Over Achiever or Insecure?

During the Christmas holidays Dave spoke in Church. I don't think even my kids who were there picked up the underlying message intended for me in that talk, though he mentioned having to be careful with what he said because he wanted dinner later on. See, for several years I served as the stake young women's president and, by default, Dave got to help me with events on many occasions. One that he will never let me forget was building the ark. We used to have what was called "Girls Day", a day long event that included speakers, workshops, crafts, entertainment, and lunch. There was always a theme for Girls Day and this particular one was "To Build An Ark." The idea was to get the young women thinking about and preparing for their future and we had such workshops as financial planning, working out of your home, motherhood as a career, etc. We needed to decorate the gym where lunch and the program would be, and I thought it would be cool to have an ark as part of the decorations. Now I'll admit, we went a little overboard. I'm not sure, but this ark could very well have been the exact dimentions of the original ark that Noah built. It was all out of cardboard, many, many flattened out cardboard boxes duct taped together on the back and ark was painted on the front. The problem was it ended up being so big we couldn't just tape it up to the wall as we intended doing. We had to hang it from the ceiling, which was where Dave came in. By the way, there's Jill laying down in front with her Doc Martin sandals on, which was all she ever wore back then.

It did take a lot of time, but as the girls left to go to their various workshops, they actually boarded the ark. How cool, huh? Now, in my mind the ark was a memory jog for those young women who were there. Years later they might think back and remember that ark, and when they did, it would bring to their minds the things they learned that day.

This was just one of many projects Dave has been roped in to in the course of my service in the church and and several times he has asked me, "Why are we doing this again?" I would say, "Because this is going the extra mile. THIS is what is going to get us into the Celestial kingdom." "OH!" he replied, "THIS is? Well, we'd better keep working then." And work on it we would without another word until Elder Holland's talk Good, Better, Best in General Conference. Since then Dave has subtily brought up the ark on several occasions.

Last Sunday I took these to Relief Society and handed them out as part of my lesson on the parable of the Leaven. When I walked in with 32 loaves of bread, my friend Rhodelle said, "That's it. You are an overachiever and are grounded from teaching." I'm older and wiser than I was back in the ark days, and I know now what drives me. It's my insecurities. If the lesson is terrible and boring, at least everyone gets to go home with a loaf of bread. What I don't know is how to stop. Or the answer to this question, do I need to stop? Is my overdoing it really hurting anybody? Is it helping anyone? Or is this the kind of thing that is "good" and there are "better" and "best" things I could be doing? It's a thought that has been eating at me lately, and I would really like to know.

Coming Home!!!!

Last week I sent this picture to Brennan and told him that this was how I wanted to see him coming off the plane - running his hardest right up to the finish line. And now we know WHEN he will be coming off the plane. Whoo hoo!!

No, we haven't received travel plans from Brennan's mission office yet and I have resisted calling the travel office to see when he will be arriving home because I didn't want to be "soccer mom-ish". It only matters because we have to travel to Salt Lake to pick him up, so at least 4 hours notice would be helpful. I had determined that if we didn't receive something by tomorrow I was calling - soccer mom-ish or not. Every week after I e-mail Bren I sign into HIS e-mail account to make sure MY e-mail got all the way to France. Not that I'm in awe that an e-mail actually makes it all the way across the ocean to another continent. In fact, I am surprised that many times it DOESN'T and I have to resend it. Anyway, there among his unread e-mails for this week were his TRAVEL PLANS. He arrives in Salt Lake at 2:00 in the afternoon on January 28th. Leaving Paris at 10:35 am, he will have flown for 11.5 hours and will arrive 3.5 hours after he left. Now THAT blows my mind. And now, finally, I can get excited - YES!!

Trapped!

I went bird trapping with Dave today. We actually just went for a ride, a nice Sunday drive down to Cortez to look for a trap Dave lost yesterday while trapping, which is a whole story in and of itself, funny Dave! Anyway we saw this Redtail sitting on a post and Dave couldn't resist throwing out his trap to see if he could catch it. For anyone who doesn't know, Dave is apprenticing to be a falconer - someone who is licensed by the State to keep and hunt with raptors. While he's an apprentice he can only keep and train a kestrel or a young (not adult) Redtailed Hawk. This one, it turned out, was an adult, (see the red tail feathers?) so we had to let him go. (Dave was pretty sure it was a male because apparently in the world of birds, men are smaller.)

Now, I have to admit, I don't understand the sport. I understand the rehab part of what he does because those are birds that would die without human help, but these birds hunt just fine on their own, I don't believe they LIKE being held captive, and I just don't get the whole fascination with birds thing, but when I voice that to Dave he just looks at me and say, "Because you get to be part of a raptor's LIFE!" And, to him, that's explanation enough.


This one was a little ticked off at being caught. There was another Redtail close by and I think maybe this pretty bird lost face because he let Dave have it. See the blood running down his hand? Yup, sunk his big old claws right into it. Now THAT has got to be the down side to being part of a raptor's life.

Wish You Well

Among many other good changes in my life this year I've decided to recommend good books I've read as I finish reading them instead of waiting to put together a list that never quite happens. I have hesitated to recommend this treasure of a book in the past because I once recommended it to an friend who is an English major and, probably because I liked the story so well, her review of it caused me to bury my love for this book in order to either protect the book, or my simpleness in reading, I'm not sure which. Just for the record, I love reading and a book has to be pretty bad not to get a good review from me. Wish You Well is a book I have read several times. It is easy to read, the story line catches your interest right from the start, and I get totally lost in the idea of living off the land without money or material things and having a great life despite the lack of what we have come to believe are necessities. I'm not a fan of David Balacci, but this book is totally different from his usual political spy thrillers that I just can't get into. My only qualm with the book is that it goes a little over the top with the whole "preserve the mountain at any cost" idea, but their reasons for preserving are sound, so it works. It doesn't sugar coat rural life in farm/coal country, in fact, it shows it for the hardness that it was, but you come away feeling good in the end and at this time of economic unrest, I was left feeling a spirit of survival that gave me hope that I could survive whatever may come. I recommend it to you.

Best of 2008

Kimbrey inspired this idea - the Best Moments of 2008 post. I'm sure I could think of many more, but here, with just a few moments thought, are a few of my best.

Best New Fiction read - The Host by Stephenie Meyer and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Best New Non-Fiction read - That Ye May Believe by Neal A. Maxwell and Understanding the Parables of Jesus Christ by Jay A. Perry

Best loved T.V. Show - Dancing With the Stars

Best Moment in Time - Watching Chase be born (O.K., I just realized this morning that Chase was born in 2007 - but it was at the end of 2007, so I'm counting it anyway. That way my Best Moment of 2007 can still be watching Porter be born!)

Worst Moment in Time - Playing my piano solo in Church

Favorite Restaurant - Sorry, it's still Sizzler

Favorite Food to Take For Lunch - Marie Callender's Chicken Pot Pie

Craziest Thing I Did - Drive to Salt Lake twice a week for three weeks when gas was $3.75 a gallon to take a photography class with Kimbrey.

Best Thing I Did - Have Rachel help me decorate the refreshment area for Drew's Prom. It turned out so cute!


Favorite Arch out of all those we hiked to - Cable Arch - too much fun!


Oh, and Tower Arch in the snow. Loved hiking to all those Arches back when we thought Michelle needed to get to 50 Arches in 2008!


Favorite picture of Aiden - Driving my car. Just look at that face!


Favorite picture of Porter - Miner's Basin hike - wearing Dave's hat to keep the sun off


Favorite picture of Chase - I just love that "yuck, Mom, don't kiss me" face.

It was a good year. And I'm looking forward to a great 2009!!!!

Waxing Nostalgic

I watched the Utes play in the Sugar Bowl on Friday night. My plan was to flip the channels between commercials just to see the score, but I got caught up in the game right from the beginning and ended up watching the whole thing. What an exciting game!! And what a great statement from a Utah school - stand up and take notice because we're here and we're a contender. Anyway, the nostalgic part came when I was watching Zane Taylor, a local Moab boy, play in that game. What a big kid he is - 305 lbs! Zane is Brennan's age, but was friends with Kimbrey in high school, and he wasn't quite that big then. Zane played football and Brennan played soccer, but they did come head to head once on a tubing trip - and Brennan came away the worse for wear. Actually, I think Brennan may have tried to EAT Zane's sled. Luckily Bren hit the sled and not Zane himself or he might have gotten worse than he did. And it's too bad there wasn't a Batman movie filming right then, because I think Bren would have been a shoe in for Joker.

Anyway, congrats to the Utes, you played a great game and provided me with some great Friday night entertainment.

Happy New Year!!

There's a bit of nostalgia in the air around here today. Having this cute face and his Mom and Dad hang around for the week helped keep those after Christmas blues at bay until they left today. Dave has had a good week working with Kyle again. It's been Cozzens' and Sons Minus One all week as Dave, Kyle and Drew have knocked down a couple of jobs together. Michelle, Porter and I have spent the week taking turns with the flu, but that didn't stop the New Year's Eve fun from happenin'. We had Chinese take out, FOUR movies, and Ticket To Ride - a fun game that, if you haven't played it, you should! It was a fun Eve.


And Drew had a good time ringing in the New Year, as you can tell from the sound sleep he is in today. The piece of cereal on his lip was compliments of Porter, who was sharing his cereal with me and thought Drew might like a piece, asleep or not. It stayed there a long time . . . .


And remember this beautiful and majestic tree that brought so much Christmas spirit into my heart and home?

Now she looks like this and is out in the back of Drew's truck waiting for a trip to the dumpster. This right here is where the nostalgia comes in - the taking down of the Christmas tree. It chokes me up and makes me sad every year. But it's done now and on to 2009. May she be a good one for all of us.