To all of you moms out there, happy Mother’s Day!  My mother is definitely one of the best mothers ever, and I dare anyone to try to top her efforts or results. ;-)  Really, try it, you’ll be happier for it.  My mom is a great teacher and nurturer without being smothering or pedantic.  It’s a tough line to walk, but she does it gracefully and I’m grateful for her example.  Thank you for all you do for me and my little family, Mom.

I’ve had an awesome, though atypical, Mother’s Day so far.  Usually Sunday mornings are full of me rushing around trying to get everyone else to rush around to get ready for church.  This morning was calm and relaxed with no rushing, yet we all got to church early–and completely dressed!  And I even had time/took the time to curl my hair, so I felt relatively pretty.

At church some kids and the EQ president helped me set up the Primary room, so I got to sit down in plenty of time for Sacrament Meeting with my family in the pew instead of in the hallway.  Although neither of my counselors were at church today, my secretary was at church after a few weeks of travel and was soooo wonderfully helpful.  Two kids actually begged me to let them give the talk and scripture (which coincidentally hadn’t been assigned in advance this week) and we’d asked a member of the bishopric weeks before to do Sharing Time, so all I had to do was conduct and patrol the halls.  My patrolling was fun because we had some exciting “emergencies” like a little boy with his foot harmlessly stuck under a chair that I got to un-stick.

Near the beginning of Primary, my husband came in to let me know that he was going with some of the rest of the EQ to go help a family in the stake whose house had been severely damaged in a tornado last night.  So, after Primary I headed home alone with the kids and called some of my sisters and my mother.  Then I got to go visit my Primary counselor who recently got home from the hospital and had a great time talking with her, despite the kids’ unsuccessful attempts to destroy her home.  Colin called me on the way home from that to say he’s on his way home.

It’s been a great day.  Not because of all the thoughtful gifts my husband and kids did or didn’t get me, and not because I’m a great mother, and not because everything fell into place the way I would have imagined it if I were designing the perfect Mother’s Day.  It’s been a great Mother’s Day because the Lord has blessed me with gratitude today.  I’m grateful for the silk flower corsages the young women and young men at church gave to all the women in the ward.  I’m grateful for the Mother’s Day handprints my kids made for me in Nursery today.  I’m grateful to have two good, healthy kids–a huge blessing that I’m more aware of since I’m often in the company of women who don’t have children at all.  I’m grateful that Colin did the dishes last night just to make me happy.  I’m grateful to have the kind of husband who will cheerfully leave a meeting to serve strangers far away doing the manual labor he normally dislikes so much.  I’m grateful to be healthy and strong and to be able to move around and do almost anything I want to do and to have had a full night of sleep last night in a safe place.  I’m thankful to have plenty of food in the house for our family.  I’m thankful to have a family that loves me and accepts me, flaws and all.  I’m thankful for my mother and her mother and my father’s mother.  And today is perfect.

This evening I took a walk in the rain.  It was just overcast and a bit of a sprinkle when I left the house, but I knew from the clouds continuing to roll in that it would soon get worse.  I know as well as everyone else that it’s not a good idea to be outside during a thunderstorm, but I wanted to anyway.  I was in a really bad mood at the time, and maybe it was a “misery loves company” self-sabotage thing, but I knew I’d have to work out before bed and it would only get rainier and darker outside if I waited longer and I knew that I’d better get out of the house alone for a while.

So, I threw on Colin’s SPAM T-shirt (one of my favorite ratty workout shirts), grabbed my phone in case Colin needed to call me about a tornado warning or something, and clipped the iPod to my corduroy pants and headed out the door.   Double-dutying the time and attempting to improve my mood, I flipped on the Book of Mormon on the iPod and listened as Mosiah started a democratic government among the Nephites and abolished kings, Alma went to war with the Amlicites, and Nehor died a not-so-ignominious death.

Instead of doing the smart thing and heading to the gym and a treadmill out of the rain, I took a walk around the apartment complex.  It was so nice to smell the rain-cleaned air as I breathed it in deeply and feel the cool breeze on my arms and face.  The temperature was cool, but not too cool, and I explored the lower half of the complex that’s a lot bigger than I thought before.  I mostly walked under cover of the balcony/sidewalks along the front of the apartment buildings, but once in a while I’d walk between buildings or under trees on the grass.  The rain wasn’t heavy and didn’t soak me through, so it was pleasantly cool and refreshing.  As the thunder clapped around me, I was reminded that the world is a beautiful place, that there are bigger (and more important) things than me, and that my problems aren’t the worst in the world.

Refreshing.   And no, I didn’t get hit by lightning. 

I’ve been exercising 30 minutes a day, every day except Sundays, for more than 40 days now!  This is a huge change for previously unathletic me, and I’ve learned a couple of things in the process.  I thought I’d record my thoughts on the subject while I’m in a good mood so that next time I feel grumpy about exercising I can read over it again.

1. Exercising is great stress relief, helps me relax, and puts me in a good mood.  Even when I hate it while I’m doing it, once I’m done I have more patience with my family and it’s easier to have a good attitude about my problems.  I’m generally happier than I was before I started exercising every day.

2. Variety is important for me.  I’ve been doing a yoga video at home in the evenings for the last couple of weeks because I could do it inside with the kids, and at night when it’s too dark to safely go outside (and I’m sure people are in the apartment complex gym…I’m shy that way).  The last two days I started getting REALLY annoyed with the woman on the video and started exercising half-heartedly.  Last night, in the middle of my video, I decided to try something else.  I got the iPod out and went for a walk around the apartment complex–it was only dusk (reluctant thanks to Daylight Savings), and being outside was really refreshing.  This morning I walked for a while outside, then went to the gym and ran for a while, then lifted some weights.  It’s much easier to keep exercising if I can quit Option A when I get sick of it and have Options B and C to switch to.

3. Exercising while listening to something helps me work out longer.  Listening to the scriptures helps me focus and be calm (plus I get some scripture study in), while listening to upbeat music motivates me to keep going and distracts me when I don’t want to keep going.

4. Working out in the morning is best, even though it’s possibly the hardest time of day to make myself do it.  When I do it in the morning, it’s not hanging over my head as a to-do all day.  I also have that feeling of confidence-boosting accomplishment to start the day with and motivate me to keep it up.  Plus, I’ve got the endorphins going while I do my foundational work of the day, instead of “wasting” them while I sleep at night.

5. I sleep better when I exercise.  I haven’t had a whole lot of trouble sleeping since high school (when I hardly slept at all), but early this year stress started bugging me to the point that I couldn’t shut it off when I got to bed and it would take me a long time to get to sleep.  Since I’ve been exercising, that problem has totally gone away and I usually go to sleep happy.

6. Exercising every day is possible with little kids and without money.  Sometimes the kids work out with me.  Sometimes I exercise in 5-min increments in order to get my 30 minutes in.  We had a couple of nights without electricity and I still exercised.  I haven’t spent a penny on working out since I started this goal.

7. I don’t have to exercise a huge amount or get super-sweaty to make a difference or to lose weight.  Even a happy little walk outside or the easiest level of that workout video is worthwhile.

8. Runners aren’t as crazy as I always thought.  Running is sometimes easier than walking fast…who knew?h

9. My body really does improve and get stronger as I consistently exercise.  Having never really exercised regularly, it was hard to believe that if I made the effort I would see a difference.  Everyone has heard that exercising a muscle will increase its strength, but now I’ve actually experienced it.

10. Exercising alone is one of the few things I’ve discovered that will convince my mind to turn off its “mom-radar.”  You moms know–it’s that part of your brain that is always paying attention to whether the kids are doing okay.  It’s on when I’m sleeping, it’s on while they’re sleeping, it’s even on when Colin is watching them while I go on errands by myself.  Until now, the only time I would find that it would turn off was when I’d pay a trusted babysitter to watch the kids and go on a date with my husband.  But when I’m exercising alone away from the house it turns off.  Exercising is at least as good for my sanity as our weekly date.

11. Having social support is important.  For those days when I’m discouraged and don’t want to keep it up, it’s a huge help to have Colin around to be accountable to.  I know he’ll ask me if I exercised before we go to bed, and I don’t want to say no.  And if I tell him I don’t want to exercise today, he’ll give me a long list of reasons not to give up.

12. Rewards make it easier, and they don’t have to be food-related or expensive to be motivational. Especially at the beginning, I found myself thinking of how I could keep walking for just a few more minutes or stay up the extra half hour at night to get my 30 minutes in, because if I did I’d get flowers at the end of the week.

13. Ironically, when I exercise I have MORE energy to do other things, not less.  Weird, but true.

14. Weight lifting is sometimes more fun than yoga, walking, running, or cycling.  You have more instant gratification–I have a feeling of accomplishment every time I finish a set of repetitions, and that only takes a minute or two in some cases.

I just put my sheets in the washing machine with some liquid bleach in the water.  Yikes!  The problem with bleach is that it does its job too well.  Every time I use bleach to clean my laundry (or for anything else), I later discover tiny (and sometimes not-so-tiny) white bleach spots on the clothes I was wearing when I measured and poured the bleach.  No matter how carefully I work, I always make a mess.  I can’t tell you how many shirts and pants I’ve had to get rid of because of bleach spots or little holes in my clothes where bleach ate through the fibers.  And I don’t buy clothes very often, so it’s a big deal to have to toss an article of clothing every couple of times I use bleach.  It’s gotten so I only use the stuff a couple of times a year because I’m afraid that no matter how careful I am, or whether or not I’m wearing any clothes at the time, I will make a mistake and end up spilling or splashing the stuff on something that will be ruined by it.

I had a friend once who used bleach pretty much every day.  She would clean her bathrooms and kitchen with it regularly and wash her white clothes in it.  She diluted it for some things, used it straight from the bottle for other tasks.  She said it made her feel certain that the house was disinfected and it would keep her family from getting sick.  I told her about my fear of ruining everything darker than white and asked how she managed to keep the bleach only where she meant for it to go, and not bleach anything unbleachable.  She told me that she wears an old sweat shirt on top of her clothes, and that seemed to do the trick of keeping everything safe.

I imagine myself donning an old, ratty sweatshirt atop my blouse and bluejeans, then pouring bleach into the washing machine with the laundry.  So far so good…oh, but somehow some of it splashes onto my jeans!  Bleach spot.  Then I imagine wearing the same sweatshirt and jeans and cleaning the bathroom counter and floor with a bucket of diluted bleach.  Ooops…the cuff of my blouse gets out from under the sweatshirt while I dip a sponge in the bleach water and gets whitened.  Then I kneel on a still-wet portion of my newly cleaned floor to clean a stubborn spot and I have a white knee.  I don’t think a sweatshirt will do it for me.

The jury is still out on whether my current clothes have been ruined by my recent attempt to whiten and brighten my sheets, but I’m willing to guess that I’ve got some damage.  There must be a better way.  Do you use bleach often?  How do you manage to keep it on the things it should be on and off the things it shouldn’t?

In three places, (IE: a note in your pocket, your blog & comments here), you must list 5 things good about yourself.
Now, be serious! 5 real things- sincerely wonderful things about yourself.

If you notice yourself comparing; stop. Take a deep breath and review your 5 things.
Also, find one sincere reason to like the person you are comparing yourself to.

Read your 5 things out loud sometime during the day, every day until the end of the week.

This is harder than I thought it would be.  Especially publically declaring my awesome traits, because what if other people think I’m really not all that awesome at what I think I’m awesome at?  I can just hear some of you saying “What other people think doesn’t matter.”  Well, that doesn’t make it any easier.  So there.

Anyway, here’s my list, written as fast as I can:

1. I really, deeply love my family and they know it

2. I’m proactively working on improving myself

3. I can organize and improvise

4. I’m usually good at not taking myself too seriously

5. I have shiny, thick, healthy hair

Okay, that took me about 7 minutes.  Not too bad.  It’s a good exercise.  Give it a try.  “I do not like green eggs and ham” won’t work with me.

This morning I took two kids to the doctor with me so I could get a physical.  It was an adventure!  It was the first normal, healthy, no babies, regular doctor (not an OB) physical I’ve had in I don’t know how long.  The doctor (someone I’d never seen before) seemed a little confused that I was there because I wasn’t sick.  Funny.  Everyone seemed confused that I had two kids with me, but they managed politely and positively to work around Maggie screaming when I put her down and Degen wanting to continually get another drink of water from the water cooler (he loves water coolers).

The doctor checked the red spot on my tummy and said it’s no big deal, just an infected hair folicle that should go away on its own.  The scar on my back is definitely just a scar, not a cyst, but may be the kind of scar that keeps on growing.  As my sister later said on the phone “what’s the difference between a scar that keeps on growing and a tumor?”  I’ll have to ask my mom about that one, but the doctor thought it wasn’t a big deal.

Because of my history with gestational diabetes, he checked my blood sugar and said I do not have diabetes.  He seemed totally unimpressed with my assertion that I’d been working on improving my chances of not getting diabetes and had lost 15 pounds in the last month and a half, and I was a little disappointed that he wasn’t more cheerleader-ish about it.  He was also unimpressed that I’ve been working out 30 minutes a day for the last 40 days.  Hmph.  He did tell me to keep doing it and said that if I don’t I’ll get diabetes.

My tongue has big cracks in it, and the doctor said that can sometimes be a symptom of anemia, so he had an iron check done.  No anemia, either.  Both that test and the blood sugar test involved drawing blood, but the nurse at the lab in the office was so expert that I hardly noticed the prick!  It was seriously the least uncomfortable prick I’ve ever experienced.  Speaking of needles, I was also a couple of years overdue for a tetanus shot, so I got one of those from another angelic nurse who managed to give me the shot while I wasn’t looking and I didn’t even know for sure if she’d done it or not until I felt her stick the bandaid on.  THAT is impressive.

Degen was excited to watch him check my eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.  He listened to my heart and my breathing and Degen liked that too.  I have a feeling he’s going to start to pretend he’s a doctor soon.  Maybe a Batman-Doctor.  Degen and Maggie both have been entertaining us by singing “na na na na na na na na BATMAN!” at unexpected moments lately. They both like the old Adam West 60s version of the Batman Movie.

So, clean bill of health.  Nothing to do but what I’m already doing.  And now I can step on rusty nails sans consequence…j/k

My parents are going to have me rent the van they were going to rent a few hours early so that I don’t have to take the bus and subway with multiple changes.  We (meaning they, or my aunt) are also renting one car seat from the rental car company.  This way I’ll only fly with the one car seat that Degen will sit in on the plane.  Colin will bring the other car seat on his flight in that evening, and we’ll return the rented car seat the next day.  My aunt is going to get a portable crib at the resort, so that’s one less (and very large) thing I’ll have to drag along.  And my sister is going to meet me at the airport in DC, so getting to the car will be totally manageable!

We had a huge family chat online over this and who is driving who where and when from which airport to where, and I feel like I definitely came out better off.  Mom, AC, Emily, Abby were all very helpful and lovely–thank you so much!  It’s so nice to be able to problem-solve with helpful family.  You guys are awesome!

The catch is that Colin can’t come as early as I or stay as long, so I’ll be flying alone with two toddlers.  I must be crazy, but I’m kind of looking forward to the challenge.  I can barely get them across a parking lot together by myself, and yet I’m planning to take them across two airports, a country, and a city.  Hah!  Oh, and I’ll be taking a stroller, two car seats, diaper bag/purse, and a bag.  Colin will be bringing the rest of our luggage when he flies in, because I just can’t handle more stuff myself.

Plus, my flight with the kids (each way) leaves at 6am.  That puts us waking up around 2:30 in the morning on our way back to Little Rock, since we’ll have to be at the airport at 4am for check in and security, give an hour to drive there from the hotel, and half an hour to get everyone up and going.  What in the world am I going to do about food?  That diaper bag will have to be full of blankies, graham crackers, pb&j sandwiches, and whatever else I can think of to feed the kiddos.  Any suggestions for surviviing this adventure?

It looks like we’re moving to California!  We’ve been working on figuring out what to do job-wise when the school year ends for a while now, and last week Colin’s parents asked him to work at their print shop in MIll Valley, CA.  They also generously offered to let us live with them for a few months while we adjust (cost of living is seriously something to adjust to there), and this week we decided to take them up on their offer.

The plan is to move the first week of June.  I’ve got a truck lined up and we’ll load it up the Friday/Saturday of Colin’s last week of work, then we’ll have them drive away.  ABF U-Pack still seems like the safest and most economical way to go, and we had a great experience with them on our trip out here, so they’re our moving company again. This is all happening really fast and I’ve hardly had a chance to catch my breath, but it’s pretty exciting!

Moving will be a challenge, especially since we’ve only got a month to prepare.  Luckily (or not), most of our stuff is still packed up in boxes, and I’ve saved most of our empty boxes from the last move in our “storage room,” so this move shouldn’t take nearly as long to pack for as our last one.  Since most of our stuff will be in storage for a long time, I’m negotiating with Colin over giving away/throwing away a lot of our stuff.  I like to de-clutter and Colin is a bit more of a pack-rat who can’t think of why we’d get rid of anything we might ever want to use again.   I only want to store anything I’ll miss six months later.  So we’ll see how it goes.  We pay the trucking company by the linear foot of space on the truck, so Colin is more open to chucking than normal.  We’re definitely sending some toys to Goodwill, so if any of my local friends are interested in some toys let me know and I’ll give you first dibs.

Speaking of local friends, we are going to miss you!  I had to email my bishopric and tell them I’m moving and they’ll have to find a new Primary president and I felt odd about that.  I can’t stand the idea of leaving my one counselor who isn’t currently in the hospital to run the Primary alone.  She’s a very capable, industrious, willing woman, but doing it all by myself would be a nightmare.  Luckily we’ve got lots of awesome adults in our Primary to help out until the presidency is reorganized–my secretary, the music director, the pianist, and all the teachers.  I’m already sad to miss all the things we’ve been planning and all the kids…Too sad, I’m not going to talk about that more right now.

I’m really grateful to have a good relationship with my in-laws.  Colin’s parents are great people and we get along well, and I’m always so happy to have to opt-out on in-law horror story conversations.  Hopefully we won’t mess that up by living together!  I guess we’ll just have to be really flexible and have good ground rules and cross our fingers.  Hey, there’s potential for us to have an even closer relationship because of this, too.  It’ll be nice for the kids to get to know their grandparents and other California relatives better.  And Marin is beautiful and green and has perfect weather…and I might “get” to feel my first earthquake (small ones only, please).  We’ll be lots closer to my family, too.  We’ll only be 10 hours away instead of our current 24+.  Yay!