Pepperella

Our family just watched "Cinderella" in the theater. Lately, as I have considered the hierarchy in our home, in the context of that movie, it has made me uncomfortable about how our loving and devoted puppy may perceive her life in our house as low man on the totem pole.

Here are a list of inequalities that I am concerned may be breaking her heart:

• Can't go potty in the special "potty room", but must go outside…even in the rain
• Must sleep in the mudroom
• Is not allowed on the furniture
• Is left home for many fun outings
• Can not dine with the family but must eat the food put in her bowl or whatever can be scavenged off the floor
• The other two kids in the family are undeniably favored

"Have courage and be kind…"

Happy Easter!

I know I'm a day late, but my Easter was unexpectedly busy… 

The Easter Bunny left my kids a unique treat (amongst the regular fare) in their baskets yesterday. He also left an egg in their basket that was empty except for a paper with a portion of Luke 24:5-6 on it. I loved these small ways to keep Easter focused on Jesus Christ.

Easter Party Games

I love everything about Easter time… springtime, the fresh colors, the candy, renewal, and the celebration of Christ's Atonement and Resurrection. This weekend I threw an Easter Party at our home for my family. Here are some ideas I came across during my party planning (I didn't get to everything, because I also wanted the kids to have fun just playing).:

Games/Activities

• What's Inside the Egg?: Fill easter eggs with different objects (ex: jellybeans, rice, popcorn kernels, etc.) and have guests shake and guess what each egg holds.
• Decorate Easter Eggs
• Bird's Nest Cookie (2 options): 1. Pipe green frosting onto a sugar cookie using a star tip or multi-opening (grass) tip to make the "nest" and top with Cadbury Mini Eggs*. 2. Frost cookie with white frosting, top with shredded coconut dyed green, and top with mini eggs. *Let's face it- we always need an excuse to buy Cadbury Mini Eggs. Here is a yummy and quick sugar cookie recipe I found that does not require rolling out.
• Easter Egg Hunt Board Game (takes 2 players about 15-20 minutes using all the eggs, so use less eggs for smaller kids)
• Egg Roll (aka: the game played on the White House lawn each year): Contestants line up and race pushing their eggs with a wooden spoon across the finish line.
• Egg Basket: Contestants stand behind a line and try to throw plastic eggs into a basket.

Religious Celebration

• Easter Matching Game: Print off 10 or so pairs of pictures depicting Christ to use like traditional memory game
• Easter Week: 
• Countdown: Here's a great resource in the April 2011 Friend. Read in the Bible each day about Christ's week leading up to the Resurrection. You could hang up a picture each day and keep it up during the week as new ones are added.
• OR you could read all the scriptures at one time and have kids put the pictures in the right order.
• Pictures:
• Saturday-Passover
• Sunday- Triumphal Entry
• Monday- Cleansing the temple/Healing
• Tuesday- Mount of Olives/Judas
• Wednesday- Nothing recorded. Review the Parable of the 10 Virgins
• Thursday- Sacrament/Gethsemene
• Friday- Crucified
• Saturday- Christ laid in tomb
• Sunday- Resurrection

Cecile Pelous

I found this story incredibly inspiring. It's so easy to get caught up in the worries of trivial things and forget what brings true happiness- service. And for me, that starts directly in my own home. I can't live in Nepal and help orphans, but I have a husband and two little loves to look after.

I'm a Mormon and Mother to 79 Orphaned Children
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsy3DJXpLyQ

Small Towns and Business

After life in the suburbs with multiple big box stores and several malls within a 5-20 minute drive, moving to the country has been quite a change. While some chain stores do exist, online shopping is wonderful, and some items just have to wait for a trip to a bigger city... I still had to learn what businesses or resources where available for more immediate needs. This is a definite learning experience. People always talk about the slow pace of European towns. I have found the same attitude that exists there is alive and well here in America.

• Businesses do not have websites and some don't answer their phone or have answering machines. Plan on going in person.
• Businesses may close for lunch
• Post office closes at 4:30
• Some businesses may close early for the day- but return if you call
• Business hours close at 6:00 (one local restaurant closes when their food runs out).
• Business days may vary
• Some inventory has been on the shelf for years

But the one adjustment that did not take long to get used to? Customer service. 

You will be helped, there is much more flexibility, you will be chatted with, and a store owner will do what they can to solve your problem. My local hardware store has won my heart, because it is staffed with knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful people who know how to answer my questions. When I pulled up at closing time and they were locking up the store, they even offered to run in and get me what I needed. You won't find that at your local big box store!

"C"

Our family made it to "C". "B" was a rocky road that I won't force you to relive with me, but we survived! We've been settling into "C" for a few months now, and my transition shock finally seems to be thawing enough to blog. 

"C" happens to be a very small town that I would never in a million years imagine myself raising a family. This is definitely a new chapter for us. I'm not sure how long this chapter will be, but it's been an interesting change in scenery and I am finding new and funny things about my surroundings every day. I've also found beauty in a place I once branded hopelessly ugly. Or maybe my standards of beauty are lower? 

At any rate, this is a chapter of making the most and finding the best in the circumstances we've been given. Which I suppose has been our goal wherever we've lived, but this time it's accompanied with some cultural adjustments: We are City Mice learning to be Country Mice. Big Fish in a Small Pond. Mormons in the Bible Belt. This has already proved to be a fun combination.

I know who we were when we arrived. I'm just not sure who we'll be when we leave. Should be a fun journey!

By Way of "B"

I found comfort in the following Mormon Message by Elder Jeffrey Holland. My husband and I have been living in "B" for quite some time. And it has been a rocky, slow moving road... or roller coaster. One day we will arrive at "C" (I think!). Until then, I am relying on the Lord's strength to see us through.

Wrong Roads
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media-library/video/2013-09-016-wrong-roads?lang=eng

"I have absolute certain knowledge, perfect knowledge, that God loves us. He is good, He is our Father. And He expects us to pray, and trust, and be believing, and not give up, and not panic, and not retreat, and not jump ship, when something doesn't seem to be going just right. We stay in, we keep working, we keep believing, keep trusting, following that same path and we will live to fall in His arms and feel His embrace and hear Him say, 'I told you that it'd be okay, I told you that it'd be alright."

-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Happy Father's Day!

"Satan, in his carefully devised plan to destroy the family, seeks to diminish the role of fathers. Increased youth violence, youth crime, greater poverty and economic insecurity, and the failure of increasing numbers of children in our schools offer clear evidence of lack of a positive influence of fathers in the homes. A family needs a father to anchor it.

Surely we have learned by now, from the experience over centuries, that the basic family provides the most stable and secure foundation for society and is fundamental to the preparation of young people for their future responsibilities. We should have learned by now that alternate styles of family formations have not worked and never will work. This was stated plainly by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 'The Family: A Proclamation to the World.'"

-L. Tom Perry, "Fatherhood, an Eternal Calling"

Dear Neighbor-

The other day I went on a walk alone. I crossed paths with you walking your dog. You and your husband are older than us, but do not have kids (not my business). But you have your dogs and take good care of them, and you don't dress them up so you've earned points in my book. You both seem like really interesting people. Luckily, our family has a dog because otherwise I'm not sure what else we would talk about. All of our conversations revolve around dogs. 

Recently, I decided enough is enough and that I need to take a proactive approach to expand our conversation topics. As we talked the other day, I made a conscious effort to think outside the doggie box. I thought it was going well until a lull came in our conversation. You filled the silence by asking how my dog was doing. Not my children, not my husband, not me- our dog. I was a bit stumped by that one. I responded, "Oh, fine. She's a funny little dog." I sensed it was an unsatisfactory answer, but I honestly couldn't think of anything else to say about my dog that could actually be interesting to a human. 

I've thought over the last few days how I could have handled that question better. I'm really more accustomed to fielding questions about the people in my house. We just have different life experiences and perspectives. Please help me understand what you want to know about my dog.

Do you want to know:

• the latest weird thing she ate and yacked up in my house?
• how many times a day she chases lizards?
• the last time she had a dingleberry?
• how many hours a day she sleeps?
• how much food she eats in a day?
• where she likes to lay in the sun?
• how many hours a day she spends cleaning her bottom?
• which toy is her favorite?
• the last doggie bottom she sniffed?
• the last human bottom she sniffed?

These are the only things I can think of to report about my dog. Please let me know if these are the kinds of things you want to know about or if there is anything I'm missing. It would help me out a ton.

Thanks!

Callings & Inadequacy

A few days ago I was wondering whether Apostles ever feel inadequate in their callings. While they are no doubt spiritually strong, the scope of their responsibility is so large I can't even fathom it! Amazingly, I found the answer in a booklet that my sister-in-law received in church for Mother's Day. Not only did it answer my question, but it also taught what to do with those feelings:

"A few months after my calling as an Apostle, I spoke to one of the senior members of the Quorum of the Twelve about how inadequate I felt for the calling I had received. He responded with this mild reproof and challenging insight: 'I suppose your feelings are understandable. But you should work for a condition where you will not be preoccupied with yourself and your own feelings of inadequacy and can give your entire concern to others and to the work of the Lord in all the world.'
"That is good advice when any one of us is called to a new position. Our understandable feelings of inadequacy should be put aside quickly. Our preoccupation should be to do all that we can to prepare ourselves and to serve wherever we are called."

-Dallin H. Oaks
"Trust in His Promises: A Message for Women", Dallin H. Oaks and Kristen M. Oaks

Happy Mother's Day!

"Motherhood is the greatest potential influence either for good or ill in human life. The mother’s image is the first that stamps itself on the unwritten page of the young child’s mind. It is her caress that first awakens a sense of security; her kiss the first realization of affection; her sympathy and tenderness the first assurance that there is love in the world.

"The noblest calling in the world is motherhood. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. ...

"Mothers sow the seeds in childhood that determine to a great extent life’s harvests in adulthood. A mother who instills into the souls of her children respect for one another and love for motherhood and fatherhood, renders a great service to the Church and to humanity in general. Children from such homes go out into the world as good citizens—citizens who will render the service which their parents have rendered, to fight the battles which their fathers and mothers have fought. … 

"Motherhood is the one thing in all the world which most truly exemplifies the God-given virtues of creating and sacrificing. Though it carries the woman close to the brink of death, motherhood also leads her into the very realm of the fountains of life, and makes her co-partner with the Creator in bestowing upon eternal spirits mortal life. 

"All through the years of babyhood, childhood, and youth, yes, even after her girls themselves become mothers and her sons become fathers, the mother tenderly, lovingly sacrifices for them her time, her comfort, her pleasures, her needed rest and recreation, and, if necessary, health and life itself. No language can express the power and beauty and heroism of a mother’s love. … 

"No nobler work in this world can be performed by any mother than to rear and love the children with whom God has blessed her. That is her duty.

-David O. McKay, "Teachings of Presidents of the Church", chapter 16

The Chocolates Made Me Do It

Usually, I find the messages inside Dove chocolates a tad on the cheesy side. I was surprised to find these messages in a recent bag that I was given, listed in the order opened:

"Feed your sense of anticipation."
"Indulge your sense of enjoyment."
"Satisfy your sense of surprise."

Is it just me, or is Dove now encouraging emotional eating instead of smiling? 

The amazing thing, is that I had eaten most of the bag without even reading the messages and realized I was following their suggestions anyway. Crazy!

Instructions for Life

I was recently going through a box full of my college memorabilia and came across these "Instructions for Life" by the Dalai Lama. A good reminder for myself.:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self, Respect for others, and Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

Speaking of the Dalai Lama, I recently watched "Seven Years in Tibet" for the first time since high school. It is a great movie with a lot of great lessons. It follows the story of Austrian climber, Heinrich Harrer, that befriends the Dalai Lama. It also focuses on how the takeover of Tibet by communist China occurred.