How the Week Went

The past week has been a little... well... I don't know what the best word is for it. "Interesting," maybe?

The first week of the month is always a little bit stressful because I have to make the birthday poster for the school (you'd think after seven years I'd learn to get it done early, but no). It's also "parent watch day" at my girls' dance studio, so I have to go to dance class three times. On Mondays, Eva has dance class during the time my older kids get out of school AND have piano lessons. I have to be in three places at once, which means the only way I can swing it is to enlist grandmas to help me get everyone where they need to go.

Even though I knew the week was already busy, I scheduled four hair appointments for us, one of which took three and a half hours because this:

doesn't just happen. I have to invest to look this good.

Anyway, on Wednesday, the brakes on the truck started grinding, so “we” had to replace them. "We" worked really hard.

All hail the garage recliner

Then on Friday the van got a flat tire. Luckily, Scotty had taken the motorcycle to work, so the truck was home for me to drive.

On Saturday, the thermostat went out on the van. At least... that's what we decided to fix based on the engine code. Fingers crossed that that was the issue.

We thought that was enough "car stuff" for one week, but then yesterday one of the blinkers on the van went out. No big deal. Just a bulb to replace. But still! What the heck?

Let’s go back to Friday, though.

That morning, Nicky found our bird, Sebastian, dead in the bottom of his cage.

RIP Sebastian

It was right in the thick of our morning routine, and we didn't have time to do anything about it, so Scotty just took the bird outside in his cage and set him on the picnic table. Then later that night, Scotty and Daisy gave him a proper burial. 

Prior to the bird funeral, I had to get Nicky to a golf clinic. We drove half an hour to the course, and then no one there knew anything about the clinic. We couldn't get a hold of the coach, so we ended up just coming home. An hour later, the coach called and apologized for not letting us know that they were meeting at a different location. I get really upset about lack of communication with stuff like that, so I was incredibly frustrated, and it didn't help that there was a flat tire we still needed to take care of.

Scotty took the wheel off the van and we ran it to Costco for a repair. While we waited, we went to Zupa's and pretended we were on a date. It didn’t feel very authentic since I was in high-stress mode. We got home around 7:00, and then some of our kids' friends came over for a "late over." I could only make it until about 9:30, so hopefully I was able to trick all the kids into thinking they'd really been out late (the older ones are harder to fool). Zoe was sound asleep before her friend went home. 

On Saturday Scotty took the van to the auto shop. Then I took Nicky to play church basketball. Scotty had plans with his dad and brother, so he left the girls home alone for 20 minutes while I watched the end of Nicky's ball game. I was bombarded with texts - "Mom, Daisy is bring rood." "Mom, Zoe is being a butthead." "Mom, Zoe spilled the whole bottle of nail polish remover."

I thought about not going home. Ever. But my plans to run away are always foiled by the fact that I’m broke and have nowhere to run away to.

Since Scotty was gone, and I couldn't stand the thought of being home alone with my kids for another day, I took them to see Onward.  If you care to know, the plot of the movie is like every other kids' movie - cartoon characters trying to get somewhere and running into lots of problems along the way. I tried to take a nap, but Eva caught me. "Mom, you need to watch the movie!" Busted. I really loved the resolution of the film, though. I bawled. Whatever. I'm cool. 

We also hit Chick-Fil-A for lunch because I didn't want to be home. By the time we got home, I was double broke.

When Scotty got home, we went and picked up our van from the shop. Then we took it on our adventure to the Great Salt Lake. 

We got home at 6:15 and had to scarf some PB&J sandwiches quickly then head to the adult meeting for Stake Conference. We had a great meeting and then went to Freddie's with some friends for a late-night treat and nasty cheese fries. You'd think you couldn't go wrong with cheese fries, but you CAN! Freddie's, Shake Shack, and Peach City Drive-In have all wounded my soul with their cheese fries. 

We stayed out until 10:30, like young, wild people, discussing things like bidets, cows, and dead parakeets.

On Sunday morning, we had Stake Conference. Our kids were still muddy and dirty from the Great Salt Lake (except for Nicky since he can responsibly handle his own hygiene... for the most part). I decided to not worry about how filthy the girls were. I didn't brush their hair or teeth. I figured, why spend all morning grooming them just to sit in the dark gym for Stake Conference? I even let Zoe wear a Sleeping Beauty dress. We were so behind on laundry from our chaotic week that princess costumes were our best option. And just to make things more scandalous... we let our kids play with Play-Doh during the meeting. We were in survival mode, and we made it through. 

This week I have a few goals in mind:

• Give everyone a bath
• No car trouble
• Get caught up on laundry
• Scrub the mud out of the van
• Eat some decent cheese fries

Salty

About a year ago, I had a chance to meet Erika, a friend I made through blogging over twelve years ago. Erika lives on the other side of the country, but she came to Salt Lake for an archery tournament. Prior to her trip, she asked for some ideas of things to do while here, and I sent her some suggestions. While she was here, we kept in touch about the sights she was seeing and the things she was doing. She was only here for a few short days, and most of her visit was spent at the Salt Palace, a convention center, for archery events. One morning, she texted me that they were thinking about going to Antelope Island.

This was a moment in my life that gave me pause. What do you do when you know "the truth" about the Great Salt Lake, and your friend comes to Utah hoping to spend her spare time enjoying some of the wonderful things your state has to offer, and Antelope Island comes up? Granted, I haven't been to Antelope Island in over twenty years, so my memory of it may be hazy, but it is part of the Great Salt Lake landscape, and the Great Salt Lake is kind of Utah's dirty, little secret.

You see, the Great Salt Lake, while an absolute phenomenon, is nasty. It smells horrible, and the "beach" is covered in bugs and the carcasses of dead birds.

This picture was taken at the Great Salt Lake, and it's completely deceiving! We went out there one day with the kayaks just to see what it would be like. What you don't see in this photo:

• The scent of rot
• The beach littered in liquor bottles
• The bugs so thick you're scared to breathe
• The film of salt caked on our skin
• The fact that no one really kayaks or plays in the water there

This video more accurately shows what the Great Salt Lake is like:

(I took this video the day we went kayaking. This was what we had to walk through to get to the water. The bugs were so bad my phone couldn't even handle the image!)

I only lightly warned Erika. I was hesitant to say anything because I hadn't been to Antelope Island for so long that I wasn't sure if I had an accurate memory of it.

When we met up in person, and I asked her about Antelope Island, she very politely expressed that it was not what they expected. She showed me a picture of their rental car plastered in brine flies.

The Great Salt is a freak of nature. It makes you wonder and squirm all at once! It is so cool and so gross. It's also very, very big (hence the "great") so there are a lot of different ways to experience the lake. For example, here's a photo of Zoe walking barefoot on the salt flats:

Yesterday afternoon Scotty and I were trying to decide how to spend a few hours of unscheduled time. We felt obligated to work on the basement, but we decided to go on a family adventure instead. We haven't been doing very many activities as a family lately because... basement.

We ended up going exploring in the marshy outskirts of the Great Salt Lake.

Our goal was to find a water pipe that travels all the way from South Jordan. Our friend who works for the water company told Scotty that he'd been there the other day working and it had been full of fish.

We found it!

But there weren't any fish.

While journeying out to the pipe, Nicky did some metal detecting. 

He got the metal detector for Christmas, but he has yet to find anything cooler than rusty nuts and bolts. 

In the areas around the Great Salt Lake, there's always a risk of mud. You can be walking on solid ground one second and then sinking in mud the next. These are some of my footprints

.

It looks like snow, but no, no. That's salt!

Daisy lost her shoe twice in the mud. She also fell over in the mud. 

That's our Daisy.

And it wasn't enough for each child to have ten pounds of mud on the bottom of their shoes. They had to get their hands in there, too. 

Zoe celebrating mud

After we located the pipe, Nicky and Scotty saw an abandoned truck in the distance, so we headed out to see the truck. You would have thought these two had found a twenty dollar bill! They were so excited!

The kids explored the truck and played in the mud.

(So much mud).

(Deep breaths, Mama. Everyone is washable). 

I, too, was covered in mud. 

We had a lot of fun and came home filthy and windblown. Both signs of a good adventure! We traipsed two miles through salty, muddy earth. 

So thank you, Great Salt Lake. For your weirdness. For your variety. And for not stinking so bad yesterday (cooler weather helps).  

Something Money Can't Buy

Friendship and good conversation.

Believe it or not, I am not paying anyone to be my friend! Which is so great because that means these wonderful people in my life actually want to be here! How lucky am I?

I am very blessed in friendship. These fantastic people who have seen my messy house, heard me say awful things, watched me roll my eyes, eaten my bad cooking, and smelled me on a no-shower day still love me!

I haven't always been a great friend, and I'm forever making mistakes. So I'm very grateful for those who have witnessed my ugliness and love me through it.

Along with that, I love some quality conversation. I find that the best social events for me are ones where I have meaningful conversation with someone. Connection energizes me! And money can't buy that.

A Strength

I love to learn. In fact, in the VIA Character Strength Survey, my top strength is love of learning. I enjoy exploring various topics and ideas. If something sparks my interest, I'll seek out more information about it. I especially like learning new words (though I rarely remember them. If I could choose a super power, it would be perfect recall. I've decided I want that more than I want to have my crap together. Wait... maybe not. I need more time to think about it).

Where was I? Oh yeah...today I learned the word ultracrepidarianism which is "the habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one's knowledge or competence." I am both a regular receiver and offender of ultracrepidarianism.

And that leads me to the other side of the story... yes, I love learning. But I am not a very teachable person. I have a bit of a humility problem (humility is in my bottom five in the strengths survey). I have know-it-all tendencies, which is probably why the word ultracrepidarianism stood out so much to me.

But this post is about what I'm grateful for, not my weaknesses, so let's just set my humility problem on the back burner for a while and celebrate my ability to study, learn, and progress. I'm thankful for the things I have learned through my formal education as well as through exploring my personal interests. I'm also very thankful for what I have learned through life experience - those very individualized lessons that can't be taught second-hand. You know, the ones that sting a bit (and will eventually iron out that humility thing).

(Read more about strengths here).

Doses of Gratitude

In my happiness workshop* (which I wrote for my school practicum in 2017), I taught about the medicinal effects of gratitude. I touched on this briefly in this post about depression, but just to give a little more detail, people who are consistently grateful have been found to:**

• Feel happier
• Feel more energetic
• Feel more hopeful
• Report more positive emotions
• Feel less depressed
• Feel less lonely
• Feel less anxious
• Feel less envious
• Feel less neurotic

Additionally, gratitude boosts happiness in several ways. Gratitude:***

1. Promotes savoring of life's experiences - "Enjoy every moment! It goes by so fast!"
2. Supports self-worth and self-esteem - For many people, it's natural to focus on failures and disappointments. Gratitude can help break this cycle. 
3. Helps people cope with stress and trauma - in the days following 9/11, gratitude was the second highest reported emotion after sympathy. 
4. Encourages moral behavior - Grateful people are more likely to help others. 
5. Helps build social bonds, strengthen existing relationships, and develop new relationships - if you are grateful for a person, even in you never tell them, you tend to treat them better. 
6. Inhibits unwarranted comparisons with others
7. Diminishes feelings of anger, bitterness, and greed
8. Helps thwart hedonic adaptation - adaptation to positive things is the enemy to happiness. 

One of my favorite studies on gratitude was done by Martin Seligman, who is one of the prominent researchers in positive psychology.

Seligman had his participants think of someone who'd had an impact on their lives whom they had not yet thanked. Then he asked them to write a letter of gratitude to that person and deliver it in person.

Immediately after the participants delivered their letters, they reported increased levels of happiness. A week later, they still reported higher levels of happiness. Then one month later, they were still happier than the control group.****

I imagine you can easily see why I think of gratitude as medicine.

Lately I've been feeling a little selfish and ungrateful, so in an effort to redirect my emotions, I thought I should turn to gratitude. I need a few consistent doses.

I found this cute, little writing prompt several months ago and saved it. I'm going to utilize it to guide my posts for the next couple of weeks so I can get my gratitude on.

*Someday I intend to make some video presentations or a blog series of my workshops. 
**These are correlational findings and not necessarily causal (Lyubomirsky, 2008).
***(Lyubomirsky, 2008).
****A lot of the research I used in my workshop came from Sonja Lyubomirsky. I read several of her research studies and her book, and I also watched some presentations she has done. I really loved her work, and the study from Martin Seligman made me want to thank Dr. Lyubomirksy for her work and her research. I tracked down an email address for her and sent her a letter, and she wrote me back, which made me totally geek out. 

Currently [March 2020 Edition]

Reading: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb. I'll be starting These is My Words soon. I read it about 9 years ago, and it's our book club selection for March, so I'm going to read it again.

Listening to: whatever songs my kids pick. Nicky's current musical obsession is "Sh-Boom" (Life Could be a Dream) by the the Chords. Daisy is loving "Go Big or Go Home" by American Authors. Eva loves "Without Love" from Hairspray. Zoe doesn't currently have a music obsession.

Watching: Veronica Mars. I love it, but I don't recommend it.

Eating: Toad in a hole (as in runny egg in toast, not the traditional UK dish). We call it "toad in a hole" and not "toad in the hole" or just "toads" for short. Like, "Toads are ready!" or "Come getcher toads!" My kids love them, but they all eat them differently. The girls all like heir eggs runny. Nicky doesn't (which surprises me - based on all other eating preferences, it should be the exact opposite). Daisy eats her whole toad. Zoe and Eva just dip their toasties in the egg and then leave the egg white on their plates.

Buying: toilet paper, bottled water, and hand sanitizer.

Just kidding.

I didn't do any coronavirus shopping.

I bought new make-up yesterday - eye shadow, eyeliner, primer, and foundation. Imma look good when I get the coronavirus.

Craving: water. I'm super thirsty and 44 days soda sober. I'm doing okay without soda other than missing the ritual of drinking it. That's the hardest part. I miss the first sips and the feeling of unwinding. I don't have anything to replace that with. I mean, I could take up drugs or smoking or something, but that's not really the direction I'm aiming for.

Playing: Wingspan. It really is a stellar game.

Annoyed by: construction in our area. I try to be patient about it because construction is a necessary part of having nice roads and accommodating traffic. There are some projects underway in our area that will be very beneficial to our infrastructure, but OH MY GOSH I'm so sick of it. And its taking a huge toll on my van. There's a street I have to drive on every day that is loaded with potholes.

Excited for: a little weekend trip we have coming up. Can't wait to get away and have some respite!

(That's funny because I just referred to a weekend traveling with my kids as "respite." Wah ha ha ha! I truly amuse myself sometimes).

Dreading: teaching Junior Achievement in Daisy's class. I keep volunteering to do it, and then I realize that I hate it. I don't even have an explanation for why.

Wearing: sweatpants and a hoodie. This is what I wore for my morning walk. I'll change before I go to the school for JA.

Feeling: sleepy. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. When I wake up that early, I hit a small wall around 10:00 a.m. and then I crash and burn at 1:00 p.m. That's right in the middle of Junior Achievement today.

Hold me!

Trying: to see the good in people. You know that quote that says, "There isn't a person you couldn't love once you've heard their story?" I'm the type of cynic that, upon reading that quote on facebook (where I see it all the time - attributed to multiple sources from Mr. Rogers to Marjorie Pay Hinckley) immediately thinks, "Oh yeah? What about Ted Bundy?"

I've dug myself into a hole lately where I believe that people are actually pretty horrible, and I'm trying to resurface. The behavior of the masses in both the election and the coronavirus hype are definitely not helping.

Procrastinating: preparing the Junior Achievement lesson. I have exactly one hour to review it before I need to be ready to leave my house (remember how I blog when I'm avoiding something? Prime example).

Looking forward to: Thursday. Monday through Wednesday are always really busy for us, so Thursday is always a nice break. We are almost there!

Grateful for: being able to have kids the good old fashioned way. In the book I'm reading (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone - which is non-fiction), the writer tells a story of having a baby via sperm donor. It got me thinking about how easy it was to choose my sperm source. I loved Scotty. We got married. Boom! We made a few babies. I never had to scrutinize the color of his eyes, his educational background, or the shape of his chin. I never had to think about whether our kids would be ugly. I mean... you always wonder if your genetic mix will be favorable, but when it comes down to it, it's pretty easy to decide to have kids with the person you love simply because you want to have that journey with them. I'd be a mess with a catalog of sperm donors!

A History of Eye-Rolling

I've always gotten a lot of flak about my face.

My body language, in general, isn't great. I'm an arm folder (it's comfortable for me), and I turn away from people (usually in trying to direct my breath away from them - just in case I'm not Colgate fresh). But my face is my biggest problem. It gets me in trouble all the time.

I have some legit RBF (that's 'resting bitch face' for those of you who might not know), which means that my relaxed face is, well, pretty bitchy. I believe it comes from both sides of my family, so I was genetically destined to look ornery all the time. In my wedding photos, my grandparents look like deadly lasers could shoot out of their eyes at any moment. Such a joyous occasion! And I resemble them in every way.

In addition to my naturally moody-looking face, I can have a bit of a snide tone at times, but it's not always intentional. I can be talking about puppies with the softest of sentiments and still sound snotty.

I’m also very gifted eye-roller. I remember the first time I was called out for it. I was giving my step-mom some serious attitude. I don't know what the issue was, but I remember her being really frustrated with me and saying, "Don't roll your eyes at me!" I didn't know what "roll your eyes" meant, so I rolled my eyes and said, "I don't even know what that means!" in my sassiest tone. In the 5 minutes following that statement, I rolled my eyes enough times that my step-mom was able to easily point out what it meant.

Many years later, I caused a family scandal with my eye-rolling. When Scotty was leaving on his mission, I went to the airport with his family. His step-brother Riley (about age 13) and his step-sister Chelsea (age 16 - my age) were having some disagreements. Riley was taking a video. I was sitting next to Chelsea, and in the video, you see Chelsea trying to get Riley to stop filming his shoes. She says, "Mom, he's video-taping his shoes!" and then you see me in the seat next to her giving the biggest eye-roll of all time in response.

After Scotty left, the family watched the video, and Chelsea saw my eye-roll on tape. For the next two years, while Scotty was gone to South Carolina, my eye-rolling at Chelsea was a hot topic of conversation, and I had no idea. When Scotty came home from his mission, everyone kept talking about how I rolled my eyes at Chelsea. They made me watch the video. It was a pretty hefty eye-roll, I confess.

Years later, Scotty and I went to Lagoon (a Utah amusement park) with a couple of our friends. While we were in line, I was talking about my opinion of a movie when suddenly, a Lagoon employee who was walking past stopped and said, "Wow! You've got some real attitude, don't you?" I was taken aback and a little confused, so I said, "What?!?" and she proceeded to tell me that she saw me roll my eyes and that I have serious attitude. It was enough to stop her in her tracks so she could let me know. I told her I was just talking about a movie with my friend, and she said, "Wow, it must have been some movie to make your face do that." I don't even remember what the movie was, but that's when I realized that I roll my eyes during everyday conversation, not just when I'm annoyed. Eye-rolling, for me, comes with every emotion.

This was further realized when I enrolled in a public speaking class in college. I had to do my presentations via video chat in front of my classmates. The speeches would be recorded live and then uploaded to my instructor. If you ever wanna feel self-conscious, watch a video of yourself giving a public speech. You'll see yourself in all sorts of new light. I never knew how often I touch my face, clear my throat, swipe my bangs, and say "you know." And even though I knew I had an eye-rolling problem, I didn't realize just how bad it was until I saw myself giving a speech on life skills learned through board games and saw my eyeballs about to fall out of my head.

One time, I had a lady pull over in front of my house and yell at me because she didn't like the way I was looking at her. Another time, a member of the stake presidency pulled me aside after a meeting because he noticed my somber expression while he was at the pulpit, and he thought he had upset me.

Do you see how my face gets me in trouble?

Since I know I have an ornery face, there are times I try to sit around looking pleasant. I turn my lips up in a slight smile and attempt to bat my eyes (hoping it adds a twinkle or something). You know what? It makes my face tired! And I have to think really hard to do it. Eventually I just have to allow everything fall into place or my cheeks will cramp.

Last Sunday, Nicky was messing around on Relative Finder, and he found that we are directly descended from William Brewster, who came over on the Mayflower in 1620. He is my 11th great-grandfather on my dad's side. He had children named Patience, Love, Fear, and Wrestling. But we come from the boring one: Jonathan.

The most interesting thing about Grandpa William is this artistic rendering of his face:

I wasn't kidding when I said it was a genetic problem.