I Love You a Bushel and a Peck!

My six year old daughter, Jeigh, and I performed in our church talent show tonight! I just can't stop grinning about it! She was absolutely brilliant! She had no fear as she sang her part beautifully. Me on the other hand...I was shaking in my boots. Literally! I always get the worst stage fright, but having her on stage with me was comforting and inspiring. And it was just so much darn fun!

This is a dream that I've had for years. I've always loved to sing and always hoped that my children would share that same love and would want to sing--privately or publicly--with me. Two of my three older kids are rather shy about public displays, but Jeigh...she's always been a "performer". She loves an audience.

I was shocked at how good she was about preparing and practicing for her first public vocal performance. I suggested the song, "A Bushel and a Peck" from Guys and Dolls, a song I used to sing with my sister and some friends when we were in college. The kids and I sing bits and pieces of it around the house from time to time. I even have "I love you a bushel and a peck" in vinyl lettering on the wall. It was such a cute little song for our first mother/daughter duet.

She approved my suggestion and we began to practice. I assumed it was going to be a little rough and she would need some coaxing, if not full out bribery. But right from the get-go, she knew what she was doing. In fact, she was hardly going to let me sing as she claimed the first, second, and most of the third verse. "Mom, you can come in at the end," she said. I redirected her a bit, claiming the second verse as my own. I mean, what mom can resist the line "You make my heart a wreck and you make my life a mess. Yes, a mess of happiness!"?

As we went over the song with our accompanist, she followed the piano so well, naturally knowing when to come in and out. She constantly directed our practice with, "Let's go over that part again" or "One more time" or "We need dance moves!" I was awe-struck at her. She hardly needed my guidance. She's a total natural at this!

When the performance arrived, she picked our outfits and asked if she could wear a little makeup. It was so much fun just getting ready for the show. And then we did it and it went marvelously! We already have our next "gig". It's just singing in our church sacrament meeting in a couple of weeks, but this is the stuff that my dreams are made of. This is one of those "mommy paydays" that balances out the sleepless nights and potty training messes. And it is totally worth it!

Note to Self: Little Boxes

Self. Learn how to play the guitar. Then learn how to play this. Then learn the lyrics. Then teach them to your children. Then teach children how to harmonize. Then sit around the campfire singing it.



That is all.

Summer, of the 1998 Variety

Joe is coming home today! He's been out of town all week and I can't help but laugh at myself as I clean the house from top to bottom in preparation for his arrival. When we were dating, I used to spend hours getting myself pretty for him. Almost 9 years of marriage later and I spend hours getting the house pretty for him. Either way...I'm out a few hours.

I like to listen to Pandora when I'm cleaning. Today, I set it on the "Moves Like Jagger" station and bustled about wiping and vacuuming like a crazy woman. Usually this station plays peppy, Top 40, energy-inducing kind of songs. Today it took a different direction and escorted me on a trip back to Summer 1998.

That was quite the summer.

17 years old.
I worked at a boy scout summer camp.
This was the first time I was away from my parents for any kind of an extended amount of time.
It was also the first time I was around...*gulp*...boys. At least boys I wasn't related to.
I met a lot of really interesting people...(*gulp*...boys).
I grew out my bangs.
Lost 30 pounds.
Learned about "ska" music and eyeliner.
"Broke up" with my best friend over a lot of silly stuff.
Experienced my first kiss.
Endured my second kiss.
Listened to the "Romeo + Juliet" soundtrack over and over again until the CD skipped from being overplayed.

Summer 1998...
Now there's a story worth telling...

If I could just get over the awkward, the "soooo highschool", the embarrassment of doing and saying stupid things just for the sake of being young and stupid.

Is There Life After "Mommy"?

As a devout members of the LDS faith (and yes, that makes me a Christian too) I am repeatedly exposed to...well, let's face it...cheesy music.

Music can be very powerful and moving and spiritually fulfilling. It is by far the most effective way the Spirit speaks to me. But when it comes to the majority of contemporary christian/LDS music...I can't help but cringe. It is so sticky sweet and predictable and just downright weird. (Are we praising God or making out with him?)

I'm sure the people who write and perform these songs have the best intentions. They are trying to express their testimonies and love of God and the Savior through music. My hat is off to them for even trying. I mean, really, how critical can I be? Have I ever written anything that remotely resembles music much less something that others find worthy of being broadcasted and performed publicly.

Still, I'd rather not listen to most of it.

For all my contempt for church music, there is one particular person who in my opinion has found the perfect balance between sweet and spiritual.

Janice Kapp Perry.

The other day my husband and I happened upon a television program about her. I had no idea how many of my favorite church songs could be attributed to her. She has written dozens of primary songs, hymns, and other musical arrangements that have become part of the LDS culture and faith.

And here is the kicker: She didn't even start until she was 40 years old! This is when she received her "two lucky breaks": a broken ankle and a broken television set. Before this she had been busy raising children and playing sports.

Hearing that someone like Janice Kapp Perry didn't even find her groove until she was 40 gives me a lot of hope. Sometimes I feel like I have lost myself in motherhood. I can't help but wonder who Evelyn is anymore? Don't get me wrong. I love being a mother. I really do. There's nothing more important and precious to me than raising these four children right now. But what happens when they grow up and leave, as I hope they will someday. And not because I want to be rid of them, but because I hope I did my job right and they are wonderful, capable people who are busy doing good things. Good things like making chubby little grandbabies for me to smooch.

I will always be a mom, but I won't always be busy wiping bums, cleaning up messes, and reading board books. Motherhood can be so dirty and grimy and tiring and micro-focused sometimes that it blinds me to life before or beyond it. I am more than mom...I think. I used to be at least and I have hope that someday I will be again.

I don't know what things I will accomplish beyond being a mom, but after learning that someone who has successfully spoken to my spirit through music didn't even start until after they had done their time potty training, helping with homework, and breaking up sibling brawls gives me the courage to go ahead and plan on accomplishing something monumental after I build the foundations of these little monuments-in-the-making here.

It's always nice to have a little hope on your side.

Note to Self: Heavy

You know that song "He's Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother"?



You remember that picture I showed you of me and my brother?

Well, he's back (yea!)
and holy moly! Has he changed!

But...

he's not the only one.

That song is right.

He's my brother.

And he ain't heavy.

I am.



Note to self: It is time to get serious about postpartum weight loss.

Seriously.

Couch to 5K program here I waddle.

Anyone want to be my running partner?

P.S. It is humiliating to show this to you all, but it's part of my scare tactic for myself.

Dear Hanging by a Silver Lining Blog

It is 9:26 pm.

I have been trying to spend some time with you all day.

You were even on my list of things to do today.

Right below "write missionary brother" and right above "eat healthy".

I got the brother written and I tried to eat healthy and here I am spending a few moments with you.

See. You are important to me.

Even more important than eating healthy?

Meh.

Let's just say easier to do than eating healthy. (And yes! Chocolate covered strawberries do count as a healthy snack. Hello! Fresh fruit! Smothered in chocolate!)

Anyway.

I just put four little people to bed.

Yep.

At 9:26 pm.

On a school night.

But I made sure those four little people got kisses, hugs, piano practice, homework, family time, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, chocolate covered strawberries, and lots of love before their sweet little heads ever hit the pillow.

Doing all that all day has me plum worn out.

Sorry poor little neglected blog.

You're going to have to wait until tomorrow. I will put you on my to do list again.

Right above "exercise" and right below "make sure to do all you can to be the best mama and wifey you can today".

A girl has to have some priorities, ya' know?

Love,
Me

P.S. This song is my current favorite. It makes me wish I had a really tall building, a really big voice, and some really big chops to sing it at the top of my lungs to the world.

Just the Way You Are

I catch myself getting a little choked up every time I hear this song.

It's because I like to think about my daughters when I hear it.

And how I hope they will grow up knowing they are important and precious and beautiful and worthy and good and perfect just the way they are.

Because it's true.



P.S. My hat is off to Bruno Mars for writing a song that doesn't talk about how "hawt" a girl is because of her body, booty-shakin', or bedroom habits. Cheers Bruno Mars!

Seeing Red at a Blue Christmas

All the great music has to be my favorite part of the holidays. I sure wish we could listen to it all year long. I suppose then we wouldn't really appreciate it, right?

{sigh} Ooookay.

There is one song that I just can't bear to listen to ever again. As soon as I hear that infamous, stop-and-go, croony buildup of "I-I-I-I-IIIIII'llll have a..." I can't seem to shut off my radio quick enough. Then I shake my head and start laughing with the memory. If Joe is in the room we laugh together.

It was Christmas 2004.

Joe and I were living in our second apartment since we had been married. It was an upstairs unit in a four-plex community that we managed. I was pregnant with our first baby who was due in mid-January (coincidentally the exact same due date as this fourth baby). Both Joe and I worked nights; he as a detention deputy at the local jail and me as an emergency department technician at the local hospital.

Since we both worked nights, our sleeping schedules were a little off-kilter from the rest of the world.

Below us lived three single college guys who came and went at all hours of the day and night. For the most part we all got along and tried to respect each other regarding noise.

Until...

One morning, just as the rest of the world was preparing to wake and get ready for the day, Joe and I were laying in bed preparing to fall asleep after a long night of work. We snuggled in and waited for sweet slumber to take us away.

All the sudden we heard...



...being played full-blast. And it wouldn't have so bad if the college guy wasn't competing with his stereo with loud and high-pitched backup singer "Ooo-oh-ooo-oh"s through the whole thing.

Joe and I just stared at each other in disbelief...and busted out laughing.

It was the most hilarious thing we had ever heard from any neighbor...until we realized this was our early morning crooner's favorite Christmas song and we were treated to countless encore performances...that morning and at odd hours over the weeks to follow.

Sorry Elvis. I love your soulful, hip-twisting ways, but I NEVER want to hear that song again.

Ten Things Tuesday

Because a list-making girl like me just couldn't resist.

1. Thank you so much to iamwoman at the Rowdy Stroudy's for the lavender parcel! My car never smelled better!

2. I don't miss Arizona. Not one little bit. I especially didn't miss it as I saw the big fluffy flakes of snow descending yesterday. But I forget Arizona was "home" to my children for two plus years. And when you're only four, that's half your life! They are rather confused about this cold weather business when to me it feels so familiar and soothing to the soul. Dee keeps asking me what the "dust" (frost) on our car is each morning as we go to school. Jeigh dashed out the front door yesterday to catch a snowflake. She made sure to grab her coat, but stopped short when her bare feet made contact with the icy cold. Poor little Arizona-born-and-raised Elle sees this new weather as uninvited and hostile. She shuffles around wrapped up tight in her thick winter coat like a little old lady. Her facial expression is a hilarious mixture of disgust and disbelief. I imagine her blood will thicken up soon enough.

3. Joe has four whole days in a row off this week! I can't wait to have a husband again! This one day off here, one day off there business is for the birds. And what perfect timing for a four day off stretch: Halloween! Now to wrangle him into helping me organize our storage unit...

4. Parent Teacher Conferences are this week. Jeigh's was on Monday and Dee's was today. I wonder...Do the teachers just tell all the parents the same thing?

5. Potty training is going great. If by "great" you mean Elle won't ever tell you when she has to go potty and still has a daily number two accident in her underwear and had one serious number two accident in the middle of Walmart yesterday resulting in her underwear, pants, and socks all being discarded in the public restroom followed by a hasty and red-faced bare-bottom-wrapped-in-sister's-jacket exit out of the store....then yep, it's going great.

6. I have wracked my brain all month trying to figure out what the heck I can do to blow the competition out of the apple-bobbin'-filled water for Sami's Symfully Sweet Saturday candy corn competition. The best I have done is kept my candy jar consistently stocked with a never ending supply of candy corn. I had my gestational diabetes blood test yesterday. Think I'll pass? I have my doubts. But, you should head over to Sami's blog and enter your coolest candy corn creations in her contest! Tell her Evelyn the Candy Corn Comatose Victim sent you.

7. We discovered this last week that Jeigh is terrified of vomit. Dee had a nasty allergy and asthma cough that caused him to almost throw up several times. Anytime he coughed she would absolutely fall apart with hysteria, shaking and crying.

8. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is only about 200 pages, but it is taking me FOR-EV-ER to get through it. I have already re-checked it out from the library once and it is currently late, but I WILL FINISH IT!

So far my favorite line is: (in regards to the death of a close loved one) "These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time prove the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished."

And: (speaking of becoming obsessed with a pursuit or activity) "A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken you affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind."

9. I am craving caramel apples, but am too lazy to make a big mess of my kitchen to make one or two...dozen.

10. Is it too early to listen to Christmas music? What am I saying?! It's never too early for Christmas music!

When do I admit I am a Gleek?

Lots of packing to do, gotta make this quick, but I wanted to see if anyone else had goosebumps upon goosebumps and got a little more than a little teary-eyed watching this last night?



No? Umm...yeah...me neither. he...he...

Lady Gaga VS. Michelle Duggar

Sunday night I watched a touching Mother's Day episode of 19 Kids and Counting.

If you don't know what 19 Kids and Counting is, it's a television program on TLC that documents the Duggar family. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have 19 children, all from the same mom and the same dad. The newest member of the family, Josie, was born three months prematurely, but after spending four months in the NICU, was able to come home which this special Mother's Day episode documented. It was emotionally-stirring to recount their difficult past four months and to re-watch the family worry, pray, and come even closer together for their mom and wife and new, teeny-tiny sister and daughter.

I have zero aspirations to have half as many as children as Michelle Duggar has, but I do admire this sweet family, their dedication to their beliefs (even though they differ from mine), and the love and fun they share as one big happy family. All the children are well-behaved, kind, courteous, helpful, talented, loving, and happy. It is remarkable that such a large family runs so smoothly and does so much. I believe a large portion of that can be contributed to the amazing Michelle Duggar, a mother among mothers.

So, are you wondering what any of this has to do with Lady Gaga yet? I'm getting to that.

The next morning, after watching this tender program, I turned on the radio to listen to while I washed dishes. I wasn't paying very close attention to the morning radio deejays, until I heard them talking about this special episode of 19 Kids and Counting I had just watched.

Only...they weren't talking about how special it was.

They were ripping Michelle Duggar apart for having the gall to have 19 kids in the first place. Then they misquoted her saying she still wanted more kids. I've heard this statement before that they read only chunks of and they totally distorted what she had said. Of course then the conversation turned to how could she even think such a thing when they had such a sick baby on their hands and what if everyone started having 19 kids, this world would be a mess. They accused Michelle of wanting more children just to perpetuate their stardom and TLC's interest in their family.

As the radio deejays ranted on and on about how pathetic and irresponsible the Duggars were, I found myself hardly able to wash my dishes. I was furious!

First of all they had misconstrued several things this family had done and said. Secondly, the Duggar family has it more together than millions of other families out there that have rotten, spoiled, brats for children. All the children are happy and helpful. The Duggars are self-sustaining, completely avoiding debt and welfare. Can very many other families no matter what the size honestly claim the same?

Thirdly, I was livid hearing all this slander about Michelle Duggar when not ten minutes earlier this same radio deejay (who was female by the way) had practically sung the praises of Lady GagMe...Oh excuse me! I mean Lady Gaga. She gushed and oozed about how amazing and inspirational Lady Gaga is.

Lady Gaga! Inspirational?! Seriously?! A recording artist that pushes the boundaries so far, there really are no more boundaries. Boundaries for morals, values, modesty, even just normalcy. As I tried to find a picture of Lady Gaga for this post I could hardly find one that didn't involve open crotch shots, breasts hanging out of "clothes", or orgy scenes. So THIS is who we want to be inspired by? This is who we want our daughters to pattern their lives after? This person, in all her vulgarity and crassness, is who we find so artistic, forward-thinking, and worthy of our praise, affection, money, and pedestals?

But not Michelle Duggar? No way! Not a woman who actually thinks motherhood and family and religion is important. Not a kind, sweet, gentle woman who dresses modestly, speaks softly and wisely, and gives everything she has to being the best mother she can be. No. That's just old-fashioned and irresponsible. How could she be so selfish and out of control to overpopulate the earth with respectful and loving children? The audacity of some women!

Is any one else angered by this??? I was totally yelling at my radio when I heard the contrast in regard for these two very different women. After a bit I realized how futile that was and just turned the dang radio off. As angry as I was, I had to laugh (a rather bitter laugh) that this radio rant took place the very day after Mother's Day, the day we love and praise our society's greatest assets: Mothers.

This world is a scary place, my friends. Scary place indeed.

P.S. If it came to a physical match, I have my money on Mrs. Duggar. She could totally take Gaga. Hello! She has been through labor and delivery 19 times! And she wouldn't have the silly costumes and ridiculous high heels to get in her way. Mama Duggar FTW!