Sub For Santa

Every year, the youth in our ward (neighborhood church group) participate in a December service project to provide Christmas gifts to needy families in Salt Lake City.


Every year, from Thanksgiving forward, the church bulletin asks for contributions from church members young and old..our leaders talk about it in our meetings and interviews..the youth are reminded to contribute as well. It's a nice tradition.


In our 2 1/2 years in the neighborhood, I've been vaguely aware of this annual event. Admittedly, I have always had good intentions to contribute but as a terminal procrastinator have sometimes missed the deadline. This year was different. This year I was in charge.


I coordinated with a woman in my neighborhood who is currently serving a mission to help families in inner-city Salt Lake. She helped identify 5 families with extra need this year. Then, with the help of my bishop (church leader) I divided up the donations and put cash in envelopes designated for all 23 people on our list. We handed the cash to youth leaders and sent them out with young men and women aged 12-18 to shop for specific individuals. Each child had prepared a wish list...most of them humbling. They asked for things like warm pajamas, socks, and a jingle bell.


At this stage, my inexperience in this process became apparent. I sent each group out with one kitchen garbage bag to put their purchased gifts in. Here are the gifts we ended up with...

We needed a few more bags.

It was wonderful to see the enthusiasm in the young people as they looked for the "perfect" gift. Then a week later, those same enthusiastic youth showed up to wrap presents for 2 hours. This week, we will load up in cars and drive downtown to make a special delivery.

As I have planned and coordinated the details of this event, my primary objective has been for the young people to have a meaningful experience. I'm impressed my how motivated, unselfish, and service-minded this generation can be. So far their example has been far more meaningful for me than anything I have done for their benefit.

Nutcracker...Again

Last weekend was Anna's second debut in the "Children's Nutcracker." This year she was upgraded from "mouse" to "doll." Still very cute, but I must say that the mice once again stole the show...especially when in the middle of their performance, one little mouse made her way to the front of the stage and very calmly, and cheerfully called out, "Mom? Mom? Hey...Mom?"

My little dolly was the star of the night for me. She was very excited that Daddy brought her pink roses this year, and Mommy gave her a present...ballet slippers Christmas tree ornament, and a teeny-tiny pink doll for our sweet Anna-doll.

M.I.A.

I'd like to tell you a story about how grateful I am at this time of year, as my family sat down together to celebrate another bountiful Thanksgiving. But I can't, because I am just way too busy, shopping, cleaning, cooking, and eating. I've got two words for you...ten pies.

So I'd like to tell you a story about how fun it is to have wonderful friends come all the way from Phoenix to spend a whirlwind week in my home. Ooh, but I can't, because I stayed up way too late every night they were here, and I still haven't gotten around to all the laundry since they left.

In that case, I'll tell you the story about a week where every day I had to call a repairman of one kind or another. But I won't...because...it's just too expensive.

Maybe you'd settle for the plain old boring story about another round of colds making it's way through my household. I'll get to that when I stop feeling so crummy.

Guess you'll have to settle with the story about how my Christmas decorations are all up, my shopping is all done, and my packages are all mailed. That's a good one. Too bad it's fiction.

In the meantime...I'm hanging in there. I hope you are too.

Another Noah Birthday

Noah's birthday came and went with relatively little notice in my life last week. It just so happened to fall on a Tuesday night...I have Young Women activities on Tuesday...and it just so happened that this particular Tuesday was also YW in Excellence-a kind of recognition night for the girls 12-18 in my ward (Church denomination). So poor Noah kind of got shuffled to the back of responsibilities that day. I did manage to bring a special lunch and eat with him at school. I did not find the time to cook a special birthday dinner so Dad picked up his favorite pizza on the way home from work. I did make a chocolate birthday cake with chocolate frosting. (Only those people who know how much I hate chocolate cake and chocolate frosting will appreciate the amount of self-sacrifice this entails.) I did not make it home in time to watch him blow out the candles. I did choose some fun gifts for him. I did not actually purchase them, but left that to Dad via his pizza delivery route. Fortunately, Noah is such a sensible, responsible, cheerful person that none of this bothered him in the slightest and he still had a nice day for his golden birthday. (He turned 10 on the 10th!)

For the sake of record-keeping, I'm going to acknowledge all things Noah at this age in his life.
Favorite color: blue
Favorite food: any type of seafood
Favorite flavor of birthday cake: chocolate, chocolate, chocolate (really, it's not fair that 5 out of 6 birthdays around here I have to make a chocolate cake.)
Favorite hobby: READING! (He reads an entire book almost every day)
Favorite sports team: BYU
Favorite sport to play: basketball
Best friend: Jaden
Current obsession: The "Warriors" series, and passing off all his times tables before anyone else in class
Favorite subject in school: P.E.
Quality in Noah that I am most grateful for: Responsibility...he's the only one in the house who doesn't need to be reminded to get his chores done, who never loses things, and who actually comes to me with school stuff that needs to be signed instead of leaving it to me to dig out of his backpack 3 weeks past the deadline.
Cool things accomplished this year: He earned a superior at AIM, his annual piano adjudication. He sang a solo (beautifully) in the Primary Program, he had perfect grades every quarter of the last year, he scored a touchdown at every single flag football game this year, he earned his Bear in Cub Scouts, he placed 3rd in high jump at his summer track meet

Tool Day

As I sit in my office typing, a whirl of falling leaves keep drawing my attention to the window. The fall in Utah has been spectacular this year. After living in a land of no Autumn for so many years it came as something of a revelation my first year in Utah that I had missed this season somewhere deep in my sub-concious. As papery, brittle leaves of yellow and bronze keep flapping across my peripheral vision, it feels like a metaphor for my life this week. I am blowing in so many directions that it feels almost out of control. But despite the wild nature of my frenzy, there is something beautiful in the commotion. Life is full; making goals, meeting demands, entering the fray.

Last month, I got the annual flyer/request for "Tool Day" from the Elementary School. Every year, they invite parents to come to the school and talk to students about their careers and tools of the trade. We have never participated, so guilt started prickling at the back of my neck. I began my campaign to get Cory into the school. As I prepared to discuss this with him, knowing how busy his work schedule is right now, I realized that I have a career too. In some twisted version of women's liberation reflex, I signed up to come share with 4 classrooms the tricks of my trade as a homemaker. Little did I realize that the week of presentation would coincide with the perfect storm of family events, rehearsals, and deadlines.

Still, I had made a commitment, so Tuesday morning found me gathering up my "tools" and heading down the hill to Oak Hollow Elementary. I shared with them the perils of a career in homemaking...no vacations, long hours, very few promotions. I let them handle the tools of my business...dust rags, measuring cups, first aid kits, checkbooks, the burgeoning calendar. And somewhere about halfway through my 2nd presentation, I realized something. I have been so caught up in the pressures and "busy-ness" of my day to day survival that I have begun to forget something important. I love my job.

Pinewood Derby

Last week was our annual Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. For anyone who has never had the privilege of participating in this boyhood rite of passage, I am here to tell you what you are missing.

1. 1 month to get the car finished, and yet 99.9 percent of the work gets done the night before.

2. Blowdryers running right up until the minute we leave to dry the paint job.

3. 8-year-olds executing feats of engineering around the level of the average M.I.T. student.

4. Fathers insisting that their scout really did most of the work themselves.

5. 30 families crammed around a 20 foot race track.

6. 30 dads discussing the finer points of "bracket-ology."

7. And the noise, oh the noise!

8. 250 lectures...MOM: You need to be a good sport even if you win/lose

9. WINNING CUB SCOUT: niener, niener, niener

10. LOSING CUB SCOUT: tears

11. 2 hours of chaos and pandemonium in order to watch your son's car race exactly twice for a total of 7 seconds.

12. Awards Ceremony..every car gets a certificate..even if it means awarding a prize for "most creative use of duct tape."

13. After the hours of work, and the meaningful award, car and certificate have disappeared--never to be seen again--within 24 hours.

14. Next year we get to make 2 cars.

What will I do when all my little cub scouts are grown? There's nothing quite like the spectacle of grown men competing vicariously through their sons. Despite the madness of the event, I really will miss this someday.

Feline-anthropy

Meet Grendel.

He is loyal, affectionate, and despite the threatening look of his underbite..gentle. I am the sun about which he orbits. He daily aspires to simply lay at my feet. When I say jump, he says, how high. He would throw himself in front of a bullet for me.

And here is Cheezit. He is superior, aloof and infinitely bored. He interacts with me on his terms only. He allows me to feed him and occasionally to pet him.

So why is it, I like the cat so much more than the dog? I guess I'm that girl who always liked the guy who wasn't really interested. Figures.

It also doesn't hurt that the cat is the only other creature in my home who can clean himself.