40x40: The Finale

In fall of 2022 I started working on a 40x40 project. I made a list of 40 things I wanted to do before I turn 40. In recent years, I’ve had about a 50% success rate in any goal setting I do. So I didn’t meet all 40 goals. Figures. But whatever.

I never listed my 40 goals here on the blog, but I referenced some now and then. Now I’ll let you see what all of my goals were. I was hoping I’d be a better person going into my forties. I’m pretty sure I’m not, but it was fun anyway. 

Here is how I did:

1. Read 365 books with Eva - Incomplete. Reading with Eva is miserable; I’m not gonna lie. 

2. Play 500 songs on the piano - Incomplete. I started off well and even felt myself improving, and then I just stopped one day and never touched the piano again.

3. No soda for one year - FAIL. I made it until June (as you read on, you’ll find that all my efforts unraveled in June. The end of June is when my summer depression took over, and I couldn’t keep up anymore).

4. Go back to the temple - Complete

5. Read Atomic Habits - Complete

6. Do 50 push-ups (in one session) - FAIL

7. Learn to play Terraforming Mars - FAIL, much to my husband’s dismay

8. Add ten healthy recipes to my recipe binder - Complete

9. Read one spiritual book per month - Close enough

10. Renew my Church magazines - Complete

11. Get family photos taken - Complete

12. Get Daisy and Zoe's eyes checked - Complete

13. Make deviled eggs - Complete

14. Make potato salad - Complete

15. Do a dairy fast to see if I’m lactose intolerant - Complete, and I’m not!!!

16. Have an annual physical - Complete

17. Pay off the truck - Complete. Then we bought a new van that’s 3x the payment amount. Ugh. 

18. Have five adventures - Incomplete. My intent was to do five things I normally wouldn’t do. I went sledding. That’s all.

19. Do a ten-day social media fast - Incomplete, but I had lots of three-day social media fasts. Turns out social media is pretty important in keeping up with my kids’ school and extracurriculars. 

20. Reestablish dish days for the kids - Complete

21. Size down - Incomplete

22. Only weigh myself at the doctor - Complete

23. Figure out digital photo storage - Incomplete

24. Learn Canva or similar program - Complete

25. Do a thorough house clean-out - Incomplete. I wrote out a plan and completed a few projects but didn’t get the entire house like I hoped. 

26. Get all accounts and subscriptions cleaned up - Incomplete

27. Find a healthy "reward" - Complete, but I haven’t stuck with it. My reward was to play Wingspan on the treadmill for my last 20 minutes at the gym.

28. Keep track of eating out - Incomplete. I kept up til June. Life unraveled in June. Summer kicked my butt.

—————

Now we move into the immeasurable goals - the ones I couldn’t really “check off” but hoped to accomplish somehow:

29.  Have more church music in the home - Successful. I have a Sunday playlist that I turn on… when I remember… and I have found a few songs that my kids respond well to, so I try to sneak them on from time to time. 

30. Keep up on hair health - Undetermined. I tried to keep my ends trimmed, but I did it myself. I feel like my hair has all broken off and gone away anyway.

31. Be nicer to people - Undetermined. It’s hard to know. 

32. Drink more water - Undetermined. I did really well until June, of course.

33. Prepare better for Christmas - Successful. I think I did okay at this. There are still some things I’d like to tweak in the coming years to do better.

34. Keep up on skin care - Unsuccessful. I’m touch and go with skincare. 

35. Dabble in writing a book - Unsuccessful. I thought maybe I could, at minimum, do some creative writing prompts for practice or write some character sketches. Nah. I didn’t even try. 

36. Do better at praying with the kids - Unsuccessful. In fact, I think I got worse.

37. Improve some strained relationships - Undetermined. There were some relationships I started trying to work at one point, and then I remembered why those particular relationships are strained to begin with, and I decided it’s best to just keep a distance for now. 

38. Do Sunday journaling - Unsuccessful. I did a bit but didn’t make a habit of it like I hoped.

39. Improve my fasting practices - Unsuccessful

40. Do better at Come Follow Me study - Undetermined. Again, I did well until June.

—————

As the New Year approaches, I’m programmed to make resolutions, but I’m forcing myself not to. My approach for 2024 is to not make resolutions and then count every accomplishment as extra credit. 

2023 in Review

January

I turned 39

We had Scotty's grandma's funeral

Nicky got his driver's license

We bought a Jeep for Nicky to drive

We bought a new dishwasher

Nicky got his first job

My grandma passed away

February

Nicky went to Sweetheart's with Lexi (Scotty and I chaperoned)

For Scotty and I took Zoe and Eva to see Bluey's Big Play at the Eccles Theatre

Daisy got new glasses (and apparently wasn't lying about not being able to see)

March

Scotty went on his first Brocation post-COVID

Daisy got her braces off

Daisy performed in her school's production of Aladdin as the "apple vendor"

Nicky competed in the drama regionals and got to move onto state

Nicky went to Disneyland with the performing arts groups from the high school

The rest of us went to Saint George

April

We got family photos taken for the first time in years

Zoe got heavily involved in the "Spikes to Utah" campaign (trying to return the spikes from the transcontinental railroad to Promontory Point in Utah). She got to be on TV and the radio.

Daisy performed her first partner dance

Eva turned eight

Nicky went to prom with Addie

Nicky and Addie performed a scene from A Woman of No Importance at State and medaled

Daisy started a petition at the junior high to do Footloose for the next musical 

Eva went on her first field trip on a bus (to the zoo)

May

Nicky, Zoe, and Eva performed at the cheerleading showcase at the high school

Nicky danced with Whitney in the partner dance (Whitney is one of my best friend's daughters - she has autism)

Eva was baptized by Nicky

Nicky went to Senior Ball with Ellie

Zoe had her 4th grade Utah program and proudly got to hold the sign for Piute County

Eva, Zoe, and Daisy had their spring dance concert

Nicky auditioned for the competing theatre team at the high school and made it

Scotty and I celebrated our 20th Anniversary at Disneyland

Nicky had the lead role in "Everyone Gets Eaten by Sharks" for his theatre performance

Zoe got to be on the Radio From Hell at X96 for the Spikes to Utah campaign

Daisy had her school choir performance and did a rap solo

June

We went to Saint George with Scotty's family

Daisy and I went to girls camp

My brother passed away unexpectedly

Daisy went to Oakcrest (a church camp)

Scotty and Nicky went to Young Men camp

July

Scotty, Nicky, Zoe, and I did the Muddy Dash

Nicky and I went to the Saratoga Springs Temple open house and got trapped in the Celestial Room

Scotty and Nicky started working at USANA to pay for Nicky's theatre fees

Zoe did a theatre summer camp and performed as a "who" in Seussical

Scotty and Nicky went backpacking with some people from our church

Nicky and Daisy attended FSY at Snow College

August

The kids started 11th, 8th, 5th, and 3rd grade

We went camping with Scotty's parents' ward (spoiler alert: by the end of the year, it became our ward)

Nicky was on the high school golf team for the third year

Nicky was cast as "Winward" in the The Little Mermaid at the high school

September

Nicky went to Homecoming with Regan

We went to Fan X

Our fence, garage, and truck got vandalized

The new bike park opened in our area (and the kids love it)

Nicky competed at the Shakespeare festival in Cedar City and injured his elbow from his stage falls (bursitis)

Nicky joined the swim team

We went to Lagoon a lot

Our ward split and our stake boundaries were realigned

October

We bought a new van

Scotty went to Asia for two weeks

November 

Zoe turned 11

We bought a new oven

Nicky received his patriarchal blessing

December 

Nicky injured his elbow (again) 

The girls had in-studio dance performances for Christmas

Daisy was cast as Ariel in Footloose at the junior high (refer to April above)

Nicky turned 17

The ABCs of Christmas

A is for Advent Calendar

Zoe and Eva had Doorables advent calendars this year, and they were the cutest darn things ever! 

They got to open one door each day and reveal a Disney figure. I’m kind of in love with Doorables. They first came into our lives a few years ago when Zoe’s friend brought her a set for Christmas. Now we have tons of them around the house, and on Christmas, Zoe opened a set that had Robin Hood in it, and now I need to find a way to make it mine!

B is for Baby

My brother and his girlfriend are having their third baby, and we (and they) found out on Christmas that it’s a girl! (My first - and probably only - biological niece).

C is for Church

Christmas Eve fell on Sunday this year, so we went to church in the morning then went to Scotty’s mom’s for breakfast burritos. 

D is for Driver

This is the first Christmas we’ve had a child that can drive, and it was amazing. I had him running all over the place on Christmas Eve.

For Christmas, Nicky got a lot of boring, practical stuff like an emergency roadside kit and frost blanket.

E is for Eating

…and eating… and eating… to the point where I hate food. But not enough to actually stop eating.

A small sampling of the food that was sent home with us over two days

F is for Fast and Testimony meeting

Wherein the first man to the pulpit intentionally told the children that Santa isn’t real. There was a baby blessing that day, and we had tons of visitors with little kids. It was quite an ordeal. 

G is for Guns

Scotty’s mom gave us all dart guns at her Christmas party and glasses so we wouldn’t shoot our eyes out. 

H is for Hoverboard

Our family history of hoverboards:

Daisy got one several years ago, but she rarely used it, and when she did use it, she would just sit on her butt and go in circles around the living room.

Zoe got a a hoverboard this year, and she at least stands on it, but she’s very cautious. She won’t ride it outside of the house.

Eva does not have a hoverboard but has been riding Zoe’s all over the place - inside and outside - like a maniac.

So… my daughters become more hoverboard friendly as they go down the line. Eva can even play games on a phone while riding.

I is for Injury

Nicky’s olecranon bursitis (“Popeye elbow”) flared up again because he did a high kick contest with his friends while wearing socks and took a fall.

His injury originated from falling too hard during a Shakespeare scene in October. The high kick contest took place backstage during The Little Mermaid.

Some parents have to worry about sports injuries. I have to worry about theatre injuries.

J is for Jokes

Zoe wanted to do a stand-up comedy routine for the family Christmas Eve party. After talking her out of several big, impossible ideas, we were able to find her some Christmas jokes online.

K is for Ken

Daisy has been saying she’s going to buy a Ken doll for months. I had to keep telling her that would be a stupid way to spend her money… because there was one under the tree. 

L is for Lights

We went to Christmas in Color with Grandma and Grandpa and followed up with ice cream and cheese fries at Leatherby’s.

M is for Melatonin

Eva got into the Melatonin on her own at 6:30 Christmas Eve and put herself to sleep. Now we’ve moved the Melatonin. 

(She was awake by 1:44 a.m.)

N is for Nemo

Our high school has a unified theatre program, which is a theatre class with combined special education and general education students. This year they performed Finding Nemo Jr, and our sweet friend, Whitney, was Nemo. Nicky helped back stage with props. It was such a  joy to watch! You can’t help but smile for the entire show.

O is for Over

As in, Nicky’s childhood is officially over. We didn’t even try to pull off Santa for him this year. This was his reaction when he saw Santa carrying the filled stockings to the basement.

P is for Potatoes

Scotty’s mom got 125 lbs of potatoes at the end of November, so we ate lots and lots of potatoes all month long because Scotty’s mom’s over abundance of food always ends up being our over abundance of food (see E is for Eating).

Scalloped potatoes, baked potatoes, potato soup (and then another potato soup and then another…), mashed potatoes, ranch potatoes…

Q is for Quilts 

My mom made all of us Christmas quilts for our beds last year, so part of our Christmas prep now includes getting our beds ready for the holiday. 

R is for Ralphie

Scotty’s mom’s party was A Christmas Story themed. She was so excited for her event. She bought a stuffed Turkey and put it in a pan and carried it into the party and pretended to drop it. Then she brought in Chinese food. 

She had Ovaltine (just normal chocolate milk with “Ovaltine” written on it, soap candies and lots of vintage candy, A Christmas Story Bingo, and a living room scene set up with a leg lamp. 

Then she broke out the guns (see G). 

S is for SIX

We got tickets to SIX for Christmas. We will be up in Tier 3 where I swore I’d never sit again after seeing Wicked, and yet, here we go again! 

T is for (movie) Theater

We went to see Migration the day after Christmas (with Fandango codes and discount Tuesday, I was able to get 6 tickets for under $20!!) I was exhausted and fought to stay awake but finally gave in during the last 20 minutes and dozed off. 

U is for Underwear

Half of us got new ones for Christmas (Nicky, Zoe, and me).

V is for Vacation

Santa brought us a journey outta here!

W is for Whip

Nicky and his friends all downloaded an app that makes whip sound effects and plays the Indiana Jones song, and they all run around the high school using their phones as whips, so we got him an Indiana Jones shirt (and, as expected, he immediately went and got his phone and started whipping).

X is for eXcited 

I’m always excited to get all the Christmas decorations put away. I feel like my house renews when I get to set it back to “normal” after fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas. 

Y is for the (new) Year

I’m still not used to 2023, and it’s already time to move on!

Z is for Zebra

Everyone in Eva’s dance class wore Christmas jammies for their performance, but Eva insisted on being a zebra.

Christmas Complaints

I’ve gone mad and baked double batches of three different kinds of muffins today… except for the pumpkin muffins, which I tripled because I accidentally measured the flour amount of pumpkin (like I do) and then had too much pumpkin in the batter and had to adjust by increasing the batch size. 

Why can’t I just be a normal person who bakes a single batch of muffins? 

This, of course, was after the first incident of the day in which I made a double batch of veggie dip and ended up dropping my phone in the bowl, resulting in all of my ports filling with Mayo and dill weed. 

Have you ever had to clean Mayo out of your phone ports? It’s not easy. Toilet water got nothing on Mayo. You can blow dry toilet water. You cannot blow dry Mayo. I mean, you can, but then you still have to go in and scrape it out once it’s turned dry and crusty.

(If I lose my phone to a mayo incident, imma feel real defeated, lemme tell you).

(I’m blogging from my phone, and since my phone controls my life, it gets to decide whether Mayo is capitalized or not). 

My consolation for my food preparation efforts today was knowing that for lunch I had a container of leftover scalloped potatoes waiting for me in the fridge. 

My daughter is currently eating them. So much for that.

The last thing in this world I want to eat right now is a muffin. 

Anywho…

(Let it be known that the iPhone accepts “anywho” as an actual word, but anytime I type “sew” it autocorrects to “see” (that time being no exception), so one may see a quilt but not sew one).

Since we are in the final 72 hours before Christmas, I will close up shop until after the holiday and wish you a Merry one. 

In the meantime, pray for me because this morning Zoe asked me if she could start a dating web site. 

Oh, bless Daisy! Look what she left me!

Today’s Dreams

Earlier this year I wrote about how my daughter Zoe is a big dreamer. She is always full of big, impossible ideas, and I honestly don’t know how to handle it. At some point, I need her to have a reality check. I love that she believes in herself and explores all sorts of possibilities, but I need her to develop some logic, and I need her to understand that dreams take work… and skills… and sometimes education. It’s so hard to have to constantly crush her dreams. She thinks she’s the best at everything - the best singer, the best actor, the fastest runner, the most talented artist, and more. And if anyone outshines her in any way (which happens all the time because, let me be honest, she is quite mediocre like the rest of her family) she gets extremely jealous and angry. She can’t understand why she isn’t chosen for everything and why she isn’t always proclaimed the winner of all, and she goes into a rage over it.

It’s exhausting and a little scary.

We are only a few short hours into winter break, and I’m already overwhelmed with her big ideas.

Zoe the other day with the quilt she insisted on making for her future child

This morning on the way to school she informed me that she wanted to start an acapella group, and she asked me if I could help her advertise for and hold auditions. Then she outlined everything she was looking for in the group and listed all the venues and events they would perform at.

After school she asked me if I could find a publisher for her book. 

Then she told me about her new invention that she wants to create to keep cats out of our back yard. Zoe has an issue with cats because, when she was little, she kept telling us that there was an evil cat in her grandma’s garage. We constantly reassured her that there was no cat in grandma’s garage. After a few weeks of her going on and on about the evil cat, Scotty found a starving, feral cat living in his mom’s garage. Zoe has had trust issues and a fear of cats ever since. She gets really upset whenever she sees a cat in our backyard, and she can never just let it be. She used to scream until one of us would go outside and scare the cat away. Now she has developed some independence, and after she screams, she opens the window and barks until the cat runs away. It doesn’t matter the hour of the day, so my apologies to my backyard neighbors who have to hear my daughter barking out the window at 6:00 a.m. Then again, it is their cat, so maybe they have it coming. 

Oh, but the dream… Zoe wants to build some sort of extension to our fence to keep cats from coming in our backyard. She insists she needs velcro and basswood. How does this child know what basswood is? This afternoon she wouldn’t stop talking about it, and she wanted us to drop everything and go shopping for basswood. 

(That’s the other thing, she thinks she has unlimited funding for all her big ideas). 

Then in the evening, she started making things (I don’t even know what she made - I just know there was a lot of paper involved) that she wants to take around the neighborhood and deliver to people. She has a messenger bag that she has designated specifically for this task, and she has put together a disguise to wear. She’s drawing a map of everywhere she needs to deliver. 

And those are just today’s things. Other dreams of late - she wants to get a dirt bike, she has designed costumes for her dance class, she wants to pitch a new school club to the principal (she, of course, will be president of said club), she rewrote the nativity story with her own dialogue and gave us all parts and made us rehearse it, she wants a violin, and she wants to get a job at a ski resort. 

I think we’re in for a long winter break with crushed dreams aplenty.

If You're Happy and You Know It

The other day I was thinking about the different ways my kids behave when they are happy or in a good mood. Sometimes they are really annoying when they're happy - they won't stop talking and making noise, and they linger. I often have to remind myself that when my kids are talking incessantly or hovering over me, it's because they are in a good mood, and I should embrace that. I never want to scare them away from talking to us, so I try to be careful about it, but every now and then, I have to have an honest moment and ask them to shut up. 

Here are some of the ways my kids express happiness:

Nicky

• Talking and telling stories
• Making monkey sounds
• Showing us videos or pictures on his phone
• Listening to music in the kitchen (or where other people can hear)
• Rough housing with Scotty

Daisy

• Talking and telling stories 
• Singing
• Dancing
• Asking us to watch her demonstrate some kind of skill or dance move

Zoe

• Talking 
• Making repetitive noises (tapping, squawking)
• Being excessively loud
• Saying "yay" - but matter-of-factly, not enthusiastically. It's just a quick "yay."
• Clapping

Eva

• Physical movement like cartwheels,hand stands, running around, skipping, etc
• Being silly - pulling faces, doing goofy poses
• Singing (especially in the shower)

I'm grateful for every happy moment they have, even though their happiest moments are sometimes the most irritating to me as a parent (I could do without the monkey sounds). 

Christmas is Coming, the Goose is Getting Fat

Fact #1: In two weeks, I’ll turn 40. I think I’m experiencing some signs. First, I’m starting to fall asleep in places I never would have fallen asleep before, and I snore myself awake. Eventually, I’m sure I’ll start sleeping through my snores, and it will be really embarrassing because I’ll be falling asleep in public places. 

Fact #2: Then… earlier this week, I got sore from walking. I went on the same walk I’ve been going on three times a week for about seven years. Same time. Same (flat) route. And my legs burned the whole time, and I came home with a sore back and had to lay on a heating pad.

Fact #3: Speaking of walking, since we haven’t had any snow, there is a lot of “fall residue” on the sidewalks. On our walking route, there are a bunch of leaves and berries that have piled up on the ground. My shoes are covered in them! 

It looks like poo! And these are brand new shoes. So I cleaned them up (a scrub brush didn’t work, so I had to dig all the berries out with a fork), and now I’m going to designate an old pair of shoes as my “berry shoes” until the fall residue goes away (which completely defeats the purpose of buying new walking shoes).

Fact #5: Some updates from previous posts…

I’ve received a lot of feedback (mostly private) on my post about the temple. Thank you to those who have shared your experiences and feelings with me this week. I’ve received several texts and emails and had some enlightening in-person conversations about it. As I suspected, there are many active and faithful endowed Saints who have anxiety about the temple - men and women - and they are quiet about it. We are in good company.

Fact #6: After I posted the list of books I’ve read this year, two people asked me how I can read six different books at a time. I don’t usually have that many going at once. I usually stick to three - an audiobook, an e-book, and a paperback. But I have this habit of misplacing my paperbacks, so I occasionally start another one while one is lost. Then there’s the matter of having books come due at the library - perhaps I can renew Book A but not Book B, but I haven’t started Book B, so I set Book A aside to read Book B “real quick,” leaving Book A still “in progress.” Are you with me here? 

So it begs the question… can I keep six books straight? Maybe. If the books are all different, I can. But if any of them are similar in setting or genre (two WWII books, for example), or if they have characters with the same name (it happens more than one might think), things can get a little muddled. In that case, I’ll set one aside for later. 

Fact #7: I admit, my reading retention isn’t great, and I lose focus constantly (especially with audiobooks), but I read anyway.

Fact #8: Zoe and Eva are giving us a run for our money this holiday season. They fight endlessly and throw mega tantrums. 

In this episode, the child was asked to carry her laundry downstairs, and she dumped it on herself and yelled and screamed that she was buried alive and going to die. This went on for about 35 minutes before school this morning. Then she screamed, “Why do you hate me so much? You want me to DIE???” because I refused to rescue her from her laundry pile (She didn’t die).

They’ll fight about anything. Yesterday I had to break up a fight over who is worse at pronouncing the ‘R’ sound, and then again over the color of the nighttime sky (they wanted me to Google to determine if it was navy blue or midnight blue - as if the entire existence of Crayola depended on it). They yell at each other constantly. I feel like our home is toxic.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to prevent the holiday meltdowns. I tried really hard this year, but I can’t keep them in check. 

Fact #9: Several years ago, Zoe had a weird obsession with stuffing one-piece pajamas with blankets so they would look like bodies. Then she would carry them around the house and treat them like friends and sometimes leave them laying around to scare me to death. 

She still does it from time to time, so this was my house the other day:

Fact #10: Yesterday I came home from the store when I was supposed to be the only person in the house, and as I rounded the corner into the living room, I saw this:

It scared me so bad, I immediately unstuffed it.