We gather together, and we gather stuff. Both are good.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to gather. My next week's Sunday School lesson is on the Gathering of the House of Israel, so it's been on my mind.

This past week, I had several opportunities to gather.

Friday, I drove to Rexburg to gather with Eli and Amanda. Our gathering wasn't particularly monumental, but it was lovely nonetheless. We watched movies, ate popcorn, drank soda, played cards, and watched TV. We stayed up late into the night talking. We gathered together.

Saturday morning, my friend Lindsey's daughter, Hanna, was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many family members, Eyres and Mechams alike, gathered from Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana to be with Hanna on this day, and I was privileged to gather with them. As I sat in the chapel awaiting Hanna's turn in this large stake baptism, I marveled at the joy of so many cousins together. They are all different ages, and most don't live near each other, but they gathered with obvious gladness to be reunited. Families are eternal, including extended families, and the Eyre/Mecham family is a shining example of what it means to nurture eternal relationships. We gathered together.

Saturday evening, I gathered for dinner with Eli and Amanda and their friend, Ben. Ben had been brining a pork roast for five days, and Saturday he cooked it and shared it with all of us. It was a simple meal, just the delicious pork, some potatoes and salad, but there was a spirit of grace in Ben's kind offer of this food that he had prepared all week. Thank you, Ben. We gathered together.

Sometimes we gather physically, and other times we gather in spirit. In just a couple weeks, we will gather to celebrate Thanksgiving. Some of us will gather here; some of us will gather in Rexburg a couple days later. At no point will we all be together physically, but always we are together in spirit because of the love we share as a family. We will gather together.

Earlier in the week, before I left town, Shulamth and I spent several hours gathering, not people, but stuff. When you gather stuff, it's not nearly as fun as when you gather people, but it's still pretty gratifying. Twice yearly, the City of Sandy sends around a large truck to pick up stuff. They will take anything you leave out in front of your house, anything at all: furniture, yard clippings, branches, trash, old bicycles, tires, wood, dead bodies--okay, maybe not that--but just about anything else.

Well you can imagine how this is heaven for an OCD girl like me. Shulamith and I clipped and clipped branches from our yard. We clipped the peach tree, the rose bush, and miles of blackberry bushes (who in his right might mind would plant all this crap in a yard?), and we made a beautiful pile in front of our house. It's not the highest pile in the neighborhood, but it's definitely competitive, and we are proud. Then we cleaned out the garage and backyard shed. Clear it out, baby...woo! We gathered stuff.

Sometimes we gather together. Sometimes we gather stuff. Both are good. Because when we gather, we are stronger, stronger in purpose, stronger in might, stronger in unity. And our garage gets clean too, so win/win.

Today I hugged my baby

Today I hugged my baby.

And by my "baby," I mean my 16-year-old son. I didn't care that his 16-year-old self maybe didn't want to be hugged right then. I didn't care at all. I held him tight for several minutes as tears formed in my eyes, and I thanked God that he was safe in my arms. And I prayed for his continued safety because like it or not, each day I must send him out into the world alone, a world that isn't always safe, a world in which I can't always protect him, no matter how much I want to.

You see, his high school is just around the corner from his former middle school, where he attended only three short years ago, and where today, a 14-year-old boy shot a 16-year-old boy. Children, both. Children with parents who no doubt love them every bit as much as I love Seth. Children whose lives and whose families' lives are now forever changed.

I don't know what happened. I heard it was a simple disagreement. I heard that after a verbal dispute, the shooter simply took out a gun and shot the victim. Again, just hearsay. I don't really know. I do know that teenagers, though they have adult-sized bodies, do not have adult brains. I do know that a 14-year-old is over a decade away from having fully-developed cognition, and I do know that the last part of the brain to develop is the prefrontal lobe, the part of the brain that governs impulse control and decision making. And I wish, oh how I wish, that this 14-year-old had not had access to a gun today.

I can't change that. I just keep thinking that the victim could so easily have been my own precious 16-year-old, the one I love more than life, the one I send out every day to a school so very near where this shooting occurred.

And it's terrifying.

So tonight I will pray. I will pray for the boy in the hospital fighting for his life. I will pray for his dear parents and the anguish they must be experiencing. I will pray for the shooter and for his parents, and for all the pain that lies ahead for them. I will pray for healing, the healing that only the power of the atonement can provide.

Tonight I will pray.

And I will hug my baby.

A blessing in my life

For the past week (literally), I've been celebrating my birthday. The actual day was Thursday, but I celebrate for the full week. Which is utterly baffling to Gerald. Every year he says things like "I thought your birthday was Thursday" (when we're celebrating on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.). Then in April he asks Shulamith the same question during her week-long celebration.

But you see, I think birthdays are important, really important. My friend Jay said it best in her Facebook message to me this past week:

"I consider you a blessing in my life, so I am grateful for this day."

Yes! That's it! When I celebrate a friend's birthday, what I'm really saying is "I am glad you were born. I am so grateful that with the many possible times and places of eternity, you were sent to earth at this time and in this place, so we could walk the journey together.

That's why I celebrate. And when people celebrate my special day, I feel their love in return. So thank you, Jay, for explaining it so well in just a single sentence. I feel the same way about you, by the way.

My week began last Sunday when Eli and Amanda were here for the weekend to attend Eli's mission reunion. It was so great to have them here. Amanda made me dinner, yummy shepherd's pie, and Shulamith made a cake, and it was the perfect family celebration.

Eli and Amanda even brought me a present, this adorable sweater!

Tuesday I went to lunch with several friends from our ward at Five Guys, which turned out to be a great choice because all of these women have small children, who could run around and eat peanuts. I left with a gourmet cupcake from Sweet Tooth Fairy (thanks, Kara), which I ate the following morning for breakfast. You know it's my birthday week when I'm eating cupcakes on a Wednesday morning. Amy gave me a gift card to Straws, which I still have, but don't you worry; I will find the perfect time to redeem it.

Thursday, the actual day. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. (because my dumb anxiety doesn't care that it's my birthday) and couldn't get back to sleep, so I looked at my phone. A text message! Who would be texting me that early? Isaiah! He was in Spain, so eight hours ahead, and he sent me my first birthday greeting of the day, complete with electronic balloons. Love you, Isaiah.

Shulamith and I went to our favorite breakfast place in the entire Salt Lake valley: Park Cafe. French toast foolishness, anyone? You don't even know. That evening, she and I went to dinner with our friend Lacey at LongHorn Steakhouse and feasted on a delicious filet mignon. After dinner, Lacey went home, and Shulamith and I went to see the movie Girl on the Train, which proved just as scary and sad as the book, though actress Emily Blunt does an incredible job in the lead role.

Friday we ate lunch at Cheesecake Factory downtown (do you see a pattern here? Celebration = food fest), and Saturday we watched the first half of Finding Dory at the dollar theatre. I hated kids' movies even when I was a kid, so now.....ugh! But it was pleasant enough to sit in a theatre and eat that delicious movie popcorn that we were too full to eat Thursday night.

Today is the end. It's over. A full week of celebrating is now past tense. That said, yesterday I got to host a fun baby shower for a mom-to-be, and Monday night I'll go to dinner to celebrate two more babies on their way to earth, and then it will be almost Halloween! Let the celebrating continue.

Birthdays, brides, babies! Holidays, one and all. They are worth celebrating. Because life is worth celebrating. We are worth celebrating. As we celebrate together, the love grows.

Alicia, Kalinda, and me

My latest Netflix binge is the CBS seven-season drama The Good Wife. To say I'm obsessed is an understatement, but not as bad as Shulamith, who is already on the seventh season while I'm just in the middle of the fourth. I love the show; it's the perfect replacement while Suits is on break, but no, it never consciously occurred to me to start dressing like the characters.

Until I went shopping in Portland.

Back story, my mom has been buying me clothes literally my entire life. And she's really, really good at it. I remember in high school, girls complaining about their moms' taste in clothes: "My mom buys me the ugliest clothes, and then she expects me to wear them!" I could never relate. My mom is the best shopper I know, and she is especially good at finding perfect clothes for me. She gets my style. And she has this crazy sixth sense that, with few misses, can tell if an article of clothing on the rack is going to look good on me, even before I try it on.

So this past August when she said those magic words, "Let's go shopping; I want to buy you some clothes," I was like, "Uh...yeah!"

It turned out well. The new fall lines were out even though it was still sweltering hot. She bought me several different tops and three lovely dresses, none of which I would be able to wear until the weather cooled down. So I packed them in my suitcase, flew home, and hung them deep in the closet with my other fall/winter clothes.

Finally last week, the seasons changed. Temperatures dropped, quite suddenly it seemed, and I needed to pull out my fall/winter wardrobe. At that point I had pretty much forgotten what these new dresses even looked like, having only tried them on once in a dressing room in Portland back in August. But when I put on this red one, Shulamith immediately remarked, "You look just like Alicia Florrick." Alicia is the lead character in The Good Wife, so I went straight to a mirror to see for myself.

Sure enough! This dress does look like something Alicia would wear. I can pretend I'm a high-powered, corporate lawyer. Woo.

Today, I pulled out this black and royal blue sweater dress and put on some black tights and boots and thought to myself, "The red dress is definitely 'Alicia,' but this one? This one is totally Kalinda Sharma." Now I can pretend I'm a brave investigator who goes into sketchy places and doesn't get scared (which is the total opposite of me).

So there you have it...my Good Wife dresses. Alicia, Kalinda, and me.

"I just LOVE these flowers!"

My birthday was yesterday, but since I celebrate it for an entire week, I won't likely write the blog post about it until later tonight or even tomorrow. But there is this one gift I'll tell you about right now.

Shulamith took her 4-year-old son Swen to the grocery store to buy me a present. He had thought he would buy me a Hot Wheels car (a red one because that is my favorite color), but when they passed by the florist kiosk and he saw fresh flowers, he told him mom that was what he wanted to get.

Shulamith: "You want to buy Her flowers for her birthday?"

Swen: "Yes. And when Her sees these flowers, she will say 'Swen! I just LOVE these flowers.'"

So they bought flowers.

When they arrived home, Swen came running into the house, a bouquet of fresh flowers in his hand extended out in front of him, and nearly throwing them in my face, he said, "I got you flowers for your birthday!!"

...to which I immediately replied...

"Swen! I just LOVE these flowers!"

He was right.

Once upon a car wash

To most of us, a car wash isn't very significant. But to one little boy, it's everything. To say Shulamith's 4-year-old son is obsessed with car washes would be a gross understatement. They are on his mind nearly all the time. The imagination with which he creates car washes out of practically everything in his environment is nothing short of genius.

Take, for example, my kitchen sink. Methodically, he takes each of his Hot Wheels cars through the car wash, which includes several squirts from the liquid soap dispenser, followed by serious cleaning with a hand-held scrub brush, followed by the rinse cycle under the faucet, followed by drying with a dish towel.  After washing maybe 20 cars, he returns downstairs. Shulamith: "Are you all done up there?" Swen: "No, I just came down to get more cars."

Or consider as another example, my kitchen counter. On a much larger scale, he puts himself and his 2-year-old sister through a different kind of car wash. It consists of a large brown blanket, strategically placed on one side of our island counter. He and Kennedy roll round in that (mud) to get very dirty. Next they crawl around to the other side of the island where the "car wash" is. Several mops and brooms lie across the counter, hanging off the edge to represent the various parts of the car wash cycle, and Swen and Kennedy walk through, so their heads graze the mop strings that hang down. And do you think my broom is ever in my broom closet? Nope. Because when I'm not home, he comes up here and steals it in order to create this car wash downstairs in his own house.

Sometimes the car wash is less ornate; a boy can only work with what he has. In restaurants, salt and pepper shakers placed side by side, a few inches between them become the car wash. Even two Diet Cokes side by side or two straws or two ketchup bottles can work in a pinch.

On all too rare occasions, he gets to drive through a real car wash, and I can't think of anything that makes him happier. Not food. Not candy. Not ice cream. Not toys. Not even cars, though he likes those a lot. He rides quietly though the car wash--a true introvert he is--but you can see the excitement develop on his face and in his eyes, the further we get into the wash. And when those spin brushes come up against his window, well, the world doesn't get any better than that.

Once upon a car wash. And a little boy. And a brilliant imagination. 

Why do we have seasons?

Why do we have seasons?

This was a question from Eli, posed on our family text thread a few days ago. His geography teacher at BYU-Idaho told students to ask five people this question and record their honest, immediate answers. He said 95% of Harvard University students don't get it right. Our answers varied, but I think most of us knew that it has to do with the fact that the earth tilts on its axis.

That said, there is more to life than science. Last night, Seth and I went to McDonald's for an impromptu ice cream and Diet Coke run. As he drove, I read our nightly scripture, and then he talked to me about how much he loves the fall. The cooler temperatures, the changing colors, the best holidays--everything about fall is wonderful. I agree.

Maybe it's not all about the tilting earth; maybe it's about us humans and our need for change. Because as much as we all love summer, most of us are more than ready for a new season.

I sure am.

Especially this year.

These past few months have been been way more stressful than I would like, with one crazy problem right on top of the last one. There have been high points for sure: Eli's beautiful wedding, trips to Portland, Rexburg, and St. George, birthdays to celebrate. Still, it's been trying, and my anxiety has spun right out of control. Now I'm pretty sure you dear readers are beyond tired of hearing about my dumb anxiety (boring!), so I won't say much. Bottom line is I'm still alive and well, even though my mind loves to tell me otherwise.

So I, for one, was more than happy to turn the page on this lovely calendar. I can't wait to wake up tomorrow to a new month, and the start of my favorite three months of the year. The icing on the cake? Because October 1st happens to fall on a Saturday this year, tomorrow also begins General Conference, the two-day, semi-annual worldwide meeting of our church. And let me just tell you, General Conference is a "thing" at the Erichsen-Webster home. We plan for it carefully. Seth's last words before I dropped him off at work just now were, "Have you bought the General Conference snacks yet?" Not yet, but I'm headed to the store right now.

Between sessions tomorrow, we'll pull out our decorations and turn our home black and orange. Our environment will change, not only outside but inside. Change is good. It informs our brains that the future offers hope always. No matter how dark our current circumstances, the earth will continue to spin on its tilted axis, and seasons will come and go accordingly. I'm guessing the savior knew something about this. And I'm grateful.

My three words for the new month and season ahead: Bring. It. On.