Well, my 13 (almost 14) year old son bought some new running/exercising shoes. I almost passed out.........
Did you notice the size? Bob's only a size 11. Either this boy is going to be tall or he'll have ski's for feet.....I wonder.
The shoe is almost as tall as Toby....and they are as long as him. Watch out little dog for the "BIG FOOT".
(A picture of my handsome teenager planning out his Eagle Project)
Well, I just may lose a lot of friends on this one...but....I have to come clean and out of the closet....I am NOT a "friend" of scouting. Yep, it's true and according to my husband I am surely on the road to apostasy. I will cheer loudly and have a huge party when the church no longer supports it. Which, of course, again according to Bob...that will NEVER happen....Hello Julie, it's the activity arm of the aaronic priesthood. Well, I will not give up on hope....it is the last to die!
And so I sit here with my dilemma....I have 2 boys. (well, 3 with Bob). Plus I truly do believe the church is lead by a prophet of God and that he speaks for God.....So....I decide to Scout (Mom scout that is). When Nate turned 8, I proudly bought the blue uniform and gave it to him for his birthday. And along with the uniform came my proudly stated goal....Nathan will have his eagle BEFORE he enters highschool. I figured the pain of scouting could be compared to ripping off a bandaid...just do it quick and get it over with! Well, I am very proud to say that this last summer Nathan FINISHED his EAGLE PROJECT!!!!! The closest thing I have to compare to the successful feeling is that final moment of Potty training....oh yeah...remember that!!! I wanted to yell throughout the world how awesome of a mom I was....look my kid can poop in the potty!!!!!! Now, I am super close to that feeling AGAIN......He just needs to finish up 2 more merit badges (personal fitness and camping), and he should be done with those this next month....SEPTEMBER.....One month BEFORE he turns 14!!!! Did you read that right....BEFORE 14!
So now, here I am....so close to the finish line....Nate needs one more camp out and a hike that goes 1,000 feet in elevation for his camping merit badge. The camp out is planned for this weekend. But lo....a conflict arrives......
....The dreaded football practice.
Well, I am not going to let something this stupid stand in the way of success. So, I say that I'll pick up the boys from practice and drive them out to where the scouts are camping. Easier said than done....problem one....do you notice that there isn't much light in the picture?....Yep, it's 8:30 at night! Problem two is that the camp site is 1 1/2 hours away. Problem three, there is a 8 mile stretch off the main path that is the BUMPIEST, SKINNIEST, and WINDIEST road!! It is also freaky!! The boys kept talking about warewolves as I am driving. It's seriously a scene from Twilight (well, I guess it was filmed up here). It is dark and isolated and I seriously am petrified and almost in tears. The road was so dang FREAKY. But nothing was going to waver this Scout Momma!!! And so, after white and stiff nuckles and a lot of burping (I get car sick), I dropped those boys off and got back a little after 11:00 p.m. I am still so wired from being so freaked out....now I can't go to bed. And so I am blogging :) See...I did my "boundin" just in time!
Here are some pictures of Nathan giving instructions to the people who came to help with his project. Of course there are better ones but I have to post these because as I was going through them, I noticed a little trend throughout the pictures from Amanda....only a sister.....poor Nate....he gets no respect! I am so proud of Nathan. He is an amazing young man!!!
Trying to give instructions to the group...what's the sister doing?
Still trying to give instructions
What's a guy gotta do to get some decent help around here.
Hey, I'm back!! Yep, it's been a long haul but here I am. The video below pretty much tells my story. I love it, it's on the Disney "Incrdibles" DVD. I showed it to my seminary students a couple of years ago when I talked about Job (I always want to put an "e" on the end of that). My favorite part is when the little sheep does his naked pose at the end.....work it!
This last year had put me in the puddle all naked. But, fortunately, I found my bound! The main problem has been our wonderful new son Derrick, yep, he's come with a lot of emotional baggage and has been more work than we anticipated. I won't bore you with details but they've involved, poop, throw-up, lying, flushing things down toilets, yelling, ohhh...the list goes on. I finally figured out that he has Reactive Attachment Disorder and so now we have him working with a therapist on that....hope it helps!!! In addition to that....my year just seems to be jinxed at every turn, I lose things, ruin things, forget things...you name it!! What a disaster!!
The spiritual discoveries
(boring - so don't feel like you need to read) is that there are some things in life that we just need to go through alone.
Discovery #1 -- A few of months ago in Relief Society, a sister who just had a baby stood up to express her thanks to everyone for all the phone calls and suport she's received. I pondered that and thought...hmmm...I remember those days of having support and help when I would go through changes like having babies, moving, aruguing with hubby, saving money, etc. They were things that were very common experiences with others. And so lots of people had opinions and ideas to share, and they just knew how to help. But, there are some things that aren't that common and so no one really knows what to do or is even remotely aware of the struggles and needs you may have. It doesn't matter if I let someone know I'm struggling, they just can't seem to get it enough to help me and I just appear to be a loser...It's just so dang lonely and tiring. It's nobody's fault...it's just the way it is. But I found that it's okay because it forces me to REALLY work on my relationship with my Savior and become very close to Him. That's hard sometimes because Satan tries real hard on me to focus on being alone. But, as I kept plodding along, I got to feel my Savior's love and companionship more than ever. And as an added bonus....I got to show how dang smart I really am! Yet, I had more to learn....discovery #1 only leads into my discovery #2. (I'm so dense, I can't seem to figure it all out in one step)
Discovery #2 -- A couple of months ago I stood to share my testimony in church. I just briefly mentioned that I've had a really hard year and then expressed my testimony of the scriptures and how reading them has helped me more than I could imagine. After the testimony meeting, I was simply surprised by the amount of people who came up to me and commented on my testimony and wanted to comfort me. As the day progressed, I started to feel really stupid about my saying I had a hard year....you see...the people who were coming up to me had greater trials than I did....2 of them had just gone through a divorce with their spouse, 1 had experienced a daughter who got pregnant out of wedlock, 2 were people who had children who were seriously rebelling, 1 was a woman who just lost her mother in a tragic car accident and 1 was a mother who had a special needs child. At first I thought, stupid Julie...Heavenly Father is trying to teach me that I don't have it that bad. But, then, as time went on, I realized that He wasn't belittling my trial....instead, he showed me the wonderful gift that comes from our trials. I think of the beatitudes of 'morn with those that morn' and 'comfort those that stand in need of comfort'. You see, the only people who came up to me that day and naturally sensed my need were people who had the "odd man out" trials...those that are not common among others and so are very lonely. These people had a special gift of the spirit and had the Christlike empathy from their personal experience to recognize and reach out....to morn with me and comfort me. What wonderful love I felt from them. It didn't feel like a slap on that back and an "Oh, you'll get through". It was as though they had spiritual water for me. They had a tenderness in their eyes, a quite respect and reverence. It really was an eye opener that we don't just feel our Savior's love during these times, but we BECOME like Him. We are given the greatest spiritual gift of all...Charity.
These "lonely" trials seem to be the biggest tests for me. I tend to communicate better with people that I can hear and touch rather than the simple whisperings of the spirit. What's Heavenly Father saying???? Plus...I also know during these times that Heavenly Father will sometimes just sit on the sidelines...rooting me on...but leaving me alone, knowing I can do it. Those are tough!! Worth it, but still tough :) I think I'm better now, more at peace with myself, more confident in my abilities, more loving and empathetic toward others......well, at least until the next time I'm thrown out naked, but I know to just keep boundin :)
The two extra kids are my niece and nephew....no...I didn't adopt two more....although, I would LOVE to steal these two cuties...Watch out Adam and Lindsey :)
Now the Bad News
I think I must need a little blogging break. I've kind of lost the "fun" bug. I know it will come back soon. So don't give up on me quite yet....I just need a little breather. A little prioritizing! I love you all and your comments have seriously kept me going. I can't even express how happy I would get when I saw someone left a comment...It's kind of hilarious (or is it freaky?) Anyway, now that I've said this, I'll be wanting to blog everyday...naw...but I'll be back soon :)
You go from this...
To This...
A close-up of Bob flying his new kite. Notice there is a SQUALL coming in. What the heck is that?? When we bought our kite, the person gave us a little instruction on how to fly it. He told us to watch out for the squalls in the sky. Well, being a clueless mountain hick from Utah, I had to ask what a squall was. Turns out it's a black scary looking cloud that has sudden burst of wind and rain. Sorry Bob...you were wrong....it's NOT a flying indian woman.
Miracles never cease to happen! After NOT watching out for the squall, we went to fix our kite that crashed into the ground....only to find out that we were missing a little support stick. We walked and walked everywhere on the beach...then suddenly I spied with my little eye the black stick. It was definitely a picture moment!
Yep...IT'S THE JOB!!! It's KILLING me!!! I have a TON of posts to catch up on...I for sure want to capture my daughter's 16th birthday, her first and second date, her driver's license and her lacrosse games. I need to share about Nathan trying to get an umpire job and Derrick's writing the phrase "I will be respectful" 950 times (and 950 is NOT an exaggeration!!--Oh MY!!) I'm planning on getting some stuff up this weekend...hopefully!
At least, here's my update on my job (since it's the reason I am a slacker in all other areas). I was trained on March 17 for 2 hours and then when I got home, there was an audio file waiting for me to transcribe. It took me 4 blasted hours to transcribe that thing and it ended up being only 5 pages long...at 90 cents a page....well....you do the math. I thought, "What the heck did I get myself into?" The company has it's own little format to use, their own grammar and words to use, etc. Plus, the tape was soooo hard to understand! Getting paid by the page and not the hour.....this wasn't good AT ALL! After the first week, I averaged out my hours and the number of pages and I was making around 50 cents an hour....this was slave labor...back to the sweat shop days!
(One bonus.... as you can tell from my picture, I'm looking soooo glamorous in my LARGE cheapo headphones I bought. Anyway....back to the story)
By the end of the pay cycle, I told Bob that figured I'd made about $13.00. After a good amount of laughter, he got in control and said, "Oh, that's GREAT, we're definitely on our way to getting the glass for our shower!" Booya Baby!! Hmmm....welll.....The only problem was that the rental of my foot pedal was $20.00 a month....oops...we'll be owing the company 7 bucks! Let's see, I would say...hmmm...not very smart? But, to my pleasant suprise, when I actually did get my first paycheck, it was 90 dollars!! What??? Did they accidently pay someone elses paycheck to me and that poor person was cursing and saying, "13 Bucks...what the....?"? Ahhh....but wait....there's more....I looked through the paperwork that came with the paycheck and noticed a letter informing me that they recommend I take some training classes because my number of pages compare with the hours I worked didn't equal to at least minimum wage. By law, I have to be making at least minimum wage....so I was payed for the hours I worked in addition to my pages sent in....no wonder I made 90 bucks instead of 13. But now I'm on probation on my probation...hmmmm? :) Nah, it was just a basic form letter that they send out when you fall below expectations. They know I was just starting out. My hours this month compared to the number of pages I typed are much better. If my calculations are correct, I'm actually making a little over minimum wage!! Hooray!!
