally made it into my classroom at 9:05, a full 15 minutes late. What a wonderful first impression for my brand new students! So good.

I was supposed to pilot a new course this hour, a two-semester long version of English 101 (including some parts of English 99). Students should have been informed that if they took this class, they were committing to summer session for the second half. So the first thing I did after apologizing for my tardiness was ask them about that. Nope, no one knew anything about it, and only three knew for sure they would be around during the summer. Yikes! I excused myself (by now they were undoubtedly convinced I'm the ditsiest teacher on the planet) and went back to the original room next door to ask Chris, our department chair, what to do. She was quite dismayed because this new "stretch 101" course was her idea, and she had jumped through all the necessary hoops, including the curriculum approval folks, to make it happen. But in the end we decided there was no way it could work this semester without completely rearranging way too many people's schedules. So I'll be teaching a traditional English 99 during that hour.

The rest of my day was less dramatic though the first day of the semester is always a whirlwind. Oh those poor souls who teach full time and had to go back again today. It's still snowing, by the way. It's beautiful from inside my house, wrapped in a blanket, happily blogging. No "HE + Double Hockey Sticks" day today.

Resolved!

Here we are once again at the start of a brand new year, fresh with opportunity! I see evidence of it all over the Internet: new diet and exercise plans, programs for home organization and food storage, recipes for healthier cooking, even a schedule for saving $1,000 by Christmas! And it all looks so promising. I want to do everything! How great would it be to lose the five pounds I gained over the holidays, increase my exercise routine, organize my home, add to my food storage, cook healthier (cook at all?), and save an extra $1,000 for Black Friday shopping?

But then there's reality.

Truth is I probably won't do all this, at least not all at once. Perhaps just one or two things? Last year, Seth and I set a goal to read the Book of Mormon in 2013. We used a chart that divided the book into 365 equal sections, making each day's reading fairly short. As a result, we had enough time to talk about what we read and even reflect a bit on how it might apply to our lives. Did we miss a day here and there and have to read double the next day? Yes. Did we ever get seriously far behind and have to read for hours to catch up? No. I credit Seth. He was extremely dedicated, more so than I ever expected. It wasn't always what he felt like doing in the evening when he was fully involved in an online video-game with friends, but he always came. And on December 31st, when he finished reading Moroni 10 and proudly announced "The End," his sense of accomplishment was obvious. This year we are tackling the New Testament. Onward. Resolved.

Another project I will take on this year is cleaning and organizing our storage area. Eight people live in this house, six full time and two part time. By way of explanation, Isaiah has technically moved out into his own apartment, but the majority of his stuff is still here, and he stays here 1-2 nights a week, so yeah, part time. And Eli is currently on his mission in Tennessee, but all his stuff is also still here, and he'll be home in 79 days (who's counting?). All eight of us have stuff. Lots of it. And where is all this stuff? Most of it is "stuffed" into our storage area under the house. It's a large area, really large, but not very tall, maybe 3 feet from bottom to top, making it a nightmare for folks with claustrophobia. Now I wouldn't say I have terrible claustrophobia. I have other terrible anxiety issues but not so much claustrophobia. Still I don't love small spaces with no windows where I can't stand up.

Regardless, something must be done about this. Remember those other seven people who live here? Yeah, not one of them is losing a second of sleep over the condition of our storage area. Who is losing sleep over it? I am! Wait, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that's what keeps poor Baby Swen awake at night. Maybe Swen hates clutter as much as I do. And I do hate it. Passionately. So the thought of all this stuff just crammed into a storage space in MY HOUSE makes me crazy! I have to do something. No one else will. Mild claustrophobia or not, I'm going to clean and organize this mess. I was down there gathering Christmas decorations, and I can already visualize an organizational plan. Onward. Resolved.

As always at the start of a new year, I have holiday weight to lose. No matter how hard I try to stay focused, my entire weight control plan unravels during the holidays. It happens every year. As I went through my regular Sunday clothes crisis this morning, stripping off one outfit after another, it became clear that the time is now. Tomorrow begins my focused diet and exercise plan, but it will need to be slightly different this year because of the stupid inversion. Walking has always been a key component of exercise for me. My favorite is to walk outside with a friend to talk to, but since I have no friends here (sigh!), I settle for walking with my Pandora station playing all my favorite songs. Right now, though, the inversion makes that a very bad idea. Those of us who react negatively to the poor air quality are encouraged to stay indoors. Well, no, I can't exactly do that. I'm a busy mom with a part-time job and a home to manage. I have to go out. But exercising outside during the inversion would be asinine. I will need to stay inside, lift weights, do the Daily HIIT, and wait for the smog to clear out.  Onward. Resolved.

Scripture study with Seth. Organization of storage area. Return to diet and exercise. That sounds like enough, ya think? Whatever your goals for 2014, may the year bring you joy and laughter as you press onward, resolved.