We drove to Monticello, Utah for a lightning quick camping trip the last weekend of September.
We left home about 3pm Friday and we’re home again by 3:30 pm Saturday. Someday I’d really like to try leisurely camping. At least I think so. I like the idea of camping, but it seems like I always have a terrible sinus headache when we get to camp, and I’m as eager as anyone to go back home as soon as possible.
After two weeks of substitute teaching at the Elementary school, two things happened. First, I was shocked at the low literacy rates, the high amount of worksheets, and the low amount of actual books the teachers were reading to the students (nearly zero.) In my mind, these things are very much related. How can we expect children to learn to read if it isn’t exciting and fun? Books are exciting and fun. Worksheets are not. When I asked about books, I was told, “The teachers don’t have time to read for fun.”
I wanted to cry, “But what about reading for knowledge? Reading for context? Reading to learn how to read?”
Since I have no public school teaching experience yet, I held my tongue. But my heart is weeping over the dismal daily grind of copying answers on worksheets the kids are subjected to.
The second thing I learned was, I prefer to know what I am doing every day, instead of it being a surprise.
So, I applied for and accepted at job as para, or teacher’s aid, for the JR High reading teacher. He is so gracious and happy to have my help, and I am happy to be busy working for something meaningful. In the JR high and high school, many of the students are still at a zero-first grade reading level. Here too, the daily school work is pretty much copying answers from the board onto worksheets, because they cannot even read their worksheets. Direct phonics instruction is a pretty new occurrence in this school, so the high schoolers never had it. That’s where I am focusing my efforts, that and reading from actual books.
I have found that my patience for struggling readers in the classroom is much higher than my patience was when my own children were the struggling readers.
When we moved to Monument Valley,
I expected that my well-developed music skills would be instantly needed here. Instead, I have been using my mediocre hair-cutting skills to give the missionaries hair cuts, saving them hours of time, and lots of money. (The closest barbershop charges $35 for a basic men’s haircut.)
I have also been using my fledgling invite-people-to-gather skills to create more connection and community. I’ve organized play-dates with the stay-home-moms and invited families to our house for dinner and games and singing more times since we moved here than I did in a year in Missouri. There are plenty of new teachers who are alone because they know this isn’t their forever home, and some are reluctant to invest time in building relationships, not to mention overwhelmed with their teaching work–but at the same time, they are lonely and need the support of community. I know the best thing to do is gather.
I was surprised that what I have been useful for so far has been these things that are not my strengths. As I thought more on it, I realized, of course, God is always putting us places where we can grow, not places where we can rest easy on skills that we already have.
❤
GlowWorm
Because it makes total sense to spend five hours making a skirt for a ten-minute presentation you agreed to do at the school.
Stages of making a circle skirt:
Stage 1: 20 minutes
You have cut out the skirt and sewn the side seams.
You feel amazing.
Circle skirts are so easy!
You begin planning to make one for each of your children (even the boys) and all of your best friends.
All you have to do is put on the ruffle and hem it, and you are done.
Stage 2: 2 hours
You have sewn 320 inches around the ruffle twice to baste it for gathering.
You are gathering and gathering and gathering .
You feel sorry for women who had to sew by hand.
Stage 3: 4 hours later
You have attached the ruffle to the skirt, sewing all those inches again.
You are still not done hemming this blasted skirt, even though you are using the secret weapon: horsehair braid.
Your back hurts. Your neck hurts.
You remember that you hate hemming skirts.
You feel like punching yourself in the face for starting this dumb project.
No way will you ever make a stupid circle skirt again, not even for someone you love, and not even if they offer you piles of money.
Final stage of making a circle skirt:
The skirt is fun to wear.
The land folds are so crazy
Zeke went over where there was no wall or fence and sat on the edge. He thought it was so cool. “Look mom! It is miles down to the bottom.”
I forced myself to stay calm as I said, “please come back from the edge. He pulled his legs back to the top and stood up, no hands, wobbling a bit as he stood.
I died 1000 deaths reliving that wobble over and over.
I am tired of hearing groans and witnessing grudging half-done work when I assign chores. We will see if this works. Notice the subtle emphasis that this is work they are doing for the FAMILY and not just to “help Mom” as if the laundry and dishes are all mine.
Update: after a week:
Zeek and Skeeter are using the magic words daily, usually without me prompting them.
The girls don’t use the magic words, But they are slightly more willing to do chores just to help out anyway.
Verdict: this has given me a way to address a problem with positive speech, and it may not be perfect, but it the best system I’ve used so far.
Important: every time the kids use the magic words, I respond to them by saying, “Oh I love to hear you say that!”
Last week the young women I work with voted to have painting for their weeknight activity. So I pulled out a lesson plan from Deep Space Sparkle Art that I loved when we did it for home school.
I practiced it at home first, and was really tickled with how it turned out.
This one I did as a demonstration during the activity. All the girls did their own thing, quite different from the lesson instructions, which is their prerogative.
I was so delighted with my two speedy paintings that I wanted to see what I could do taking a little more time, and painting on a canvas instead of 90# sulfite paper.
I used pencil instead of sharpie and looked at a lot of pictures of irises, including old photos of the beautiful irises growing at our home in Missouri that my mother-in-law gave me.
I had to leave the project midway to take the kids to a Girl Scouts kick-off activity. I really want my girls to participate in this as it is the only after-school activity (that isn’t a sport) that I know of here.
It was a great activity, the girls painted some flower boxes and then learned from Navajo women how to plant flowers and vegetables here in the desert, layering sand and potting soil. They planted wildflower seeds in the boxes, and we headed home. We live so close to the school that we walked- it’s a little over a half mile. I admit, I regretted walking, as by then we had been outside for over two hours in the heat and the sun.
When we got home, I was so hot and thirsty. I was talking to the kids and looking at my painting, thinking what it needed next.
Absentmindedly, I picked up the mug of water I had been rinsing my paintbrushes in, and took a big drink. I swallowed at least half the mouthful before the tempera flavor of the water registered.
Ugh! Yuck! ☠️☠️
I am pretty sure tempera is non-toxic, but apparently it triggers my heartburn. I’m not dying, but …. Ack…😫
Maybe drinking paint water by accident means I’m a real artist now- like a baptism of sorts…
Anyhow, this is where the painting is now.
I think the biggest problem is a proportion problem. The leaves should all be longer and larger in comparison to the blooms. The blooms are too big.
I think this painting also lacks the energy of the quick paintings I did before- maybe because I went more slowly, or maybe because the leaves are too small (and the leaves supplied a lot of the “movement”), or maybe because I mixed my colors more slowly and lost the orange tones.
Despite that, I think it’s really nice, and I’m proud of it. However, if I’m going to keep following the inspiration, I should fill the top, especially the top left corner, with orange blobby flowers.
Do I add more, because the top is kind of empty, risking that I’ll hate the result, but possibly achieving a more interesting painting?
Or do I let it be and just appreciate it for what it is?
Or does it lack something else?
This is where my lack of training shows, and I need a mentor or a teacher to make suggestions that I’m too inexperienced to realize that I need.
Side note: I enjoy using tempera paint. It is interesting the way top layers blend into base layers. In some ways that is limiting and in some ways it can be really helpful. I like double loading the brush (with 2 colors) and letting the paint mix right on the canvas.
My great grandmother painted with tempera paint, and her paintings are so precise. I don’t know how she painted so precisely with tempera. My best guess is that she had better brushes. I need better brushes for sure.
❤
GlowWorm
Key Lime Pie was terrified the few days before school started. What a hard thing to start high school in a strange place and where you know none of the other students! I never had to do that.
She has settled in really well, however and quickly found friends. I was so worried that she was “behind” in math, because she did not finish Algebra 1 in eighth grade. She barely began Algebra the last few weeks of school last spring. We had been working on algebraic thinking all year as part of morning time using a fantastic program called “Hands on Equations.”
Now, 3 weeks into the school year here in Utah, I am hearing from the Math teacher that I should consider putting Key Lime Pie in Math 1 and 2 concurrently, or she will be bored. All my fears about “behind” were apparently baseless.
Last Monday, Banana Cream Pie decided she hated public school and wanted to go back to home school, because public school makes her write too much, and because she is lonely at school. We had a long talk, with lots of tears and hugs, and I finally convinced her that I couldn’t make a decision like that on a Monday morning, that I would have to consult with her father over a few days, and that in the mean time, she would have to continue going to school.
I pointed out that not wanting to do the work at school is a bad reason to choose home school because she is in 6th grade now, and I would require her to write just as much at home as the school is.
Also one and a half weeks is too short a time to make friends, it needs more time, and switching to home school would not fix that lack of friends problem either.
Hopefully, she starts to feel more like she belongs in school soon.
We made plans to save up some of my substitute teaching money to get either a gerbil or a Guinea Pig, so that Banana Cream Pie has something furry to look forward to playing with after school. She thinks this will make life bearable.
In the mean time, she has been knitting chickens for company.
Apple Pie is not to be left out of yarn crafts and is crocheting a Jelly fish hat for her planned Halloween costume.
She is still struggling with reading (I was looking into getting her tested for Dyslexia when we moved) and has shed some tears over the embarrassment of having to read out-loud in class and not being able to get the words right.
But yesterday, she came home jubilant over getting all the math problems on the test correct (and thus earning 3 pieces of candy.) Hopefully this reinforces what I’ve been telling her, that different people learn skills at different paces, and being slow to learn one skill does not take away how gifted she is in other areas.
Also on Wednesday, Zeek cried because Skeeter always gets to have homework and he (Zeek) never gets homework even though they are both in third grade.
Skeeter sobbed great tears yesterday because I would not let him ride a bike without wearing a helmet.
Each of us have our crosses to bear in this life.
Love,
GlowWorm
Having three less kids living at home and living in a smaller house with less stuff has really impacted my daily life. Right away, I noticed how much fewer dishes there were to wash at meals. Sometimes, I only need to run the dishwasher once a day. (I rejoice to report that despite my fears, the dishwasher in our teacher housing is very effective.)
It took me longer to recognize that I was making far too much food at meals, and even longer to adjust. For the first 2-3 weeks, we were mostly eating leftovers at meals. I’ve finally been successful at dialing down the portions so that there are just enough leftovers for lunch the next day, but no more than that. …well…usually…
I made a pot roast this last week that turned out just the way I always imagine pot roast should taste (but rarely does, and never has before when I was the cook.) The recipe I was using called for a dry onion soup mix, which I did not have, so I googled around the internet and then invented my own seasoning mix and ce magnific! I couldn’t find my dried minced onions, so didn’t put any in, and honestly, as much as I love onions, they would have overpowered the flavor. Lucky me that I couldn’t find them! Here is my new delicious recipe for pot roast.
Into the crock pot on low for 8 hours went
2 lbs of beef chuck roast
5 Tablespoons Knorr beef bouillon granules
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 (15 oz) can beef broth
Now I discover that I can do all the laundry for the family in one day per week and get it folded and put away as well. I know that I used to do one or two full loads of laundry every day except Sunday, just to maintain a precarious balance of not-too-many piles of dirty laundry. I do think the dry air here has reduced how often I need to wash towels, and so that is part of the reduction as well. Also, hanging my towels to dry in the sun means I don’t have to bleach them to keep them fresh!
So now my housekeeping chores are greatly reduced, and I’m not homeschooling children or teaching piano. What to do with myself? I gave away most of my fabric and crafting things before the move, but I had several aprons cut out from last Christmas (or the one before…) which I did keep, so I have been sewing those. My foster son, Hunter, is getting married in October, so I am planning a quilt for him. (I better get cracking– a month is not that much time.) Also I promised Maddy (Ben’s niece) that I would sew a blessing dress out of the lace left over from her wedding dress for her baby due in November.
I began substitute teaching for the elementary and high school last week. I subbed 2 days last week and 2 days this week, and enjoyed it a lot. When I had down time, I read Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea. I‘ve begun Anne of the Island, and, at this rate, I’ll finish the whole series soon. Haha.
The young women I am working with are just like young women everywhere, but their home lives vary a lot. Some of my girls live in a hogan with no running water and only an extension cord for electricity. Some have a cell phone and some do not. Some herd sheep in the canyon after school. Most have only one parent or grandparent in their home.
The car Ben used for driving to work broke down right before we moved. We were thinking that we could get along with just one car here, but it turns out that we really should have 4 wheel drive because of all the sandy roads on the reservation. Also, Ben will have to drive 6 hours to Bluffdale (southern tip of Salt Lake City) for guard drill weekends. Since all the big grocery stores are also 2.5 hours away or further, having a car that gets high gas mileage is important. So this week we bought a car. The car is a Honda CRV, and it is so shiny and nice that I am afraid of driving it.
The weather here is so pleasant, and the outdoors is beautiful- though the ground is overrun with sharp sticker weeds called goat-head stickers or puncture vine. They are vicious! None of us dare go outside barefoot. We also learned within 5 minutes of moving in to take our shoes off at the door. Otherwise, the stickers get tracked in and stick in the carpet, and you find them later with your bare foot. I don’t really miss grass as much as I expected to, but I do miss trees. There is something so restful to the eyes in looking at green broadleaf trees. In the end of Anne of Avonlea, someone asks Anne if she really is going away to college.
“Yes, I’m going,” said Anne. “I’m very glad with my head and very sorry with my heart.”
I know just what she meant.
Love and Hugs,
GlowWorm
P.S. I learned a new welsh word this week: cwtch
It is pronounced /kuch/ (rhymes with butch) and it means a hug, but not just any hug, the kind of hug that reminds you of the safety of your childhood. When I think of you, I remember your hugs and kind eyes, and it makes me happy and homesick all at once.
I was asked to speak in Sacrament Meeting this Sunday. I was told I could speak on whatever I wanted, so I chose to share some experiences from my life that are foundational to my testimony of Jesus Christ.
Why should I keep the commandments?
When I was young, I often got painful ear-aches. My parents had a little rectangular heating pad, and when I had an ear-ache, I would lie down with my bad ear on that pad. The heat kind of helped reduce the pain in my ear. I remember one evening when I was ten or 11, lying with my ear on that heating pad and feeling miserable. Because I was feeling so miserable, my thoughts became miserable also.
I thought about how hard it was to be good all the time. I thought, “I will spend my whole life working hard to keep the commandments and having no fun, and then I will die and go to heaven, and I’ll STILL have to keep the commandments!” Suddenly, I felt that the commandments were like chains, holding me down forever. Miserable tears trickled across my cheeks and dripped into my bad ear.
Why should I bother trying so hard to keep the commandments? What was all this effort worth?
And then I heard a voice, and the voice said, “Because Heavenly Father and Jesus love you, and they want you to be with them.” And just like that, the chained down feeling left me, and instead I felt intensely loved. The commandments are love, not restrictions!
From this point, the foundation of my testimony has been: I am loved, and keeping the commandments is worth it because my Heavenly Father and Mother and Jesus Christ love me, and they want me to be with them, and I want to be with them.
Is the Book of Mormon true?
As a teenager, I decided that I needed to pray and find out if the Book of Mormon was really true. I thought it was true, but was that just me? Did I just believe it because my parents had taught me when I was little? I didn’t know how to tell if what I thought and felt was the Holy Ghost or if I was just making it up in my head.
I prayed and prayed and felt like I was not getting an answer. Maybe I was looking for some kind of miraculous event- my own first vision. Finally one day, I just had a thought, “You already know it is true.” I realized that I did not need the Holy Ghost to tell me the Book of Mormon was true. I knew it already, and that was enough.
Why should I stay in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?
When I was in high school, I dated a boy who was not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In fact, he was a member of one of those Christian churches that have Sunday classes on “Why Mormons are Wrong and Bad.” I thought that I loved this boy, and I thought that I would marry him. I knew that if I married him, I would never go to my church again. I thought about all the things I had learned in Primary and at home in Family Home Evening. It was going to be such a great black hole in my life to leave all of that behind. But I was going to sacrifice myself on the altar of (false) love. One day, my mother asked me, “You might be willing to leave the church for yourself, but what about your children? Do you want them to be born in a family that is sealed in the temple?”
I knew I wanted my children to grow up as I had, in a family sealed together. I wanted them to learn to sing “I am a Child of God” in primary, and to know that they had a Heavenly Mother and a Heavenly Father. I wanted them to have the Book of Mormon, so they could grow up with heroes like Nephi and Ammon and Captain Moroni.
I broke up with that boy. I am Rebecca, and I waited until I found my Isaac (who was actually named Benjamin.) My covenant husband who would help me raise children in righteousness.
True love always brings you closer to God.
“The Church” is not some guys in suits in Salt Lake City making rules. The Church is all of us, working together to help each other walk with Jesus Christ. We are the body of Christ. That is why you can’t really leave the church. You may think you have left, but you haven’t really left. You are still one of us, and we will always be here for you. The church is a forever family.
Why should I accept callings?
So as you know, my husband is a captain in the Army National Guard, but before he was in the Guard, I was in the Guard for 8 years, and my basic training was tougher than his! For one thing, it was back in the 1900’s. Everything was harder back then.
Well near the end of my basic training, we had a 15 km ruck march to complete. It was terribly hot, muggy Missouri weather, so we began the march at 8pm and rucked through the night. I was a platoon guide at that time, so I was in charge of a group of about 15 other basic trainees, and it was my job to make sure they all completed the march. We had on all our gear, canteen belts, heavy rucksacks (filled with gear we would not need just to make them heavy), helmets, and our rifles. We were lined up in single file, about 4 feet apart on the road, and we started marching.
15km is long enough, but I didn’t just march 15km, because I was a platoon guide. Rucking spread out like that is lonely, and in the night it was eerie and discouraging as well. I walked forward and backward along the line of the soldiers I was responsible for, making sure they were doing ok. Making sure they were drinking water. Encouraging them.
Sometime in the early hours of the morning, as we got out of the forest and into paved road and buildings, the drill sergeants took direct charge, formed us back up into platoons, and marched us in formation for the last portion of the ruck. Suddenly, I wasn’t responsible for anyone but myself anymore. With no-one to worry about except myself, I became acutely aware of how tired I was. My feet hurt so badly, they felt as wide as pancakes, and every step felt like I was stepping on nails. My hip was stinging and burning (when we got back to the barracks, I found that my canteen had rubbed a patch of skin raw during the march). I almost quit. I was sure that I could not go on. The first three-quarters of the march, I had been happy and energized as I encouraged and helped others. I did not notice my own pain or fatigue. The last one-quarter, I was miserable and suffering as I had only myself to focus on. That night, I learned that I was able to accomplish much more distance when I was focused on helping others than when I was only focused on myself.
I have found this is true as a parent, also. I might not be willing to work on overcoming my sins and weaknesses just for myself, but I am willing to change so that my husband and my children have a better wife and mother.
In the General Handbook of the church, section 4.1 it reads:
Leaders encourage members to engage in God’s work by becoming true followers of Jesus Christ. To do this, leaders first strive to be the Savior’s faithful disciples by following His teachings and example. Then they can help others draw nearer to Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. In the process of helping others, they become better disciples themselves. Being a faithful disciple in order to help others become a faithful disciple is the purpose behind every calling in the Church. Each calling includes opportunities to serve, lead, and strengthen others.
True love is costly. We are interconnected, and we have to be responsive to one another. Without each other, none of us would be willing to do all the work necessary to become like Jesus Christ. We need each other in order to become aware of our own weakness and lack of love. We need each other to learn how to love in the true way.
How can I be forgiven of my sins?
One Sunday I had guard drill, so I was working, but my Commander let us go a little early, and as I drove home, I realized that if I stopped at the church, I could just catch the last bit of General Conference. I slipped into the back of the chapel, eager to be spiritually fed, happy to have not missed it all. Whoever it was that was speaking in that moment said, “the atonement is more personal than we realize.”
I turned that phrase over in my mind for many weeks, wondering what it could mean. Then one day as I was reading the Book of Mormon, a vision flashed through my mind. I saw a tree on a small hill, and under the tree, Jesus Christ was kneeling. He was praying, and he was bowed down by a great weight. I was in a line of people, an endless line, as if it contained everyone in the whole world, waiting to go to the hill. And then it was my turn. I stood alone before my Savior. He raised His eyes and looked on me. I do not remember what His face looked like, but I remember the emotions I saw there.
He saw me. He knew me. He understood me.
He loved me.
He agreed “yes, I will take her sins upon me.”
And then I saw him wince as the weight of my sins dropped down upon His shoulders.
and then I was no longer there- it was someone else’s turn.
In 1Nephi 21:16, Nephi writes the words of Isaiah: Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands…
When Jesus visited the children of Lehi after his resurrection,
They heard a voice from heaven saying,
3Nephi 11: 7-12
7 Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him.
8 And it came to pass, as they understood they cast their eyes up again towards heaven; and behold, they saw a Man descending out of heaven; and he was clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them; and the eyes of the whole multitude were turned upon him, and they durst not open their mouths, even one to another, and wist not what it meant, for they thought it was an angel that had appeared unto them.
9 And it came to pass that he stretched forth his hand and spake unto the people, saying:
10 Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.
11 And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the dwill of the Father in all things from the beginning.
12 And it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words the whole multitude fell to the earth; for they remembered that it had been prophesied among them that Christ should show himself unto them after his ascension into heaven.
They fell down in surprise and fear. But Jesus spake to them, saying,
3Nephi 11:14-17
14 Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.
15 And it came to pass that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets, that should come.
16 And when they had all gone forth and had witnessed for themselves, they did cry out with one accord, saying:
17 Hosanna! Blessed be the name of the Most High God! And they did fall down at the feet of Jesus, and did worship him.
They fell down again, but this time in worship and love because each of them had felt the nail prints in his hands, and really knew who He was, and I wonder as they looked at His wounds, did they each see their own name written there?
Marvelous Pigs in Satin 