forever in blue jeans

the view in my backyard.

'nuff said.

shoot!

It's family picture season!

that time of year when I start to think about capturing the crew on photographic paper.
I'm formulating the plan.

I'm thinking about location.

and like a perfectly timed missile,

my brother,

who is SO good about preserving the past,

sent me some GREAT family pictures yesterday.

as i scrolled through these beauties,

some memories came flooding back.

allow me to tell you about two.

first, we have:

six kids in a trailer.

i remember it being VERY hot.

i also remember having to wait FOREVER

to have our turn in front of that camera.

it had to be one of those traveling photo deals

at your local Sears

where you could get a thousand pictures for 99 cents.

because I also know that my mom was a bargain hunter.

I think there were at least a hundred other families

lined up for this fabulous photo deal day.

To mom, it would be worth the pain.

i remember little twins who were not so happy about

the wait

and the heat,

and we older, suffering siblings

were instructed to hold them

and entertain them

during this eternal wait

in a HOT

cRoWdEd

trailer.

so what do you think?

can you see the sweat?

the toddlers who've had enough?

and who grows out their bangs like that i ask you?!

Mom. it was worth every cent.

i love this picture.

So here's the next winner.

this one i do NOT remember.

I'm thinking the trauma of remembering this day

must have been too much.

Look at the expressions.

Look at the eyes.

I'm pretty sure we were two shots away from

hypnosis.

love the hair-dos.

this one's a keeper.

Aaron, you get the Mr. Morning look-alike award.

and a ribbon for that fabulous leisure suit.

(and I'm just laughing about that dropped jaw--what was that photographer doing?!)

one wish: granted

last night i felt like the good fairy.

took A to the mall

to get her ears pierced.

(S, E and M came to watch)

a late birthday present.

one pair of modest earrings,

$16.99

ice cream for everyone

$11.50

granting a birthday wish,

priceless.

RED friday

Are you up

for some wearing of the

red

today? I'm borrowing a post

from my good friend T.

Hop on over to his blog

and see why red

is on my mind.

(click here)

btw, i love my country.

hey!

Dear 7 other members of my family,
i am miffed.
it's raining.
(a lot)
nobody in this family
(of EIGHT people!)
took out the garbage today.
So as I'm driving my girls to the street
to catch the school bus (it's raining hard)
i notice.
hey! I said.
why is our trash not out?! (off to school the last two go)
I race back to the house. (Mr. Morning in tow)
collect all the garbage.
haul it out.
Load it in the back of the van.
the doors are bulging.
then..
i see the truck! it's two tenths of a mile
at the other end of my driveway.
I race to get there,
and at the burst of accleration,
the rear doors fly open
and EVERY BIT OF TRASH
empties itself down the driveway.
in the pouring rain.
I make the hasty decision to abandon
the recycle.
Throwing the garbage back in the van,
I chase the truck around the neighborhood
about 20 houses and pull in front of him and
stop. sorry... (i said) here's my garbage. i almost missed you.
what i wanted to say was
look. i'm having a morning. (why does it have to be raining?)
could you just come back to my driveway
and pick up the rest of the trash
that's littering that place from one end to the other?
please?!
but i didn't.
I drove back, got out in my pajamas and slippers
and proceeded to un-litter my driveway.
(in the pouring rain).
Mr. Morning watched.
from the dry van.
he informed me that he hates being wet.
Love,
WILMA!

to judge

You've all experienced this to some degree...
to judge or be judged.
I remind myself today
that
We are all fighting a hard fight.

About others, we do not know the whole story.
Others do not know the story of our struggle.
A good friend told me that she tries to keep this thought in mind:
Treat everyone as if their heart is breaking.
(in most cases you are probably right)
so here's to refraining from judgment
and remembering that when others judge us,
they can't see the whole picture.

random acts of kindness.

a question

If you went away for a relaxing

'get-away'

and came home to find

this

waiting for you,

I ask you:

Would you ask that

babysitter

to come back?

setting goals

today's goal:

Do nothing.

(for at least 30 minutes.)

I'm thinking I can pull this off.

today's mantra:

doing nothing

is sometimes more deeply meaningful

than the

swirl of activity

that defines our days.

disabled

I'm sad.

I dropped my friend.

It crashed on the rocks!

I feel handicapped without it.

See my fun weekend by looking

through the lens of a VERY good

camera caretaker... (click here)

we took a 'time out' together.

It was truly a vacation.

Thanks gals!

love and serve

"How wonderful it is

that nobody need wait a single moment

before starting

to improve the world."

-Anne Frank

various and sundry

10 jars of mystery fluid

found it in my food storage...

a little too scary for me.

It's going to the back yard compost pile.

And look below:

Is this not the most amazing set of ankles you've ever seen?

Actually, the combo of brown shoes, black socks and olive pants

was so stunning, I had to capture the moment.

And that guy?

He will be manning the kitchen for the next two days

while I'm in time out.

Time Out for Women, that is.

Gone to Springfield with the gals.

thumbs up

Monday:

played in FIRST field hockey game ever!
started on defense

did really well.

15 minutes into the game

was taken out by the opposing team.

Broken thumb.

Broken pinkie finger.

She's right-handed.

Now she has a 'book buddy' to carry her books at school.

Also an extra set of text books at home so she doesn't have to lug them.

Sympathy from her teachers and friends and a scribe to take notes for her.

She's got a pretty good thing going on.

Thumbs up!

be still (my heart)

when a three year old runs

the same crazy schedule

as the rest of the household

(sneak a kiss and carry him to bed)

my busy bee

See that CUTE kid?

Tan shirt, ankles crossed, game face on.

Busy Bees preschool started today.

His life just got happier.

So did mine.

today's activity

Today is rub-a-leaf day.

It's one of my favorite things to do in the fall.

Pick a few healthy leaves and place them under a piece of tissue paper or thin writing paper.

Rub the paper with a crayon, over the leaf, revealing the outline of the leaf.

Learn about the stem and veins.
Learn the difference between an oak and a maple.

Press some fall leaves between sheets of wax paper and make a leaf collage.

Enjoy some of nature's abundant variety of art and crafts.
What's YOUR favorite fall craft?

how to spend a weekend

laughing with your sisters

time with cousins

(where are Stevie's teeth?)

being silly

canoeing

kayaking
celebrating a birthday
staying up all night
eating... nachos?

hay riding and apple picking
sharing (these)
rescuing lost boaters
enjoying teamwork
looking good!

foaming at the mouth
(ew!)

up all night

I spoke in sacrament meeting today.
I started talking about building stronger families.
I also talked about how, in order to have the Spirit in our homes, we can not have contention.
Where there is contention, there is no spirit.
Proverbs 15:1
A soft answer turneth away wrath.
We need to teach our children to love us, not to fear us.
This is a jumbly condensed version.
I can't imagine ever fearing the Savior.
He teaches love unfeigned.
I went camping this weekend.
(I didn't really want to)
It was about building stronger family unity and memories.
We had a GREAT time!
It was worth it.
While we were there, a woman told a story.
She said that she went camping for three weeks this summer with her family.
(She said the accomodations weren't as nice as ours--gasp!)
She, along with her family, and hundreds of others, were performers in the Hill Cumorah Pageant in New York.
She and her husband were asked to mentor a group of young single adults.
At the end of their three week tour, they had a testimony meeting together.
She said that the spirit in that meeting was the strongest that she has ever felt.
There was one young woman in particular who was in that meeting.
It became obvious that she was reluctant to bear her testimony.
When she finally did take a turn, she talked about being afraid to do the wrong thing.
She related an experience during the pageant when she had torn her costume.
She had to take it to the costume staff very late at night to have it mended so that it would be ready for the next days rehearsal and performance.
She was afraid to go.
The young woman took the costume to the sewing staff and felt bad about it.
She went back the next morning, and learned that they had been up well past 3:00 a.m. mending her costume.
A woman returned it to her with a big hug, a smile and a piece of candy.
The young woman in her testimony said 'this is like the Savior.'
We are human, and do wrong everyday.
We bring our broken lives to him, and with his help we fix what's broken.
He's already been up all night, sweating drops of blood for us.
He's already been through that so that we can be whole again, with his help.
I love Jesus Christ.
I love that we can be 'fixed' through him, and that he'll be ready waiting with that hug and sweetness.

happy birthday abbey... DOUBLE DIGITS!

i LOVE this 10 year old baby girl of ours!

make some history, women!

Since we're remembering our past this week,
let me encourage you women to remember something that goes farther back than 9/11.

A good friend sent me this information,
written by another woman, a lot of which I was not aware of.

Sometimes I'm afraid our leaders would have us forget the past.

We must not.
We need to decide for ourselves WHO would be the best candidate for president (and senator and congressman and on and on...) and as educated voters, make a difference.

If YOU haven't decided on who should be that next __________, then start here:

www.factcheck.org a non-partisan site that gives you the facts
on the contenders for the upcoming election.



WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'
(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.
(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think
a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

HISTORY is being made.

Will you take for granted what these women have done for YOU?

gratitude

I'm grateful...

that hurricane Hanna didn't do this to OUR house
for a beautiful fall afternoon to watch HS soccer
for good friends and homemade puppetsand marching band pants HEMMED!

note to self

Threading a needle at 4:30 a.m. is hard.

Hemming marching band pants this morning

that I should have done 23 mornings ago.

A monkey off my back!

(I'm seeing my mother in me...)

a tribute

Happy Anniversary

Mom and Dad!

47 years

of wedded bliss...

You are my heros...
you're STILL laughing!you love each other...
you've withstood the test of time.
(Mom--where did all these fabulous dresses go?... )

MARRIED September 8, 1961
you make me SO proud!
I LOVE YOU!!!