Goals

One of my goals for 2009 is to read 20 books. I'm blushing putting that in ink, because I worry that my friend, Emma (who I named my Emma after) will read this post and gasp.

Here's my confession. As the year's have gone by and I've accumulated children, I've found myself reading books less and less. Now, let me be clear. I still read a lot: magazines, newspapers, blogs, articles on the Internet. It is not unusual for me to spend a couple hours a day reading. But not books. The last couple of years I probably haven't cleared 10 books a year.

Thus my goal to read 20 books this year.

So, I'm going to put a little space in my side bar and track the titles of the books I read. And for your reading pleasure, I'll also offer a brief review of the books.

Number 1: The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright

I actually started this book in December, but I finished it in January, so I think that counts. The book begins with an older couple, Jack and Laurel Cooper, dying in each other's arms one night at the bed-and-breakfast that they own. Their three children must now all return for the funeral and to deal with their parents personal effects. One of the sons is a fugitive with outstanding warrants for his arrest in his home town. He must also face his one true love, who is engaged to another man.

Among their parents things, the children discover boxes upon boxes of letters, written by their father to their mother every Wednesday. This book is touching in a way that quietly makes you want to start your own Wednesday Letters tradition. This book is also squeaky clean with no swear words or sex scenes. It was fantastic and I highly recommend it.

Number 2: Dewey: the Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter

The fact that a book with such a boring title could be a New York Time's Bestseller in the Adult Non-fiction category intrigued me. It's a true story of a librarian (the author, Vicki) who found a kitten in the book return box in the late 1980's on the coldest day of the year and convinced the library board to let her keep the cat, Dewey Readmore Books, in the library. But it's also so much more. It's about an amazing cat and difficult times for Iowa farmers. It's about how the cat lifted the community's spirits by sitting on laps and sleeping in boxes. And even that is inadequate. The Job-like trials that the author experienced and the sustaining love from this cat, with his own set of problems, makes you both appreciate your own pets and wish that you had known Dewey.

This book is also very clean: one swear word and no sex scenes. Let me say however, that neither of these books are children's books. When I learned that my 6th grade niece was reading Dewey, I called my sister, told her what the book entailed and suggested she read it herself before deciding if her daughter could handle it. If I were giving these books and age range I'd say 15 and up.

I bet you're dying to know what I'll read next. I'll keep you posted.

Anson's Baptism Part I

Anson turned 8 on Thursday, Oct 30th. Friday was Halloween and Saturday was Nov 1st. Anson was going to get baptised just 2 days after his birthday with a fun-filled, busy weekend virtually every moment.

A couple of weeks before Anson's birthday, I called our Ward Mission Leader to set up Anson's baptism. I told this guy that we'd like to have Anson's baptism at 3-4 o'clock. (Our Stake baptisms go from 1-5 pm.)

I got a call back from our mission leader that Anson's baptism was scheduled for 12:30. No, I told him, that wouldn't do. Wendell needed to get as close to a full work day in as possible and Wendell would miss his own kid's baptism if we did it that early. Well, he told us, everything else was booked.

We never had this problem with Emma, although, I think I started working on her baptism a couple of weeks before her birthday, which would have been a month before her baptism.

Our ward mission leader called me back and suggested that we share a baptism program with another family in our ward. Not only is this child one of 10 children, but they have a very close, very large extended family. I didn't know where they'd put all of us. Sure, I told the mission leader, we'd be happy to share the time slot if we had a different room where we could do our own program.

Eventually, the ward mission leader and the high counselor in charge reneged and agreed to let us baptize Anson at 5:30 pm.

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Nov 1st arrived. My mom and I took Anson out and purchase nice leather bound scriptures for his baptism present (my folks gave him the Bible, Wendell and I gave him the Triple Combination) and pick up rolls, etc.

As we drove past the Stake Center my mom suggested we stop by to check Anson's baptism time and make sure everything was all right. When we talked with the couple in charge of Stake Baptisms, we were shocked to find that we weren't even on the list. Anson's name wasn't there and no 5:30 time slot.

The couple added us to the list and said how grateful they were we stopped by. If we hadn't gotten there when we did, we would have arrived to find the font empty and filling it takes quite a while. They also pointed out a girl and her family who, strangely, had not shown up earlier in the day at the 12:30 time.

Come to find out that was for us, only instead of saying Anson the slot was reserved for Annika--all of 2.5. I am totally not kidding. Our ward mission leader and the high counselor in charge REALLY messed that up. Luckily, except for making my heart skip a beat, everything went off without a hitch--more on that in Part II.

Have you ever asked...

Scrawled on the tiniest shred of paper and covered in tape was a phone number. It was barely legible, but I dialed the number at Nathan's insistence to try to make a play date with a friend from school.

Fortunately for me, the number rang through into voicemail where the woman said her name--Alyssa, I think. She called back immediately and when we realized how close we lived to each other we were pleasantly surprised. We had grown up in the same stake and went to the same high school, although enough years apart that we never crossed paths.

Her older brother was in my high school class (Kevin Clegg, for the benefit of a couple of friends who would know). He and I didn't run in the same social circles, but I could pick him out of a line-up.

The play date went wonderfully without a single outburst from Nathan. When Alyssa showed up to pick up her son, she said, "We would love to have Nathan over next week. We would love to have Nathan as a friend. I would love to have you as a friend." She paused a moment and confessed, "I don't really have any friends here yet."

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Some of you may remember this post where I basically said the same thing. Most of my friends from high school and college live in different states or countries. So I made friendship more of a priority last year. Probably the first brave thing I did was attend Blogapalooza in May, where, coming to the event, I knew only one person.

But I met others, whose blogs I now follow and who I sometimes get to hang out with. Then I had rekindled (sounds almost romantic, but I just mean we started hanging out again) a friendship with a high school friend who just lives a couple cities north. We've gone to lunch, or chatted on the phone at least once a month since. Finally, this fall I restarted the Young Mother's Luncheon in my ward. Once a month ward members with young kids get together for a pot luck lunch and bring all the kids.

That ache, of having friends far, but not near, has dissipated. But I know exactly where Alyssa's coming from. Exactly. You should have seen her face light up when I told her about the Young Mother's Luncheon. I've realized I should invite her to walk at the mall and, who knows, perhaps she and I will be come close friends, too.

But the thing that impressed me most of all was Alyssa's courage. Have you ever said to someone, "I don't have many friend's yet, would you be my friend?" I haven't, but I'm glad she did.

Guilt and Blogging

I've been avoiding blogging out of guilt. Anson got baptized Nov 1st, but have I blogged about it? No. There was Halloween, but it's lacking a post too. On Nov 29th Beck turned 1, still no post. Christmas, New Year's, funny quotes by the kids and still no post. I've gotten so far behind that I'm embarrassed--mortified really. I mean, how can you miss your kid's baptism or birthday and call yourself a blogger?

So I haven't read any blogs either. Obviously, that would just further the guilt and shame. All of you doing such a nice job documenting your lives and your children's lives...everybody but me. The SHAME!!!

So I guess, you could call this my confession and I'm still going to try to catch up, but I must also press forward.

Pumas and Webelos

After tithing* settlement in December, we said a brief hello to the family behind us and headed out to the car. As Annika got to the car she paused and sniffed the air.

"I smell a puma!" she declared, then turned around and saw our neighbor's white dog, who had followed them to church. In one bloodcurdling scream after another, Annika let us know she saw the puma.

On the ride home as Annika retold the story to me she said, "Then I saw Sammy the white dog and I freaked out, but it wasn't a puma it was just Sammy the white dog."

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Wendell’s in charge of the 10-year-old scouts in our ward and at the last den meeting they’d made fully edible marshmallow snowmen using marshmallows, toothpicks and candies. The following day, my mom came to watch Annika and Beck for an hour. Mom inquired of Annika about the card table still set up in the middle of the living room.

“We sat here and ate marshmallows and Webelos,” Annika informed Mom.

“Webelos?” Mom wondered. “You ate…Webelos?”

“I had two of them,” Annika explained tipping her head and gesturing about the size of the candies, “they were kind of …minty.”