My Testimony

As I drove home today I pondered the experiences from the past weeks. I pondered Travis's coworker, whose baby was born with a heart problem and rushed to another hospital for surgery. I reflected on our friend's daughter, 11, who was in a bike/car accident and ended up at Hershey Medical Center for multiple injuries and many days of medically induced coma to relax her and allow for brain swelling to go down. I smiled tearfully at the thought of my brother recently diagnosed with a fatal cancer rubbing Kody for a whole hour during church today putting him into a relaxed and cuddly state of calmness. I questioned the second miscarriage of my sister-in-law who wants nothing more than to have one more child. I felt peace at the beautiful funeral of my sweet grandma who no longer is faced with the infirmities of her mortal body. I choked up as I watched a tender moment between a father and his daughter and I felt sad that I will never know that kind of love or father/daughter relationship. I alternately laughed and mourned with my good friends who are moving shortly as they bestowed many generous gifts to me that they didn't want to move with them. And I wept openly as I heard a good friend and father figure leave a solemn testimony of the Savior's life and death for all of us.

And the words have come to me quickly and repeatedly throughout the afternoon "He is the way." I hurry to the Internet to track down the song filling my mind with peace.

And after hearing it in my mind many times and buying the sheet music, I testify that I know that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father are over all. That their power and glory reign supreme and with perfection. That although I may not understand everything they do and I may not have all the information that my faith in them is so strong and pure that I submit my will and my life to them. And I accept my sadness, worry, and loss for the moment and then I change it all to faith, hope, and joy because through them all will be made right. Someday when we move past this Earthly existence we will stand before the Lord again and his love will be sufficient and his sacrifice more powerful than all the pain, injury, and mortality that this life offers. I know that his life, his atonement was made for me and that "he is the way".

A Heavy Blanket

Some things about living in PA still surprise me. Yesterday I woke up almost suffocating under a heavy blanket. The weather is a decently cool probably low sixties, but that doesn't mean the humidity isn't out in full force.

I forgot the palpable feel of water saturating the air.

I forgot the feeling of it on your skin feeling like you are on the verge of sweating droplets although you are not warm at all.

It's crazy to think that the air can hold that much water, to think that the skin and nerve endings can so acutely pick up on the water in the air, and to think that the west and people who live there have no idea about the shear intensity of this phenomenon.

Grandma

(My Mom-Nancy, Grandma-Anna, and Sister-Luann)

Memories flood me as I ponder the passing of my Grandma. I remember cousin sleepovers at her house, especially when my cousins from Indiana would come visit.

I remember her teaching me my very favorite childhood game of "Big, Bad, Wolf" which at a later date I dislocated my jaw while playing.

I see in my mind's eye a picture that was on her refridgerator for many years that I had drawn for her as a child. She always encouraged my drawing even when I was no good and she was so naturally talented at it.

I have a crocheted quilt she gave me that I look at totally different now.

Rummikub, Scrabble, Uno, and hundreds of other games I learned while playing with her on summer visits.

I watched her do word finds and crossword puzzles that peaked my curiosity for words.

I remember my sister and I while having an extended visit trying to prevent my Grandma from watching her beloved daytime shows, because our mom had taught us they were bad and so we wanted to "save" our Grandma.

I remember a couple of times her being our caretaker when my parents went out of town, one specific time when I hid her crochet needles so that she would play with me.

There is a sharp curve on a road nearby my house with a steep embankment on the one side that I can't drive by without remembering the time I was in my Grandma's car and she underestimated the intensity of the curve only to bump us all into the embankment and bounce back onto the road with a sigh of near miss and a chuckle.

I remember that everytime we visited she would make my very favorite dessert of fruited jello and she would add whip cream to make it special.

I remember loving my Grandma, and missing her while she was still alive but limited in her mental acuity to recognize me.

And I know that I'll be with her again someday. And she will be restored again to the loving, vibrant woman who affectionately called me ketchup eyes when I cried as a small child as she lifted me in her lap to whisper that all would be okay. I will miss her in the upcoming years, and I am saddened that my kids will never really have known her, but I feel lucky to have these memories to pass along to them.

Getting All Caught Up

With a pretty long and intense past two weeks I missed some major blogging highlights. Here is getting caught up. We had my brother's kids spend the night last weekend. We took them all to a baseball game. It was fun and crazy. We did get grass seats so they could run wild. And the game ended with the first fireworks of the season. Yeah I love fireworks.

And Issac, true to his nature, decided to take on a bench with his eye. The bench won. And so liquid stitches was in order, but since this is a frequent thing, we have gotten to the point where we do it ourselves with superglue. This boy has more scars than most, but I enjoy his tenacity. The boy has spirit and I can appreciate that!And we had a bridal shower for my baby brother's wife to be, Adriane. Her family is so great and we had so much fun.

Photo Friday

On Wyatt's Kindergarten fieldtrip, yesterday, to Lake Tobias my little group stumbled onto this.

The one boy asked, "What are they doing?" I responded "I don't know." After a bit another older group of boys, middle schoolish, comes over and one says "Look they are mating." To which the same little boy asks me, "What does mating mean?" to which I reply, "I don't know."

I know this was probably the wrong answer, but what was the right answer, these are 5 and 6 year olds.

Tiny Fissures Lead to Big Breaks

This narrative is yesterdays:

It was proving to be a rough day. I was overwhelmed by the acknowledgement that I have too many fair weather friends, a major disappointment from my mom, and the continuous meltdown and misbehaving of my two littlest boys, my youngest being in that terrible stage of two. My neighbor and good friend had watched me cry openly and hugged me of all things - something I am not good at but needed- and it made the crying all the worse. Travis of course came to the rescue and rushed home to grab all the kids and give me the afternoon/evening to myself. I was running errands those things that are next to impossible to do with kids in tow making major progress. I stopped home briefly to pick up dinner to eat on the run to a Visiting Teaching appointment. The dinner was breaded Thai shrimp with a sweet pepper and ginger sauce.

As I drove through Manheim traffic caused from the end of the work day I felt a burning yet cold sensation on my crouch. I looked down to see that the container housing the sweet pepper and ginger sauce had tipped and poured three ounces of gelatinous orange onto my lap. It was cool to the touch hence the cool but I quickly realized that although the fabric of my pants was straining chunks of the pepper enough residue was leaking through to provide the other sensation of burning. I quickly capped the sauce, opened the glove box for napkins only to find none. My day sucked - officially. I pulled out the drawer below the passenger seat still none. I started to feel like I was going to cry again when all of the sudden I burst out laughing. As I sat there legs clenched trying to keep the sauce from getting on the car seat I used my spare hand to try and scoop out the excess and toss it out the window. I eventually found some tissues that immediately dissolved in the liquid into white balls.

After scooping the excess I remembered I had wet wipes somewhere. I found the container only to discover they were dry. I thought this might be to my benefit making a more absorbent drying agent. I was wrong it was useless. After getting what I could I was determined that I would just have to let me black yoga capris and underwear soak in the extra. Filthy I know. But I was laughing. Laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. Laughing that I could smell myself imminently a distinctly sweet Thai smell. I went visiting teaching where I drew no emphasis to it and proceeded directly to belly dancing class with a quick stop at the library. And throughout the night as I would get a whif of the scent I would burst into laughter. My tiny fissures of insanity occasionaly break into hysteria. Yesterday was one of those days. It reminds me of a day in highschool when I got kicked out of Physics class for breaking into the same machine gun sounding fits of hysterical laughter. But that is a story for another day.