Thoughts on a Cold December Evening

My sisters and I had just finished singing a beautiful hymn that my brother arranged and the meeting had come to a close. As usual, we tried to duck quickly out of the chapel so we could avoid appearing eager for compliments by lingering. We also wanted to rush out because we were a little embarrassed about the way we sounded, since our practice before church had sounded much better.

Before we could escape through the doors, we saw a stranger approaching. The weathered man with silvery hair and soft, tearful eyes took a moment to grasp for composure before speaking with a tender voice full of emotion: “If the world could hear you sing, there would be no more wars”.

The conviction behind his words was more powerful than the words themselves. Our initial surprise quickly gave way to deep gratitude, and soon we were all fighting to control our own emotions as we sincerely thanked him and quietly left the chapel. He did not hear our imperfections or sense our disappointment in our performance. Instead, he had allowed the message of the music to touch his soul in a profound way.

Although this happened many years ago, I have looked back on the moment many times, especially as the world seems to grow increasingly calloused, irreverent and depressed. It is hard to keep pervasive negativity from seeping into our own hearts and homes, as I have experienced firsthand. However, there is so much beauty in the world as well, if we choose to look for it and refuse to let negative things have all of our attention.

Interestingly enough, it is during this time of year – when freezing wind chills the bones and the sun feels distant and cold – that I feel the most comfort and peace. People seem kinder and more aware of those around them as Christmas approaches, and colorful lights chase off the gloom of foggy nights. The crowning jewel of this season, though, is the music. Beautiful hymns and choral harmonies pay homage to the single individual who is intimately familiar with my pain and your sadness. It is during December that we truly take the time to think of Him and His sacrifice as we join in singing some of the most beautiful words ever written:

“Son of God, love’s pure light!”             “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep”

                                      “Christ, the Savior is born!”   

 “Peace on earth, good will to men"

                                             “Born is the king of Israel”             

“How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is giv’n!” 

                         “Let every heart prepare Him room”     

                                                                             “…take us to heaven to live with Thee there”     

  “O come, thou rod of Jesse, free thine own from Satan’s tyranny”

May we all keep our focus on Christ, even when times get hard. ESPECIALLY when times get hard. He didn’t suffer indescribable pain in the Garden of Gethsemane just to leave us on our own when the challenges of life threaten to overwhelm us. I imagine he is crying right along with us when our tears of sorrow, shame and disappointment fall. The One who has descended below it all knows exactly how to comfort us when no one else can.  

So, I am issuing a challenge to myself and to you this Christmas season and every day after: be like the receptive man in sacrament meeting and look for the moments that can change your heart if you let them. One of my favorite hymns says it most beautifully: 

"O ye beneath life’s crushing load,

Whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow;

Look now, for glad and golden hours

Come swiftly on the wing;

Oh rest beside the weary road

And hear the angels sing.

For lo! The days are hastening on

By prophets seen of old,

When with the ever-circling years

Shall come the time foretold,

When the new heaven and earth shall own

The Prince of Peace, their King,

And the whole world send back the song

Which now the angels sing."

 - It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

Merry Christmas!

My Brush With the Wave Pool of Death

Ah, the wave pool at Seven Peaks. What kid doesn’t get excited at the thought of being jostled around in manufactured waves while being pummeled by tubes, thrashing arms and other flailing body parts? 

Being the bright young teenager that I was, I assumed that I could just walk out into the middle of the crowded wave pool without a life jacket while the water was calm and simply jump effortlessly over the waves when they turned on. After all, I could swim a mean doggy paddle, so that should be enough to keep me afloat, right? 

Apparently there is a reason most teenagers aren’t given the opportunity to make life or death decisions. They are kind of bad at it.

I sauntered out to the middle of the wave pool, until the water started to get uncomfortably high, then I stopped and waited for the waves to come. At first it was thrilling and really fun. I jumped each time a wave approached me, and I seemed to float right on top of it. Then, the waves started to get bigger, and they began to go in conflicting directions. I found myself being knocked about by water swells that were less than gentle. Even worse, I started to get pummeled by the tubes of all the swimmers who were smart enough to take drown-prevention devices with them into the wave pool.

It didn’t take long for me to panic as I kept getting shoved beneath the waves by the inner tubes of smiling, oblivious people. I found it harder and harder to keep my head above water long enough to take in a frantic breath. Finally, in an act of pure desperation, I grabbed hold of two legs that were hanging over the side of an inner tube like dangling life preservers, and tried my best to scramble up them to safety. 

It is unfortunate that the frail old man who was sitting in that tube was very thin and lightweight. It is doubly unfortunate that at the time I grabbed onto his legs, he was already tilted slightly downward from a wave that was passing beneath him.

For a very brief moment, I looked into his startled eyes as he tilted up into the air and his tube flipped over – leaving him face-down in the water before he regained his composure and swam up through the middle. I think I may have tried to commandeer his tube out of sheer self-preservation, but failed. 

Thankfully, the waves slowly came to a stop and I was able to splutter and sob my way out of the wave pool. I never looked back at that old man, so I have no idea what his reaction was to my failed attempt at drowning him and taking over his tube. 

I haven’t been back in a wave pool since that day, and quite frankly, I’m curious to give it a try again. Maybe I’ll go this summer… with an inner tube, of course.    

Attack of the Floating Bathtub Monster

This post serves two functions: to hopefully make you laugh and to solicit some advice for a very tricky situation that I can't seem to solve.

First off, this is my adorable little girl. She is full of personality, late-night giggles and spunk. I love her to pieces. However, once she sets her mind to something, it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to sway her. Maybe all 2-year-olds are like that, I'm not sure.

Anyway, the other day she was taking a bath and I was sitting near the tub browsing through social media while I gave her time to play with her toys. Suddenly, she got up, squealed in fright and ran to one side of the tub. I quickly looked over the edge of the tub to investigate and immediately saw what had frightened her. There in the water floated a brown, disgusting thing that she had... ahem... created herself. Only she didn't know she had created it. In her eyes, it was a floating bathtub monster that had appeared out of nowhere and was slowly making its way towards her to eat her flesh or something.

Even though I was thoroughly grossed out, I couldn't help but laugh as she ran around the tub trying to avoid the "creature" that kept coming towards her. I reached out my arms and she practically leaped out of the tub, pointing and tearfully yelling "NO, NO!" at her soggy bathtub pursuer.  I cleaned her up, fought through the inevitable dry-heaving as I cleaned up the tub, then drew some fresh bathwater so she could finish her bath. However, she had no intention of going anywhere near that tub after her terrifying experience. I have tried bribing her with bathtub toys, distracting her, and staying right by her side, but she is clearly too terrified to ever take a bath again at this point.

Thankfully, she does not share the same fear of showers (even though she also had an accident once in the shower. The "monster" couldn't actually follow her around that time though, so I think that's why it didn't traumatize her). Clearly we are going to have a difficult time potty training if she doesn't understand where these brown things keep coming from.

So, I have been giving her showers with me, but it is so hard to avoid getting shampoo and soap in her eyes with the water splashing everywhere. Plus, it takes me like 30 minutes just to get through a shower when she is in there with me. So, if anyone has ever dealt with the scary floating bathtub monster before, please let me know what you did to minimize your child's fear. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the post. Oh, and watch out for those bathtub monsters. They're sneaky!

Diving Board Disgrace

Hey everybody! I realize I haven't posted anything for a while, but it is not for lack of wanting to write. There have been some big changes in my life recently that have taken a bit of time to adjust to. After much deliberation, Kevin and I decided about a month ago that it was time for me to make a huge leap of faith and quit my job in order to stay home with my daughter. I am now working part-time from home, which has been a huge adjustment and an amazing blessing. There are so many challenges that work-at-home moms face, but that is a post for another time. :)

For now, I want to tell you about an incredibly embarrassing experience I had as a teenager. I went with my good friend Stacy to the Spanish Fork swimming pool on a very busy weekend. I have never been a good swimmer and didn't even learn how to do the breast stroke until I was 16. Sad, I know. However, this particular day I wanted to jump off the diving board for the first time in my life so that I could impress some attractive guys who were hanging out at the deep end of the pool. Stacy waited while I made my way over to the diving board area. I didn't consider the fact that even if I pulled off a perfect dive, no guy would be impressed by seeing me doggy paddle frantically back to the edge of the pool.

As I stepped onto the board, I instantly regretted my decision, but there was no way I was going to turn around at that point. I slowly made my way to the edge and stood there for a moment completely paralyzed in fear. I was certain the impatient little kid behind me was going to run up and shove me off at any moment. Finally, I mustered up all of my courage and started to bounce gently on the board while I visualized myself leaping gracefully through the air and slicing through the water like a delicate mermaid.

Unfortunately, what actually happened couldn't be further from graceful and delicate. I prepared to make one final, big jump off the diving board into the water, but I hesitated because I had accidentally jumped backwards and slightly to the side instead of straight forward. As I came down, my left foot slipped off the side of the diving board and I fell. The board scraped my skin all the way up my inner left leg as my right leg buckled beneath me during my awkward and painful descent.

As I continued to slip off the left side of the board, I managed to grab onto it with both arms and wrap my legs around it. Before I knew it, I was hanging upside-down from the board like a frightened monkey. I could hear gasps mixed with stifled laughter all around me, and I realized that I was just making a spectacle out of myself by hanging there. So, I let go and allowed myself to do a full-on back flop into the water.

I considered letting myself sink to the bottom so I could drown in my own mortification, but common sense got the better of me and I doggie-paddled back to the surface as my skinned leg left a trail of blood behind me and the kid who jumped off the board (normally) right after me almost landed on my head. That painfully slow doggie-paddle to the edge of the pool was one of the longest moments of my life. But once I reached the stairs that signified my escape, I was out of there in record time. I may not have impressed those boys, but I bet they remembered me for a while after that!

Who Knew Walking With a Shoulder Bag Could Be Dangerous?

Awkward moments are ridiculously uncomfortable when you are in the middle of them, but they provide so much entertainment years down the road, and can always make people feel better when they are under the impression that their life sucks.

Due to my history of causing quite awkward situations, I can almost always comfort someone after they have done something stupid by saying "It could be worse. You could have nearly pulled the shorts off of a stranger on a water weenie", or "Well, at least you didn't knock a poor guy off his skateboard with your shoulder bag". It is nice to know my comedic life can be put to good use to help other people feel better about theirs. :)

Since you have not yet heard about the swinging shoulder bag, here is the story....

I was late for my first class because Utah Valley State College parking was ridiculous at the time, so I was walking as quickly as I could down the sidewalk. I am a pretty impressive speed walker, and this particular day I was breaking every speed walking record I had ever created, despite the fact that I was carrying a very heavy book bag on one shoulder. As I walked, the bag started to create its own rhythm by swinging back and forth. It was kind of annoying, but I never considered the fact that it could actually be dangerous.

As my bag continued to swing, an attractive guy on a skateboard came my direction on the sidewalk. It could have been my imagination, but he seemed to speed up as he approached (whether to show off or because he recognized and wanted to quickly pass the girl who regularly tripped up the steps in the library building, I am not sure).  We were both moving at a pretty quick pace, and he had nearly passed me when I unexpectedly lost all control of my shoulder bag during one of its forceful forward swings.

I watched with dismay as my heavy bag hurtled directly toward the skateboarder with impressive velocity. It was almost like watching a cartoon as the bag crashed into his side and sent him stumbling sideways onto the grass while his skateboard continued rapidly down the sidewalk.

I approached him, feeling completely horrified at what had just happened. I prepared to offer him my hand and apologize for my award-winning clutziness, but I am unfortunately wired to handle embarrassing situations by laughing - especially when there is an injury involved. My mom is the same way, so I blame her for this regrettable personality quirk.

As I reached the skateboarder, instead of offering to help him up or genuinely asking him if he was ok, I laughed in his face. I think I may have gotten the words "I am sorry!" out between my giggles, but I am not sure. I genuinely felt so bad, but it clearly did not appear that way to him.

The guy looked at me with an expression you would expect from someone who thought they had intentionally been knocked over and then laughed at by a bratty girl, then quickly stood up and ran to catch his skateboard. He shot a dirty look back at me as he ran, and I couldn't blame him. All I could do was turn away and continue walking to my class while I blushed furiously and tried to hold back recurring giggles. 

So, if you are ever speed-walking to class and you notice that your bag starts to swing back and forth forcefully, get a better grip on it! You never know when it might become a dangerous projectile bent on knocking the breath out of some innocent bystander.

We Don't Pee in Cups!

This delightful little memory is not actually mine, but I received permission from my sister Kristy to post it. I am recounting this as I remember you telling it to me, Kristy, so feel free to make any corrections or additions.

Kristy was scheduled to go to the doctor for a maternity checkup, and she had to take her two 3-year-old twins along with her. As part of her visit she was instructed to urinate in a cup, and she had no choice but to take her busy little twins into the bathroom with her. The boy twin was fairly oblivious to what was going on around him and was content to just play. The girl twin was much more aware of what was going on, and she watched in disapproval as her mother sat down on the toilet and began to do something very naughty: pee in a cup!

With a stern look on her face, she said "mommy, we don't pee in cups!"

Kristy put the "pee cup" on the counter while trying not to giggle, and her daughter's eyes grew even wider. She became more stern and adamant as she exclaimed "Mommy, we don't drink our pee!".

It is pretty hard to explain to a 3-year-old why it is ok for mommy to pee in a cup, but not ok for them to do the same thing. It is also pretty hard to explain why you would go through all of the effort to put your pee nicely in a cup without drinking it afterward. Thankfully, neither twin ever tried to follow their mom's bad example after that occasion (as far as I know) :D

Standing for Something

The other day, a couple of my sisters and I were quoting funny lines from a hilarious TV show that we like to watch. It has some humor in it that is "off-color" and inappropriate, but I love it anyway. I'm not writing this to make myself or anyone else feel guilty for watching it, because it makes me laugh when I really need to laugh the most. And I'm not talking about a cute little "hehe" laugh. I'm talking about the loud kind of laugh that makes me sound like a demented elf. I love the show so much that I am willing to "overlook" its inappropriateness. :)

However, something happened a couple of weeks ago that really made me think about what it means to stand for something. While my sisters and I were quoting funny lines from this particular show in a group text message, one of my sisters asked what show the line was from. Another sister told her the name of the show, then quickly followed it up by saying: "you wouldn't like it". It wasn't meant as a jab in any way. It was just a statement of fact. We all knew that this particular sister would not appreciate the humor in that television show. It was as sure to us as her very existence.

As time passed, I quickly forgot our texting conversation, but one statement stayed with me for days afterward: "you wouldn't like it". It was such a simple statement, but to me it was profoundly rich in meaning. To live one's life in such a way that everyone knows without a doubt what you stand for is such a rare feat in today's world. I have a sister who lives this way. Though she is far from perfect just like the rest of us, she is a rare beacon of light in today's lost and wandering world. While modern society is flooded with moral relativism and constantly wavering standards, my sister (and those like her), are like lighthouses in a harbor - steadfast and constant.

Thank you, sweet
sister (whom I will not name in case you will be embarrassed :), for living in such a way that no one ever has to wonder what you stand for.