I have almond bits stuck in my teeth (and ten other random facts)

Fact #1: I'm very confused about what day it is, which is not uncommon, being that it's summer, and I'm a stay-at-home parent. Yesterday I posted twice and didn't even realize it. I just adjusted our budget for the week, thinking that pay day is next week when it's actually this week (thank heavens because I was trying to figure out how to fill my gas tank). When I bought milk today, I was disappointed to see that the expiration date was July 14. For some reason, I thought that was only a few days away rather than over two weeks away. Meanwhile, my library books are four days overdue because I can't figure out how it's already been three weeks since I checked them out. 

Fact #2: I have a confession: I like sitting. All of my favorite activities are best done sitting. Reading... puzzles... blogging... playing board games... holding babies (humans or chickens)... writing meal plans and grocery lists... recreational studying (it's a thing)... eating... putting things on the calendar... Wordle... Wingspan... texting my friends... binge-watching (I don't do it a lot, but when I find something I really like, I'm all over it)... Driving around the valley to be away from my kids for a while... spying on my neighbors out the window...

Because of this, I love road trips. Ten hours in the car? Heck yes! Do you know how much I can get done while sitting in a car for hours and hours? 

To all of you who say, "I can't stand just sitting around!" I am freeing myself from trying to pretend that I am like you. I am not like you. I looooove to sit around, and I'm just gonna own it from now on.

(I have to clarify that, just because I love sitting, doesn’t mean I hate standing - I’m just saying I have no problem with sitting! I find it quite delightful!)

Fact #3: One of my hopes and dreams for my garden this year was to be able to harvest enough strawberries to make jam. I was very excited when we got home from Saint George, and we had strawberries galore! I was able to make ten pints (which required a fair amount of standing, for the record).

Fact #4: I happen to be in a place right now where I enjoy making jam, and I find it fulfilling. I just want to remind you that whatever you see on the internet - here on this blog or elsewhere - you should never feel like you have to do what that person does. So in this moment, when I'm like, "OMGoodness, I made jam! Squee!" just know that I'm enthusiastic about my jam and feeling mighty happy about this accomplishment, but it in no way subtracts from the value of a person who doesn't make jam. 

In fact, if I make jam and you don't, we, together, have provided balance in the world. Look at us!

(Maybe you're a person who doesn't like to sit - and thereby, we continue serving the world through our differences. Go us! High five!)

Fact #5: Lately I've had many run-ins with miserable people, which has made me very observant and contemplative regarding what makes a person that way. The more I think about it, the more evidence I see that it has very little to do with circumstances and much more to do with attitude and perspective. I believe these people are stuck and have acquired a level of learned helplessness in their misery. 

This is important for me to acknowledge because there is an area of my life where I am completely miserable, and I have to be accountable for my own role in it. I don't want to be this way, and yet, I can see that I, too, have allowed myself to get stuck. There's something addicting about misery and feeling like you can blame everyone else. But blaming others is non-productive and unhealthy and does nothing to remedy one's misery. It can only be fixed within. 

Thank you for coming to my therapy session.

Fact #6: One other thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is the alignment or misalignment of words and deeds. This is something that's always on my radar because I notice that many people describe themselves one way but act another way. An example of this that Shannon and I always joke about is how people who say things like, "I'm low drama!" or "I don't do drama!" are often people who thrive on and contribute to significant drama. 

Words are very important to me, and I've always been pretty decent with words, which means that I know how to say the "right" things. This can be dangerous because saying the right thing and then demonstrating the right thing are two things that should align but often don't. Words are powerful and and be used to manipulate and mislead with or without intention. I'm not innocent in that - I've use words for good and bad. Therefore, my thoughts are:

Am I who I say I am? 

Do I have an accurate picture of who I really am, and do I portray that to others?

#deepthoughtsbybritt

Fact #7: I'm defrosting my deep freezers today. As with the jam, this is something I want to pat myself on the back for. We have two small freezers in our garage - one upright and one chest. The upright is currently defrosting and only takes about an hour in the heat. When it's up and running again, I'll move all the food over and do the chest freezer. I've never defrosted the chest freezer in the 15+ years we've owned it, but it's become absolutely necessary because the ice build-up is keeping it from being able to close all the way!

Save the popsicles!!!

(Isn't this exciting information?)

Fact #8: Speaking of appliance care, I really need to clean my oven as well. Things haven't been going well oven-wise lately. Pretty much any time I cook, I set off the smoke alarms. Over the weekend, I tried baking a carrot cake - one I've made before, so I know I'm capable - but something went terribly wrong and it overflowed the sheet pan and dripped all over in the bottom of the oven. So now there's a big carrot cake mess in there that will ever increase the speed at which I set the smoke alarms off if I don't get it cleaned up post haste. And I need not even mention the burning smell!

(Isn't my life exciting?)

Fact #9: Someone get this bag of almond M&Ms away from me!

Fact #10: I've reached the point where there's nothing more to say, but I have to write at least one more little blurb because if I only did nine facts, I would feel uncomfortable.

[Insert Clever Title Here]

I have so much on my mind right now, and I'm in a writing mood, so I feel a strong draw to blogging, but I'm kind of like a confetti cannon currently. If you set me off, you're going to see a lot of stuff fly in the air, and it might be cute for a moment, but ultimately, it's going to be a big mess. My mind is going...

"I want to write a list of quotes I try to live by!"

"I have 392 opinions to share!"

"These are all the birds I saw on vacation."

"Can we talk about how many dumb ideas I've seen on Pinterest?"

"I'm always up for a conversation about food!"

"Here are 30 quotes about the law of chastity from the YW lesson I taught yesterday."

"I want to write about natural genius!"

"I found something awesome at the thrift store last week!"

"I will now give a three hour presentation on polygamy!"

"Here are five interesting things I've Googled this week!"

"I have a few mushy, lovey things to say about my ward."

"Here are ten reasons I hate summer."

"Here are ten reasons I love summer."

"Allow me to talk about my garden incessantly, and I'll show you updated pictures of my blooming sunflower!"

"Here's proof that I've been productive today!"

"I have complicated feelings!"

"My neighborhood is being overrun with squirrels."

"The Bishop of Digne is a multiplier!"

I ended up having a spontaneous, unplanned day without kids today, so in addition to being unable to focus on one topic to blog, I'm also jumping from task to task around my house.

"Dishes!"

"Laundry!"

"Read a book!"

"Unpack from vacation!"

"Go to lunch!"

"Pick strawberries!"

"Bake!"

"Marco Polo Shannon!"

"Sweep!"

"What was I doing again?"

"Listen to 90's pop!"

"Back to the laundry!"

"Update my library holds!"

"Brush my teeth!"

"Put cherries in freezer bags!"

I'm doing a little bit of everything and finishing nothing. Including this blog post. 

After Saint George

Thank you for enduring my vacation posts. I'm not sure how people feel about reading these - sometimes I feel like it's a brag fest. "Look at my amazing vacation!" But honestly, these are some of my favorite posts to look back on, and I enjoy documenting trips in blog format because it's easy to include photos and captions. 

So bear with me! 

And now... Look at my amazing vacation!!

When our time in Saint George ended, the families headed off in their various ways. We opted to extend our vacation a little longer (which is what we did last year as well) and headed to Kanab. But first, we stopped in the good old city of Hildale, Utah. 

If you're not familiar with Hildale, it's one of the two cities (Colorado City, Arizona being the other) that make up Short Creek - historically known for being a polygamous community. 

We've driven through before, but we recently watched Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey (a documentary series about Warren Jeffs) and wanted to go again. 

Hildale is a fascinating place. The housing ranges from large compounds, to very normal looking residences, to absolute squalor. A lot of the houses are unfinished as a way for the FLDS to avoid property taxes. 

Hildale has changed a lot since Warren Jeffs was convincted. The FLDS Church has dwindled significantly in membership, and Hildale, while still highly populated with polygamists, now has a much greater "gentile" population. 

Warren Jeffs' compound - now a sober living facility that helps people transition out of the polygamist sect 

A closer look

Zion's Most Wanted Hotel (it is also attributed to being the former mansion of Warren Jeffs and I'm not sure how it differentiates from the compound above - but they are two different facilities)

Former FLDS meeting house - no longer in use. I believe it stopped being used when Warren Jeffs began moving his people to the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas. Supposedly someone has been trying to have this building converted into a community center. It's really hard to find reliable and current information. 

The view from a park in Hildale where we stopped to stretch our legs for a while

From Short Creek, we headed to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes. For pretty much our entire marriage, Scotty's mom has asked us if we stopped at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes any time we pass through Southern Utah. We can drive home from California in the middle of the night, and she'll still ask, "Did you stop at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes?"

So this time, for her sake and ours, we stopped at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes. 

Fortunately there was cloud cover, and the heat was mild. This place could have been incredibly miserable. 

We rented a sand sled and hiked out to a big dune to play. Walking in sand is brutal. Climbing sand dunes is brutal. But we knew this going into it, so again, thank heaven for the cloud cover. 

Atop the dunes

Scotty, Zoe, and Eva on the sled

Trying to get Eva to hike back out of the sand dunes

Trying to get to the dunes, I felt like one of the children of Israel wandering in the desert for 40 years, but for me it was only 12 minutes

I make it sound awful, but it was actually really fun. It was just a lot of work. It would have been a whole different experience if the sun had been shining on us or if it had been windy, though. We got very lucky with the weather!

These flowers are popping up all over the dunes, and they are a nice touch to break up the orangey desert landscape

That night we stayed in Kanab at the Parry Lodge. It was quite old but very charming. 

Eva and Zoe in the pool - rocking the goggles, as always

The sign outside the Parry Lodge

The main lobby/office at the Parry Lodge

An old car outside of the motel

Our rooms - each room is named after an old movie star or celebrity

The lock on the bathroom doors 

("Mom! I don't know how to work this lock!")

The Parry Lodge had an excellent hot breakfast buffet included with our stay. 

My kids' first experience with a glass ketchup bottle 

("I've only seen these in movies!")

Our only complaint about the motel was that the bed springs were really noisy. No funky business required! If you so much as wiggle a toe, you'll wake up the whole family. 

The next day we headed to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. We stopped by there last year, but they didn't have any tour openings, so we just petted some cats and went to Angel's Landing (not the Zion one). This year we looked a few weeks in advance at the tour schedule, and it was still pretty booked, but we were able to snag the last spots in the Wild Friends and Parrot tours. 

Sanctuary photo op

Some of the rescued animals we saw

(this breed of turtle only pees twice a year)

Cats - I started to want one, but then one pooped while we were in there, and that fixed me

From Kanab we headed to Duck Creek Village. We stopped for lunch at Martin's Corner Deli where we were greeted by this handsome fella:

The meal cost us a small fortune. I twitch when I think about it.

Then we went to the Duck Creek ice cave.

I would really like to have an ice cave to hang out in during the summer (another ice cave we've been to is Niter Ice Cave - both caves were very muddy). 

We also went and explored Mammoth Cave, which is a series of lava tubes. 

Zoe (blue shirt) is about to go in one of the five entrances

Zoe, Eva, and Scotty inside the cave

After Mammoth Cave, we were all pretty tuckered out, so we decided to end our adventures and head home. While we were driving in the mountainous area from Duck Creek to Cedar City, we saw three badgers crossing the road. This was such a funny occurrence because just last week, we were talking about how none of us have ever seen a badger!

Gratefully, we made it home safely and found all our chickens and our garden alive and well!

Babies alive!

Sunflowers beginning to bloom!

I love going on vacation, but I also love coming home. There's something about being away from my normal routine that makes me appreciate it more.

But don't be thinking I wouldn't leave on vacation again tomorrow if given the chance!

(Someone pointed out that I had the chance to go on vacation again via Youth Conference which started today. Haha! No. That’s not vacation. I didn’t go to YC). 

Saint George Vocabulary Words

As I mentioned in my last post, we just got back from a vacation in Saint George with extended family. We had five of the eight families there with Scotty's dad and step-mom. I won't give the whole play by play of our time in Saint George, but here are a few suitable vocabulary words to describe the various aspects of our vacation:

Gigantic: 

Nicky on the vacation house furniture.

This is one of many reasons we avoid IKEA.

Dedicated: 

Eva and her refusal to be in photos.

We took family photos one night, and Eva sat off to the side and pouted. She held strong while everyone ate dinner and played corn hole around her.

Delicious:

The food

We ate Veyo Pies, steak, tacos, cookies, and daily smorgasbords. No one starved. 

Devastated: 

Eva and Zoe watching the final episode of Amphibia on Disney+

I walked upstairs one morning and found both of them sobbing hysterically. Zoe was especially tender afterward. 

Rebellious: 

Grandkids on the water slide

Any time the slide was unsupervised by resort staff, the kids would sneak in as many trains as possible.

Buoyant: 

Float tubes in the lazy river

Pretty much any time during pool hours, you could stand by the lazy river and catch a family member floating by. 

Competitive: 

The games we played

My brother-in-law, Tim, arranged a family golf tournament. Grandma and Grandpa played Left Center Right with cash prizes. Amber led BINGO. Poker Junkie Riley hosted two nights of Texas Holdem, and on the second night, it came down to him and me, and I took him out. This is a big deal because Riley is the type of poker player you can ask, "What are the odds of winning with pocket sevens?" and he'll be all, "Bla bla bla, stat stat stat." 

Boastful: 

Me after beating Riley at poker. 

Excessive: 

The amount of goggles Zoe owns

I don't even know the number, but this girl is obsessed with goggles, and we have to take at least three different pairs every time she goes to the pool. 

Fun: 

The entire trip

This was such a good trip. I think we had the perfect balance of fun, rest, and time with family.

The extended family portion of the trip ended on Wednesday, but our family made a few stops on the way home. So you'll have to endure one more vacation post!

To be continued...

Saint George Bound

Earlier this week we went on another journey to Saint George. My in-laws rented two houses at the Arcadia Resort where we stayed twice last year (1, 2) for an extended family retreat. 

The timing was perfect because I really needed a vacation! 

But before I recap the Saint George portion of the trip, let me first share the adventures we had on the way there. 

We couldn’t check in until 4:00 so we left early in the morning and made our way there slowly. We stopped for lunch at the All American Diner in Cedar City. Positive reviews from all of us! Then we went to the Frontier Homestead State Park Museum (it’s a mouthful. I took a picture of the sign out front so I could remember the name). 

Our kids are hit and miss with museums. Sometimes they love them, and sometimes they turn into big ole whiney pants and make each other (and me) miserable. Now that I think of it, I’m the same way. I often tell my kids, “Museums are awesome AND boring. Isn’t it great that we get to experience both?”

The kids ended up liking this museum more than I expected. There were some fun activities there, and it wasn’t crowded (always a plus in my book)! 

Zoe in the dunce cap

Nicky trying to lasso

A trial run in a stage coach (only takes 36 hours to get to Salt Lake this way)

Daisy as a schoolmarm

Panning for (fools) gold

Their favorite activity was the laundry. They could have laundered for hours! If only they had that enthusiasm for laundry at home! Heck, I’d even let them use a washboard! 

After we left Cedar City, we went to the memorial for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. If you're not familiar with the Mountain Meadows Massacre, you can learn more here. It is one of the darker events in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Years ago I had to read two books about the massacre, American Massacre and Massacre at Mountain Meadows, and write a ten page paper comparing the two. It was interesting to see where it happened and experience the feeling that exists on that ground. 

Gravesite Memorial

Statement of regret from Henry B. Eyring

There are a few different memorials in the area, but we only went to this one because our kids were being feisty. 

In the massacre, about 120 people were killed by Church militiamen. At this monument, there are 81 identified names in stone. I walked around and counted 47 names of individuals under the age of 20. It's devastating to think of the tragic loss of such young lives. 

From Mountain Meadows, we headed to Saint George.

To be continued...