That's What I Thought

I picked Afton up at the church the other night.  It was a gorgeous evening, so I rolled the windows down.  The fresh air blew in and YUCK!  The smell of it was so disgusting!  That was my first clue.  Fresh air should not smell disgusting.

Then I felt scatter brained and overwhelmed for no identifiable reason.  I thought my thyroid medicine was wonky.

Then I felt like a 500 lb woman just trying to make it up the stairs. 

The last straw was the 15 minute bawl session I had on the freeway for no reason yesterday.  Nic had that little twinkle of fear in his eye.  That one that silently screams, "Oh my Heavens, WHAT did I marry?"

Sho' nuff.  I'm pregnant.

I get it, Eleanor.

"I hate doing this. It's very embarrassing. I swear I'm not hustling you and I wouldn't ask if I didn't have to. I just need a little money to buy some food and pay for our room tonight."

A dark haired mother held the hand of her five year old daughter and stood near my car in the Walmart parking lot. She had a flimsy backpack on and her daughter wore a thin sweater and jeans. It was near dark and chilly. I had to admit, the mother did look embarrassed.

Normally when I have someone approach me for money, ashamedly I feel annoyed. Sometimes I avoid eye contact until I absolutely have to speak to them. Sometimes I grumble at how young and healthy they look and how they need to GET IT TOGETHER MAN! Often I run through the inventory of lame things I'm SURE they are going to run right out and buy as soon as they collect enough money to do it. I always look them up and down and scrutinize each detail to assess how much they surely are lying.

I didn't do it this time. Something in me said that this mom was in trouble. I believed her. I got out my wallet and said, "I don't have a lot to spare, but..."

She assured me it was okay and she was grateful for whatever I could afford. I sorted through my bills and gave her a portion of what I had. She thanked me and hurriedly moved on to the next person, baby girl in tow.

I turned to my basket and crumpled a little inside. It was loaded. I picked up Jemma and buckled her into her expensive car seat in her safe and clean van. I took the several minutes I needed to load the groceries into the back, having trouble fitting it all because there was SO MUCH. I felt like an idiot. Had I not just said, "I don't have a lot to spare..."

I looked around and found the mother skittering from patron to patron, trying to get enough money. She was urgent. She was quick. Night was falling.

I was lead. I drug myself into the van and drove away. I watched her through my mirror. Could I take her home with me? Would she even come if I offered? What would Nic say if I walked in with these two? Would they be to embarrassed to sit at my table and share a meal?

I talked myself out of two U-turns. I systematically stacked up reasons why I should leave her and her daughter there. Then I went home and unloaded my food and ate at my table with my family.

I'm fairly sure I did the wrong thing. I thought about her for days afterward. I know I can't drag home every homeless person I find in the street, but my heart told me this was different.

So, this experience was fresh in my mind today as I drove home from preschool drop-off. I was about 2.5 miles from my house and I saw an elderly woman picking her way across the uneven and rocky dirt. There was no sidewalk for quite some time due to construction.

She was white haired and bent. I slowed down. As I passed her I looked at her face. She looked worried. She looked like it was hard for her to safely walk over the terrain. I kept driving, thinking she would probably be scared if I stopped and approached her. Then I remembered the Walmart parking lot. THAT'S IT! I CAN'T TAKE IT!

I turned around and found her. I pulled up onto the rocky dirt and rolled down my window. The funny part was I said "Excuse me, may I offer..."

"OH YES! I need a ride!" She didn't even let me finish! She hobbled toward my car and barely gave me time to run around to her side and help her in!

She DID need a ride. Girl was OLD! Her name was Eleanor. She moved to Las Vegas at the request of her son. He said he wanted her to be close so he could care for her better. Then he flunked out of AA. Then he found a woman and moved to Virginia. Then Eleanor's husband died. Now she has to walk 5 miles round trip to get her prescriptions. It takes her over 4 hours to do it. She had been walking for 3 hours when I found her.

I thought about how Jesus loved the widows. How he cared for them. I gave her our phone number and asked her to call us if she needs a ride or help in her home. I hope she does.

I hope I learned my lesson. I hope I follow my heart when it nudges me and don't explain away my opportunity to serve. I hope you don't find it distasteful that I shared this story. I hope you don't think I'm tooting my horn. I don't mean to. I just hope it helps you learn quicker than I did.

I hope Eleanor puts her feet up and eats a candy bar.

It ain't much, but it's MINE!

"Babe, I'm taking a spinning class tomorrow with Mindy." I explained to my husband.

He looked at me doubtfully, "Let me help you out with that. It's a SPIN class. Not a spinning class. You don't want to embarrass yourself on the first day."

The next morning I woke up at 4:45 to make it to my 6:00 class. In hind sight I ask myself...why?! I had been tossing through a weird Christmas Eve-like sleep pattern. I kept waking up wondering if it was time to go to the gym, but hoping it wasn't.

I heard someone post on facebook one time, "The joys of the gym in January." Meaning, when will all these new year resolutioners get off my elliptical? I just knew everyone would take one look at me and know I was one of those people who hadn't been to the gym in ages. Or years. Or decades. Whatever.

I walked in and was surprised to smell it. It smells exactly how I remember. Exactly! Smoothies, sweat, clean towels and shampoo steam.

Embarrassing private thought: "Where in the heck are the elevators? These stairs are making me winded!"

After wandering around, trying to look busy and getting lost twice because of wall to wall mirror confusion, I finally met my friend. She kindly gave me the lowdown on how to get set up for a spin class.

The perky instructor had kind eyes, THANK GOODNESS. She matter of factly looked me up and down and told me my goal was just to make it to the end of the class. Ouch. But, the truth.

The first work out in over a year is a brick in the throat and fire in the lungs. How can two previously obedient and well functioning organs suddenly turn on me and refuse to give me air?

Gratefully, I have the wisdom of many a first work-out to know that the first day is death and it will get better.

Perky instructor was right. I prayed my way through those 55 minutes. I didn't want to fall of that bike or worse...barf.

I have a lot of wishy- washy wimp feelings about the gym. I doubt my determination to get up early. How I hate any hour before 8 am. I defeat myself before I even get started, sometimes.

I worry the health- nut skinny thigh girls will smell the cookie dough seeping from my pores.

I compare, I compare, I compare.

Here's the deal though: Take care of your body, it's the only place you have to live. Be grateful for the mind-blowing creation it is. Don't curse it for the way it varies from someone else's. Be generous to it.

I love to study old people. Really old people. People who poop in a pan in their beds and have had bed head for years. Do you think they'd turn down my strong body because last year's jeans are too tight? Do you think they'd turn their noses up at riding a wave into shore, or a climb to the summit? Heck, do you think they'd refuse to carry a sleeping baby with my arms because they have a little pudge? Nope, they'd relish five more minutes with a body that could carry them anywhere.

I think it pains God when I spend so much time sad about my body. What a punk I am! Get over it sister! Use it. Use it up. It doesn't look like it did when I was 17, but it is forgiving and eager to improve when I treat it right.

Work it. Enjoy it. Love it.

The Twilight Double Standard

I was rushing around the house, waving my arms and yelling (in a nice get your butt in gear way) at my entire family. It was Sunday night and I needed everyone in the van. My nauseatingly creative friend, Lil had offered me her homemade stencils to make a Breaking Dawn t-shirt. I had no clue what the stencils even were, but I know Lil and they would have to be genius. The stencils were across town and I needed them.

We all raced down the 215 towards Henderson. I leaned forward in my seat, Twilight sparkle in my twitching eye. Must get the stencils. Nic turned to me and said, "You know, if I was going to wait in line all night with my guy friends to see the latest Megan Fox movie, clad in my homemade t-shirt you would have a fit. There's such a double standard."

I sighed. Edward and I don't have time for this trivial banter.

I tried to explain. It isn't that I lay awake nights thinking in a lusty way about Rob Pattinson. Honestly, Edward could be played by any fool, and I'd feel the same way. It's the romance. It's the story. I get drunk on it over and over. AND I'LL MAKE NO APOLOGIES FOR IT!

Take the old BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. No insult intended on Colin Firth, but he's not the epitome of a manly man. His jaw is not chiseled. He boasts no biceps or washboard abs. But he melts my innards every time I watch it. It's the romance! It's dreamy, so intoxicating. When I see him in that movie...I don't feel about him the way every red-blooded male feels about Megan Fox when she emerges from the explosion in a torn tank top and all dewy with sparkling sweat. It's DIFFERENT! It's the delicious, heady perfume of out -of- this world romance that I love. Not a lusty obsession.

So yes, I will wait in line for hours tonight in my homemade t-shirt. I will cat call and squeal. I will claw the arm next to me when Bella says "I do". And I will come home and crawl in bed with my guy and thank the Lord that he is mine.

It's not a double standard. It's Twilight.

Deep Thoughts in Walgreen's

Nic came home and surveyed the battlefield. Greasy paper plates and empty Cheetos bags littered the kitchen table. My permanent butt print and the butt prints of several of my children still lingered on the couch cushions. The reasons why don't matter, it was just one of those days. He gave me a long hug and told me, "Even perfect mothers need a day off."

He sent me to Walgreen's to buy milk and bread and a flavor of Tylenol that maybe Evan won't barf up on the couch. I gladly went. It was rainy and cool and I wanted to lay on the pavement and smell that wet asphalt smell til I died. I don't know why I love that smell so much.

I had me a time at Walgreen's. The fluorescent lighting was cheerful. I took my sweet time with my undersized shopping cart. I shuffled down each aisle in my sweatpants and contemplated. I knew it was a perfect waste of money, but I couldn't resist picking up a rag mag spewing the sordid details of Justin Bieber - baby daddy.

I tried to think of situations in which turquoise nail polish would work in my life.

I walked by the enemas and was grateful I didn't need one.

I gasped at the audacity of charging five dollars for a pint of Ben and Jerry's.

I lingered in the baby lotions and binkies and felt a tiny pinch in my heart to have another baby.

I smiled down the Christmas aisle and pushed all of the buttons on the annoying singing do-hickeys. My favorite was Miss piggy in a cheap and easy leopard dress singing "Santa Baby".

I scowled at the paperback shelf and wondered how on earth the airbrushed abs and heaving bosom books make the NY times best seller list every darn week? Who reads those?! Gross.

On the way out, there was an Asian man impatiently accosting an arguing couple at the Red Box. He was tired of waiting and wanted the couple to check if the machine had cartoos. Not cartoons, cartoos. The couple had no idea what he was talking about. I'm a mom. I know what he was talking about. He was trying to say Cars 2.

I should have cleared up the matter. But I didn't.

It was just one of those days.

All It Took

Poor me. Poor, poor me. Walking in the rain to the medical building to have my blood drawn. Then the lab was closed down, door locked. Moved to another location. On the cell phone, in the hall listening to the robot lady on the phone tell me of another lab I could go to. Poor me.

All it took was a peek into another room on my way out. The cancer room. A chubby mama, holding her baby with the daddy near by. Cancer? In one of them? How about a peek into the dialysis room? A woman with a ruddy face and watery eyes tucked her dry, messy hair into a baseball cap. Waiting to recycle her blood so she can stay alive.

All it took was a book I'm reading in the waiting room about the Irish potato famine. A mom waking up with no more milk to feed her baby. Pricking the vein of her horse to feed her sons with blood. Fever, death, shallow graves in frozen ground.

I recently ate a dinner with potatoes. They were piled high on my plate, steamy and covered in ketchup. I ate so much I felt sick the rest of the night.

I felt so lucky to make dinner for my kids tonight. Dropping sticky dumplings into a rich soup of fish, onions and cream. I hear them slurping the dregs from the kitchen.

I wonder how many days I've truly, truly worried. I worry about if I have too many dimples on the backs of my thighs to go swimming in public. I worry if my Tivo recorded Vampire Diaries. And of course, like all of us, I have true worries.

But for the most part, I have a blessed life. I need to worry more about my hands. What have they done to lift another today?

Summa Summa Summa Time

I think I've won the award for most epically lazy blogger this summer. Lest I spoil my rep, I shall continue blogging with the least amount of effort possible...hence this hodge podge of unrelated summer photos.

My handsome tan husband had a birthday. The highlights were the puppy I bought him last minute and the incredibly manly wrapping paper I found for him. Not that there's any shame in the Tinkerbell and Elmo motif last year...Julie was my first friend I made in Las Vegas. She is a superstar among women and I am sad sad sad she moved away. This was our fancy farewell photo.
This is Nic getting Jemma psyched for the chicken chase in Gunlock, UT.
Two faces I kiss often. Wouldn't you?
The 4th of July celebration in Pine Valley Utah was so darn patriotic I about had a heart attack. I love my country.

I was just feelin' it that day. Doesn't it just look like I was feelin' it?
Did you know there are cool hikes that are super easy for kids up at Mt. Charleston? Well, it was a little much for Jemma apparently, but check out the cool pay off at the end! (Scroll down)
A waterfall! Who knew?
Do you remember feeling like you were hot stuff when you were little? For me it was when I got some lime green sunglasses with rainbow paint splatters on the lenses and a flash dance sweatshirt that hung off of one shoulder. HOT STUFF. For Afton and Ellie it was sitting on the top of the truck at the drive-in. Doesn't get any cooler.
There you have it friends, the laziest summer re-cap ever. Go me! :)