Obedience

I decided a couple of days ago that I should write something for the blog, since it’s been a month since anyone posted, and more than 6 months since I posted. I wasn’t really feeling inspired about what to write about, so I started looking at some old drafts, and this one caught my eye. I started it 5 years ago, but it’s a subject I’ve been thinking about again lately, so I decided to open it up and look at it. After reading the opening paragraph (which I could have written this week pretty much word for word), I knew it was the one to finish.

I felt tonight like I should write a post (not because I feel bad about not having blogged in forever, though I do a little bit — luckily my blogmates are quite relaxed about things like that — but just a nagging feeling that I should write something), but there wasn’t anything in particular I felt like I ought to write about. I signed on and started looking through my saved drafts to see if there was anything I felt like finishing, but nothing stuck out to me. Then I got distracted putting kids to bed, cleaning up the house, etc, and left it alone until a few minutes ago, when again I felt like I should write something.

When I left off I was thinking about possibly finishing one post I’d started a while back that talked about one of the main themes in my patriarchal blessing — faithfulness. When I came back, however, I started thinking about the other theme in my patriarchal blessing, which I touched on briefly in that post — obedience. In that post I only mention briefly that obedience is one of the main themes of my patriarchal blessing and then move on. I remember that the reason for that was that I was somewhat uncomfortable with that being one of the themes of my patriarchal blessing, and I felt the same way when I re-read the draft earlier today.

You see, I’m not particularly comfortable with obedience. It’s not a principle I like very much, or one I’m particularly good at. Read More

To the Mormon LGBT+ Youth

I was going to write a different post tonight. One offering solace, which is what I felt I needed. But I felt perhaps you needed a different message tonight.

The cognitive dissonance you’re living with is painful, and it’s hard, and I’m sure it’s even worse today than it is most days. But never forget that you are enough, just as you are. You are strong. And you are loved so, so much, by so many people. If you need help, support, or a listening ear, please reach out. Read More

A Peacemaker

I want to start with this great quote (from this post), one I go back to over and over and over again:

Because listen – here’s the thing. After my wrestling match with God, I wasn’t really exhausted enough. I still came up swinging. For a little while, I felt angry. Angry at anyone who had a different understanding of scripture than I did. Angry at people who taught that God disapproved of homosexuality. Prideful about my position, really. And then one day God sat my butt down with the Bible again.

And he said something to me like, “Wait a minute, Lovie. Yes, I love those gays, but I love the ones picketing against them every bit as much. That’s the point.”

And There’s the rub. There’s Christianity. It’s not deciding that one group shouldn’t be judged and then turning around and judging the other group. That is not being a peacemaker. Peacemakers resist categorizing people. They find the light, the good, in each and every person. They don’t try to change people, except by example. They know everyone has something important to teach. They are humble about their ideas and their opinions. They try to find common ground, always.

Read More

Meaningful Service

A few weeks ago I was sitting at home while the kids were at school and feeling kind of depressed. Part of the reason was the inability to go anywhere or do much, but it was hitting me particularly hard that day (as opposed to the previous few weeks, although not much had changed), and I thought maybe there was something in particular I was missing. I couldn’t figure out what, though.

Having been raised as a good Mormon girl, I decided to start trying to figure out the answer using some of those standard Sunday School responses. Not because I think they’re a cure-all, but because they were mostly things I could do, I figured it wouldn’t hurt, and I had to start somewhere. So I started with prayer, and then moved on to scripture study. Neither were bad, but neither did anything to get me out of my funk, either. After reading about a chapter in my scriptures I thought that maybe reading some of my favorite GC talks would be more helpful. I started perusing some of President Uchtdorf’s talks (because he’s my favorite), and a couple of talks in something he said (no, I don’t remember what, or which talk) made me realize what I’d been missing. Service. Read More

Doubt Your Doubts

I spent many hours today listening to General Conference. As is usual for me, I was especially touched by President Uchtdorf’s talks. A couple of his comments, combined with events in Salt Lake City tonight, coalesced to form the thoughts in this post.

As anyone who reads Mormon blogs, or Mormon-related news of any sort, is no doubt aware, many women (and some men) came together in Salt Lake City tonight and asked to be admitted into the Priesthood session of General Conference. The group that organized the action is called Ordain Women, and their whole purpose is to call upon the leadership of the LDS Church to ordain women to the Priesthood alongside men. Many of these women have great faith that this is something that will happen, even though it hasn’t yet.

I once shared that faith. Read More

Mothering

My husband and I are working on adopting, which is a large part of why I’ve been mostly absent here for the last year. I wrote this post last night on our adoption blog, but I thought it might generate some good discussion here, and go along nicely with some of the recent posts, so I’m cross-posting it.

Anyone who knows me know that I’m a pretty honest person, and I don’t sugarcoat things. Especially when it comes to my kids and mothering. In fact, this blog is probably about the least honest I’ve been, and even here I don’t feel like I’ve been at all dishonest, I just don’t have nearly enough whiny posts up for you to realize how whiny I can be in real life. That’s probably okay. A little less whining is good for me, and you probably appreciate not hearing so much of it. I know it grates on my nerves when my kids do it, so I really ought to be setting a better example.

But that’s not really why I’ve avoided my tendencies toward whininess here. (What do they mean, whininess isn’t a word? It totally is.) I’ve avoided it here because for the first time in a very long time people are judging me and I care what they think. Read More

On Progress and Support

As I contemplated what to write about today, unlike past years, nothing immediately sprang to mind. Overall I think that’s a great thing. Life, even with autism, is more settled these days. We have routines and plans, and real communication, and things are pretty good.

Don’t get me wrong — life with Spencer is far from “normal”. My almost-3yo talks better than my 6yo does. If I have to choose one hand to hold in a busy parking lot or to cross a street, it’s that of my oldest child. Nearly everything in the house ends up dipped in water at one point or another, and that includes electronics. I’m trying to potty-train 3 children at once, and with the oldest I’ve probably washed out 5 or 6 times more poopy underwear than most parents do while potty training 10 children. Waiting in a line is like yanking teeth out with my bare hands.

Still, things are pretty good. Read More

Taking Requests

Our blog is a little slow lately, and I’m feeling a little bad about that, and like I should do something about it. I have a number of post drafts in-progress, but none that are currently interesting enough to me to be worth the energy to finish them. So I thought I would approach our lovely readers. Are there any subjects that you’ve always wanted to discuss? Anything you wish we had a post on? Anything that’s currently on your mind that you wish there was a current post about? I’m taking requests. I won’t guarantee anything (since that’s practically a guarantee that I won’t manage to do it), but if you want to see a post on a particular subject and I can come up with something quasi-intelligent to say on the matter, I’ll try to do it. So, fire away. I aim to please.

A Spreadsheet for 2011

While I don’t hold with the idea that you can magically change yourself and your habits by setting goals as New Year’s rolls around, I still find it useful to occasionally stop and look at how I’m doing in various areas of my life, and try to figure out how I can improve. New Year’s and my birthday (which happens to fall in July) always work out to be good times to re-evaluate and try to change some things, and this year is no different.

I set some goals last year, like I do every year, and (as in most years) I achieved some and didn’t achieve others. I’m okay with that — my general philosophy is that I’ll never be perfect, but better is always good. Since I didn’t get as far as I wanted to on some of my goals last year, I decided I should try something different to help motivate me this year, and I had a brilliant idea — a spreadsheet. (I know, it doesn’t sound that brilliant, but really, it was. For me at least.) Read More

30 and (probably) diabetic

You know how people always joke about their bodies falling apart when they hit milestone years? Well, now I know why. It’s totally true. (Okay, not really — if I really had to pick a point when my body failed me it would be when I got CFS, which was when I was 16. Still, I find this situation ironic.)

I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago to get general blood tests done so I could save money on my insurance next year. Most of the tests came back normal, but one test didn’t — my HgA1c level was high. For those of you not in the know (I wasn’t) this indicates that my blood sugar over the last few months has been high. Read More

What My Mother Taught Me

Not Ophelia put up the text of President Benson’s 1987 talk about women not working outside the home over at FMH today. I had some thoughts after reading it, and I decided they were long and involved enough (and a little off-topic enough) that it would be better to put them up here as their own post. But they’re a reaction to the talk, so go read (or at least skim) it first.

While I always knew about this talk, I don’t recall ever being taught it much (though it’s possible I simply blew it off if/when it was taught and that’s why I don’t remember it), luckily. And I’m very grateful that my mother (who is very faithful, orthodox, conservative, and was always a SAHM mom) not only didn’t teach it, but didn’t listen to it. Or rather, that she didn’t let it keep her from making the choices that she thought were best for herself and her family. Read More

How Presiding Works in My Marriage

I decided to pull this draft out because it was voted for — twice! — as one people would like to see finished. It was the only one of mine voted for (not too surprising, since my drafts make up about 1% of the total drafts), and I haven’t posted anything in a while, so I figured I should not only blog something again, but listen to the opinions of our commenters. So here you go. (Also, it was started a long time ago, but what was already there still applies.)

I’ve been reading this thread over on FMH. It had me thinking about presiding in my own marriage, and since I didn’t want to threadjack (and since the blog has been a little dead lately), I decided to post my thoughts here. Read More

A Day in My Life (a few years ago)

This is a repost of a post I did for FMH‘s A Day in the Life series. I’m resurrecting it now because my little sister recently had her second baby and is feeling overwhelmed. Hopefully this will help her realize that she’s at least doing better than I managed at the same time. Also, I hope to follow this up by finishing a post I started when the second was about a year old and things were much more under control, so look for that soon.

I’m a SAHM with a BA in anthropology and a minor in computer science. I have a 21-mo-old and a 3-mo-old (both boys). I write, and hope someday to publish a book, but not for a while at the rate I’m going.

Here’s my post… Read More

“those durned librul activist judges” aka, Gay Marriage and Judicial Review in Action

I wanted to talk about this during the Prop 8 fervor, but didn’t quite have the energy. With the recent ruling in Iowa going into effect, I thought this was a good time to bring it up again. My friend John already wrote an awesome note stating my feelings on the matter better than I could, so (with his permission) I am reposting it here. Read More

Blessings of Understanding and Love

I’ve been wanting to put this post up for a while. The second annual World Autism Day gave me the impetus I needed to actually finish and publish it.

A while ago I was in the waiting room of a local children’s clinic, waiting for my son’s doctor’s appointment. There was another boy there with his parents and his grandmother. He was probably about 12, and while I’m not sure what exactly was wrong with him, he had some obvious developmental delays. I watched as his grandmother took him outside in the small garden adjoining the waiting room, and the boy expressed obvious delight in nature and the outdoors. When he came back inside he came up behind me and gave me a hug. It surprised me at first (I didn’t realize he’d come up behind me), but then I turned around, gave him a big smile, and said, “Hello.” He smiled back. His grandmother immediately rushed into a defensive explanation of him and his behavior. I just smiled and said, “I know.” Read More

Random Facts: Tell Us About Yourself

I’m feeling a little guilty because no one has posted anything here for a while (and our last post was even a guest post — thanks Beatrice!). But I’m also pretty much incapable of higher thought function at the moment, so you get to read some more random nothingness. There has recently been a fad on facebook where you post 25 random facts about yourself. I joined in, mostly because I had enjoyed reading what other people wrote so much. I thought I would share my list with you as well, and I would love to get to know all of you better by hearing some random facts about your life. Read More

To Be Healthier

Kevin had a nice post at BCC not long ago on losing weight. It is, after all the time of year for buckling down and deciding that this time, we’re going to do those hard things that we’ve been struggling with. While I’m fairly happy with my weight right now (I’m not quite where I want to be, but I’m steadily losing baby weight), it reminded me of a related goal I have this year: to be healthier. Read More

Our Homes

I’ve been wanting to write the last couple of days, but I’ve been kind of stuck with my current writing project. In my attempt to either work through this or avoid it (you pick), I’ve come up with some blog posts. They’ve all been fairly random, especially in regards to what we usually talk about around here, so most of them haven’t actually been posted (actually, most of them have only been written in my head at this point). But despite the fact that I don’t want to completely bury our blog in random and off the wall posts, I still do post some of them. Like my last post, which was even entitled Complete Randomness. Or the post about a fly in my bedroom.

I realized that to post such things I must feel pretty comfortable here. At home. And I do. It got me thinking about where I feel at home, and where I don’t, and ways that I can tell. Read More

Complete Randomness

I haven’t blogged in a while, and I’m feeling a little guilty about it. (This is not to suggest that my fellow bloggers are in any way making me feel guilty. If you hadn’t figured it out, we’re kind of laid back about posting around here. No, the guilt is entirely self-induced.) The thing is, I really don’t have anything interesting to blog about. Not even anything uninteresting that I can make an entire post out of. Because, well, posts require thought (semi-coherent ones do, at least), and I’m currently incapable of thought. (This is a fairly common occurrence, what with 3 kids 3 and under.)

So, I’m now going to string together some completely random thoughts and call them a blog post.
Read More