supplies:

yellow butcher paper
black tempra paint
yellow balloons
pretty colorful flags your friend tonya made so no one else would have to (which she managed to think of and loan to you even though her daughter got married the very same week)
friends and family

step 1. let your daughter recruit her cheerleader friend to make the sign (because sign-making skills are one of the first requirements to make cheer)

your daughter will certainly make sure everything is just perfect

2. trust that when you run out of trees on which to hang things…

your macgyver-like youngest will figure out a way to turn ordinary tools into stakes and hang more stuff

3. let the neighbor’s cat help. because she’s got to earn her keep somehow.

did someone say “string?”

4. recruit your friends, who will inevitably be better at this decorating thing than you.

my good friend becky

becky’s daughter megan, who, like her mother, isn’t just a good helper, but also dang photogenic

5. assess your progress, then accept the help when your friends offer to go pick up more yellow ribbon (and crepe paper and balloons) while you’re on your way to the airport

there was still a shocking lack of yellow

6. don’t sweat it too much when the masses of happy mothers and fathers and siblings and such at the airport scene are way more prepared with signage and decorations than you.

all that stuff just gets in the way when it comes to the really important part–the hugging

7. recruit the first pretty girl you see off the flight just arriving from denver for a photo op (none of this “breaking him in gently” stuff)

don’t worry. it’s just hillary (isn’t she cute?) her mom and i had a bet going to see which one of us would deliver first when we were pregnant (with these two) while our husbands served together in a byu bishopric. hillary just turned in her papers to serve a mission. where does the time go? (p.s. eight days overdue and i still won)

8. don’t sweat it when your crowd isn’t as bit as some other missionaries’ crowds.

these are your people and your missionary will still feel the love

9. give yourself a moment to take it all in. because you know this landing is just a quick layover as he prepares to fly away and make his own nest somewhere else someday.

also note w/ amusement the demon-eyes look of your second-favorite cat. how did that happen?

look at the stars
look how they shine for you
and everything you do
yeah they were all yellow

i’m posting on parenting over at segullah today. please come.

when i was a little girl growing up in the lush green rain valleys of the pacific northwest i used to look forward to the one week every summer when my father would pile us all into whatever precursor to the mormon assault vehicle we owned at the moment and embark on the almost non-stop and all-through-the-night (then) 18-hour drive to utah. (the drive is shorter now, but still almost as long as the preceding sentence.)

one of my favorite parts of the journey–besides looking out the window at a star-filled universe that could just about swallow me up–was driving through logan canyon on our way to grandpa’s ranch in randolph. as much as i love the green of oregon, my heart is equally enamored with the red, red dirt found in many parts of utah. it’s one of the beauties of this earth that is so overwhelming to me it almost makes my heart hurt just from taking it in (i also feel this way about gazing into joy-filled faces of children).

**********

so my daughter plays softball. i love softball as much as i love baseball (cue the don henley song). what i don’t love is that her high school team wears white uniforms. and plays on red dirt.

last week they had a game on that very rainy tuesday. a game that, you know, should have been called. you know, on account of all that rain. but it was only the second game of the season and everyone was hungry for play. so they played. with standing water on the field. which, when properly churned up by the determined sprinting to base of cleat-clad athletes, quickly became mud.

and all of a sudden the once pristine uniforms were red, not white. and my daughter was reading the laundry instructions out loud: wash in cold water. do not bleach.

um yeah, right.

i called another softball mom (her daughter is a junior–so she knows) how she got the white pants clean.

“white pants are the worst idea ever. i’ve tried everything,” she said. “the only way you can get them clean is to use some hot water and a little bleach.”

i scrubbed suze’s pants down with a broken bar of fels naptha (best stain remover eveh) and tossed them in with a regular load of whites on my “whitest whites” cycle. (hot water, and um, yeah, a little bleach.) honestly, whatever inches thick of synthetic that can withstand steals and slides of a softball player ought to be tough enough to take on a little bleach.

suze came down just before the washing machine completed its work. “it smells like bleach,” she remarked. i pleaded the fifth on that one and, just a few minutes later pulled out a pair of softball pants so clean and so sparkling white (white than some famous utah celebrities’ teeth) i had to reach for my favorite pair of sunglasses.

“i am a goddess,” i thought out loud. and, just for that one moment (because generally i get a big FAIL for laundry), i was.

**********

last weekend, after a HUGE storm in st. george (and i’m speaking actually and metaphorically here), the sun came out and dried up all the rain. then our little family went for a drive. and we ended up at one of my favorite places on earth, snow canyon:

never been there? i recommend you go next time you’re down south. it’s gorgeous.

after waxing philosophically about light and dark, i spent a big chunk of my day with 65,000 of my closest friends at lavell’s house.

and lavell was in the house.

because i know how tiresome it can be to get stopped by obnoxious fans who are always asking for an autograph or a photo (not!), i did not take a picture of lavell, but i practically bumped into him as soon as i entered the stadium. we go back a long way, lavell and me. i made him chuckle the first time we met by sparing him the usual

“aren’t you lavell edwards?”

and asking him “aren’t you ann cannon’s dad?”

this time because i was already too in his face to walk around him and give him a break by not recognizing him, i just stuck out my hand and shook his firmly and said

“hi. how’re you doing? have a great day!”

we go early to the games because the early birds get to watch the drumline strut their stuff in the northwest corner of the stadium. my favorite part is the solo parts when people from the audience get a chance to pick up sticks and pa rum pum pum pum.

i love it when people pull my kid out of the crowd so they can take a picture of themselves with him. he’s kind of a cute kid, don’t you think?

we were playing air force, so the game began with a flyby. (it’s a good thing we let air force strut their stuff before the game, because once it started it was our turn to strut our stuff.)

we have student tickets, so our seats could be anywhere. this time we sat on row 19 in the corner of the south end zone. those are some pretty decent seats. it’s like practically being on the field.

which is especially cool when the cougars are in a scoring mood.

while we liked the view from the corner just fine for the game, we always feel the need to take in half-time from the 50-yard line.

i used to think cymbals were kind of tame, but i have since learned you can add a little move and groove to the cymbals as well as with any other percussion. (half-time is still pretty tame, you really should catch the pre-show. they have a lot of fun with that.)

after the show we headed over to the concessions stand in the southeast corner, to support the phs softball team and talk to the hand.

the portals at the south end of the bleachers usually sees a lot of action. we met up with lavell again and got to see the pilots from the flyby. it was all so top gun.

for some reason our portal was also graced with the presences of a human slice of papa john’s pizza (no photo available, because i drawn the line at snapping pictures of foam pieces of pizza), a real live falcon (i have always had a thing for falconry), and of course…

my buddy cosmo. for some reason, cosmo and i seem to be caught hi-fiving a lot in the tunnel by portal u. as a side note, i also have to say that this week’s installment of the cosmo movie was pretty funny.

while i missed sitting in front of twist-and-shout guy, all in all, it was a great game. and that made it a great day.

…is in my ears and in my eyes of late. every time i think about luke these days. as some of you may know, he was recently transferred to liverpool. living in the former home town of john, ringo, paul and george may have been a little lost on this child who loves coldplay and jon schmidt but doesn’t know or care much for the beatles. i know some missionaries get converted to the church while serving their missions. luke was already there before he left, but perhaps he will become converted to the music of the beatles. in any case, he promises a picture of himself, standing on penny lane. i’ll be sure to post it.

luke’s current flat–i heart google earth

having a missionary out is completely different now than it was in my day and age. we are so much more connected than i’m sure my family ever was. every time luke gets transferred shane goes right to google earth where we can–depending on how well the area has been documented by google–see his street, the landmarks he walks or drives past every day, or, in this area, his very flat. we can also pretend we’re driving down his street. and of course e-mailing every week and hearing from him within and hour of when he posts an e-mail is a far cry from the time i was in europe and it took 10-14 days to get a letter and another 10-14 before the sender received a response. i love it.

elder rowley and friends–we have no idea who (perhaps his former district?) but someday he’ll tell us

luke is doing well. he’s currently serving with the nephew of some friends of ours. he’s working hard. teaching his heart out, and seeing some success. he’s still serving as district leader and i can only imagine the opportunities to learn and grow a calling like that must bring.

and now i have begun the business of counting down. about six weeks until the next phone call. only one more phone call after that. and after that phone call, it will only be a matter of months. he’s got about 9 1/2 months left. it’s not lost on me that that is about the same period of time i was expecting (actually–he was several days overdue, so i’m prepared to give him some leeway). and so i will wait. and prepare.

unlike being pregnant with luke, however, while i am waiting for him to arrive, i’m also preparing for zack to put in his papers the first part of february and possible leave before his brother returns. the day after tomorrow the first of three of his best friends goes into the mtc. these are like zack’s band of brothers. they have spent so much time with our family and in our home, some of them call me mom. i have watched them grow up a lot over the past few months. almost exponentially to how it was watching them grow up over the years. i am excited for them. i know they will be wonderful missionaries. but i will miss them, each one. i’m afraid zack will be a bit lost without them.

and at that point i’m sure i’ll be thinking about how i might be a bit lost without zack.

i sit, and meanwhile back

Someone just posted on facebook about these being the last lazy days of summer. Frankly, I don’t think I’ve experienced lazy days of summer in the plural sense since I was about 11 years old. However, it’s just starting to hit me that school starts next week. I am the Queen of Denial and except for the school shopping I let someone else do for one of my kids (thanks Tiffany, you are fabulous!), I’ve not done a single thing to prepare myself or my kids for the first day of school.

But I can put all that off until Monday.

Tonight I’ve been fighting off both melancholy and panic with the conscious act of savoring summer. Particularly the sounds of summer. If only I could bottle them up and line my shelves with them in the same way I used to stock my pantry with golden jars of sun-kissed pears.

This post will just have to do.

If I could put summer in a bottle this is what I’d include:

Giggles and shouts as a basement full of young teenagers spils out onto the back lawn.

Thunder rumbling across the sky, sometimes rattling my window panes.

August rain pattering on the roof and the sidewalk or washing over the pavement wave after wave after wave. Sometimes it’s gentle. Sometimes it’s almost demanding. But always it’s welcome.

Zack picking out a new song on the ukulele as we sit in the living room or out on the back deck. If you close your eyes while you listen you can almost pretend you’re vacationing on a quiet beach somewhere.

The constant hum of the fan drawing the cool night air (and the steady accumulation of dust that is the price I willingly pay for the pleasure of summer breezes) into my bedroom and living room.

Leaves rustling on the overgrown trees just outside the high west window in my upstairs bedroom. I leave that window open even in the heat of the day just so I can feel the smallest stirring of air as I watch the shadows play on the windowsill and across my bed and the bedroom walls.

Birdsongs to wake by. Crickets serenading me to sleep.

Honestly, it almost doesn’t get any better than this.

…these are a few of my favorite things:

multnomah falls

mo’s clam chowder

this completely sums up my feelings about the ocean

gotta love a place that’s so cold you need to wear a coat but so fun you can’t stop yourself from playing in the water

hypothermia was nigh, but they still didn’t want to come in out of the water–this is the ocean i know and love

also gotta love the way a rogue wave can liven up a family photo

portland saturdays market–i haven’t had an elephant ear since i was a kid attending the eugene saturdays market. i’d make the drive again just to have another one

a serenade in the rose gardens (and yes, there were raindrops, too)

also gotta love how we can go just about anywhere and bump into someone who knows and loves that mr. rowley

one of my favorite childhood memories is of visiting my aunt jean on her farm in idaho

a possible future smokejumper (remind me when i get home to tell you about the smokejumpers)

canoes on the water–every muscle, nerve, bone and joint from my shoulders to my wrists aches right now, but i’d do it all again tomorrow (you know, if it weren’t the Sabbath and all)

a pretty little treejumper

i could have parked myself on that bench for the entire afternoon

(but I didn’t)

–I also loved spending an entire week at a place that is backwoods enough there are warning signs on the trash bins asking you to dump your trash during the daylight hours so you won’t have to worry about bears, but nice enough the front desk will send up freshly laundered towels whenever you need them.

summer is for sipping silly slurpees from seven eleven

I’ve written about this before. That electricity that charges the air as the school doors are thrown open that final afternoon (well, late morning, to be exact) in late May. It’s been building since the days grew longer than the nights. I started tingling with it on Monday, as I sensed a palpable surge in the surround-sound of playful voices emanating from the numerous backyard parties throughout my neighborhood. There was almost an urgency to the fun that was had. And I couldn’t help but notice how the revelers deliberately lingered until well after dusk.

Freedom.

From schedules. Homework. Routine.

But I am the exception. While my entire family–even my school teacher husband–gets a summer “break” (it’s not really a vacation because there is still work to do and money to earn. And, well, Shane is still the counselor over the ward sprinkler systems), I will still be punching a time card.

Usually this fact does not bother me. I like what I do. I only work part-time. And really, how can I mind being at a place where an account manager will practically gush about how great he thinks I am when I troubleshoot something that’s been giving him grief or a co-worker from another office writes in an e-mail, “I don’t know that we can manage without you that long” after I mention the days off I’ll be taking in June? (Trust me–that does not happen at home.)

But this year is different. It’s not just that there is so much to do at home and that I want to be home doing it.

There is so much to be at home.

And I want to be home being it.

My second child–recently turned 18–graduates from high school today. I sense so keenly the fleetingness of time left with birds in my nest. And knowing my birdees will be home for a brief nine or ten weeks this summer, I find myself feeling like I’d rather be nesting right now…before they all fly away.

It will all be OK. They will spend their summers working, playing or hanging out at the neighborhood pool. We do have a family vacation planned. And at some point (upwards over 90 degrees) I will be grateful for my air-conditioned office.

But for the moment…

And in other news:

Someone once said something to the effect that to become a great woman one should surround herself with great women.

Today I am acknowledging a couple of the great women I know. I met them on “teh Internets,” but now they are some of my favorite people IRL.

And they inspire me.

Here’s a loud “hey girl” and a big pat on the back to b., for having the courage to surrender and ~j for having the guts to walk the walk (as well as swim the swim and bike the ride).

Loves,

Yeah. It was one of those days.

Because I had stayed up way too late (read, early) reading Tender at the Bone, I meant to sleep in until, hopefully, a little after 6 a.m.. But I couldn’t because one of my kids got up at 5:30 to head off to some secret activity at the high school. (You may think I’m a bad mom for not really knowing what was going on, but I am generally of the opinion that things that happen early in the morning are a lot more harmless than things that happen way-too-late at night, so I don’t worry.) Turns out that kid was on the morning news yesterday. Twice. (If you are interested, you will be able to find out why here. Eventually. Whenever they get around to posting the video.)

I rearranged work so I could help chaperone K~’s fourth grade field trip to Camp Floyd. (Because in my other life–before I worked outside the home–I was a classroom volunteer. And I miss it. I knew the other moms and the other kids and even the other teachers. Now I am an outsider, which is OK, I guess, because most of the other moms are 25 and I am old enough to be their mother. )

Did I tell you that Hillary Duff was also a chaperone on that field trip? I wish I would have thought to snap a picture, but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure if she was a teacher or a mom (because when they are all 25 you can’t really tell them apart–and sometimes they are both–but even at that age if you think they are the mom when they are the teacher and have never yet given birth then they are a little insulted), but she was the spitting image of Hillary Duff. I kid you not.

I drove home by myself because I had to hurry off to work and afternoon shift. On the way home I wanted to yell at the radio when KSL kept announcing Mark Shurtleff’s press conference announcing his run for a senate seat as “breaking news.”

That was so last tweet.

I went to work late and came home long enough to carefully transport my teenage chickens to the pigeon coop (where they are allowed to spend their afternoons) and break my toe. Again. Because when I am determined and in a hurry I don’t let things like hard wood furniture or railroad-tie planting beds get in my way. Now that I have met my out of pocket medical expenses for the year I am tempted to ask for both a right-foot and a left-foot version of those marvelously fashionable “boots” of which Azúcar speaks. Because I am prone to be no respecter of feet when it comes to broken toes.

Finally I started my jaunts back and forth and all across towns to catch two softball games and one baseball game at opposite ends of valley.

L~ plays for a competition-league team that was thrown together last-minute when Provo City Rec canceled the seventh through ninth-grade girls’ softball league. Go Bulldogs! They are a young team–not very experienced–and well, had they been wearing socks they would have had their socks knocked off by the girls from Springville (who, for some reason, always have amazingly numerous and skilled teams–is there nothing better to do in Springville than play softball?). (But L~ snagged a pop fly and made an impressive through from center field.)

I thought about why enduring this season will be worth it even though it will be hard. Sometimes you have to take your inexperienced self and play with the better teams even though it means your weaknesses will scream at you. Because that’s how you get better. (I tried to liken this to life and I realized this is why it’s good for me to play with the better writers at Segullah even though it means my weaknesses will scream at me. Because it’s how I will get better.)

Then I headed to K~’s baseball game where I watched his team, who never won a game until the last game of regular season last year, cruise to another victory. Go Cubs! (K~ stole his way home after a solid base hit.)

I thought about how sometimes you have to keep playing even when you’re in last place and you never win. Because that’s how you get better. (I realized that I generally don’t get to the getting better part because if I can’t do something remotely well I usually won’t do it. I may be mostly OK with that because frankly, I don’t really have much time to do more things these days.)

And then we went back to L~’s second game in which they got trounced again. (But L~ had a killer play to first.)

The only epiphany I had that time was while I was driving a bunch of girls home after the game and I realized that when you have a teenage daughter sometimes you have to listen to Britney Spears.

There are no deep life lessons in that.

It just is what it is.

Hope you’re HAVING FUN. WISH YOU I WERE tHERE.

So my friend Suedonym went to Disneyland for spring (and I use that term lightly) break (and I use that term quite literally)…

While I stayed home to work, do my taxes, and enjoy a little Utah spring.

Before (more like in the beginning):

After:

yeah. it’s broken. this is the same tree that really took a beating during that last big windstorm (lost a quarter of the tree). don’t know how much more it can take, but we’re going to leave it standing as long as it’s still kicking out those beautiful pink blossoms

this one pains me something deep–these trees are probably 30 years old…

not sure how well you can see it, but I’m pretty sure the top one is the power line to the house and yes, there is at least one branch draped over it

at least i always know that after the storm the skies will clear and the sun will come out again