Mamma Mia! Here I Go Again...

We had a Girls' Night Out last night and the girls obliged me with going to see Mamma Mia! the movie musical based on the music of ABBA. I was on the end of our row and unsure just how the rest of the girls did throughout, but I giggled my head off. I sang along--surely to the annoyance of the people sitting around us-- I tapped my foot and shimmied my shoulders. That was a lot of exercise for a movie! But so much fun. I have determined to visit the Greek islands someday. I am sincerely hoping that all the island locals are as spontaneous and musical as those in the film.

I must admit that I have harbored a bit of a crush on Colin Firth since seeing him in the 1995 A & E version of Pride and Prejudice--in the event that you hadn't noticed that before. He plays one of the gentlemen invited back to the island they had last visited with her mother 20 years ago for Sophie's wedding. Perhaps the tag line of the movie posters should have read: Mr. Darcy sings and dances!

Regardless, it was pure escapism and a lot of fun, at that. Plus, I bet it gives a little bump to the Greek Tourism industry. Should anyone else want to see the film and is in need of a movie friend, call me. I'd gladly sing along again!

Never Judge a Book....

I happened on an article in a magazine that asks "famous" people for the 5 most influential books they have ever read. Obviously, some celebretants (Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, etc., etc.)would have to be excused from this exercise, as they haven't read anything save their own press clippings in years.

This particular article was a list from Ben Affleck. His list is a bit heavy on foreign policy type reads, but the article in general made me think. Which books have really and deeply affected me?

I'm just going to exclude all Scriptural texts from the list, albeit they are the most influential books in my life. Just assume that the Bible and the Book of Mormon have had the most impact in my personal life than anything else, but if read in the correct spirit that would be the outcome for anyone else too. So let's keep this list secular in nature, shall we? My list, by the way, is in no particular order or ranking.

In eighth grade homeroom, my teacher, Mrs. Alarcon, read aloud to our class To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I don't recall ever feeling so much as I did during that reading. What a powerful story. What a promise of justice and fairness. What an example of a well-read, well-respected, honorable father. I loved the relationship of Atticus and Scout. I still do.

A little later in my life I read the J.K. Rowling Harry Potter series and fell in love with the fantasy. It came along at the right time for me to renew a love of literature--even fantasy. I love that this woman has written a complete and total universe that I otherwise couldn't have visited. Plus, don't you wish you could just wave a wand and say "Scurgio" and the house would be clean? Sure! Who wouldn't?

Gap Creek by Robert Morgan was one of my favorite books from our RS book club. I know that the draw of this book was the strength of the heroine and the struggles she faces. The other draw was that this story was written by a man. Not to be sexist, but he really "got" this woman character. While I have never scalded a hog and made lard from its fat or birthed a baby on my kitchen floor without help, but I suspect this guy hasn't either. That is good storytelling.

During high school and college, I think I read almost all of his published works, but my first Shakespeare read was The Merchant of Venice, even before Romeo and Juliet. What drew me into his writing was the universality of themes. Vengeance? Mercy? Forgiveness? Who hasn't felt some of that? Plus, what a cool dad that names his daughter, Portia--yeah, well. But people are people, still.

And I can't leave this list without including Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I read this as part of the required reading in freshman English at BYU. It was a mental block at first. then I began to see Lizzy Bennett as one of my friends, she would have been if she were a real person, you know. This book was so funny and witty and clever and man, did Jane just nail relationships?! This was years before I saw the 1995 A & E version with Colin Firth, I might add. Now I am a Jane Austen addict--and I am reading or listening or watching her characters and her words nearly all the time. And like Shakespeare, she is dealing with topics still relevant today and to me. Plus, I love British stuff in general. You can't get much more British than Jane Austen and Shakespeare.

What I love about reading is the escape and the examination you can achieve when reading a really good story. I can identify issues in characters and then see them reflected in my life. I can also explore solutions theoretically before I try in real life. Plus, when I am reading something worth my time, I get the feeling that my brain is not turning to mush, as I had previously feared.

Any reader favorites I should also have considered? Five books is a very short list, I know, but it is a good exercise to pare down the list to what I REALLY love. Feel free to drop a comment with your favorites. Let's compare. Plus I just finished Pope Joan yesterday, and need a few new suggestions. I'm headed to the library later today.

Birthday Season in Full Swing

I have written several posts now that have been far too serious or sentimental. Today I would like to leave you with a bit more light hearted fare. At our house, we are midway through our season of birthday celebrations. The season begins in February, and like all good sporting seasons, seems to last forever. Ours ends in early August. So here are some photos from years passed wherein we look our best (not) and turn another year older--like it or not. Enjoy!

When Genius Golfer turned 40, we threw him an Old Man in the Neighborhood party. One set of neighbors gave him the appropriate Old Man outfit. Nice..Now you can see why I love this guy!
I am not sure what happened in this one, but I do know that I generally belong BEHIND the camera, as witnessed by this photo. But this was my birthday and I was probably making faces at one of the kids who was commandeering the camera.

The Girl still, to this day, likes to put her bows and ribbons from her gifts on her head--in some highly fashionable way, as seen here at her birthday party a few years ago. Cindy Crawford, eat your heart out!

Here was The Boy a couple years ago, full on in the middle of his Eddie Van Halen--wanna be phase. Being a child of the 80s, I have taught my youngling well, have I not?! Rock on, brother!

Just in case you go out into a public place and start looking for any of the crazies posted above, just remember that we CAN put on a "normal family" look too. The really scary part is that this unassuming normal family is really made up of the lunatics posted singly above. Beware. You HAVE been warned.

Spoiled and Loving It

I am spoiled. I know this. It is not new information. In fact, I have known that I am spoiled for a long time. Before Genius Golfer and I hooked up, I was a spoiled daughter. If you ask my sister, I was always "the favorite daughter" and therefore, spoiled. I happen to know from personal experience that my sister was also regarded as "the favorite daughter" and equally spoiled, but she will argue this point.

I digress.

My spoiling began as a lucky kid, with good parents and grandparents who loved me. It continued as I became a generally respectful and mostly obedient teenager with only a little attitude. During my career as a college student, I know I was spoiled because I worked for play money, but not tuition or rent. As a young adult and a newlywed, I was less spoiled than any other time in my life, but still spoiled nonetheless.

Now I am a full time spoiled wife and mom--with a generous husband, a zippy little car, air conditioning, freedom to do almost whatever I want with the kids during the day, enough of everything and a lot of excess in most things.

But I realized just HOW spoiled I am this afternoon when I spent my lunch time with Dear Friends, Kelly and Micheale, and the gaggle of children that follow us around. My spoil-age monitor went off when I sat with DF Kelly and watched and listened to her recently inherited 3 preschoolers (as additions to the 3 kidlets of her own). Saint Kelly has taken in a niece and 2 nephews who needed a stable and loving and secure home life. Their situation isn't set in stone, but the fact that she has done this much is overwhelming to me. She is the one to do it too. We tease her that she is already mothering the world we occupy. She is great with the kids--hers, mine, yours, and now theirs.

I also saw my spoil-age monitor spike while I watched DF Micheale wrestle her tired, crying 4 year old to a time out. He is a good kid, but I watched in stunned amazement at her patience with her kiddos and the steadiness she has with them. I know, assuredly, that she gets tired and can lose it--like who doesn't?--but she is loving, no matter what consequence follows.

I maxed out of patience about 5 years ago. About the time The Boy started all day 1st grade and I finally felt that I could take a deep breath without someone kicking the air out of me unexpectantly. That becomes a pretty comfortable feeling. There are days when I only have to raise my voice to call people to the kitchen for dinner from hither and yon around the house. And I could skip that if I wasn't too lazy to go find my chuck wagon triangle bell.

There is a reason I have only two children, and that they are now 'tweens. I can enjoy littler people and even more littler people for short spurts of time, but DF Kelly and DF Micheale are in the trenches day and night with little people at this stage in their lives. And while I like to think that sometimes I can be helpful, I am all the time recognizing how spoiled I am as I watch like some kind of spectator in the Coliseum as these good friends take on the daily battles with their kids, like the Christians took on the Lions for the Romans' sport. In fact, I am usually sipping my Diet Coke like a real sports fan throughout the events, thus making me even more like a curious spectator.

That is a spoiled life! Yes, siree, and I love it!

She's a Jolly Good Fellow

You have heard me talk a lot lately about The Boy, as he has been the center of many stories here of late. So today's entry will tell one story of The Girl.

Our neighbors down the street have 7 children, and a couple of dogs. (Not that the dogs matter to this post, but it does add to the chaos at the neighbor's place at times.) Their two oldest boys have played baseball this season and both boys' teams made it to the state tournaments. The tournament games were essentially all day today, in Payson.

Yesterday evening, Mrs. Neighbor asked if we'd be around in the afternoon between about 4 and 7, because her oldest daughter had to go to work and they were planning on leaving the youngest 4 neighborlings home due to the length and boredom for young children that baseball really is. Big sister would have been watching the 4 youngest most of the day already.

The Girl was totally fine with the idea of watching 4 small neighborlings for the hours the parents and oldest sister would be gone, FOR NO MONEY. She is really happy to help and seems to like babysitting generally. Even as I sit and write this I can see her across the street playing with the 4 neighborlings on our street's local playground (AKA some body's swing set where they welcome everyone to use it). She is pushing Baby Neighbor in the swing and Little Miss Neighbor is playing in the sand with other neighbor kids and her two brothers.

This is the kind of thing that The Girl does. She is sensitive this way. I don't remember liking babysitting that much, so for me, I tried to avoid it. Even now, it is not my favorite thing--too old and out of practice, I suppose.

The Girl makes me very proud of her. She is the topic of many good reports from parents who have hired her to babysit, now that she is 12+, and I love to hear from them after the fact that their "Kids loved having The Girl over" and "What a good sitter she is" and "My, even the dishwasher was loaded!" She is great. I wish I knew where she gets that from...maybe her grandmas.

Sign of Relief

Today, The Boy had his first day of Football Camp, at the high school astro-turf field with HS coaches and HS seniors teaching these wanna-bes a thing or two about the game. This was all beginning after The Boy swam for one hour this morning--swim season is still on for 3 more weeks. Actual football season starts for him the final week of swimming. Mean mom that I am, I made him go to practice this morning before two hours of football.

The good news is: He wasn't killed.

Football stresses me out as The Boy's mom. I know that he is thrilled with the idea of football. Genius Golfer thinks it will be fine--everything is fine to him. Overprotective, they call me. I'm OK with that description, seeing as it is genetically my predisposition. Notice it is always the "mother bear" reaction when a child is in danger. No one ever says it is a "Papa Bear" reaction, unless you are getting a burger at A & W (and that sounds good, by the way; it must be lunchtime).

So he wasn't killed, and has lived to play another day. He will be swimming all week before football camp still. And I can foresee that getting him to bed tonight will NOT be a problem.

Happy Monday, friends!

My TOP Three

Last night I had a terrifying dream. I won't go into the details to have you dream the sequel for yourself, but suffice it to say, that in my nightmare, my family was all taken from me. It was devastating.

So today's post is my TOP THREE blessings. I have a sign in my kitchen that says "My greatest blessings call me MOM". But in truth, my blessings begin with Genius Golfer before The Boy or The Girl.

I love my husband. He is a genius, and he is a golfer. But better than those things, he is my best friend. I would rather spend time with him--even if it means cruising the aisles at Home Depot (or anywhere else)--than I would anything else. When I have been faced with choosing my husband at home for the night or going with my girlfriends--even to the Barn--I choose him. He cares for me and takes care of me. He is a hard worker and has abilities to do just about anything he wants to do. If he doesn't know something, he will read about it and figure it out. For all of our joking around here, I know that he loves me for more than my boobs. (Can I say that?!)

The Girl came into our lives a little early, but completely perfect. She is bright and curious and loves to learn. She is sensitive to people around her, even her mean old mom. She is a good friend and has a good heart. She likes to do what is right, and she usually does it. She is talented and enthusiastic and willing to help. She is becoming a wonderful young woman. She gave me the opportunity to be a mother. She is growing to be a very good friend too.

The Boy came to us on his own time table, but the Lord must have known it would take something like that to get him to me. Once he was born, I had nearly two years of post-partum issues that interfered with my abilities to care for my family. Luckily, it wasn't anything too psychotic but it was hard to deal mentally. The times I held that little baby boy in my arms in the night to nurse and he would make little faces up at me, I would tell myself that 'I can do this and with the right help I will be okay'. I held on to that feeling when the days would crumble and I would feel that the whole trio would be better off without me. I held that boy's face in my heart and willed myself to get better. I am so glad I did.

Every day I learn new Boy things from him. This weekend, for example, I learned a little bit about athletic protection--a cup, if you will. (If I can say 'boobs" I can say that.) Saturday, in preparation for Football Camp beginning tomorrow, GG took The Boy to Big 5 sporting goods and bought him his first cup. The Boy was so proud. He happily showed me what they found--also cleats and practice pants for football. But the jewel of the shopping trip was his new cup. While waiting for his turn with the lawn mower to do his job yesterday, he delightedly ran upstairs to his room and tried it on. Not as delightedly he came downstairs and reported that it was "very stiff" and apparently not at all as comfortable as he imagined. I told him, with his man bits in there, he will want it to be stiff to protect himself. He is a funny kid. Maybe, had I grown up with brothers, I wouldn't have found the events so entertaining. I love that he is funny, and I love that he makes it a point to entertain me. Some days I think, he is still looking up at me, like when he was an infant, telling me to "Hold on. Things are going to be OK."

In church today, The Girl could sense that it was not one of my better days, sheer exhaustion was setting in today, and as she sat between GG and myself, she would lean her head on my shoulder as if telling me she was there for me. You just can't ask for better kids. I can't anyway.

What would I ever do without these three people in my life?! The nightmare version was bad enough. In real life, I hope I never have to find out.