If I can grade 18 essays by Saturday at 10:00 a.m.......

 If I can grade 18 essays before Saturday at 10:00 a.m., I can take most of the weekend off to watch General Conference. Eighteen is a lot, though. Even if I could do half by then, I could maybe squeeze in the other nine before, between, and after the sessions, throughout the weekend. I hope that works.

I really love General Conference. It's partly because I appreciate brilliant rhetoric and solid writing, which we get lots of in General Conference talks. Rarely are there wordy or awkward sentence constructions, and almost never a grammatical error. I say "almost" because this one time several years ago, a speaker led his talk with a dangling modifier. I was stunned. The editors for Conference talks are fabulous, but they somehow missed this glaring dangling modifier. 

Memories of past General Conferences are numerous. I think back to the days when we had to go to the church building to watch. There was a guy in our stake in Washington who bought tons of candy, which he set out in a large bowl in the library. Then he watched the sessions on one of the TVs and handed out candy to everyone who passed by. I think his name was Dave. I remember grabbing a handful of candy, then going to the mother's lounge to nurse Seth and promptly falling asleep. I was SO sleep deprived! It was the Sunday afternoon session, and I missed Elder Maxwell's talk. I had waited all weekend for his eloquent discourse. Back then, the talks weren't available on the Internet hours after they were given; we had to wait for them to be published in the following month's Ensign, and read them. I was so bummed.

By the time we moved to Billings in 2004, we could watch General Conference on TV in our own homes. Pajama church for the win! It was a game changer. That said, now I had the task of bribing kids and teens to watch. Home offered many distractions. Bribery included all sorts of unhealthy treats, stuff I'd never bring into my house on any other day. I would hide these snacks in my room and bring them out, one at a time, throughout the two days. As they grew older, the kids began making requests for specific "Conference food." 

You'd think all this might be long over, since Seth moved out two years ago to live in Orem and attend UVU. But no. I'll have you know that I am sharply proficient at living in denial and pretending my kids are all still here. I do it every day. And yes, I absolutely still shop for all the Conference treats. And send everyone pictures of what I buy. And guess what? They still come! Not always for every session, of course, but throughout the weekend, they show up, watch a session with me, and feast on Twinkies, Pringles, Red Vines, and Oreos. If they're lucky, I'll even drive to Sandy early Saturday morning, wait in the long line, (other moms must do this too?) to buy a couple dozen Krispy Kremes. 

(By the end, we all feel nearly dead from the sugar highs and lows, but come on....it's only twice a year.)

Before closing this pre-Conference muse, and lest anyone might wonder, it is not only the solid writing and rhetoric that I love about General Conference (though I do love that!). Like many others, I rejoice to hear the often-inspired words from those in general leadership positions in my church. There are many methods recommended to members as they prepare to hear these messages. I sometimes write down questions about issues I'm pondering or things I don't understand. I study and prep the "Come Follow Me" lesson for the week, even though we don't have church on Conference weekend. Most importantly, I pray that some of the talks will lead me to an increased understanding of Christ's love for every person. 

Especially this time around, when the past two weeks I've been "careful and troubled about many things" (Luke 10:42), I will pour all that out at Jesus' feet, and pray that something in one of the messages will resonate with me and bring comfort and healing. Will I relate to and agree with every word spoken in the 10 hours of talks? Of course not! But if just one idea brings new light, if just one perspective offers a path toward "truthier truth," then I will feel blessed.  

I always do.

This is the most beautiful car I've ever seen!

We have an ironic situation in our family. The people who are under 6'3" (Shulamith, Eli, Amanda, and I) like to drive larger vehicles, such as minivans or SUVs. And the people who are over 6'3" (Isaiah, Seth, Luke, and Gerald) like to stuff themselves into the tiniest, subcompact cars they can find. While we are driving around comfortably with plenty of room, the three of them barely fit in their cars, their heads with but a fraction of an inch to spare. I'm pretty sure Isaiah's lovely curls graze the top of his Kia Rio!

As you may remember, recently, I've developed a problem with cars. They break. They crash. They suck! This was not always the case. My first minivan, a 1990 Dodge Caravan, we purchased when I was pregnant with Isaiah, so we could bring him home from the hospital since our car at the time accommodated only our then small family of four. I drove that van for 15 years, and Isaiah was quick to inform everyone that "learning to drive the same vehicle your parents used to transport you home from the hospital is just wrong!"

Fifteen years driving the same car. No crashes. No transmission failures. No broken emergency brakes (this one I managed to accomplish while driving Shulamith's minivan, but it still counts). 

What happened??? 

I have no idea. Truly, I'm baffled.

But here I am, yet again, in a rental. It took three days to get it. The dealership that will replace my failed transmission told me it was Chrysler Care who needed to provide me a rental. Chrysler Care told me it was the responsibility of the dealership. Back and forth I went. For three days. Finally, this past Monday, a miracle occurred (and it really was!). Chrysler Care assumed responsibility for providing the rental. They told me I could go rent a car as long as it was no more than $65/day, and they would reimburse me. 

Shulamith immediately called Enterprise, and the only car they had to meet that qualification was a tiny Nissan Versa. Don't get me wrong. It's a fine car. Just small. In fact, it would be the perfect car for Isaiah, Seth, Luke, or Gerald. But me? Not so much. I'm a minivan mom through and through, and I absolutely need all that space.

Still, at the end of this very sucky week, where absolutely everything sucks, my job still requires me to drive to three college campuses in three locations nowhere near one another. So for today, though I'd never buy it, at this moment, this is the most beautiful car I've ever seen.

"Point in the direction you're going to go!"

"Get on the train going NORTH. Toward Ogden. NOT Provo," Shulamith directed, as she pointed in the direction of north. "Point in the direction you're going to go," she continued. I pointed the same way she did. North. Once, just once, when we lived up in Sandy, I might have boarded the blue line Trax going north instead of south and wound up all the way downtown before I noticed. It's fine.

Today, she dropped me off at the Draper FrontRunner station, and I headed up to the U. for my afternoon classes. It had already been a sucky day, a sucky week really. I was dealing with some disappointing and emotionally triggering news. My family is totally fine, so don't worry; it is just some personal business that left me feeling hurt and sad. 

And then!

Last night, after driving home from a meeting at SLCC, I stopped at Maverik to grab a Diet Coke. (FYI, soon there will be a brand new 7-Eleven on the corner of Redwood and Porter Rockwell, right near our house! My level of excitement over this is startling, even to me.) When I returned to my car to drive home, I noticed it was behaving strangely. It made a loud noice when I accelerated, then wouldn't accelerate at all until I stopped, turned off the engine, and restarted it. 

"For real?" I thought. My car is a 2019 with just 37,000 miles. This should NOT be happening, When I finally got home, I drove to Shulamith and made her come drive with me around our block, "This is really bad," she said. 

She was right. First thing this morning, I braved the 5-minute drive to our favorite mechanic here in Bluffdale. He didn't even need to look at my car to know what was wrong. Just hearing the noice as I coasted into the shop, he said "That's the transmission." He's been repairing cars since 1969, so his level of ethos is pretty strong. They did the normal tests, and sure enough, my transmission is trash. On my nearly new car. Awesome.

I was already in a "mad at the world" frame of mind, and this didn't help, but my awesome mechanic assured me that power train stuff like this should still be under warranty. Dodge should replace my transmission for free. Really?? Well cool.

I spent the rest of the morning on the phone with Chrysler Customer Care, the Dodge service department, the towing company, and my mechanic. The Dodge dealership ordered a towing company to tow the car from the repair shop to their service department up in Sandy. That's where it is now, and it may be mid-October before they have time to look at it. Meanwhile, Dodge has promised to give me a rental car until this is all resolved. 

Rental cars, though. Like when I get in car crashes. That's how I'm feeling. Like I got in another car crash. Except I didn't. "You just have super bad luck," Shulamith's friend Bridget commented this evening as we sat in a park after I got back from the U. I've never thought of myself as a person who has bad luck, but where cars are concerned, I guess she's right.

Still, some good things happened today, after a crappy week. I made it all the way to the U. and back on all the right trains without getting lost. The weather was cool and breezy. I got to see more of the beautiful U. of U. campus as I walked to and from the Trax station. I received an entire set of writing assignments without one student using that horrific ChatGPT. I felt the Savior's presence right beside me through it all.

So I wish all of you a glorious weekend! Point in the direction you're going to go. You're far more likely to get there if you do.

"Were you consistent?" Mr. Gay wanted to know.

"Were you consistent?" my Honor's English teacher, Mr. Gay, asked me during the first week of my senior year of high school. He had asked me to T.A. for him, and he was teaching me how to evaluate and grade student writing from his freshman English classes. He gave me a set of essays to score, and when I finished and returned them, he read only the one on top. "This looks good," he said. "If you were consistent with all the others, then I don't need to look at them. Were you consistent?"

In that moment, I realized two things: (1) I had no idea if I'd been consistent in my scoring of those papers, and (2) that one day I would teach English professionally. I'm sure back then I was thinking high school, but thank heavens (!) at some point thereafter, I had a better idea. 

Education is a core value in our family. We were committed to helping our kids financially through their undergraduate degrees, and next May, our fifth and final kid will complete his bachelor's (Go, Seth!). So far, only Luke has moved on to earn a graduate degree (Ph.D in psychology), but I think both Shulamith and Eli will pursue master's degrees at some point, and Seth will for sure need grad school of some sort.

Still, I wouldn't have predicted that so many of us would remain in fields related to education. This week, five of us returned for the 2023-2024 school year!

As mentioned above, Seth began his senior year at Utah Valley University, completing a B.S. degree in sociology and criminal justice.

Eli returned to Ridge View Elementary, teaching 3rd grade. He says the kids are small! (Compared to his 4th graders last year.)

Shulamith made a roller coaster jump from teaching part time at Salt Lake Community College the past few years to teaching half-day kindergarten at her kids' elementary school. She teaches a morning class and is home by 12:30, and all three of her kids are so happy she's at their school.

I don't have a "Back-to-School" picture of him, but Dr. Luke Erichsen continues in his position as a school psychologist for the Maryland School District. 

And I'm still chillin' with my adjunct gig, teaching freshman writing courses at Utah Valley University, Salt Lake Community College, and (for the first time) The University of Utah! It's way too many classes this time around, but if I don't die, I'll try to pare that down spring semester.

Here's to the 2023-2024 academic year, everyone! I'm predicting awesomeness for all of us.

(One final note: Mr. Gay passed away four years ago at age 90. If you're watching from above, Mr. Gay, know that you were my mentor and hero as an English teacher, and to this day, I try hard to be consistent in my grading.)

The bliss of clean!

My house hasn't been clean since mid-June when summer semester began. "Your house is always clean," people like to tell me. But no. Not true. My house always looks clean because I keep it tidy. There is never clutter. As the saying goes, "A place for everything, and everything in its place." And I spot clean constantly. Ten minutes before I have to leave for class? What can I clean in ten minutes? Five minutes until I'm meeting Shulamith outside for a walk? What can I clean in five minutes? Microwave has three minutes left? What can I clean in three minutes? It works great, and my house always looks clean.

But that doesn't mean it is.

During the semester, I don't have the time or energy to deep clean regularly, which is what is needed. 

Oh how I wish I didn't need quite as much sleep. Or that I could grade papers faster. Or that I didn't teach so many classes. Or something. Because every semester, I get progressively sadder, as the weeks pass and my house deteriorates. 

I am now in the middle of my three-week break between summer and fall semesters. Let the deep cleaning begin! So far I have dusted every inch of furniture, as well as baseboards, ceiling fans and vents, hand railings, and light fixtures. I've vacuumed and mopped all the floors, scrubbed the kitchen and all four bathrooms, and cleaned out those gross window sill tracks in every room. Still to do: clean and sweep garage and back patio area, rent a power washer to wash the outside of house, and hire someone to wash windows. 

Already, my mood and overall well-being are improving. It's hard to describe how strong the positive correlation is between the cleanliness of my house and the peace of my soul. A week from today my semester at the U. of Utah begins, and two days later, both UVU and SLCC as well. The slow but steady deterioration will commence. 

But I won't think about that right now. Not today. Today I'm gonna gaze at these dust-free baseboards, and take in the smell of a freshly-cleaned kitchen. Bask in the joy of sparkling glass shower doors and mirrors. Feel the clean floors beneath my feet. 

A week ago, in a moment of insanity, I agreed to teach two classes at the University of Utah this fall. (These are in addition to my three at UVU and three at SLCC.)

I may die.

But that's okay. Because today. Today... I live in the bliss of clean!

Upside-down July!

It just occurred to me that it's July 31st, and this is only my second post in the entire month. In my 15 years blogging, I don't think I've ever written only two posts in a month. How did this happen?

July.

Was busy.

And stressful. 

Which is all the more reason I should be blogging because writing reduces stress for me, better than almost anything. And yet, this crazy, upside down month totally got away from me. So here we are on the 31st with only two posts. I will certainly try harder.

As for July, I'm not sure where to begin. My kids. Yes. Grownup kids = grownup problems. My kids are the smartest, kindest, most awesome people I know. But they are still grownup kids, which means they have grownup problems. There is no escaping this. And their grownup problems become my grownup problems, because that's just how it is when you're a mom to grownup kids. There is no escaping this. 

(And I wouldn't, even if I could.)

Between Shulamith's dog incident, Isaiah's stressful job, and Seth's dating issues, let's just say my "mom" anxiety was triggered nearly every day of July. Plus I was so, so hot! Remember how my dog broke my AC? Yeah, I didn't realize how much being overly hot would exacerbate my anxiety disorder, but the answer is A LOT! 

Since I won't be writing posts for all our July events, let me highlight them briefly here:

Kennedy's 9th birthday

She had a celebration with extended family and close family friends at our community pool, where she swam, ate pizza, and opened tons of cool presents. Then she also had a "friend party," where she invited three of her closest friends to dinner at Cheesecake Factory, followed by shopping at the mall and Target. They got to sit at their own table at dinner; then Shulamith gave them each $20 with which to shop. Pretty sure it was Kennedy's favorite birthday party ever, and possibly the favorite for the other girls as well. They managed to find matching flair jeans, and I wish I'd taken a picture of all of them trying those on, but here are the two pictures I got:

Theodore's 6th birthday

Just a couple weeks later, it was Theodore's turn. For Theodore, there is but one birthday party location: Classic Fun Center! It's a large venue with giant bounce equipment, surrounded by a track for roller skating, roller blading, and scootering. In addition, there are arcade games that produce tickets to buy things at a store, mostly dumb, cheap crap, but still coveted by every child. They serve pizza, fries, soda, and more. It's a great place for a 6-year-old's birthday, and Theodore had the best time. He is a Lego genius, so this was definitely his favorite present.

Lagoon

Lagoon is a large amusement park way up north in Farmington. Typically, we go just once a year because, although the rides are super good, it's still overpriced at $97/day. Unless you have a season pass. We've talked for several years about getting season passes, and this year, we finally did it. And suddenly, we are Lagoon rats. It's so nice not to feel like you have to ride every single ride because you won't return for a year. We've gone multiple times already; we stay till we're tired, then leave. It's great! Oh, what is my favorite ride, you want to know? It's a tie between Samari and Cannibal, but then I'm a "ride junkie," so for me, the spinnier, the loopier, the faster, the better! Here we are taking a short break between rides:

One Lagoon day, Eli, Amanda, and Jane joined us. Jane was delighted as Shulamith's kids willingly took her on the "baby" rides:

So on this hot July 31st, I apologize for not writing more this month. It's been a wild ride (not just the ones at Lagoon), and I've been exhausted trying to help everyone, while teaching six credits during summer session.

Happy mid-summer, everyone. Stay cool (both literally and figuratively). 

It was absolutely worth the wait!

We walked down a dimly lit hallway into a changing room, where we donned plush bathrobes and sandals. Soft, instrumental music played in the background as we gathered in a comfortable sitting area, sipped Diet Cokes, and talked about how excited we were to be there.

We had looked forward to this day for two months. A mini-spa day at Sanctuary. It was my Mother's Day gift to Shulamith and Amanda, but it took this long to schedule it. 

It was absolutely worth the wait.

One at a time, each of our massage therapists called us into one of the massage rooms. From that point, the experience varied somewhat depending on the therapist. Mine gently washed my feet with a lavender scented scrub, then instructed me to lie on the table face down. For the next hour, I lay like a rag doll, allowing the therapist to manipulate my limbs to the proper positions. It was glorious. Head to toe, my body fell into relaxation. 

The hour passed far too quickly, and the three of us gathered once again in the sitting room and waited for our facials. The last time I'd had a facial (the only time, actually) was 12 years ago. I remember exactly when, because it was my birthday week, and Shulamith had just found out she was pregnant with Swen. She arranged surprise facials for the two of us as part of my birthday celebration. 

This time, as with the massages, we were alone in a room with our esthetician. Mine was awesome! She asked if I wanted to diffuse some essential oil along with the steam. Why not? I chose a rose scent, which was delightful. As the rose-scented steam enveloped me, the esthetician used an assortment of luscious products on my face, massaging each into my skin. Between each product, she wrapped my head in a hot towel for a few seconds. This felt so, so good! Even though this was a facial, she also massaged my arms, hands, and fingers!

Our final indulgence was a foot treatment. This time the three of us were together in the pedicure room, where we enjoyed a 30-minute foot massage. We sipped more Diet Coke and chatted about nothing and everything, before it was time to return to the changing room, but not before we spent a few minutes in the wet steam room. I'm not a super fan of these types of things, but the wet steam was way better than a dry-heat sauna.

We were sad it was over, but we left with bodies relaxed and faces aglow. And we decided this needs to be an annual event.