Books, McDonald’s, and Death (in ten random facts)

Fact #1: As a post-pandemic reader, it weirded me out the first time COVID was included in a novel. I felt like it didn’t belong there, and we needed more time. Now it’s just a normal historical event that regularly gets worked into stories, and it doesn’t faze me.

Most recent book I read that includes COVID

(I liked this one, by the way)

Fact #2: Speaking of books, I keep reading about characters who are 42. It’s happening in TV shows, too! Everyone is 42! Is there something special about being 42? Because if there is, I’m missing it, and I only have two months left til 43. 

Fact #3: The other day I was reading about what happened to Ted Bundy’s body after he died (he was cremated, and his ashes were released to his attorney who was supposed to scatter his remains in the Cascade Mountains, which is kind of icky because that’s where some of his victims were found). Guess how old he was when he died? 42. 

Fact #4: I feel like McDonald’s Monopoly is playing dirty this year. Last year I got so much awesome free stuff, and this year I’ve been hit repeatedly with “no prize this time.” Oh! Except for the three times I earned two free months of Peacock (eye roll). Can’t they just throw me an egg McMuffin? Just one? Please? 

Fact #5: And just to show how dirty they are, they cut me off the other day! McDonald’s told me they’d had enough of me! I don’t handle rejection well, so it stung a bit. 

My rejection notice

Fact #6: The pain of the rejection must’ve really seeped into my subconscious because a few nights ago I dreamt that I was overwhelmed with Monopoly pieces that I needed to enter into my app, and I didn’t know how many I could enter before McDonald’s shut me down, so I was trying to organize them into piles that I would enter today and tomorrow. 

Fact #7: Speaking of Peacock, I am logged into Amber’s account. Is it immoral to watch TV via your deceased sister-in-law’s profile? 

Fact #8: On that note, what I miss most about those who have passed away is laughing with them, and I feel this especially with Amber. She was one of my best friends, and there are a million things I would have sent her on instagram and a million things I would have texted her in the time she’s been gone. 

Fact #9: There were a few topics that Amber was my go-to person for. There is something going on right now that I am aching to talk to her about. Fortunately, I know exactly what she would say, so I can just send my side of the conversation heavenward, and I know what she would send back if she could. 

Fact #10: I haven’t been able to upload photos from my phone to my blog for about a year, and this morning, I fixed the problem! I can’t tell you what the problem was, but in an effort to fix and entirely different problem, the photo issue seems to be repaired! I am so happy I could cry!

Sigh… never mind…

Gratitude #1: To the Left

I can't believe that we are already approaching the holidays. The movement of time has become quite the scandal as I've gotten older. A school year felt like forever when I was a kid - so long and life-shaping. Look at how we commemorated it with yearbooks and fancy photos! It was nine months! With the exception of pregnancy, nine months ain't no thing!

So we find ourselves, once again, in the last months of a calendar year, and it happens so fast!

Anyway, with the approach of Thanksgiving, I want to try and do ten gratitude posts before I stuff myself full of turkey and yams, so for the next few weeks, I'll be getting my thankful on. I've been trying to notice things I've taken for granted and make note of them so I can be a little less self-absorbed. (Who, me?)

The first thing I'll express gratitude for is being able to use both sides of my body. 

That may sound like a weird thing, but I recently read the book Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. I had no idea what it was about, but I've read many books by Lisa Genova, and she always writes about neurological disorders, so I knew it would involved something of that nature. It turns out it's about a condition called "left neglect" (which I'd never heard of and therefore, didn't catch from the title of the book until it was introduced in the story). 

Left neglect is a neurological problem (resulting from stroke or other injury) where the brain can't process anything to the left. You don't know there's food on the left side of your plate or text on the left side of the page or a person standing to your left. You don't use the left side of your body and might even think you're deaf in your left ear or lose track of where your left limbs are. 

I can't even imagine what that's like because I so easily have access to "the left." So today I'm expressing gratitude for something I haven't given enough credit to - the easy, symmetrical use of my body. I can do the hokey pokey without second thought - right arm, left arm. Right leg, left leg. I can do the Tootsee Roll (to the left, to the left), and unlike Zoolander, I can turn left. 

Sunday Sentiments - The Path to Scholar

When it comes to gospel study, I don't follow the same routine everyday, but it usually goes something like this - an actual scenario from last week:

I have 12 tabs open in my gospel library app that I move back and forth between.

I decide I want to jot down some notes about Isaac and Rebekah. 

I grab a notebook from the bookshelf, drop it on the couch, then go into the kitchen to fetch a pen. The pen is purple. 

I go downstairs and get the freshly laundered sheets out of the dryer. I take them upstairs and put them on my bed.

I decide I should wash our pillows, and in prepping them for the laundry, I start to wonder whether I should replace two of them. I do a few online searches to see if the store still carries the pillows I like.

I remember that we have Halloween pillow cases for our kids, so I get those out and give them a little douse of Febreze so they don't smell like stuffy, old linen closet (not that I even have a linen closet - it's one of my house's biggest flaws).

I haul the pillows down to the basement for a wash. 

I go up to the kitchen and decide I want to listen to a Janet Jackson song. 

I tell Alexa to play the song. 

I jam to the song as I walk in the living room, where I see my notebook sitting on the couch and remember that I was going to write down some notes about Isaac and Rebekah. 

I can't find my purple pen. I get a different pen.

I jot down two bullet points before it's time to go pick up my girls from school.

Three hours later I find my purple pen sitting on the dryer. 

I'm pretty sure this is how gospel scholars are made.

The Church Traditions I Miss

The other day I saw a social media post asking “What church traditions do you miss?”

(Pretend there is a picture of a church here. I might come back and add it later, but currently my laptop is unavailable, and for the past year I haven’t been able to add photos to my blog posts on my phone. Something is corrupted, and I haven’t been able to figure out how to fix it).

I was curious what responses people gave, so I scrolled through the comments a bit. The two most popular answers were road shows and gold and green balls. I’ve heard of road shows (though never participated in any - I’m not sure when they fizzled out), but I’d never heard of gold and green balls. 

Other answers included pageants, scout-related activities, and sports programs. As I read through the comments, I didn’t see anything that I miss all that much, but there are three traditions or former practices that I miss that I didn’t see mentioned:

1. Singing hymns in Relief Society (or other organizations)

I have always found this to be a strange elimination since music is such a big part of worship, and some people get far more from singing than from a lesson or discussion. Also, we have all these new hymns, yet we sing less. When I was a teen, music was a huge part of my spiritual development, and I’m sad my teens don’t sing in their youth classes. 

2. Farewells/homecomings 

I understand some of the reasons for this change, but overall, I feel it’s a huge disservice to missionaries and their families (plus, we basically still do them, we’re just sneaky about it).  

3. Personal Progress

After six years of implementation as a parent and a leader, I think the new youth Personal Development Program is extremely lacking. I don’t even bother to encourage my kids to participate. I loved Personal Progress. I don’t mind changes and updates to the program to accommodate the needs of our youth, but I think we took a loss on this one.

Also, up until recently, I would have said that I miss having Relief Society every week. Don’t confuse that with missing three hour church (because I can’t even believe we used to live that way), but I felt a sense of disconnect while we were rotating between Sunday School and Relief Society (or whatever classes we were to attend for our callings). So I’m glad for the new schedule. It suits my technology addicted attention span better, and I get to be with my Sisters more often. 

Name three things that…

Make you smile…

Dogs with their heads hanging out of car windows.

Certain theme park rides

Babies

You can’t buy with money…

Creativity

A sense of accomplishment

Good friends

You want to achieve this year…

(I’m running out of time)

Do a low spend challenge where we use up what we have and put some money away for Christmas

Fit into my winter pants so I don’t have to buy new ones

Make an appointment with the neurologist

You want to try out as hobbies…

Nothing. I am not seeking new hobbies at this time.

You can improve about yourself…

Spend less time on my phone

Say (and think) nicer things about people

Exercise more

You would never do…

Bungee jump

Scuba dive

Run a marathon 

Make you sad…

Cancer

Divorce

Abuse

You always do in the summer…

Get depression

Sweat

Grow a garden

Make you avoid doing your work…

No energy

Distracted

Don’t want to

You are afraid of…

Traumatic brain injuries

Shifty toilet seats

Choking on food - particularly carrots 

Signs That Kids Live Here

A skeleton taped to the ceiling. 

Origami frog in the wreath. 

Socks hanging from the ceiling. 

A candy corn that we aren’t allowed to eat or get rid of because it has wings and looks like an angel.

This entire wall. 

Chewed PopTart remnants on the furniture.

Burn rings in the table from someone pouring fingernail polish remover into shot glasses.

Dirty socks on the table next to the aforementioned burn rings. 

Origami frogs on the wall decor. 

Origami frogs on the TV console. 

Halloween garland in disarray.

Okay. Fine. I wouldn't have it any other way.

But I'm still rolling my eyes. 

Sunday Sentiments - Precious Cargo

Back in August I wrote a little bit about what a blessing it is to have other people love and serve my children. This has been on my mind again this week as I have been thinking about some of the things Nicky is experiencing on his mission (he's gone through a bit of a rough patch which began the day after I posted this update, which means I probably caused it somehow). 

When we were getting Nicky ready to leave for Puerto Rico, we stopped at the Distribution Center to get him some temple shoes so he could serve as a temple worker for a little while. One of the employees was asking about his mission, and she told me that when her children served missions, she had to adopt the mentality that they were in the hands of the mission president (and Heavenly Father), and everything would be okay. That’s a bit of an overwhelming task for a mission president to be responsible for so many young people (in addition to everything else they have to worry about), but there’s some truth to it. There is a person (with various helpers) who presides over a mission and looks out for the missionaries. That brings me some peace. But not full peace because, again, there is so much a mission president has to do! 

Just a few days ago I was telling my friend that I’m worried that Nicky is not being nurtured, and how I hope there is someone out there supporting him and fostering his development and saying, “There, there! You are loved, and you are wonderful!” Perhaps a senior missionary (though I’ve never heard of Nicky interacting with any senior missionaries, and I’m not even sure they exist) or a little abuela. 

Today our Relief Society lesson is on Elder Stevenson’s talk, “Lost Luggage, Redeemed Souls.” In the address, Elder Stevenson discusses the rate of lost luggage in airports (33 million bags were mishandled in 2024). Yet, in the Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan, not a single piece of luggage has been lost in 30 years. “When you hand off your luggage at the Kansai Airport, you get a sense that they are saying to you, ‘We have your precious belongings. We are responsible for them now. We will return them to you.’” 

Right now I definitely feel like I have sent precious belongings out into the world - my son! My highest valued cargo. “The feeling is recognizable: entrusting what is precious into the care of others - and longing for its safe return… years of teaching, preparation, and prayer culminate in a moment of placing [your] cherished possession into the care of others - trusting conscientious stewards to care for [your] son or daughter through the duration of their journey until [you] are reunited.”

Precious Cargo

Elder Stevenson encourages us to be “thoughtful and intentional handlers of His precious cargo,” referring to our responsibility to love, care for, and serve one another. As a mother, I plead for the help of others in ministering to my children. Our loving Father has the same request of us for His children. This week I am reminded that, as I pray for people to care for my precious cargo, I need to do the same for those around me. Even when it’s one-sided. Even when it’s not reciprocated. Even when it’s not appreciated.

“Beloved and blessed are those who care for and nurture others.”