Insomnia

Caleb has horrific insomnia. Childhood insomnia is defined the same as adult insomnia (can't go to sleep, can't stay asleep, etc), but the time limit is if your kid doesn't fall asleep in 40 minutes, it's insomnia. It takes Caleb from 2-4 hours to fall asleep each night. I finally gave up and stopped sitting with him. (That actually helps because he has nobody to talk to and gets bored and sleepy faster).

So I did some research on insomnia in kids and found a lot of websites blame it strictly on the parents. They couch it in "you can solve this problem" terms, but the general gist of it is "It's your fault." Some help. It's NOT my fault. The worst are the websites that sell homeopathic or herbal remedies--I guess guilt sells product. EVERYONE agrees that if a kid can't sleep, you have to fix their "sleep hygiene" first, which means institute a bedtime routine and bedtime and stick to them.

We have a bedtime routine. Our bedtime is flexible, unfortunately, based on my judgment of how long it will take me to get the kids to bed based on their behaviour throughout the evening. If I try to put them to bed too soon, I discovered, I just sit there doing nothing and being angry for literally HOURS until they actually are ready to sleep. That said, we're fairly consistent with bedtime, although it shifts with the seasons. (This "seasons" connection, I think, may be the key to the problem).

So, having ascertained that I do everything the "sleep hygiene people" say to do except bathe the children before bed (are you nuts? That takes at least an hour and makes it so I can't sleep because it hurts too bad when I bathe kids--fibromyalgia.....), I did more research and discovered, surprise surprise, that it's actually a miracle that the OTHER kids don't have sleep-onset insomnia like Caleb does. Apparently, childhood insomnia is common in children whose parents have (guessed yet?) ADD/ADHD or Fibromyalgia because it is likely the child has the same problem as the parent--and both problems cause sleep issues.

Oddly, the fibromyalgia sites I read said that fibro is finally being diagnosed in children, but that in 75% of the cases it goes away. I think someone forgot to check back--I suspect the childhood fibro (often called "growing pains") just cycles more slowly in children, so it appears to disappear for years at a time but does, eventually, recur. I had growing pains, trouble sleeping, fidgetiness while sitting, hand and arm pain, etc throughout childhood--but would go years without. (On a side note, I wonder how many cases of childhood fibro are diagnosed ADD because of the fidgetiness and trouble paying attention issues--the inability to sit still because of pain, not brain focus trouble).

If we look at Caleb's problem that way, it is just like mine when I was a kid. I was the "night owl" in the family--I would go to my room and close the door and work on projects or read for one or two HOURS after everyone went to bed. Mom finally said, "Just don't keep the other kids awake." Fibro causes sleep prblems in its own right, including shifted schedules, but also as a result of "ignored" pain. Caleb would be the "night owl" in our family if you define it as a person who needs to stay awake for hours after the rest of the world has gone to sleep. He just stays awake until dawn because our "world" sleeps weird.

ADHD kids with insomnia often report that they are tired, but they can't sleep because their brains won't turn off. They just lay there and think and think and think for hours. Unfortunately, the lack of sleep exacerbates the ADD symptoms (to the point that doctors are suspecting that up to half of kids diagnosed with ADD actually have a sleep disorder that manifests itself during waking hours with ADD symptoms). The ADD/ADHD symptoms, exacerbated, make it harder for the kid to sleep, which just gets them into one of those nasty self-feeding cycles. This is definitely what happens with Caleb. Every five minutes or so after he's been put to bed, he asks me another fascinating question ("Why did the people at the time of the Jaredites try to build a tower to heaven?" "Is it going to be winter forever?" "Can Winnie the Pooh speak Spanish, too?").

Tim has told me that he didn't learn how to fall asleep and stay asleep until he was in high school and learned relaxation techniques in band. He had more of the symptoms of insomnia than Caleb does because he was forced to wake up to go to school--and his family has joked for years that Tim could (and did) fall asleep at the drop of a hat. They have pics of him sleeping in the bathroom when he was supposed to be brushing his teeth, and draped across the table "doing homework", etc. Classic signs of childhood insomnia.

So Caleb is just like BOTH of his parents. No wonder he can't sleep. Neither of us could, either.

And the cures? There are none. The only advice is treat the kid for ADD/ADHD and teach them techniques to go to sleep. In fact, until Caleb lost his bottle, he slept just fine, possibly because the baba was his "cue" to stop thinking and fall asleep, and he needs a new "cue". Some people advise reading your kids to sleep. Other, more practical people, advise creating a tape or CD of you reading something interesting but not so much so that it keeps you awake (like the Book of Mormon, for a five year old) so that Mom can go to bed but kid can be read to sleep anyway. LOTS of doctors say do what Mom did--say, "Do what you want but don't keep anyone else awake". (Interestingly, scientific studies noted that mothers of children with insomnia are less affectionate until the insomnia is cured.....)

We did notice that in the summer, it's not a problem. Probably because Caleb spends hours outside absorbing sunlight in the summer, and the melanin (melatonin? I forget which) regulates sleep. That's probably also why we all have a worse sleep schedule in the winter--not enough sunlight hitting our skin, even if we do go outside. The only scientifically studied sleep aids for kids that worked in most studies was to give them melatonin, but the side effects were mostly not noted except that it can cause epileptic siezures in some kids. Apparently this also adjusts the bedtime problems in everyone getting to bed too late because melatonin is the thing that resets the internal clock. No wonder vampires stay awake all night and are pale--they're allergic to sunlight, and that's what regulates sleep cycles. Maybe instead of using supplements, we need different lights, like the kind they use to treat jet lag.

We're just grateful that we homeschool. Caleb, unlike most kids with insomnia, is not required to wake up anyway, so he's not sleep deprived and we miss most of the worst problems arising from insomnia. We noticed early on (when we were trying someone's advice to just wake them at the same time every day and the bedtime will adjust itself) that if we deprive him of sleep, it doesn't get him to bed. It just makes him (and us) absolutely miserable.

I suppose if we moved to a sunny place, the insomnia would be cured because the kids wouldn't have a winter to deal with. They'd get plenty of sun. And I would have plenty of asthma. The next source of research in our house, then, is on melatonin suppplements--how safe are they, what are proper doses, etc. Also research on L-tyrosine for kids.....I'm so slow in getting to that.

At some point, we may have to go to a doctor. I just hesitate because my experience as a "welfare" patient has been miserable--everyone assumes I'm dumb and can't parent. Everyone is belittling and very few people actually listen. Their method of "teaching" is actually blaming everything on my behavior and making me feel guilty for it (like Daniel's eczema was somehow my fault?). Since insomnia isn't life-threatening, I'm going to try everything I can before we resort to doctors.

I'll keep you posted, since so many of you have fibro or ADD, too, and your kids might have insomnia at some point, too.

When Anda Grows Up

Anda followed me around the house for a few minutes the other day. Then, dodging my large belly, she came around to face me and said, "Mom, when I grow up and have a baby in my tummy, I'll walk like a duck, too."

Cooking Donuts

After all these years of cooking, I have discovered the secret! Google.

Now, when I want to make something I don't already have a splendid recipe for, I google it and print maybe 8 recipes, and then I combine them all and create what I wanted to make. It works because all the research has revealed that there really is usually just one real recipes for any given thing, and all the differences are minor (like 2 vs 3 tbsp butter). Sometimes the difference between 1 tsp and 1/2 tsp cinnamon is significant, but usually it's not.

So last night I made cake donuts. I love cake donuts. But I wanted a quick, easy recipe to try a cooking method experiment with. So I googled it, got my half-dozen sample recipes, studied them, made a couple modifications that my experience says work, and then concocted my own donut recipe. And it came out REALLY GOOD. So I shall release it to the world:

Mix together 1 c sugar, 1/4 c sour cream, 1 c milk, 2 eggs, 1-2 tsp vanilla, 3 c flour, 4 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp nutmeg. (Except for the sour cream, which I used in place of butter, this is the "standard" cake donut recipe--I averaged the range of flour amounts, chose 2 eggs for richness and leavening power, and everything else on the sample recipes were almost identical). This makes a nice thick batter. Use food coloring if you want colored donut insides (we did pink, to appease Anda). At this point in all other recipes, they tell you to refrigerate for hours, knead in a little more flour, roll it out, cut it, let it raise a little, then carefully slip it into the hot (375) oil, etc etc. I didn't want to wait. So I spooned the battery stuff into a couple of small ziploc bags, sealed them, and snipped off just 1/4 inch from one corner. Then I squirted the batter, swirling it as I did, into the hot oil to make donut swirls. These cook very fast because the batter comes out thinner than a donut, but they taste really good. Let them cook until the exposed surface splits and batter begins to ooze out (like 1 minute), and then turn them and cook until golden. Let them drain on paper towels and then eat them plain or coat with glaze, sugar, or cinnamon-sugar.

It took us one hour to make everything, from "Where are the eggs?" to "How long do I wait for the oil to cool before I can put it away?". This sounds like a lot, but I was frying only three donuts at a time in a largish pot, rather than a frying pan, fryer, or dutch oven like most people do (I don't have a lot of oil to spare), and we made a couple dozen swirls (after each of us ate three while we were cooking them). And most cake donut recipes take from 3 hours to overnight to finish.

Next time we might try glazing them with this maple glaze recipe I found in a great cookbook Chastity gave me--the Bed and Breakfast Cookbook (which I use all the time). You make a standard powdered sugar glaze, but instead of milk, you add a couple tablespoons of maple syrup. Really really tasty on muffins (except then the kids just eat the tops off and throw away the muffins).

They look a little like funnel cakes. They taste like really good, fluffly, soft cake donuts (not that heavy kind they sell in the grocery store). Hooray for fast new recipes!

Strange Day Online

When I'm job searching for Tim, I am an avid reader of Craigslist. And today people posted strange things in the Wanted section. Stranger than the 17' toilet that was just a typo. Today we had:

A woman looking to interview a car thief for a book she's writing ( http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/277263125.html )

A man looking for the back end of a moose for taxidermy ( http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/277260778.html )

A person looking for dead reptiles--no purpose stated ( http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/277260759.html )

Someone wanting really creepy dolls, the beat the better ( http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/277227201.html )

Someone looking for large mirrors for a mystery invention that eveyrone will benefit from (http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/277279420.html and http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/277278862.html )

One titled "Do you have my door in your basement?"
( http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/277269361.html )

Someone looking for a cocker spaniel born on February 9 becuase it is really HER dog reincarnated ( http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/277237688.html )

Someone looking for a Leather Quiver (for arrows, of course) ( http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/277190482.html )

One titled "Need Blinds for a weird little window" ( http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/277095495.html )

Someone selling the entire contents of their seasonal junk/antique store as one lot ( http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/276889866.html )

And someone looking for a surf board to give as a gift to the inlaws -- in Loveland, CO, of course( http://denver.craigslist.org/wan/276877807.html )

And this is JUST TODAY. I haven't been carefully collecting these things for weeks and weeks. Somehow, all the crazy things people want got posted all on the same day. Bizarre.

Speaking of Precise Language

In our dinner conversation tonight, I mentioned "buffalo."

Anda said, "What's a buffalo?"

"A large animal," I said.

"An elephant is a large animal," Anda said.

To clarify, I said, "A large animal that's covered all over with brown fur."

"Woah!" said Anda, looking truly amazed.

I nodded.

"Even its eyeballs?" she said.

"Uh, no," said I.

"Even it's lips?" she asked.

"Uh, no," I said.

Curses, I thought. Foiled once again in my attempts to be educational......

Language Is Tricky and other fun stuff

Daniel is really "Getting" language now, and has recently started using full sentences--occasionally (and we often can understand all the words). But he also has started responding to us when we talk in a very "I understand" way. Apparently I don't speak very clearly and precisely, though, because Dan's responses sometimes surprise me.

For example, when I took him out of his bath today, I said, "Where do you want me to put your diaper on you?" thinking he'd point at one of the bedrooms. Instead, he pointed at his bum.

Yesterday he was trying to put a video in the VCR, but he was holding it perpendicular to the opening. So I said, "Turn it to the side." Very obediently, Dan turned to his right and set the video on a chair. Then he picked up another video and tried to put it into the VCR, still perpendicular to the opening. I said, "Turn it round and it will go in, Dan." He looked at me for a minute and then turned in a slow circle (he turned 'round), and then tried to put the video in again. Still perpendicular to the opening. Finally, before I could frustrate or confuse him too much verbally, I went over and showed him physically how to put the video in.

And it's not just Dan who points out the flaws in my speech. Yesterday, we bought a dozen toner cartridges from a contact on craigslist (for the price of ONE in the store), and as we were driving home, the kids said, "What are those toners for?" I said, "For my computer so I can print things." The kids said, "Why does your computer need toner? Doesn't it go in the printer?"

I guess I need to be more precise when I speak?

Other Fun Stuff:

We made peanutbuttercup fudgecicles yesterday. Really Yummy. It was super easy, too. We made a big box of pudding (the kind that takes 4 cups of milk), but instead of using a wire whisk, I put it into the kitchenaid with the whisk attachment. We mixed it on low, then put in one teaspoon of creamy peanut butter and whipped it on medium for 2 minutes, so it was a little fluffier than usual. Then we froze it into popsicles. Yum. The pre-frozen stuff would make good pie filling, too.

We've made orange creamsicles, too: Pour flat orange soda into the popsicle mold (or paper cup) and add a tablespoon or two of vanilla ice cream. Then freeze it. Very yummy.

Another favorite variation is chocolate pudding swirled with cool whip...

Or koolaid with jello (put it in before it sets up)--the popsicles don't drip!

Our other experiment this week was home made ice cream. We used snow to freeze it and discovered that snow isn't cold enough unless you add a lot of water. We made pear ice cream. It came out very WHITE and quite tasty. Next time we're going to try cake batter flavor. Unless all the snow melts first.....

Caleb discovered Mobius strips a couple of days ago. He was delighted at the magic trick of cutting one in half and finding still only one loop. We had predicted beforehand what would happen (two strips), so it was all very exciting and magical.

And we learned that pepper is actually ground up dried berries! (Who knew?)

We also discovered http://www.bassettfurniture.com/RoomPlanner/tabid/465/Default.aspx , which lets you put in the dimensions of a room, and fill it with furniture (which you can custom-size), to figure out how to arrange your house mot efficiently. Just like what Dad used to do with graph paper, only online. The kids thought the "house puzzle" program was great--and I loved that it help me fit 4 beds, a crib, two rocking chairs, a dresser, a bookshelf, and a mirror (all accurately sized) into two room, one 9x13 and the other 9x9. Very fun and useful free tool.

I may be a terrible housekeeper, but the kids have a lot of educational fun!

Funny Kids part umpteen

Last night I found a whole piece of turkey roast just sitting on the counter. I picked it up and recognized it as one that I cut for Anda half an hour before. So I turned to Anda and said, "Somebody didn't eat their meat--named Anda!"

She looked at me funny and said, "Did you just give that meat a name? That meat doesn't have a name, does it?"

Winners and Losers of the Day

Losers of the day:

We got a bit of junkmail from the Honda Dealership where we've gotten some work done recently. It included a $5.00 off coupon for the 157,500 mile service they offer. Fine, until you find out the 157,500 service costs $700.00. Some savings. Who ever heard of a 157,500 mile service anyway?

Winner of the day:

My doctor. I went in to my appointment complaining of several symptoms of pre-term labor. Instead of ignoring me OR putting me immediately on medication and bedrest (I've had doctors who would do one or the other without a thought), she did an ultrasound to check everything. No labor. Just dehydrated. Hooray for doctors who aren't afraid to use technology, despite insurance companies' attempts to mandate how it can be used.

Too Smart For their Own Good

Yesterday the kids brought me a rubber ball with a small pink bunny embedded in it. "Why is the bunny floating above the ground, Mom?" Anda wanted to know.

So I explained how they make the ball and embed the little figure inside, and how the bunny really isn't floating in air inside the clear ball but has the "ball stuff" touching it all over.

The kids listened intently. Then they looked at me like I was an imbecile and said, "Don't lie to us Mom. It's floating because there's no gravity inside the ball. So how do they get the gravity out of the ball?"

Just for kicks

I'm too tired to think clearly today--but we made it to church before the sacrament!

At least four other families in the ward reported having just a horrid week, and the building seemed to be full of crying women, many of whom burst into tears when you said, "How are you?" It was that kind of week for everyone, not just us, I guess.

Our week was capped with, after all the other challenges of getting into school, a nice letter from the student loan people saying that we owe them $300 a month starting February 28 because Tim's student loans are suddenly due, even though he's in school now. So that's one MORE person I have to (or Tim will) contact Monday to sort yet more things out. We've stopped asking what else can go wrong--we find out soon enough.

At least the IRS accepted our taxes. I was really careful this time and kept good records, sent my 1099-misc forms out on time, and still had two guys complain that my numbers didn't match theirs. I gave them until Feb 3 to work it out, and then I filed our taxes. We need the $4952 tax refund right away. E-file is wonderful. We should have our refund in less than 2 weeks--just in time to pay our mortgage online (new service they're offering since the Colorado Housing Authority moved their offices to Dallas, TX).

Just for laughs: Another craigslist funny. The ad said, "male or female vocalest wanted for a rock metal pantera style band. we want to hear the words. play an insterment is a plus. must have your own equiment..." How does a vocalist NOT have their own equipment?

Hot Cocoa

One of Dan's few words is Cocoa. He also says Ice Cream, Taste, and Tasty. He doesn't say Mommy, though.

We are big fans of hot cocoa, and we've discovered you can make fancy gourmet cocoas at home, with the cheapest hot cocoa mix. No more expensive cocoa mixes! Here's what we do:

Make cocoa (follow the instructions and make sure you put in enough chocolate powder....). Then add:

a teaspoon of raspberry jam, or a pinch of raspberry jello powder
or
a teaspoon of peanut butter
or
any mint-flavored candy (candycanes, junior mints, dinner mints, etc)
or
a spoonful of cool whip and a dash of cinnamon
or
a spoonful of any flavor of ice cream you like (moosetracks is especially good...)
or
a chunk of any flavor of candybar (butterfingers are good....)
or
anything else that dissolves in hot liquid and complements the chocolate flavor.

For the gourmet non-cocoas, you can mix just a teaspoon or two of any flavor of instant pudding mix into hot milk (use a small whisk or fork, or it gets clumpy). For hot "wassail", use orange koolaid (the church's brand is best....but you can't buy it) with a pinch of cinnamon and a tiny pinch of cloves in it, then heat it.

Talent Dynasties

I have noted over the years that families often create "dynasties" in a certain profession (take the early Adamses in politics--or the current Bushes). These dynasties span several generations, with multiple family members participating, admittedly with varying degrees of success.

I hadn't thought much about it in the past--at least not beyond saying, "See, some aspects of talent are clearly genetic."

Sunday, though, Caleb sat down to "write a church song to put into my hymn book." And he DID. I was astounded. We've always made music notation software available to the kids to play with (and they have). We've always encouraged them to write down their thoughts and ideas, not just type what they've seen before, and not just express them verbally. But it completely surprised both of us when Caleb turned on the music notation software and began composing. Really composing. He would put in a few notes, listen to it, and say, "That doesn't sound like a church song," and change the ones he didn't like. He even was changing things like taking off the "dotted" part when he used a dotted whole note and it "was too long." Then he wrote lyrics and learned how to plug them in on the software, and was mildly distressed when his song was, as he deemed it, too short. We told him about other short "church songs" and then he was satisfied.

And then a whole bunch of realizations came. Families probably make dynasties not just because of talent. It probably is because of the environment, too. See, now when I say it, I think, "Duh...." Of course. When the parent/s are involved in something, there is a whole intensive course of education in the subject going on every day around children as they grow. The materials are available. The way you fit it into your life is modeled. The actual activity is also modeled. The opportunities to ask questions and wonder and experiment are around all the time instead of when you happen to get exposed in a classroom setting. And the activity is seen as a normal part of life instead of as something unique and unusual. Our children, for example, were completely baffled this summer when we told them that most kids' daddies don't sing on stage on a regular basis. NOT doing the activity was a foreign concept.

So the inclinations to pursue music may come from inborn talent. But the unfettered ability to pursue (and think about) it come from either inborn stubbornness or upbringing. I have known for a long time that people get into music careers in three ways: you are born into a music family, you marry into a music family, or you have unusually enormous amounts of talent combined with stubborn hard work and a great deal of luck. I used to think that's because of the "industry connections", but now I think it's so much more than that. It's a whole lifestyle thing, including all the ins and outs of creativity that most people don't consider part of the "industry."

It's not just that Caleb could think of a song. It's that he could do that, and the software was readily available, and that Tim knows how to use the software and could answer his questions, and that, in Caleb's world, it is absolutely NORMAL to sit down and write a song to express his feelings. Just like in a political family's world, it is absolutely NORMAL to go to political meetings, fight for what you believe, make speeches, and think about how the government is running in an active "I can do something about this" way (as opposed to the more common "I can complain about this" way).

Growing up in my family, it was normal to analyze things and then verbally express your ideas about what was going on. The tools for communication were around us all the time, and it was normal to communicate things, and think about what other people were communicating verbally, physically, etc. And now ALL my siblings have grown up into communicative adults. We like to talk. We like to think about ideas. And we like to express ourselves--through writing, art, speech, etc. We also grew up in a world where it was normal to do research--and, as adults, we all do lots of research, all in different fields. But getting into research and learning was not foreign to us, just like getting into music isn't for Caleb. Family dynasty of education and communication.

So then I realized that all those "mormon intellectuals" who have pointed to the "spiritual dynasties" in the church as evidence that it really is "who you know" that "gets you status" in the Church have it REALLY all wrong. It's not that the children and grandchildren of Hyrum Smith became leaders because they knew all the right people. It's because spirituality, like music, is something that can pass through families in this "dynastic" sense. Children, raised by righteous parents, learn what that means on an intimate level, just like Caleb understands what it means to be a musician. When children are raised by spiritual, in tune parents, they learn how to solve problem with prayer and faith, how to receive revelation, how to respond to crisis, etc. The children are raised in an environment where spiritual things are Normal, and the tools are readily available to them, and the behaviors and attitudes are modeled, questions are answered on a day-by-day basis, the reasons to pursue it are clear, etc.

Raised in this kind of environment, it's clear why there are "dynasties" in the church. It's not because of who you know. It's because living as a righteous person is a skill just like living as a musician is--and people raised in the culture have so much more chance of succeeding in it.

Torture for Mommy

It's bad enough when your baby is sick. When the baby is sick and snurgles when he breathes and insists on sleeping draped across your head at night, and then also insists on throwing up all over you and the bed (instead of in the bowl you are holding for him), well..... The joys of sinus infections.

All I can say is it's a good thing we have access to the Priesthood and to antibiotics.

I guess we've had some sophomoric laughs over the last four days. For example, the kids were delighted and amazed when Dan blew a snot bubble as big as a quarter that we couldn't pop, even with a tissue.

Now, "speaking of potty humor" (as Caleb would say), for your more educated amusement, a clever request (probably a typo) from Craigslist, an ever-increasing source of editor-laughs: (This was in the wanted section) "Place to Buy a 17' (height) Toilet Cheep". Now that's the biggest toilet I've ever heard anyone want.

Addendum to Mormon Lit

So I've had some response to the Mormon Lit stuff--both from the blog and friends I've talked to.

The consistent response is: "But Deseret Book...." or "Covenant was just bought out by Deseret Book so..."

This shows a real, seriously ingrained isolationist culture among Mormons, in my mind.

I wouldn't have published with Covenant EVER. Their author contract was incredibly restrictive and manipulative for years and years--until the last few, and now they are a division of DB. They were on the "must be desperate" list in my mind--anyone who published with them must be desperate or they'd go elsewhere. DB is okay, from what I've heard. But they're a niche publisher. And that's where the isolationist tendencies show up.

The assumption among mormons is that if you write a book clean enough for mormons, or with a mormon character, you ONLY can publish for the Mormon Audiences (which aren't known for being very discriminating. They liked Sons of Provo....). So when I say, "Thriller where the lead character happens to be an LDS woman," everyone says, "Deseret Book Doesn't......"

I don't care what Deseret Book doesn't publish. I wasn't planning on working with them anyway. I think that just because I'm mormon, my book is clean, and the lead character is LDS--that doesn't mean only Mormons will like the book. Jews don't only publish with Jewish publishers. If a book has an Amish character, we don't only publish for Amish folk. A mormon is capable of writing a book with broad appeal, even if it is LDS-appropriate and has Mormon characters. Mormons don't have a corner on the "I don't like bed scenes and swearing" market, after all.

I want my "Mormon" lit to be published by Random House. I want to be able to buy it in Barnes and Noble and Borders--in Ohio or Wisconsin--not just in Utah and Idaho.

What's wrong with filling the world with good stuff that is accessible to other good people who don't happen to be Mormons? Why do we, as a culture, tend to keep all good things produced by us to ourselves and, conversely, assume that if nonmormons liked it, it must be dirty, even if it was made by mormons? This doesn't make sense. It's like the fact that my nurses at the OBGYN talk openly about "The Lord wanting me to only have 2 kids even if I intended to have more" but me being afraid to say "Jesus" in public. Nobody else is afraid of offending--why are we?

It's not just the gospel we seem afraid to share. It's everything virtuous, lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy that we produce.

Likewise, this strange belief in "keeping things to ourselves" probably stifles a lot of good artists, musicians, and writers that are LDS. There is a real belief among members that somehow it is unholy to create art (in any form) that is not church-themed (meaning, of course, talks about testimonies being built). The idea seems to be that it's Bad to produce art unless it can be sold by Deseret Book. So we have LOTS of "here's how to live the gospel" and "inspirational" work--but where are the good clean fun movies that don't have to do with LDS dating and sports rituals?

I have no issues with the amount of stuff produced by mormons, marketed to mormons, and consumed exclusively by mormons. I sometimes have issues with the quality, and I frequently have questions about the lines between making heartfelt testimony available to more people (inspiring them to righteous acts) and priestcraft (selling the "inspiration").

My main question lately is not "Where are the Mormon artists?", although that is an issue. My main "Issue" is "Where are the works produced by members that are mormon-appropriate and mormon-themed but for a mass audience?" Potraying mormon ideals and themes shouldn't automatically make a book only appropriate for a niche audience. In fact, it seems like we'd want to portray outselves accurately to the world. Otherwise, people's perceptions and exposure to Mormons will continue to be from non-mormon sources.

So that's why I'm not interested in Deseret Book. It has nothing to do with them. It's just that I, for one, want Maggie, my CIA mommy, to be seen by people of all faiths who just want good, clean, non-preachy thriller. And DB is a niche publisher.

Kids are smart

Caleb informed me today that sometimes he talks in cursive.

He told me the other day that he wouldn't go to a public first grade because they won't let him teach the classes.

Today Anda was making up a song (a common occurance), a rock song with lyrics that went, "No matter what I love you." When she hit a particularly high note, Caleb said, "That's just the note I wanted you to sing next!"

See, they're clever! Also reading while I write this.....

Mommydom

First, another funny craigslist headline: "have you been mean to convert your old home videos to dvd?"

I went to bed one night, later than usual (ie the crack of dawn instead of 3:00 am), and thought, "If my life were a fantasy novel....." before I fell asleep. The thought developed during the night, and I woke up thinking that the mommy was the princess raised by commoners, now sent off into the world to find the Castle of the King where she belongs, required to bring some of her own little princes and princesses along for the journey. And bedtime is thus: The evil wizard says, "I know you are tired from your day's travels, and you may now start toward bed. But before you can sleep, you must complete these ten impossible challenges." And he always throws in an extra one or two just after you've brushed the crumbs out of your bed (last night it was a whole muffin, tucked way down by my feet) but before you go to sleep. The next night, the challenges are similar, but, mysteriously, just as hard to accomplish.

I have learned a few things with three-and-a-half kidlets hovering around. For example:

No matter how hard you try to prevent it, someone eventually will drink out of the toilet. And it won't kill them.

Toothpaste gets permanent marker off smooth surfaces--coat it on thick and let it sit for 10 minutes, and the marker wipes off. Doesn't work as well on textured surfaces, though.

Alcohol takes permanent marker off walls. It also takes paint off walls.

Doctors know a lot, but not always more than a mother's instincts. Even great doctors are sometimes wrong.

No matter how late church is, it is next to impossible to get there on time.

Sneezing at the table is always messy.

The best high chair/table/eating area for a sitting baby is the open dishwasher door. It washes itself.

Just plan for someone to spill something at each meal. (Why doesn't someone make a terrycloth tablecloth? Or, even better, an absorbent disposable tablecloth? One that somehow attaches to the table--tape? Elastic?--so that nobody pulls it off or shifts it around. Yet another use for worn bath towels.....)

Sharp tools are magnets for one year olds.

No matter how many tape measures/pairs of scissors/pens you have, you will only be able to find them when you DON'T need them.

When you DO find the tape measures/pairs of scissors/pens, there will always be one less than you need for everyone to join in and help.

There is a reason thousands of mothers have rocked their babies to sleep for thousands of years--and gotten up in the night with them.

Babies have an irritating cry for a reason, and it's not to irritate you into anger or neglect.

Kids prefer permanent markers. I don't know why. You'd think the smell would dissuade them...

You can make someone go to bed. You can't make them sleep.

Instead of a rug on the floor by the sink, use a large beach towel. Then you have something ready to clean up spills all over the kitchen that's already on the floor, and it's easy to wash and replace.

Always look into the oven/toilet/toaster/sink/your bed/etc. before you use it. You never know what will be there.

You can't watch everyone all the time, so you have to learn to trust your kids.

If you never fill your own needs, you can't fill theirs, either.

If you want some time without someone touching you or demanding your attention, attend to the kid's needs when they ask, and they won't be so clingy. The more you push them away, the more demanding they are. Then go to the library and get them a few videos, put the VCR in a different room, and enjoy your alone time--it will be short.

One baby is less work than two. One kid is MORE work than two. Two kids is more work than three. At some point this breaks down, I'm sure, but at least they entertain each other!

If you feed them, they will be happy.

Your environment exists to serve you. Stop serving it instead.

If you want your kids to get a testimony, read the Book of Mormon to them.

The second most important tool a mommy has is the ability to look at a situation and figure out a solution--not based on what other people do, what magazines say, what her mother did, or anything else.

The first most important tool is the Spirit.

Mommy's job is not decorating, picking up clutter, making the house pretty for everyone else, or "measuring up." Mommy's job is to nurture, which means to look after the children's mental, emotional, and physical health in a way that helps them grow. In other words, feed, clothe, and teach. Everything else is extraneous.

And Most of All, I've learned that being a mommy is worth far more than any career or hobby I gave up to have kids.

Superheroes

First, it was a funny day for postings on Craigslist Denver. Someone advertised for a "small office helper." Someone else was "looking for a bar--$150 (ill pick up)"

We've come headlong into the realities of our individual disabilities lately. I remembered that not long ago I was pondering the nature of fibromyalgia and came up with a story idea I may never use. The thing that prompted it is that people with fibromyalgia seem to have a bizarre relationship with energy. I am not one of those people who believe in the holistic natural healing "energy adjustment" stuff. This is something different. People with fibro seem to be "energy suckers". For example, many report that they wear out 5-year watch batteries in one year--repeatedly (I do!). And that street lights go out when they come near (I know this happens to everyone--but not 10 or 20 times a month!). And yet they often lack the energy to function themselves. It's bizarre. Late scientific research indicates people with fibro have an inability to process ATP properly, which is related to energy production in the body.

So, where that all went was, "In fiction, I could take it one step further." Say, we have a world where people with fibro have the ability to manipulate energy with superhero powers--if they take the time to learn how. BUT, like real fibro, they are cursed with near-constant pain in their lives, and challenges that make it hard to be part of society. The idea expanded to other disabilities, too. What if we had a world where anyone could become a superhero by learning to use their gifts to serve the world, but they had to deal with the fact that they had severe disabilities that would counter their efforts, and they had to work around them or just end up "normal people" forever.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized it's not Science Fiction. That's reality. And I write fiction, so I never wrote the story and probably never will.

But we've run into that headlong this week--sometimes it seems that the harder we try to use our gifts to make people happy, the harder our disabilities work to stand in the way. The easy solution: give up and be mediocre but not forced to constantly climb mountains.

Neither of us is inclined to taking the easy path, I guess.

So I suppose to go beyond "person" and turn into "superhero," the challenge is to use your gifts, work with and around your disabilities, and try to make the path a little easier for whoever comes after you, so that you don't end up atop the mountains alone.

Dad is a superhero.

Melody Becomes a HomeBody

I've been thinking it for a month, but when Tim came home the other day and said, "We're not on the road!" in a voice of relief, I started verbalizing my joy at becoming a normal family again.

It's not that being on the road as a lifestyle was terrible.

It's just that I never want to do it again.

Here is why living on the road was hard:

--You don't get to sleep. The beds in hotels stink. I had to share with Tim AND one kid (in a queen bed....). Plus, other performers (usually drunk) make noise until later at night than we go to bed (can you believe it?!), and then the maids make noise starting at about 8:00 am. Did you know that maids yell up and down the halls to each other after you leave the hotel? And that they open all the doors to the empty rooms and turn the TVs on to the same music station so they can work to music? No sleep.

--Food? What's food? Finding things to eat when you are living in a hotel room is hard. If you have a kitchenette, you still can't store enough food for a family of five for one day, and then you're pretty much limited to things you can fix in the microwave one portion at a time. Look through the freezer section of your grocery store some time and think about it. Carbs and highly processed food. Not good for health, weight, or ADD. And this is when it's good. When there is no kitchenette, you're limited to what comes out of a can or a box and can be heated in a pan on a hotplate that you can't let the hotel discover you have. Also not healthy or satisfying. And feeding kids (ADD kids, no less) this way? Not good.

Of course, you can go to fast food places and buy from the dollar menu. My view on that now: the idea of eating another cheap hamburger or fries LITERALLY makes me sick to my stomach.

--It's hard to stay clean. Hard to bathe kids. Hard to wash dishes. Hard to do laundry. Nothing is convenient. And just try to keep three kids' worth of trash in one of those tiny hotel garbage cans....

--Isolation. We traveled as a family and with the band, but it's an isolating life. Nobody wants to take the effort to get to know you except as a novelty (or bragging point--"I met ___ musician!"), even if you make an effort to get to know them. There are two reasons for this: musicians have a pretty bad reputation; and you're moving on in a couple of days. Nobody wants to commit the energy to get to know you if there is no permanence in it. The church members were nice, when we could meet them, but it was hard to find them.

For the family of the band, it's even more isolating. The band takes the car, and the family is stuck in the hotel room or wherever they can go on foot. Plus, tour season is hot summer, so arranging the car and going out is NOT easy. Not with three kids under five, anyway.

In addition to not being surrounded by people you are familiar with, you don't have resources you expect to. Like doctors. Musicians don't make enough for insurance, let alone nationwide insurance plans that work in all states. And it doesn't really matter because even if a doctor IS taking new patients, they are not taking transient patients. So if you get sick or hurt, you're pretty much limited to emergency room visits (costly) or welfare clinics (long waits for mediocre to poor care--and the welfare clinics are hard to find. They aren't listed in the phone book as "welfare clinic"). And it's not just doctors. It's the whole community around you that you don't even think about having (banks? libraries? internet access? movie theaters?)--but nomadic folk like musicians lack.

--You get sick. Oh boy did we get sick this summer. When we're at home, we rarely get sick. Maybe a cold every once in a while (rarely even serious ones), or a stomach virus. This summer the kids got chicken pox, pinkeye, head-to-toe eczema (due to Utah's water we found out today), viral meningitis, colds, stomach viruses, allergies to antibiotics, and I don't remember what else. Fortunately, we HAVE a pediatrician in Utah who was willing to see us still, and give us a "self-pay" break. Still--no mother wants all those serious childhood illnesses to go through all three kids in their entire childhoods. We had them all in 8 weeks.

--Constant displacement makes growth and development hard for kids. Kids don't really learn and grow if they have to think about where they are constantly. So, while we learned geography and about things you see at fairs, and other useful knowledge, the real Growth was stunted.

--There's nothing to do. Really. It seems like there should be. But we ended up watching TV and going to fairs. Boring. And it got to be a little much when my four-year-old knew the first names of all the hosts of all the daytime shows on the Discovery Channel. And I was bored--I can't write when we travel.

This is actually heavily influenced by the next one...

--Even "Family friendly" places (hotels, fairs, restaurants) are unprepared for THREE kids age 4, 3, and 9 months. So we lived in constant fear that we were bugging people. And certainly healthy kid stuff (jumping, running, laughing, singing) are NOT allowed--leaving me either policing or entertaining (and not writing...) and the kids with nothing to do.

--For all of our effort, we didn't get Tim anyway. We were there, but fairs work you 3 shows a day every day, which amounts to about 10 hours a day of not being able to leave fair grounds. And when Tim DID get to come "home", he was either too exhausted or too busy catching up on the work that runs the business to really "Be" with us.

--For all that work and sacrifice, we still were living at a wage 80% below poverty level and qualified for Colorado Medicaid without any trouble--Even making $500 more per month for those months than we did usually. And the extra expenses of travelling (everything costs more, even the performer's time) cut back the earnings significantly.

--I hate living with the band. I hate walking out of my hotel room at 3:00 am to get ice and finding one of OUR band members sitting in the hall in his garments. I don't need to see that. I hate living with their schedules (why do they always check out of a hotel late but get to the next place before us?!). I hate having to be nice to them if I've had a bad day or if I have PMS, and feeling guilty if I only cook enough for my family or don't want them to come over during the one hour we get Tim. And they, I'm sure, think I am equally hard to live with.

--You can't be fully active in the church (or community). You can't have a calling. You can't have (or be) visiting or home teachers. You can't serve the poor. You can't help people move. And when you come back, you are no longer an integral part of the ward. They've moved on without you, and you are an outsider once again. What's more, they never know when you will be around and when you won't, so they assume you're always gone, and everyone forgets to tell you about Ward Parties and stuff.

I guess what it boils down to is there is a rhythm to life that you are unaware of until you have to leave it. And then when you get home to, as Desi Brown puts it, "Your cold and dusty house," it isn't home anymore. You can't find anything, you have no food (you can't leave a house with food in it unless you WANT mice), and it's all very foreign. It's that rhythm that we missed.

Now I completely understand why Roma culture developed the way it did. In order to be happy as a nomadic people, you would have to ALWAYS live out of your gypsy wagon (own a motorhome today, which is way more expensive than driving a car and staying in hotels every night), and you would have to travel in a large group of some kind. This would create a solidarity--and a unique culture--that made it so that the rhythm of life came with you and it didn't matter where you landed. I can see why the gypsies turned to each other--we, as musicians, were no more trusted than gypsies. And I understand. Most musicians leave a town with a few richer drug dealers, a few more destroyed hotel rooms, and a couple of pregnant teenage girls. (In fact, I even had to tell several local girls to obey their parents and not associate with "our guys" any more because, "on Sunday we're going to pack up and drive away, and you'll never see him again." And we're nice!)

So the gypsies, in order to survive their careers, took the community with them and developed ways of eating, dealing with sickness, sleeping, etc. that worked for them and that were consistent. They had their own language, their own 'Ways'--and that made the culture work.

And that's what I think happens when a people is forced to be nomadic. To survive, they develop their own culture and associations.

Maybe that's why the early Mormons had to endure so much rejection and forced wandering. It took a group of fully culturally integrated people and isolated them, creating in one generation a unique culture that otherwise might have taken decades to form, if it ever did. But for the Lord to get what he wanted out of the people, they had to leave the "old ways" COMPLETELY behind--and being forced to be nomadic DOES that. So they very quickly developed their own ways of talking, eating, teaching, governing, etc. Then, when the immigrant saints started pouring into Salt Lake City at the last part of the 19th century, there was an established, unique culture for them to be integrated into, instead of a mishmash of everyone's old traditions getting mixed up into something new and man-made. He did it to the Jews, too--back in Moses's time.

Just something to think about.

Mormons weren't made to be gypsies. And they still aren't.

Draft of the "hook" for my next novel

I've been reading agent Jenny Rappaport's blog regularly for a couple of months now. Today she posted (http://litsoup.blogspot.com//) and found her request for literature that has normal-sized women as heroines. She, like me, went from size 4 (okay, I was a size 5) in high school to plump as a real woman. I almost emailed her the hook for my next novel, but it doesn't mention that the heroine is a regular-sized mommy now (had 3 kids, didn't stay skinny, just like me), so I didn't. The book isn't finished anyway, and the cardinal rule for contacting an agent is "Don't bother unless the material is ready". Then I checked my email and found she had requested a partial on the manuscript of my last novel! Oh joy and elation! Someone is interested again!

So I thought I'd post the hook here, since it's written, and see if having it out there helps me get the manuscript written. I think about it all the time; I just can't seem to write the darn thing.

What do you think? Does it make you want to read the book?


Maggie and the Mad Scientist

Five years ago, Maggie March had her first kill. Five years ago, Maggie was one of the up-and-coming super spies for the US. Five years ago, she was one of only two agents to face the Tenth Intelligence, a super-secret organization bent on destroying the US, and escape with her life—and the only one to escape with information. Five years ago, Maggie March was an international hero.

And five years ago, Maggie March walked away from it all to have a family.

Five years later, Maggie, now a fairly typical Mormon housewife, is visiting Las Vegas with her husband, a singing magician, and their three children. While they are in the new Mad Scientist Museum and Casino, the place is taken over by Charles DeLancy Curie II, the son of a mad scientist who wants his father’s bones taken off display and returned to his family. Suddenly finding her family stuck in a sealed building, Maggie discovers that the hired thugs Curie thinks he’s controlling are actually members of the Tenth Intelligence, and she’s the CIA’s only person inside the building.

Desperate to get her family out, Maggie agrees to come out of retirement to help the CIA stop Curie and find out why the Tenth Intelligence is in Vegas and what they plan to do.

The Great Mormon Novel

Musing over many things lately.

On the writing side of things, I was getting very discouraged because I keep getting rejections, and I haven't looked at my novel for a while so I'm not sure it's any good anyway, and I just couldn't get excited and into writing the next novel. So I stopped to re-evaluate, and realized that I need to just go back to writing what I feel like writing, telling my stories for me with no other audience in mind, and stop worrying about selling them. That's what the editing phase is for. Then I realized that I've been only querying agents who specialize in fantasy, but that is probably the wrong approach because, while the "Poison Spindle Problem" could be classified as fantasy, the next two novels I am working on are definitively NOT fantasy. One is a Western, and the other is a Thriller (complete with terrorists and plots to destroy Las Vegas). So getting a Sci-fi/Fantasy agent for my career would be a mistake--most of what I'm going to write is not sci-fi or fantasy. So I got on the agents search website and looked up agents that do both fantasy and thrillers. Only 12 came up. Six of them already sent rejection letters. One of the other twelve actually requested my stuff and we lost the packet before mailing it--and then the whole job thing and the whole Christmas thing and the whole get home thing came up, and I haven't thought about it since then. I couldn't find any info online that made me excited about her, anyway.

So today I decided to rethink, and I looked her up online again and realized that last time I misspelled her last name. So the only info I got about her came from people who also misspelled her last name. This time, spelling her name right, I found out that she is the managing agent of an agency that was established in 1928 and is the agency for such well-known people as Mary Higgins Clark and the estate of John Steinbeck. Had I found out this info before I sent the query, it never would have gone out because she's not listed on many sites as specializing in the areas I think I write. But she does specialize in "Women's Fiction," which could include what I write, I think. Doesn't matter--she wanted to see more. So tonight I wrote I nice letter apologizing for the delay and sent her what she asked for. Why WOULDN'T I want to work with one of the top agents at one of the top agencies?

She'll probably say no, too (as have three of the top agencies after looking at my stuff), but it's flattering that she wanted to see more!

So, with that encouragement, I have been once again pondering that recurring question that comes up among intellectual Mormon writers: Is there, and will there ever be, "The Great Mormon Novel"? It is parallel to the "Great American Novel" debate that will never be settled. It always comes up among my writing friends, who are all sure that Mormons ought to be writing great literature but they aren't for some reason and why is that? Is it that "Everyone who is good never suffers" belief that seems to permeate the church? Or the "Righteousness is rewarded with financial gain" belief? Or that Mormon men and women are too busy to write? Or too out of touch with struggles? Or is it that the way we solve problems is something we don't want to splash around in a "literary" novel? Are we afraid people won't understand so we just don't talk? Are Mormons afraid of real honesty with themselves? And why is it that everyone who seems to be writing Mormon Literary Fiction is apostate? And why do non-apostates either write "inspirational" literature, or gospel commentary, or "relationship" books?

And then, after all those questions, finally the most pertinent questions to the debate surface: What exactly is a "great" novel, and what exactly is a "mormon" novel? Those two things must be defined in order determine which book most closely fits the classification. And those things are much harder to define than they seem.

Tim says the "Great Mormon Novel" has been written. By Orson Scott Card. And it's called "Lost Boys." He says it is a fabulous picture of what it means to be Mormon, and how our culture works, both in pleasant times and under stress, and all the foibles and strenghts of the culture. And, using the Great American Novel debate as a paradigm, he says that fits most closely with what people are looking for.

But Mormons reject it because it deals with touchy issues that Mormons like to pretend don't exist (priesthood holders who are pedophiles?). And because Card SWEARS in his book.

So can the "Great Mormon Novel" be one that is rejected by Mormons for not following the standards they have set? (I personally like Card's work. He is a fabulous writer).

I always come from the debates saying, "Fine. I'll write the Great Mormon Novel." And then I think about it more clearly and say, "Oh, yeah. The Great anything Novel has to be literary fiction, and I don't read or write that kind of crap." And why is it that so many of the members I know who like "Literary Fiction" don't actually believe in the church? Is the key to the whole issue?

But it always leads to a second debate for me, which I DON'T bring up with my Intellectual friends. That is: Where is all the Escapist fiction written by Mormons to Mormon standards? Mormons balk at reading works by Mormons that has swearing or graphic sex in it (nobody seems to mention violence, but that bothers me a lot), but they want to read escapist fiction, so they read the same stuff (swearing, violence, sex) written by non-members. So if people are going to read for fun anyway, why aren't we producing stuff that's fun to read and Clean--to our standards?

You are countering, Yes, but there's Heimerdinger. And The Work and The Glory. And Charly. Yes. But three is not enough. And not everyone likes historical fiction and romance.

And why not write stuff that is "Mormon", and Mormon appropriate, but also accessible to a general audience? There are a few who are doing this--and this is what I think Mormon writers should be doing. Anne Perry does it. Card does (although there is that swearing issue). And there are a couple of others (Mom reads a series where the protagonist is a detective who also is a member, I assume written by a member).

And this seems to be the real issue. Far more important than the "Great Mormon Novel" issue. Why are we not flooding the world with good, edifying literature (and art, and film), that tells great, fun stories that are exciting, entertaining, and righteous? I personally know several authors (Jon included) who have the talent and the ideas. And Satan is doing his part to flood the earth with trash. So why not counter, and fill the earth with great fun stuff? They can even be Mormon stories, but isn't it time to stop excluding the rest of the world from our art and make great stuff that everyone can enjoy? Surely we can do that without denying who and what we are, and without making a spectacle of sacred things....

Now that is a challenge I think I can take up.

Do you believe in magic?

Last summer we ended up touring with a magician named Tim Gabrielson. His wife was another Rebecca, and his "thing" is comedy magic, so we all hit it off really fast. Fabulous guy. We caught his very funny show at least twice, and Caleb was hooked. Now he wants to be a magician when he grows up (all the kids get a kick out of the similarity between the words "magician" and "musician"). He told Tim G. that and Mr. Gabrielson gave Caleb a kit to teach him how to palm a squishy ball--with the instructions and materials.

Jon was really into magic when he was young, too, and I played "assistant" a lot. It was really fun for both of us. I only learned how to do one trick on my own, though--palming a small object. So I tried to show Caleb how the trick worked. Only I couldn't get the squishy ball palmed right, so I used a coin, like Jon showed me. Caleb was impressed. I had to repeat the trick a lot, "blowing" the coin out of my hand and into the air, and then pulling it out of their ears or heads or pockets. Then I told him maybe Uncle Jon would teach him how.

So when we went to Utah in December, Caleb asked Jon. And Jon showed him exactly how the trick worked--and all four children there still believed that Jon was magically making the coin disappear and reappear in their ears or whatever.

So just a couple of days ago, I showed Caleb again how the trick is done, and explained it, and didn't try to hide it at all, and he STILL believed that if I would just blow on it, then the toy would really disappear. Magically.

No matter how much we explained, showed, illustrated, and revealed the trick and technique, Caleb refused to believe in any but the most magical reasoning. We've never really done the Santa thing (never really NOT done it either--we just have avoided the whole issue), and Caleb believes in Santa, too. It's amazing. Something in him really WANTS magic to be real, so much so that no other reasoning will suffice. I understand the feeling. That's a major reason why I write. When I write, I get to live in world where not only does magic exist, I get to set the terms for it and then play with them. I get to continue to "Play", the same way Jon and I did when we were kids--doing magic, chasing bad guys, and making up stories that we could live to our heart's content.

I suppose I could go into all kinds of analysis about belief versus science versus reality, and people (in all camps) just seeing what they want to believe.

But I won't. I don't have the energy.

Daniel seems to have caught the bug, too, though. Today he put a toy barn on my lap and hid a train in it. Then he signed to me, "Where is it?" I said, "Where is it?" back to him, and he immediately blew on the place he hid it and then, with a flourish and mock surprise on his face, he produced the little toy train. I guess Daniel understood the reality of it better than his siblings.....

Kids are Still Funny

Tim is applying for a job as an administrative assistant for a booking agency. One application down.

The kids have been funny lately. Last night Anda walked by with a big lump in her jammies. Using my mother's intuition, I asked, "Is Baby Kitty in your jammies?" Anda said, "Yes. I'm a car tonight, and cars have passengers." A few minutes later, Caleb walked by with several lumps in his jammies. I didn't ask. He was probably being a van.

mishmash of musings

I read Jon's blog (http://www.sixteensmallstones.org/) and it made me cry--lots of travails just trying to get home, and nothing working the way they intended it to, despite their best efforts to prevent problems, be aware of issues, and plan ahead. It just seemed like their entire trip was representative of life in general. Aren't we all on this journey, here for the people instead of for the destinations or the adventures, and it NEVER goes the way we plan? But if we get home with our families intact, it's all okay.

I've been watching Dan lately and realized once again that some talents "show" well, and some show up early (like Caleb's verbal skills) and make your kid look like a genius (and therefore you a good mother), and some don't. And the ones that don't are often the most important ones. For example, Daniel seems to have a gift for tuning in to what people need and providing it the best he can. Just yesterday, Tim lay down on the couch for a nap after church (and after an unusually bad night--he got 4 hours of sleep and I got about 3). When Tim had fallen asleep, little Daniel toddled over with his arms full of the biggest, softest blanket he could carry. He tucked it all over Tim's head and shoulders (that's the part that's "Daddy", right?), and then gave Tim a kiss and walked away. Anda fixed the blanket so Tim could breathe, and Dan, noticing his work had been adjusted, went back and tucked the blanket all around close to Tim and kissed him again. Then, for the next 2 hours until he himself fell asleep, he wandered back over to Tim every ten or fifteen minutes and checked on him, kissed him, and then went back to his games.

That's a lot of nurturing coming from a 15 month old, who usually think first of themselves and then of how you can help them. It's a gift--that will never show well but will bless countless lives.

On the news front, we've finally honed in more closely on what kind of career Tim wants. I think Tim wants to be what is alternately labeled an "Artistic Director" or "Music Director." If you're dealing with film, TV, or video, the same job is "Music Supervisor", and if you're into software design, the job is called "Sound Designer," but it's all about the same job. Technically, an "Artistic Director" is the person who decides what shows to do and who will direct them for arts that are presented in theaters, like opera, drama, and dance; a "Music Director" is the conductor of the orchestra or the person who is responsible for rehearsing the music of a play. In general use, however, all the terms become interchangeable. Essentially, the "Artistic/Music Director" determines everything art-related about a performance, including what the group will wear, what they will look like, what kind of movement there will be (choreography? by whom?), and what music will be performed and how it will be performed. The Artistic Director is then responsible for rehearsing the group and conducting during performances. They also "produce" all recordings the groups makes, sitting in the studio and supervising, giving the performers and audio engineers instructions as they go. The Artistic Director is the one with the "vision" of what the group really is, and the one responsible for making it happen.

Really, it's the same job that used to be called "Conductor," but conductors wanted people to know they do so much more than just wave their arms during a concert, so the term/terms were invented in the 1950s to express what the job is really about. We've been accused of making this all up before, but it's a legitimate job in the classical music world. And Tim wants it. And he specifically wants to work with all aspects of vocal music (choirs, a cappella groups, etc).

People actually hire other people to do this. It's not a "Far Out There" kind of job, like saying, "I want to be the next Mel Gibson." But it is a highly competetive job, and to get the really good positions, you have to have a DMA (musical equivalent of a PhD). Full-time jobs take a MM (Masters of Music), which is what Tim is working on. The rest of the people have to have experience (he does) and luck to get a part-time position, or a couple of part-time positions. This is what we're praying for, searching for, waiting for. There's actually a position open not far from here, but it's for an orchestra instead of a choral group, and Tim doesn't have the qualifications to conduct a youth symphony orchestra, I don't think.

Amazingly, you have to have a huge amount of musical talent in multiple areas to do this kind of job. The kind of broad array of experience nobody in their right mind collects. The kind of broad experience and talent Tim has. So he's on the right track. We're just waiting for the jobs to show up and pondering what we need to do to MAKE the jobs.

Tim's ultimate goal is to work in a University as a professor, do Artist/Music consulting on the side, keep performing (how could he not?!), and to take choral music to "disadvantaged populations"--prisoners, families in shelters (women's shelters or homeless shelters), children who are too poor for traditional "Arts" education, disabled people, etc. There are hundreds of programs that take choirs to these populations, but almost none that allow the disadvanted to make the art themselves--and that's what Tim wants to do. Not just take a choir of college kids into the prison to sing at Christmas. He wants the choir to be made up of prisoners.

But for now? We'll take whatever we can get, I think. Let us know if you hear of anything.....

Long time no see

I've mentally written three or four blog posts but couldn't log in to blogger for a week. So you'll have to miss them.

So this is mostly news.

I revised my novel again. This time it's really done. ;) I actually took out two characters, Sirena and Fina--I'll use them in a sequel some day because I still like them and the interplay between two bad guys who think they're good but in opposition to one another. I also like the idea of someone who thinks they are in charge but are really being manipulated extensively by the "conquered" one. Anyway, they didn't really add to this novel--I cut 5000 words and only had to write two sentences to replace it and sew up the seams. That says, "Not vital info here." So now we're getting close to the "acceptable" range for a novel--157,000 words (I've now cut 57,000 words from the book!). I also rewrote my query after reading anaylses by two agents of hundreds of queries, and then I sent it out to a pretty big agency--and got a rejection from a rather small one.

Anyway, that done, the "stupor of thought" that was stopping me from writing my next book completely dissolved, and I got going with the goal to finish before the baby comes (very possible if I write 1000 words a day--and with the last book I wrote 4000 a day). It all went well for a minute, and then I froze up again. Realized later that night that I had made a mistake in the narrative, and I suspect if I fix it, the rest will flow.

It has been amazing to me that if I make a mistake or leave out some important detail, or write something that doesn't work, I can't write any more. And then if I go back and fix the problem, the words flow again. It's bizarre. Many times I've frozen up and couldn't think of a single thing to write and had to pray about what I'd done wrong in order to figure it out--sometimes the missing piece or the wrong part is not clearly wrong until many many pages later. But I've learned to just go with it. If I force myself to write through the block (common advice for writers), I just end up having to delete the junk later.

I have finally learned what Mom told me years ago--just go with what you feel like doing. If I don't feel like writing, I don't. I sort toys. Or read. Or play with the kids. Or stare at the wall. Or make something tasty. Or whatever. Doesn't do any good to force yourself to work--on the house or the book. It just makes for physical pain and stuff you have to redo later.

Writing has been a lesson in revelation for me. It works the same way, with the genuine joy and excitement when I'm doing it right, and the stupor of thought so that I can't even remember what I was going to say when I've done it wrong. And the slow, day-by-day coaching that is challenging but never too much to handle. And when I do what I feel, and pray daily for the next instructions, I feel happy in so many other areas of my life.

The question as I cut the most recent 5000 words was "Why didn't I just do it right in the first place?" And the answer was, obviously, that I've learned more about writing from having to cut a fourth of the book out than I ever would have learned from doing it right the first time. Besides, the learning happens on the journey, not at the destination.

And it's all about learning, isn't it?

Christmas is Not Yet Over here

There was supposed to be another blizzard starting right now, but it turned into a rainstorm. It will probably develop into nasty snow overnight. I'm just glad the garbage man made it....

And the mailman. "Santa Clause" hasn't stopped giving yet. I don't know if it's the same anonymous person who provided such a delightful Christmas for my family or another generous soul, but we got a gift card in the mail, for WalMart (just what I needed, actually), for $200! I can hardly believe it. And, to add to the mystery, the package came via regular postal mail, but without a postmark. I have no idea where it came from. I was expecting a gift card from Grandma Jones, but she told us she was sending it--no reason for her to sign it "Santa" and be anonymous....and I doubt she has that much to give since she provides gifts for 6 children, 6 spouses, and 15+ grandchildren.

This on top of the $100 to King Soopers and $50 to JC Penny the ward gave us. And on top of the bishop racing down to Denver to get 2 weeks of food for us before this new storm hit. So now we have fancier food than we usually get, money for things we need, and hope for a job soon.

So who is the mystery person/persons? I have no idea. I keep trying to guess, but I'm a miserable failure at that. All I can do is promise to do the same for someone else some year when I am able. And I have this inkling of an idea that maybe when I know a family that is unemployed, I should be doing like things for them when it's not Christmas. Maybe someday when we're comfortable and can sacrifice $200, I should get the gift card from Wal-mart in July and give it to the bishop to deliver to a family that he knows needs it...

I hope that when I do have enough to share, I WILL share. Being poor can make people miserly, and I hope that doesn't happen. I hope it makes me frugal so I can be generous with my excess some day.

So if any of you happen to know who has helped us so much, tell them Thanks. Big Time.

Christmas For Mommy

Thanks to a couple of sets of Grandparents and a wonderful anonymous, we had a nice Christmas. The kids all got new clothes and jammies that I looked at and said, "Too Big," but that actually fit. Anda put on all of her new clothes at once and wore them as she opened the rest of her presents. Daniel didn't really "get" it except that each package that did get opened was suddenly his favorite--especially the doll that "anonymous" gave to Anda with three little bottles. Dan really wanted one, too. And then a package from Anda's cousin had Another doll--and she very generously gave it and its bottle to Dan. Once Caleb found that he DID get a train for Christmas (from Anda), he could appreciate his other presents, too. So all the kids were happy.

They spent all day sharing their toys, taking turns playing with everyone's everythings happily. We all played six games of Candyland together--that, too, was a success from anonymous. Daniel discovered that painting is great fun. Everyone colored in coloring books, did crafts, ate candy, "went shopping", and generally had fun.

Tim had already informed me that they didn't buy me anything, and I knew it was okay. I only got him lunch meats and swiss cheese--that's all. But then Christmas Eve, as I put presents under the tree, I didn't find a single one for me from anyone. I learned a few years ago that I really DO want something for Christmas--just one package that I don't know what's inside that I didn't buy for myself. So I went to bed sincerely praying that I wouldn't care in the morning, and that I would have a genuinely happy day. Then I had a terrible night--Dan was up every hour or so.

Then I woke up enough before the kids that I got a shower before they got up--how often does a mom get a peaceful shower alone? And it turned out there were two presents under the tree from Anonymous for me--nice things, too. And some for Tim, too.

And then I realized that I got everything a mom REALLY wants for Christmas. Tim and the kids cleaned the house for me. It hadn't even been picked up since my birthday, so it was a disaster, and they got it clean. Even mopped the floors! Then everyone was happy with their presents and felt like they got what they wanted. Tim moved all the big furniture I wanted moved--even the piano. And Tim made breakfast for everyone.

And then I had the one-in-a-million absolutely peaceful day. Nobody fought all day. Nobody got hurt. Nobody cried. Nobody was sick. Nobody was mean. Nobody broke or spilled anything. Nobody demanded my time. Nobody made me get up and do anything. Nobody screamed in the other rooms, or played loud music, or made me watch their TV programs with them. Nobody even made me read to them, which I don't mind. Everyone helped pick up the wrapping paper messes without being asked twice. Everyone was patient as we struggled to open and put together myriad new toys. Everyone SHARED everything--even the crafts they got to do, and the paints, and everything.

Then Tim prayed a good night's sleep for me--and it worked. For the first time in over a year, nobody woke me up all night and nobody slept in my bed. Even Daniel slept all night in his own bed in the other room without waking up once. I actually got to wake up by myself in the morning an hour before anyone else and laze around like I used to before I had kids.

What else could a mom want for Christmas? And it's all stuff that you can't ask for and get. Nobody plans those things. Nobody can just try really hard and make them happen. And nobody can predict them.

So it was a really nice Christmas.

Those Darn Jones Kids

Right now the kids are looking up Israel on the globe, and Bethlehem on the map in the Bible. Anda told Caleb the Christmas story, and they stopped just as baby Jesus started looking for a pet store because they determined there were probably no pet stores in Bethlehem. And where is Bethlehem, anyway? Thus the globe.

They've been cute all day.

Dinner conversation, for example. (This is not exact. I can't remember the exact words they said. This is the gist of it. Remember, Caleb and Anda are only 5 and 3):
C: This is perplexing.
A: No. I'm perplexing you.
C: You can't perplex me.
A: You can't perplex me either. Only I can perplex me.
C: You can't perplex yourself. It's not possible.
A: I can't perplex myself? Outside can be perplexing.
C: I can't perplex myself. But I can perplex the Perplexing Pool [a level in a nintendo game].

Other cute stuff:
Daniel is sitting on the floor singing along to the timer beeping as he pushes the buttons. Earlier, he was dancing to the beeping of the timer.

And, on a very sweet and touching note, Caleb wrote Anda a Christmas card on a scrap of newspaper they were using to wrap presents. He taped it to the present she picked out for him to give her at the Dollar Store yesterday. The note said, "Merry Christmas, Anda. I love you as much as God loves me."

Now that's the way it should be.

Food Storage and Emergency Preparedness

Merry Christmas, everyone.

We had a nice church time (Tim sang "O Holy Night" and it was beautiful. Made me cry. We got so many comments afterward that it made us uncomfortable in the same way you feel awkward when someone says, "Congrats" when you get made Primary President.). Then we came home and slept some.

We're still digging out from the blizzard, and most of the merchants in the area are saying they lost several key days of sales. Judging from the stream of cars outside, people are making it up today. Merry Christmas and Happy Sabbath Day to you all, right?

Anyway, we did our shopping last night, calculated for a time when the grocery store would be empty of the crowds. Everyone, suddenly freed from the freeze yesterday, hit the stores to replenish and Christmas shop. And Tim and I were no different. We'd stocked up before the storm because we thought Tim was leaving town, but we had to face two days (Sunday and then Christmas Day) with no restocking possible, so we had to go out and get milk and bread, mostly, and a few other thisses and thats.

Amazingly, there was almost no bread in the store. Only specialty loaves that cost $4.00/loaf, and not even much of that. And who wants peanutbutter on marbled rye? Not my kids. And we can't spend $4.00/loaf anway. The store was mostly or completely out of a few other things (eggnog, chips, sugar, flour, shredded cheese, etc.). This was something that made perfect sense, considering that no ground or air traffic moved for several days through the entire state, but it was a surprise nonetheless.

I stood there looking at the empty bread row and said to the kids, "That's okay. We'll just go home and make bread. It's cheaper anyway."

And then I started thinking about food storage and emergency preparedness. Granted, we don't have a year's supply of anything right now. But we do have a supply--more than a couple weeks usually (now is an unusual time for us, but I still have 20 lbs of flour left). And--the key thing that I realized they talk about but I never focus much on--I know how to make bread.

It seems like everyone in the US, unable to fathom any but the most unusual emergency that would require a year's worth of food on hand, justifies the requirement for a year's supply of food by saying, "You never know when your husband will lose his job." I've heard it a hundred times in Relief Society. Usually paired with, "Besides, obedience has its own reward." The problem with that justification for food storage is that it brings to mind a different sort of food storage requirement. When you are storing in case the world still functions but you don't, you store things like a year's supply of cheerios, and a year's supply of canned chili, and other things that you eat everyday--usually you can come up with a few dollars for what you lack, right? This is the kind of food storage we've usually had. And justifiably. Don't they say, "Store what you eat"? So I always have, say, 30-50 lbs (3 months supply) of frozen hamburger on hand.

But the church ALSO says to have the basics on hand, and to know how to use them.

Why? For our family, today, it is clearly because there are times when the world DOESN'T function, no matter how much we trust our governments to dig us out or fix what's broken. And it's not so distant as the once-in-a-hundred-years New Orleans Disaster or World Trade Center Disaster or ....okay, maybe even in America it hits frequently. And when the world doesn't function, we suddenly need that massive amount of flour and sugar. It really doesn't take much to disrupt the shipping lines--and without shipping, our cities shut down very fast. And then you not only need flour, and yeast, and sugar. You need to know how to make bread and tortillas and you need to have canned stuff (fruits, veggies, protien) around. Because sometimes the stores actually DON'T have it. And then what?

I have a friend who has a year's supply of money on hand. Been useful since her husband lost his job 6 months ago. Wouldn't have helped her get bread this weekend. Fortunately, she has the other food storagey stuff, too.

Luckily for us, we got to the store right after the first truck did--so they were completely overstocked on fresh fruits and veggies, which was a main thing we needed. And they were stocked with milk. But I definitely came away saying, "Wow. I suddenly wish I had just one or two sealed cans of powdered milk on hand." Sure, it doesn't taste good. We'd almost never use it. But, you don't have this stuff for everyday (okay, you have to rotate it). But I understand now why we're instructed to have enough of the basics on hand to keep you alive FIRST, and then worry about the cheerios. Even in America. Lucky for us, this emergency didn't last a year. And it didn't include loss of heat or power (then we would have been in trouble). But having some on hand left us with enough to share, had we needed to.

And we are thinking now about what to do if we did have a loss of heat and power. Already I've said, "Maybe we should have the coleman stove in an accessible place. Maybe we should test it occassionally--have a yearly outdoor barbecue on it to keep it functional and make sure we both know how to use it. Maybe we should make sure we can a can of fuel for it also accessible. Maybe we should think about how would we keep warm in an emergency since we got rid of our (nonfunctional) standalone fireplace."

Oh, and we HAVE been using our food storage to supplement Tim's job when he was teaching choir and also his joblessness now. It's good for that, too. And we do have a lot of the recommended emergency supplies on hand--candles, matches, first aid stuff (and the knowledge and resources necessary to use it), medicines, bleach, diapers in all sizes, warm clothes, consecrated oil, ward list, etc. We have also (wisely, I see now) kept a year's supply of "something to do" for each of us in the house--things to do with and without electricity. That's been nice, since everyone still needed to stay busy, and we couldn't rely on the library to entertain us like we usually do.

And now I'm thinking, "How easy would it be for something to not only foul but also completely disrupt the water supply? Phones? Heat and power?"

Probably not so hard.

Once again, the Lord is right, and I am grateful for the limited amount I obeyed, and anxious to become completely obedient in this thing.

Now if he will just bless us with a job so we can.....

Blizzard--for real

It's never been so quiet outside our house during the day.

I woke up at about 8:00 am because there were sirens outside that stopped somewhere near the house. When I got up to look and make sure my neighbors were okay, it was just barely snowy. But it was windy. An hour later, Tim got up to drive to the airport to fly to Las Vegas for BYU's bowl game--moosebutter was performing at the tailgate party. He made it six miles to the freeway and about four miles down the freeway before he heard the radio announcer say that flights were being cancelled--so call the airport before you go out there. He pulled off and called--his flight was cancelled. So were all the rest. So he came home--back that same ten miles. Driving the ten miles each way got him home TWO HOURS after he left. To drive 20 miles. WHY?

Because the entire central part of the entire state has been hit with a massive blizzard. A real blizzard--the first I've ever been in. Tim couldn't get another later flight, and then at 2:45 pm they closed the airport entirely--until Thursday night at the earliest. All the freeways are closed, too, from Wyoming to New Mexico, Denver to Kansas and Denver to Nebraska. So we're snowed in.

It's actually been really fun. We ate turkey-broccoli-corn with rivels soup, and the kids and Daddy played outside until they were freezing. We turned on Christmas music, and we're going to make cookies, and Tim is finally getting to watch "Nacho Libre". We did all our shopping last night in anticipation of Tim being gone, so we have everything we need. We kept water warm on the back burner of the stove all day for hot cocoa. It's like a holiday for us--and so nice to have a holiday with all of us here and feeling festive (I don't often feel festive, after all. Holidays usually make me just tired).

There is so much snow we can't really believe it. There was so much in the back yard that the kids sledded down the balcony steps to the yard below--without any bumps like you'd expect from sledding down stairs. The UNDRIFTED snow was up to Tim's knees at six when he went out to shovel the walk--and it's snowing harder now than it was all day. The drifts are so high that we left the garbage can out by the street and Tim stuck a shovel into the drift on the other side of the driveway so we can find the way in and out. Our privacy fence has about 18 inches showing at the top, with a foot of snow balanced on the top of the slats. The two dead cars (which we actually sold last night for $60 for both--but the guy couldn't get a tow truck up here to take them away yet) are totally covered with snow. You can see by the lumps where they are, but not an inch of car is showing--not even on Hector, that tall old Toyota van. Tim had to dig paths out of the house using a large toy bin to scoop the snow away--and now the part he shoveled by the back door is snowed in again. When we open the door, we're met with a foot deep undrifted layer of white stuff.

Now it's just after 9:00 pm, and the places that Tim shoveled earlier have well over a foot of snow on them. Tomorrow he's going to have to climb up on the roofs and shovel them, too. That's the routine when you have a flat roof, I understand. Fortunately, the snow is all powder (I'm sure the people snowed in at the ski resorts think they've died and gone to heaven). It's not as heavy as it could be. But three or four feet of powder is still heavy. We're praying the power doesn't go out and the furnace exaust vents on the roof don't get plugged. Maybe we'll have to shovel the roof tonight....

And the storm just keeps getting worse.

How's this for how bad it is: They even closed the malls at 5:00 pm--five hours early, and just a few days before Christmas.

For us, though, all snug and together in our home, it's been really fun. Just what Caleb told the bishop he wanted for Christmas.

Christmas decorating

We adopted some other country's tradition of hiding a glass pickle on the tree (whoever finds it gets good luck for the coming year). Anda liked that idea. So she hid a pink stuffed bunny on the tree--the "Christmas Rabbit." That lasted a few days. Today, I looked on the tree and found she had replaced the bunny with a small pot. From the kitchen. WIth a stuffed gingerbread man in it. I didn't even ask what she's thinking. I suspect we are the only family that has decorated their Christmas tree with such utilitarian kitchen items.

Mom and Dad lent us their wheat grinder for a while, and yesterday we discovered that Daniel had found the hole in the top (where you put the wheat) and stuck a lollipop in it. We had to get tweezers to extract it. We did make "homemade flour" though, and the kids really thought it was cool. They ate it plain. Uncooked. By the pinch.

I keep having nightmares that we are on the road full time traveling in one big van with the rest of moosebutter, wandering from the back stage of this theater to the back doors of that university like gypsies. When I wake up, I'm glad to be home, even if two kids managed to pee on my bed last night.

The kids are really funny lately. There are wrapped presents scattered all over the house, unhidden, and nobody has even mentioned them. They don't touch them. They don't shake them. They don't open the creases and peek. They don't even ask about them. Wow.

They did ask about getting the stockings out tonight. I didn't feel like going out in the garage, so Caleb went down to the drawer I keep full of stray socks that I let the kids use for art and craft projects (socks make GREAT teddy bear shirts). He came back up with five long white socks, none of them the same, and pulled out the stamp kit Julie bought him at the dollar store. Then all three kids sat happily at the table stamping red and green designs on each of the socks. Caleb found a permanent marker and wrote one person's name on each sock, and then Anda found push pins and we hung up the stockings. I suppose Mary will forgive us for not using the ones she made for us that we usually use. This year we have REAL socks for our stockings. The kids were so delighted with how they turned out that they dug up the fanciest socks they could find in the drawer and made more stockings -- and labeled them "Julie", "Mary", and "Ben." One for each of the single people, plus Julie for some reason.

They also informed me that if the baby is a girl, we could name it Julie, Mary, Beth, Chas, Lindsey OR Madeline, and if it's a boy, we could name it Ben, or Joe, or Jon, or Ryan or Jared or Daddeline. Then they went down and got stockings for Everyone in the extended family that they forgot. I guess you all have to come here for Christmas.....or maybe we'll mail your stockings to you.

So now it's 2:30 am and Anda and Baby Kitty are racing around the house killing invisible Pikmin monsters while Caleb decorates the additional stockings and Daniel salts the chairs (I don't know HOW he got the salt--I hope he didn't pour it into the wheat grinder). They started killing monsters after the batteries in all three smoke alarms went bad in one day--so occassionally we hear chirping in the house, always coming from a different room, like a wandering monster.

It's nice to be home.

Decorating for Christmas

We finally made the trek out to the garage and dug up the old Christmas tree, which is looking pretty ragged to me. Caleb declared it "Beautiful."

We put 3/4 of it up on a low table against a wall--that way it stays flush against the wall and takes less space. Nobody was going to look at the back anyway. Caleb said, "It's an evergreen." Anda added, "It's a dark green."

We pulled out our lights and found a box that we'd never opened. It had this warning on it: "Handling the wires on this string of lights exposes you to lead, a substance known to the state of California to cause birth defects. Wash hands after exposure." Who knew Christmas lights were deadly?

And then we decorated. I decided I'm not a good decorater of trees. At least, it didn't come out exactly how I envisioned it. For one thing, the silver balls kind of disappear in a green tree with white lights. And then the problem came because Dan decided to have a nap in the middle of the festivities--so I couldn't teach the kids how to decorate in a hands-on kind of way. I guess that's okay. The tree is for the kids, anyway. So now we have invisible silver balls all over, and ratty gold and silver ribbons that the kids literally tossed up onto the tree (the fun way to decorate, they say). There's a band of equally -spaced marshmallow snowmen the kids made with Mary a couple of years ago in a nice even line as high as Anda can reach, and another as high as Caleb can reach (I told them not to put the snowmen where Dan can reach and eat them). I moved a few of the decorations that were touching each other up to the completely naked top of the tree (with the kid's permission) after Dan woke up.

Finally awake, Daniel took one look at the tree and began happily ripping almost-invisible-except-to-him silver balls off the branches and started banging them together and throwing them joyfully around the room. I was instantly glad that I had replaced all the glass balls with plastic last year when I found them for 10 cents a box at the dollar store after Christmas. So now we have a tree that is naked around the bottom (or, at best, sparsely and unevenly decorated), heavily snowmanned around the middle, and sort of evenly decorated around the top. And it's only been up for about 15 minutes.

Caleb declared it "done" and "beautiful."

I guess he's right.

gone and back again

I haven't posted anything in ages because, well, because we were with most of you in person. So there.

It was a nice trip.

The van's suspension wasn't shot, like Wal-Mart said. It was the tires. So Taysom Tires got $257 to fix it, instead of them getting $100. So blah to Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, right after we got home, the plastic/rubber wheel well guard behind one of the rear tires completely fell off and got shredded on the road. So much for that.

Now we're done touring. Tim said so. Next time we come to Utah will probably be for Ben's farewell party. Probably. That's probably good because our van wouldn't last too long on that heavy travel schedule--we put 16,000 miles on the van since we bought it in May. That's a lot. Especially for a car that started with 139,000 miles in the first place.

Job search continues. Tim is looking at applying for a job in New York City as the production manager for a choir there. Also picking up as much contract work as he can in the mean time. We just have to get these last few shows with moosebutter out of the way so he has time for things like eating, sleeping, breathing, and signing applications.

The kids are happy to be home, but having a hard time adjusting to having a big house. Especially Daniel. Any time anyone walks out of the room, he panics--he can't figure out where in the house to look for us. He also hates the mess--he can't walk over it. I am trying to work on that part, but my back is hurting so I can't bend or sit on anything hard. If I do, I can't stand up straight or walk--literally. I stand there and can't move my feet forward or lift them over the junk if I manage to shuffle sideways. So reaching the floor is even harder than it already was. Still, I did the same thing this time as I did last time we were away from home for a while. I came in and immediately could see some things I could do to make the house run smoother--things that involve major moving of furniture. Tim will be able to help me with this next week, but I am impatient. I want to move the guest bed upstairs to give it to Daniel, and move his dresser/shelves thingy downstairs to become the linen closet. Then I want to rearrange the bedrooms so every kid has their own bed that they'll actually sleep in. Then I want to move all the adult books (not that kind of adult books....) and Tim's choral music collection into the library, which will entail moving lots of the shelves from other places in the house into the library to hold those things, which are scattered around house and garage right now, mostly not on shelves and getting ruined. Then I want to get rid of the hide-a-bed (it's so old it's uncomfortable to sit on), except the mattress, of course, and replace it with a couple of rocking chairs in the family room, and maybe one in the library along with the desk that's there so people can use the room comfortably. Lots of work, but it should make the house easier to keep tidy. I might also take the couch out of Tim's office (it usually just holds junk) and put it in the living room, and put the living room couch in the family room (since it's the prettiest couch we own).

By the time I get all of this figured out completely, we'll probably be moving and I'll have to start over.

Anyway, cute kid things:
Daniel found a cassette tape today. He's fairly mechanically inclined usually (he figured out how to use the CD player all by himself yesterday--now he can insert his cd of choice and play it, even setting the volume where he wants it), but he couldn't figure out what the cassette was for, even after I showed him how to put it into the tape player. He finally took it out and turned it round and round and apparently concluded it was a harmonica of some kind--he tried to play it by blowing into it for several minutes.

Writing update:
I got another rejection yesterday, so I sent another query. At some point, I hope someone looks at my stuff and says, "I know JUST who wants this." Someone who read a big chunk rejected it for fear it couldn't stand up to Jasper Fforde's stuff. Unfortunately, only the first book in the series compares to his. The rest take the same concept but apply it to other source material--but an agent couldn't know this from reading 50 pages of Poison Spindle. Oh well. Now that we have food in the house and I've figured out where to put the Christmas tree, I'm ready to start writing again--on both the Western and the first Maggie Book, which is 10,000 words long so far--1/10th done.

So Merry Christmas!, and I'll write more later.

Oh, and thanks to everyone who gave us gifts, especially for the kids. Thanks for the shoes for Anda, too. She LOVES them and the socks. And thanks to the mystery person who gave us Christmas for the kids, whoever it was. A relative, we're sure, but WHO? Everyone denies any involvement.....