Today there was little art piece in my fridge – a red paper with a child’s doodle. For some reason I didn’t think too much of it, until Calvin came climbing underneath to the fridge shelf to check on it.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s a picture of a snowman. I put it in here so it won’t melt.”
Calvin and Everett were fighting in the car. Calvin was whining at the top of his lungs:
“He won’t give me personal space, he won’t give me personal space!”
I turned around to see Everett sitting in his seat, but turned around, looking at Calvin. Next it will be “stop breathing my air!” Good grief.
For 31 years I complained about my birthday falling over Thanksgiving weekend. A few years I even tried to celebrate my big day on my un-birthday (6 mos.), and on the years my day actually fell on Thanksgiving, good grief but I felt short changed . . .
Until Monday when I looked at the calendar for the week. Tuesday was short day at school, and Wednesday – dum-da-da-da! No school! This meant my little lovelies would all be home with me on my birthday, and we could all play together all day long. I was so SO excited. And then it finally dawned on my what I was thinking when I sat in heaven, refusing to budge until two weeks past my due date, only making my grand entrance on the Friday after Thanksgiving while my dad was watching a John Wayne marathon:
I chose to be born over this weekend so that my little children will always celebrate with me. Thanksgiving is a family holiday, so they’ll have time off school, and they’ll be spending time with their family (even me, their mom).
Anna, Emily Heisler, Me & Ejo at Thanksgiving Point, summer 2010
When I was about fourteen my cousin, Anna and I decided to go on an evening ride. Our plan was to head up Corner Canyon.
When I was growing up, the entire South Mountain was owned by one family. There were dirt trails where kids rode their horses or bikes, and one shabby coral with sad little ponies that inexperienced riders could “rent” for a ride. Other than that, a lot of scrub oak and wild grass was all that covered the mountain.
But the generation that owned it had finally passed away, and the next generation, eager I suppose to cash in on all that property, had sold it to private developers. The mountain was now being torn up for what would someday be what South Draper is today.
My mom dropped us off at the horses, promising to come back later that evening to pick us up. (My mom was awesome at carting kids around to their various adventures.) We were alone at the horses, not a soul in sight, when we realized one of our saddles was missing its cinch.
I guess we could have ridden bare back, but for some reason or another unremembered by me now, I didn’t think that was a good idea. We searched the tack room up and down, and finally “borrowed” one off another saddle.
Next we couldn’t find one of the bridles. We searched everywhere, even looking for another one to borrow, but couldn’t find one. Finally Athena came, and she had a spare bridle she loaned to us.
Finally we were tacked up and ready to go – but the sun was sinking low in the sky now.
Perfect, I thought – we’ll just head up Eagle’s Ridge to watch the sunset, and then head home.
We made it up to Eagles Ridge just fine, watched the beautiful late summer sun sink below the horizon, turning the sky ablaze with the warm orange of summer afterglow.
We headed back down the mountain for home when we crossed a stretch of earth 300 yards long or so, newly packed, pressed, ready for road top to be poured.
And how could we not race along it?
Imagining ourselves jockeys in the Derby, we ran our horses along the stretch of even plowed earth – a rare joy on the trail. Running, or even cantering a horse was not common practice outside the safety of a corral or arena growing up. What if the horse stumbled – or, more likely, ran away with you?
(Not to say I wasn’t run away with on more than one occasion. But usually I tried to avoid it.)
I still remember the light, dimming each minute, but still warm, as we raced along the road; feeling Sunny lower as she moved from a gallop to a dead run, and feeling her enjoy the freedom of her head as I clung to her neck and let her go.
And then we suddenly realized:
It was getting dark. Fast.
And we still had most of the mountain to get down.
We turned our horses down the trail, determined not to be distracted again, and headed for home.
But it was too late. In a few minutes it was black as pitch, the trees silver and ghostly as the moon climbed up the sky behind us.
I told Anna we had to sing – and sing loud. She gave me a sideways look as she knew, as well as I did, that I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. But singing was imperative to us getting home safely I explained. You see, there were deer all over that mountain, earlier in our ride we had passed a several different groupings, and each time I held Sunny tight on the reins as we passed.
Sunny was young, still green – still bone headed. I knew if we came across some deer in the dark – if we startled them – they in turn would startle Sunny. And then came the whole getting run away with part.
Which I usually tried to avoid . . . especially in the dark.
And so we needed to sing to tell the deer we were coming. I hoped the noise would get them to move out of our way as we approached,. Unfortunately, not musically inclined, the only songs I knew by memory were either camp songs or the Hymns I sung ever week for forever.
And so, ‘The Spirit of God’ it was.
We sang every song we could think of, and then sang them again as we picked our way down the mountain. At some point we lost the trail, and came to a ravine I was not willing to try to pass in the dark. We went back up the mountain to come back down the other side.
Calvin on Sunny, May 2011. She's a sweet old mare now.
Finally we made it down to the lights of lazy draper. And then we heard our names being called . . . over a bull horn.
We called out and a spot light was turned to us. We knew we were toast.
My mom, Wendy, and a police officer – the lone and lame response to a call in to search & rescue, greeted us at the trail head.
After a very stern lecture from Wendy about the danger to the horses, we had the joy of riding through the sleepy town with a cop car, lit up like a Christmas tree, following just behind us. After untacking and putting the horses away, another stern lecture from the police officer of the stupidity of our lives – or maybe just decisions.
It was nearly midnight when we climbed back into my mom’s car for home.
“Want to stop somewhere and get an ice cream cone?” my mom asked.
*After thinking about it as I wrote this story, it occurred to me that I probably wanted both Anna and I with full saddles and bridles because 1) Anna wasn’t a super experienced rider, and probably needed the tack for the trail and 2) I was riding Sunny, who ran away with me or threw me more times than I can count. A saddle always helps for that sort of thing.
Yesterday I decided a little deep cleaning before the holidays would be a good idea. I set about on my kitchen – cleaning out all the cabinets, wiping the insides and outsides down, and rearranging their contents back in. Later in the afternoon, after having spent the day hard at work, Calvin came in as the contents of the fridge were unloaded, all the shelves and drawers drying on the table from being washed.
Calvin said: “Mom, what are you doing?”
“I’m cleaning out the fridge” I said, a little proud of myself.
“Oh, well that’s not what I would be doing if I were you.”
“What would you be doing?” I asked – I should have know better.
“Well, I would be playing with my kids.”
Suddenly my clean fridge and cabinets did not seem so spectacular.
Point taken.
Today we’re going to do Thanksgiving and Christmas art projects to our hearts content.
I’ve been waiting for Andi to make the announcement first; tonight she finally did. I’m taking that as my license to make my own announcement:
Andi’s first book has been published and is available on Amazon!
She wrote and illustrated the book herself! (Last year a book came out that she illustrated, but this one she wrote too!)
It’s so great, and I’m so excited for her. I feel like Diana, just beaming with pride standing next to Anne!
So, might I suggest you add this lovely book (I had the privileged of getting a sneak peak at the whole thing, it’s great!) to your Christmas list for your own little lovelies.
Book Cover Synopsis:
Are hot springs rainbows, curled up to nap? Or are they pools of water, heated deep within the earth? Yellowstone is an amazing and mysterious place. Emmaline has some imaginative ideas about the origins of the park’s wonders. Her scientist father has some pretty wild theories of his own. Follow their magical adventure through America’s first national park.
Written and illustrated by an elementary art teacher and her own geologist father, this book is a playful lesson in earth science.
The summer before Junior High was a weird one. Perhaps that’s a bit vague. But I can’t think of any other way to describe it. I was about to start at a new school — a big school that I had only dared to ride past on my bike in the early morning before too many students flocked the cement utoptia of adolescence independence, also called the parking lot. And Andi was moving away. So that summer seemed to move only that much slower as we dreaded the coming fall.
We frequented the Library, checking out books, then walking home in the summer heat to read in silence on the floor of her room. On this day she and I walked side by side, not speaking. Andi was reading the new book she had aquired as I pulled the red wagon with other books she had checked out. I hadn’t gotten any books that day. Part because I had a fine on my account, and part because I was only half through an old dusty book I found on the shelves in my own house.
“That’s a good tree,” Andi said, interrupting my observations of the tar on the road.
“Mmm hmm,” I agreed, not even looking up. I was making a foot print in the warm tar, the black goo squishing between my toes.
“We should climb it,” she suggested. It was then that I looked up. It was an elm, the same as hundreds that shaded our neighborhood. Its branches stretched out all the way across the street, over our heads. We pulled the wagon over to the base of the trunk and pushed the books around to make room for us to stand in it. Using it as a step to the first branch, we pulled ourselves up into the tree. The cool rough bark seemed like carpet in comparison to the hot asphalt below. It rubbed the tar off my toes as I found footholds to further my climb. We made our way out across the branches, Andi taking the branch to the right, and I to the left. Over the streen now, I looked down to our wagon, and my footprint still embedded in the tar fifteen feet below.
We weren’t really high up, but the shade of the branches was cool and inviting, and since we had nowhere else to go that afternoon we decided to stay and relax.
“So what book are you reading?” Andi asked.
“It’s a really old one I found in my house,” I explained. It’s called King of the Wind.”
“Oh! I love that book! I think that could be one of my favorites!”
I just looked at Andi blankly. “Oh,” I said, trying to mask my dissappointment that she had read it first. “Well, don’t tell me how it turns out, I’m not finished yet.”
Suddenly we heard a low sort of rumble. Twigs and branches broke with loud snaps. The entire tree shook forward and then back. I grabbed the branch, stabilizing myself to not fall. A sharp pain shot through my hand as a twig on the branch embedded itself into my palm. Time seemed to slow as I looked down to see the green then white of semi-truck’s roof passing just six inches below me. And then in an instant it was over. The semi-truck pulled free of the tree, catapulting us back to the tree’s original position. After a few sways the tree rested and was calm.
I looked down to my hand – blood ran down my palm as I inspected the minor wound. I looked past my hand to the street below. Broken twigs lay still in the street, covering my footprint. Looking up I saw Andi, still clinging to her branch, tears welling in her eyes. I knew how she felt, and I wanted to cry with her. But I didn’t. Instead we climbed down the tree and walked home.
I’ve never used a calendar until this year – something about my spontaneous carpe diem lifestyle never seemed to fit inside that box.
And then I had kids – who went to school.
My calendar has been a lifesaver this year, with each day having multiple things marked: carpool, snack assignments, early day, doctors appointments, homework day, etc. etc. etc.
So for next year I decided to make my own. I’ve long admired a friend of mine’s calendar. They make one every year based on a template at kinkos or something. While I like the family pictures in it, I wanted a design a little more custom.
And so . . .
DRUM ROLL PLEASE!
This calendar took me about a month to make . . .
I designed the grid/month/text in Illustrator using fonts: Splendid 66 & Pee Pants Script
Then I tore apart the PSD files of a book template that I have from Simplicity Design, rearranged them slightly to fit my format, and inserted some of my favorite pictures of the past few years.
As I looked through my old pictures to find ones for the calendar, I was reminded: Man, I have gorgeous kids!
Just saying.
Anyhow, at first I tried to have a picture from the featured month – you know, a January picture on the January page. But once I hit March I realized that wouldn’t work – for some reason I have very VERY few pictures in March of any year. Don’t know why. So then I just let it be a free for all and put in any pictures from any time that I loved. There is one spread/month dedicated to each kiddo. And I still need to get my 2011 family picture taken so I can trade it out with the picture in September (the one with the kids on the truck – same one that’s on the October spread). And I added a photo of each family member on their birth date.
Anyhoo- it’s been a bit of a laborious process, but fun. If you want to take a closer look, you can click on the image above for a humongo humongo version, or just visit my flickr page to see each month individually.
I get it. I do. It seems the Christmas merchandise come out earlier and earlier every year. This year I saw holiday stuff in the stores in September. It does seem a little early.
But then, I love Christmas. I love Christmas -
What’s not to love?
Twinkly lights – Love.
Glitter crusted ornaments – Love.
Parties, Parties, and more Parties – Love.
Sentimental music that makes me swoon – Love.
Gift giving as the official language of adoration – Love.
Magic and spirituality mixed into one potent cocktail sure to make you dizzy with gushy romantic happiness – Seriously, LOVE.
And that, my friends, is a lot of love.
And I’ll further admit that I don’t so much adore Thanksgiving. Let me clarify, I do love the concept – a day set aside for reflection and gratitude and recognizing the hand of God in our lives. Awesome.
It’s the ritual celebration that gets me though: working for hours, and hours, and HOURS – cleaning & cooking, only to eat yourself into a lazy stupor that causes you to crash for no less than two and a half days, only to wake up with a nightmare reality of a giant mess to clean up . . .
Lame.
Plus, turkey’s just not my thing.
So, it may be the bottom of November, but this is what I’ve been thinking about lately:
I remember watching that comedy sketch by Bill Cosby as a kid. We had it on VHS – “Bill Cosby, Himself.” I remember watching it with my brothers, and just laughing and laughing.
Little did I know that my parents must have been in the back of the room crying because of the truth of it!
Today was one of those days – Cal was in “time out” four times before nine am, and only because I didn’t put him in time out each time he did something he oughtn’t have.
It was one of those days.
I was laughing the other day to a friend about the new show – “Up All Night” – it speaks so true. But my friend just shook her head. “I can’t watch shows like that,” she said, “they are too painfully real.”
I can watch. I enjoy the comedic empathy. But sometimes I wonder if I’m really going to survive this.
The sun slanted at the late autumn angle. The horses picked their way over the canal and out into the field, the hay cut low from the farmer’s plow, the fallow littered on the frosty earth. Andi and I rode in silence. It was too cold to have anything to say, still, the light was deceiving, reflecting a warm gold, red, rust on the mountain that towered above us. The horses coats were thickening in preparation for the snows that would soon come. We rode without saddles, our jeans filthy with horse hair and sweat, and we clung to the manes of our mounts.
“Look at the birds” I commented.
Hundreds of starlings picked at the seed planted for a spring crop, the contrast of their black bodies on the hay. We looked at each other and grinned. We both knew. Without another word we pushed the horses to an easy canter, and raced straight for the birds. As we reached the edge of their flock they rose like a black wave to the sky. Then in confusion, not willing to leave their gluttonous meal, not wanting to settle to earth, they swirled – a black circle spinning, spinning around us. The horses pulled up to a stop. We sat quiet on their backs, waiting for the sky to be calm again.
Eventually our stillness induced the birds to land. And then the farmers truck came bouncing over the dirt road. We could tell from a block away that we were in trouble – running our horses through his freshly planted field; we turned back, bracing for the stern lecture to come.
But I still remember sitting, my legs warm with the horse, dizzy from the birds, thinking it was like flying in a dream.
At night, when I go to tuck Olivia in, jammies on, teeth brushed, Daisy curled up beside her, her room awash in the pink of her Ikea daisy night light, Olivia always asks:
“Tell me a story of when you were a little girl.”
Sometimes she gets specific: Tell me a story of when you were a kid and you had halloween – or a birthday – or you were my age – or you were Abbey’s age – etc. etc.
But she wants to hear tales of my own childhood. I don’t have any idea where she got the need to hear the lores of her own parents youth. I don’t know why she thinks they make the best stories. But each night I am stumped.
I try to remember – interesting things that I have done; fun things I have done; great things that I have done . . . that don’t include ridiculous mischief that will spur on the mischief in my own children.
One time Wyatt told the kids of how he and his brothers used to play king of the hill on the bunk bed – throwing each other off onto a pile of blankets below. The very next day I came in to find the kids doing the exact same thing. Seriously, Wyatt!
So I try to think of things that won’t induce my own children to wild and reckless behavior. They can come up with that sort of stuff on their own.
Trouble is, such stories are hard to find.
The ones I remember involve search and rescue, or calls from the school, or trips to the ER, or a neighbor’s roof.
But then every once in a while I have fleeting moments where I remember a little something – a story to tell Olivia.
I’m going to write those down – stories for her, and for me, so she will have a part of me forever, and I will remember that not all my life involved ill conceived mischief of one kind or another.
That lives behind my house – just on the other side of the fence. I love her. Ironically, in my mind I call her “the Spider tree.” I don’t exactly know why. But she’s gorgeous. And she makes me happy. Like when I look over and see her autumn leaves in the late slanted afternoon sun, I think how amazing it is to see all those colors glowing, glowing, and I know that little tree is doing her very best to make her small spot of the world so much the more beautiful.
Means a fire in the fire place. And hot chocolate with whip cream. And cozy pajamas all morning. And bundled up warm when we finally go outside.
First snow’s are gorgeous.
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It was beautiful. His blessing by his father was wonderful. And I had such a peaceful feeling through out the sacrament meeting. I really felt a testimony of the tender love Heavenly Father feels for all his children.
The opening hymn today was “For the Beauty of the Earth” – I guess that’s what started it. While I have long loved this song, I really thought about the words today -
For the love, which from our birth, over and around us lies.
And I suddenly felt very loved by Heavenly Father who made so many beautiful things – like trees for swinging in, and skies with spun sugar clouds, and mountains that turn every color of orange this time of year. He must communicate love through art projects. I am just like Him in that way I guess.
And then Andrew’s blessing – lovely. He has such a peaceful effect on my soul. When I sit and hold him, my heart is filled over.
Today was baby Sunshine’s big birthday. Olivia was so excited for her big day. She’d been counting down all week. The other day she told me she was a little scared to be six. But this morning she brilliantly observed that it turned out being six wasn’t too bad – it felt pretty much the same as being five.
For breakfast we had pancakes, a special treat from our usual waffle fare, with chocolate chips and whipped cream made into smiley faces. We relaxed and spent the day playing. This afternoon I took O for a special treat at the Sweet Tooth Fairy and then off to choose her own ice cream, something she’s been looking forward to since Calvin’s birthday.
Then home for a dinner of her very own choice – Macaroni and Cheese! Cake and ice cream and gifts and then off to the movies to see Cars 2.
Wyatt takes O and Cal to movies on a fairly regular basis – at least once every couple months. But I have not been to the movies with the kids since before Everett was born. They were enchanted, and the spell held through the entire movie for Olivia. Calvin and Everett each lost attention at some point though, so I spent part of the movie walking up and down the aisle and chasing kids out by the refreshment stands. It was worth it though for the first vision of my little lovelies sitting on the booster seats when we first arrived, their faces lit up by the glow of the screen, their eyes big as saucers as they watched the beginning of the movie!
After the movies it was home again and off to bed, baby ducks. Of course, as we were driving out of the neighborhood, on our way to the movie, Olivia was talking about her next birthday party – you know, the friend birthday party. Wyatt and I giggled – mostly – about the expectation we have established with our kids: immediate family celebration, extended family celebration, neighborhood celebration, friend celebration, at our house, birthdays last a long time. And Olivia is ready to soak up every ounce of the attention.
The night after my last final I went to the temple. He was there. All I could do was sit in the back and cry and feel guilty because I loathed him so much.
