Merry Christmas!

When we take road trips, I usually drive. I like driving when I haven't just finished a full day of bus runs.

When we're going anywhere farther than about an hour away, it never fails that all my children suddenly feel the need to start texting me at the same time about various subjects. In those cases, I hand my phone over to whomever is in the passenger's seat and dictate responses. When it's Husband doing the texting, however, he starts typing whatever he wants to, and his responses quickly tip off the kids that I'm not the one who is answering them.

Here's a text convo between me and Gabrielle. Or, rather, Gabrielle and Husband, as I was in the driver's seat. She'd noticed a hole in her tooth and was kind of freaking out. Arrows point to obvious Dad-style responses.

My texting conversations with Elannah revolve heavily around two subjects: her asking me for a ride, and her asking me for money. My first two girls hardly ever asked for money. Elannah and Sophia, however, have developed expensive hobbies and tastes. Sophia has a good job now, so she pays for herself 100%, but Elannah is between jobs and still feels she has a lifestyle to maintain, as exhibited in the following conversation.

As I recall, I rejected the proposition after briefly considering it. She does have a gift card for Panda Express coming to her tomorrow for Christmas. She'll probably cry. But she'll cry even harder when she finds out that Gabrielle and Sophia teamed up to pay for driving lessons so she can finally get her driver's license. Of course, once that happens, I'll never get to drive again because I'll never be able to get my hands on my car.

Here's a picture I snapped last night when all six (seven, counting the son-in-law) of my children, my mom, in-laws, a nephew, and two of my siblings, and a sibling's significant other were here and the house was full of merriment and food and love.

It's Husband and Tyler, my grandson. Is Tyler not the absolute most cutest thing to ever grace this earth? Not that I'm biased or anything. He's over five months old now, the little chunk. He's been on a high-calorie formula for a while now, and I think he's ready to come off it. And just look at his pointy ears! So adorable!

The man holding him is pretty great, too.

In conclusion, Merry Christmas to you, dear reader. I wish only the best for you. I wish you a year full of good things and the hope and faith that when hard things happen, there is light waiting for you during and after your trials. I send you all the love in my heart. I add my prayer to the prayers of angels and dear ones gone before that you are always watched over. And may delicious pies be a part of your holiday season.

There Is Faint Music in the Night

My choir performed on Temple Square last Tuesday. Here is a picture of us after our performance in the Assembly Hall.

You'll notice that everyone except me is looking at the camera. This should not surprise you. Somehow, everyone else gets the signal to look to their left, and there I am grinning like an idiot at some camera to my right.

But we had a good time. Well, as good a time as one can have when one is dripping with sweat from the heat of the lights, one's feet have gone numb, and one keeps forgetting to breathe from the diaphragm because one is a little nervous and one ends up a little light-headed and keeps realizing one is locking one's knees. But people told us we sounded great, so it was a good time.

It honestly isn't for the public that we perform on Temple Square. Frankly, no one can hear us when we sing in the North Visitors' Center (visit there sometime and test the acoustics by yelling a bit. No one will care because no one can hear you), and we're usually last on the day's docket for the Assembly Hall, which means everyone except die-hard family and friends have gone home because it's cold and dark by 8:30 in the evening, so there are maybe 30 people in the audience.

No, we perform on Temple Square purely in order to enjoy the excellent acoustics of the Assembly Hall. There's nothing like the thrill of everyone (even the basses!) singing the right notes whilst following our conductor (who is the woman at the far left on the top row, by the way) closely, and in a moment of pure and utter triumph, a delicious chord rings back at us from the back of the hall.

It's heady stuff.

Plus, in order to justify having weekly rehearsals, I guess we should perform, too. Honestly, even if we never performed, I'd go just for the rehearsals because we have so much fun and I learn so much from our amazing and talented conductor, who selects enjoyably challenging music. I'm so comfortable with these people that my mostly dormant clownish side shows up every Saturday evening between seven and nine pm; and, very surprisingly, these people find me funny. I repay their kindness by never trying out for solos.

Our Christmas performances are next weekend: Friday and Saturday evenings. We perform in a very modern Episcopalian church/community center made almost entirely of concrete, which, as you might imagine, is great for acoustics. No one will record us, but it'll be a load of fun. I promise.

It's Official: I Am a Certified Genius

I was reading Lew Rockwell dot com, and one of the articles linked to a quiz to find out if you're a genius. I've never had an IQ test, but I've always assumed, based on empirical evidence, that I'm of fairly average intelligence: not too high and not too low.

Imagine my surprise when I scored 100% on this quiz, designed to identify those highly intelligent people with excellent long-term memory.

Well, well.

I'm going to have to boost my self-opinion post-haste (which is a slightly shortened term originally used to notify postal carriers that a letter required urgent delivery)! Just because I found the test incredibly easy and full of trivia questions doesn't mean I'm not necessarily a total genius! A super genius!



On the other hand, I did forget to pick up one of my preschoolers on Tuesday. Just clean forgot. His mom had to bring him to school.

Also, on Sunday, a woman came up to me and said, "Do you remember the spiritual significance of the Cedars of Lebanon that you talked about a few years ago?"

I looked at her like she was from another planet.

"I talked about the spiritual significance of the Cedars of Lebanon? In relation to the construction of Solomon's temple? Was I the Sunday School teacher at the time?" I asked, sure she must be mistaking me for someone else, even though I was the Sunday School teacher at the time. I have no memory of that particular lesson, however. None.

"Yes. It was when you were teaching the Old Testament. I was thinking about what you said, and it was really profound, so I wanted to get my facts straight."

Uh-oh. I was really profound and I have no memory of it? Dang! I told her I would look it up and get back to her. I have gone back and done some research, and I'm still wondering what profound things I said about the Cedars of Lebanon.

Based on this (and other) evidence, I plan on easing gently into the notion of my geniusness rather than going around announcing it to everyone just yet. In the meantime, I'll remain, dear reader, a humble servant of knowledge absorbed with what I now understand to be my very high IQ. At some point, I expect the super genius effect to kick in, and then it's gonna get all fun up in here!

The Colors of My World

You know how sometimes you crave a certain food or to hear a specific piece of music? Do you also ever crave seeing a specific color? I do. Sometimes, I really, really need to look at a specific color, and when I finally do, I feel deeply calm and satisfied, like the right key has been turned in the right lock (that's the only way I can think to describe the feeling). For a long time now, it's been indigo.

I cannot get enough of indigo.

But yesterday, I really needed to see orange.

I told my bus aide that I often crave seeing certain colors, and she looked at me like I was a little nuts, so maybe other people don't crave colors the way I do.

In other news, I am happy to report that my health issues seem to have largely resolved, so I'm glad I didn't go ahead with a bunch of expensive tests. I'm also taking a quality fish oil that includes vitamin D3, and that has really helped ease the fatigue.

As for looking less like a beached whale, I'm still losing inches even if the scale doesn't drop a lot at the moment. I suddenly lost another pants size and had to go out and buy a couple pairs of jeans to replace the ones that were now sagging off me, and now those are getting baggy--and yet the scale hasn't really budged. I'm not complaining, mind you. Trying on clothing has become a lot more fun lately--even in dressing rooms with terrible lighting.

I have a hard time eating carbs anymore, and that includes vegetables. I got through the entire Halloween season without eating one piece of candy. We bought the good stuff for trick-or-treaters and we were left with an entire bowl of it because trick-or-treaters are becoming more scarce every year. Usually, Reese's peanut butter cups are my kryptonite, but I couldn't be bothered to cheat even once, even while the bowl sat on the coffee table for several days before everything was finally consumed. Personal victory? Godly miracle? Both? You decide.

I'm supposed to eat every 2 1/2 to 3 hours to keep my blood sugar and insulin levels steady (and I am convinced that that is what has made this program so successful for me), and I'm supposed to eat between five and seven ounces of protein and between 1 1/2 to 3 cups of vegetables, depending on the type of veggie I'm having. I often get to my meal and can only eat the meat before I'm full and can't face the veggies. I've almost become fully carnivore. And yet the inches are melting away, and I'm sure I'm building muscle tissue, which would explain why the scale doesn't go down as quickly as I expect it to.

Before I go, here is another picture of my grandson for your viewing pleasure. His parents got the go-ahead from the pediatrician to switch to a tastier formula now that his liver issues seem to be nonexistent, and he's been chugging it down like he was starving. He's now over nine pounds, the little dumpling!

Edit: I just want to clarify that I am not eating a lot of food multiple times a day. Every 2 12/ to 3 hours I eat small "fuelings," as they're called, that are around 110 calories each, and I eat my protein and carbs in a meal, although I can split it up throughout the day if I like. And I drink lots and lots of water.

My Kingdom, My Bus

A driver in her tiny fiefdom. 

I was subbing on a bus route yesterday (there's no preschool on Wednesdays), and in the late morning I was taking high schoolers from the technical school back to their high school. I welcome all the kids as they climb on (I have to count them, after all), but I don't try to make conversation with them. High schoolers are very self-absorbed. They don't usually make eye contact or acknowledge that I'm right in front of them. I am merely a fixture. Their ears are most often stuffed with earbuds.

On the drive, one of the girls in the front seat asked me if it's hard to drive a bus. I responded that it is very different than driving a car, but once you get used to making turns and compensating for 40 feet of bus behind you, you get used to it. I said it only took a few weeks for me to get trained. Then I waved my hand at the buttons panel and said, "You even learn what all of these are for!"

A moment after I stopped talking, I heard her seat mate say quietly, "You didn't ask for her life story!"

Roll eyes.

This is why I drive preschoolers. Preschoolers are happy to give me a high-five or knuckles when they get on the bus, and they love it when you're excited to see them. Give them a little kindness and attention and they're your best friend. They have not yet learned sarcasm.

On the first run of the day today--just before the sun rose--I was picking up junior high kids from a nearby town where the streets are all kittywampus. It's a very confusing area to drive in.

It was dark, and I couldn't tell where my first stop was as I crept along, trying to see house numbers on unlit porches. Turns out I missed the first stop, because the dad of the kids at that stop stomped up to the bus door a few stops further down, after chasing me in his car, and was quite upset with me for not seeing him flashing his headlights at me to stop. I sincerely apologized and told him I was completely unfamiliar with the route, and he calmed down when he recognized that I wasn't the normal driver. What I didn't say is that I have a 50-foot blind spot directly behind my school bus, so no matter how much you flash your lights, I'm not going to see you; and if I do, I might just assume you're a serial killer and speed up to keep the kids safe (not really. I would probably never notice unless I was trying to change lanes).

A trick I've learned when I'm subbing on a junior high run: when it's dark in the morning, turn on the roof light in the very back of the bus. Most of the kids that age think a substitute driver is an excuse to get crazy, and they love sitting in the back of the bus. With the light on, they know I can see them in my mirror, and they tend to behave a lot better. I learned that the hard way, so I've been passing that nugget of wisdom along to all the new drivers I encounter.

Bus drivers, as a group, are a fairly cantankerous lot. We tend to be quite independent-minded, and driving a bus is ideal because you're not being micromanaged by some supervisor looking over your shoulder. Your bus is your little fiefdom. That independent spirit also means that some bus drivers always feel they know better than the administrators and will argue with every new procedure or request. Seriously, it's like herding cats. Individually, we're pretty friendly people, and most of us drive buses as a side-hustle. Many bus drivers are actually small business owners and entrepreneurs who just need a little guaranteed extra cash. As a group, though, I'm not sure how anyone puts up with us. I like most of the drivers on a one-on-one basis, but having a crowd of us at a party would be a disaster.

I named my bus "Wildfire" in honor of Rex O'Herlihan's horse in the classic spoof western "Rustlers' Rhapsody." On, Wildfire, on!

Sideways

My daughter sent me these pictures of my grandson.

I can't stop looking at these pictures. I just want to hold that little guy and kiss him all over his tiny face and head. And if I run into anyone I know, I whip out my phone and make them look at the pictures, too.

Sian told me she put Tyler into the bassinet we bought for him. It vibrates when you push a button, and he really likes it, which is why he looks so happy.

Oh my gosh. Could you not just eat him up? He's a little over six pounds now, so he's doubled his birth weight. Way to go, kid!

In other news, I've been called as the ward Relief Society president. That is not something I ever, ever wanted to be, but I knew it was a distinct possibility about two months ago. When the former Relief Society president's husband was called as our new bishop, I knew she would have to be released and a new president called, and because I was the first counselor, I started going through the stages of grief. First was definitely denial. "Nope, nope, nope. Not doing it, Lord." I also did some bargaining. There was anger in there, too. Finally, I accepted it: "Fine, Lord, if that's what you want. But You know I am who I am, and if You still want me, You'll have to fill in for my flaws and faults," and that's when the call was extended.

Sadly, one of my first duties is helping with the funeral of one of our beloved congregation members, who just died after a relatively short battle with colon cancer. Her oldest daughter never married, and she has lived with her mother and taken care of her for years and years. But as soon as her mom died, all the relatives came out of the woodwork making demands and telling the daughter how she was doing everything wrong. They feel entitled to come into her house and take whatever they want, whether or not it's the daughter's or her mother's.

I hope my children never act like that when I and their dad have passed away. I will haunt them if they do. I'll whisper to them as a ghostly specter, "I brought you into this world and I will take. you. out of it." I think it will have more impact if I am already dead and can be spooky.

Last but not at all least, Parent's magazine showed up unexpectedly in my mailbox yesterday. Thank you, Magazine Fairy, for the truly delightful surprise. I'm going to pass it on to Sian and Nathan when I go down to see them next week.

My Very Own Homecoming Queen

I'm the Queen Mother.

Yes, I have another queen in the family. This time it's the high school Homecoming Queen of 2018-2019. My very own Elannah.

She's my lovely girl, and look how perfectly she's doing the "pageant T" with her feet! 

She wanted to do a pageant, and this one is a little less intense than most. There were still essays and interviews and evening gowns and all the normal pageant-y things, but her reign would require a week's worth of her time and not a year (unlike her sister). Sadly, there was no scholarship money, but what the heck! Not every girl can say she was the Homecoming Queen of her high school. I certainly can't.

We had a lot of fun shopping for the dress. Having gone through a pageant with Sophia, I am now much more savvy about what type of dress the judges are looking for, and for these small pageants they like something simple but elegant--something that flatters your coloring and figure but nothing so fru-fru or slinky that it detracts from the actual girl inside it. Elannah didn't think she'd like the high-low skirt on this one, but I insisted she try it on for the excellent quality of the material, cut, and color. She ended up loving it immediately. Plus, with no skirt to trip her up, it was very easy to walk in her heels; she just had to perfect the train swish as she turned.

Her dad choked when I told him how much we'd paid to rent it. He's recovered now, but it was a bit touch-and-go for a while.

The Homecoming Queen and her big sister, the queen of our city. They're royalty, sisters, and best friends.

Elannah is done with pageants now. She's tried it out and doesn't see a future in it for her (I'm not complaining: pageants are stressful, time-consuming, and expensive!), and she's certainly not interested in trying to follow in her sister's footsteps for the city pageant. But it was a fun experience, and she got to sing the national anthem for the Powder Puff football game during Homecoming Week.

The one terrible thing in all of this is that I thought I was recording her interview, evening gown competition, and talent, but I forgot to hit the "video" button on my phone and merely took a couple of very bad photographs instead. I'm still kicking myself. Elannah did a musical theater number with singing and tap dancing for her talent, and she did it so well.

I did manage to catch the very end of the pageant.



You can hear Gabrielle mention at the end how stressed she was because we truly weren't sure if it would be Elannah or another girl who won the crown.

I'm loving that Elannah and I are the only two girls in the house now. She loves getting lots of attention from her mom, and she paid me a lovely tribute during the pageant. She's a good kid, and I'm really proud of how hard she's working to develop her character. She's decided to serve a full-time mission in a couple years, and she just got her Patriarchal Blessing last Sunday, which was a wonderful thing.

One last note: I feel bad about this (sort of), but one of Elannah's attendants was also one of Sophia's attendants. The same girl got beat out by two sisters. That's got to rankle just a bit.  

Let Me Tell You All My Woes, Deary

Read this, don't read this. I'm just warning you now that I'm going to go all grandma on you and talk about my health issues. Best to click away now.

Too late. Should have clicked away already.

So, my weight loss journey so far: over 40 pounds and stalled. I'm not gaining, but I'm really struggling to be motivated in a way that will propel me to start serious losing again. Why? I thought you'd never ask!

Issue the First: I don't know if it's the rapid weight loss, my age, or what I'm eating, but my cycle has become all kinds of messed up. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT GIRL THINGS, LOOK AWAY NOW! For instance, I was...menstruating?...all through the month of August. Things were weird. I'll just leave it at that and not give you gory details. It could be that it's one of the signs of pre-menopause; it could be that all the soy protein I've been eating has messed with my hormones (soy isolate is a goitrogen, which can dampen thyroid hormones); or it could be just the rapid weight loss, because things have been a little weird since I started dropping weight. They just weren't that weird until August.

I went to the doctor, and she suggested a CAT scan or an ultrasound, but our insurance had just renewed for the year, which meant our deductibles were all fresh and greedy for a new year of medical costs, and all I could see was dollar signs adding up and a distinct "cha-ching" sound echoing through my head. I told her I'd rather wait a couple more months and see how things go, but in the meantime, I requested a full blood workup to see where things are. I should get the results soon.

After I told my mom about my symptoms, she remembered that my grandmother (who is still alive, by the way, and is 93), had similar symptoms when she was just a couple years older than I am now. She was diagnosed with uterine fibroid tumors on the outside of her uterus, and back then, the way they dealt with that was by giving her a hysterectomy. I looked up fibroid tumors and found that they rarely feel the need to give a woman a hysterectomy for them anymore. There are other, less severe, methods of dealing with them, including just leaving things be if you aren't in serious pain or aren't losing too much blood. If I have fibroid tumors, I'll probably just leave it be. As the doctor pointed out, it isn't recommended for middle-aged women to take birth control to stop menstruation because of the increased risk of blood clots. Not that I have ever enjoyed taking birth control pills the two times I've tried it. Ugh. I mean, your body thinks it's pregnant, and when I'm pregnant, I get constantly nauseated and emotional. Why would I do that voluntarily without the reward of an adorable baby at the end of it?

Issue the Second: the fatigue. Oh, the fatigue! Like a soaking wet piece of burlap draped over me, weighing me down, making my feet feel like lead, and forcing me to think thoughts through a damp haze. There is no time of the day when I don't feel like I've been up for 48 hours straight--even after a full night's sleep! By 8pm, I'm fighting the urge to lie down on the floor and cry and kick my heels like a tired and cranky toddler. I may not kick my heels, but I do slump over and do a dry cry, with no tears, before I force myself to get through the evening's activities. My lovely son, Joseph, has made dinner the last two nights simply because he saw how tired I was and helpfully volunteered. (He may end up being the only one of my children who moves out of the house knowing how to cook. Goodness knows my girls were never interested in learning!)

I went to a meeting a week ago, and after the invocation, I heard myself sincerely adding, "And please, please let someone at home make dinner for everyone and not wait for me to get home and do it."

Spoiler: they waited. Sigh.

I was hoping weight loss would fix the fatigue. I really, really was. I still think it's diet that is the underlying cause of this chronic fatigue, so I've been researching and researching all the standard and non-standard ways of eating that are out there because what I'm eating now is not making me feel energetic in any way. But then I remember that I was beginning to feel the wet burlap settle on me back when I was at my most active and at my healthiest weight back in college, so I don't think it's fat stores that have caused it. My diet did change when I moved out, so maybe that was it. Or maybe I'm just doomed. Either way, I'm tired of trying to eat healthfully just because it takes so much thought and physical preparation. Plus, there's the palate fatigue to deal with. I admit that I ate a package of ramen noodles after I got home from work today. Chicken flavor. With some of the broth. And I really enjoyed that way too much despite knowing they're pretty much poison. I won't slide back into my unhealthy eating habits, however, because I have no desire to add back all the weight I've lost. It makes me sick just thinking about getting that fat again.

Thanks for letting me vent, if anyone has even made it all the way to this sentence. (I told you to click away, remember? I'm looking out for you.) But venting here prevents me from telling random passers-by my woes or going on and on about it to Husband. He knows my worries. He just doesn't need to hear about it all the time.

I'll let you know if I find anything that works. Maybe my experience will help someone else.

A New Era

Yesterday, I made Elannah laugh so hard she cried when I admitted that one time I answered the phone and some random sales guy asked me if I was [my mother's name] and I said yes without thinking and then the conversation went on for about 30 seconds before I remembered that I am not my mother and had to interrupt the caller to correct myself and there was this long pause while we both pondered why it took me that long to figure it out.

And I was an adult when that happened. Married, with children.

Elannah had to wipe tears away. She said, "You literally turned into your mother!" I warned her it would happen to her, too, someday. Maybe not in that exact same way.

For some reason, I remembered that curious little incident because she was telling me about these two girls she has become good friends with this year and how the three of them have great texting banter.  "Banter" was the word she deliberately used to describe their conversations. Don't ask now what the exact connection was between female bantering and that tale of my complete loss of self-identity because I don't remember. I'm a little sleep deprived.

But my sleep deprivation also comes with a lovely little story of its own: my delightful, intelligent, tiny, amazing, preemie grandson finally got to come home from the hospital. I invited myself over to Sian's and Nathan's house this last weekend for two reasons: to let Sian get some sleep and to reassure her that she is a good mother.

Mission one: Sian and Nathan are too paranoid to let Tyler sleep while not being watched over. The nurses and doctors put the fear of God into them about newborns suffocating, so they now refuse to swaddle him or prop him up with a tightly rolled blanket against his back while he's sleeping--both things I used to do with my own newborns. Therefore, they take shifts in the night. Since I was there, we divided the night into three 3-hour shifts, and I volunteered for the middle one, 2-5am.

The only problem was that they have the one bed in their one-bedroom apartment, and Tyler sleeps out in the living room on a little makeshift bed on the couch because he currently refuses to sleep in his crib (the mattress is cold, and they're too worried about suffocation to put a sheet on it). Since Nathan had the first shift, I didn't have a problem sleeping with my daughter on their king-size bed for a few hours. But when Sian came in at 5am to take her shift, I told her to go back to bed. Not only did I want her to get more sleep, but I felt it might be kind of awkward to sleep in the same bed with my son-in-law. Love the guy, but that crosses some kind of line, amiright? So Sian got a full night of sleep and Nathan slept in the next morning and also got some good sleep. Parents of newborns really need that. Bonus: no awkwardness ensued.

Mission two: I have nothing but respect for the caring and knowledgable nurses and doctors who take such good care of preemies in the NICU. The unexpected consequence of having a baby in the NICU for nearly two months, however, is that a new mother constantly gets corrected or instructed on how to take care of her baby, and it's easy to start doubting your own mothering abilities and instincts. This is the case with Sian, and now that she doesn't have nurses and monitors telling her every little thing about Tyler, she feels overwhelmed and inadequate. So I spent a lot of time encouraging her and praising her as she very expertly fed him, burped him, changed his diaper, and reacted to all his little needs. I did not give her advice or tell her that she should do things the way I did them. She's doing a fine job, and I think she just needed to be validated, which I am perfectly happy to do. If there are two people in the world who will be good parents, it's my daughter and son-in-law.

While I was down at my oldest daughter's place, my third daughter was at my house. She's recently moved down to Utah Valley to get a job before attending college, but she still has duties as the reigning queen of our city, so on Saturday she needed to head back there to fulfill some of those duties. Also to see her boyfriend and give him presents for his birthday. But I'm sure her major reason was to fulfill her duties and see her dad, brothers, and sister. I'm sure.

What's great about Sophia's new living arrangement is that Gabrielle also moved in to the same house. It's a good house in a good neighborhood with good roommates. Gabrielle had lived with her previous roomies for three years now, but it was time for a change, and I was very grateful that she hopped on the chance to snag the empty room that was still available in Sophia's new place. She also got Sophia a job where she's working, which is at Geomni. It's a good full-time job with excellent pay, so now Sophia (who was living off her savings until she got a job) can afford long-term to pay rent, buy food, save for school, and enjoy a social life and entertainment. I couldn't be happier about this turn of events. It's kind of my dream to have my girls living with each other and looking out for each other, and I love that both of them also live close to Sian and Nathan and their new nephew.

Sophia's move has been really hard on Elannah, though. Sophia and Elannah are best friends, and it was difficult for Elannah after Sophia graduated from high school. Elannah also broke up with her boyfriend (I'm not sad about that, and it was her choice. He's a great kid, but they're young and I want Elannah to date more people), so she felt like she didn't have any close friends to be with at school this year. This is why I'm happy that she's found a couple of girls with whom she gets along so well and who share her dry sense of humor. She and her ex are back to being good friends (she can't imagine dating him again, however), and she's got some good male friends, but there's nothing like having a couple really good female friends who have your back.

Elannah also has a strong sense of duty as an older sister because Joseph started high school this year as a freshman, and she wants him to be comfortable. Joseph, as you know, was in the district's homebound program throughout junior high, and I was ready to sign him up for it again for high school when he announced that he wanted to register for classes and go to school for 9th grade. So I jumped on that, and he's thrived with all his new classes. You have no idea how much of a relief that is for Husband and me that he's taking such big steps to overcome his anxiety.

Yesterday evening, even as I got hit hard by the delayed effects of the sleep deprivation of the weekend (this is why you have babies when you're young!), I felt a great sense of satisfaction and joy as I sat with my sons and daughter and husband and had dinner and laughed and talked together. Life is good.

Renewed Motivation

I hate photos of myself. Sure, when I was a young, fit thing I didn't mind the photos so much; but as a middle-aged woman who is fighting the weight battle, photos of myself make me feel ill. These are no exception.

However, I needed some renewed motivation. I've lost nearly 40 pounds since the middle of March, 2018, and I'm thrilled with that. I honestly can't believe I've managed to lose this much! I have my health coach to thank, because without her dedication and selfless interest in my success, I would never have started losing weight in the first place. Instead, I would still be lamenting my fatness but failing to do anything about it.

The problem with summer, though, is that my schedule is completely open. Both Husband and I have the summers off because we work for the school district (and I still haven't gotten around to finding another writing job), so with family visiting from the U.K., a short vacation to Southern Utah (because when it's hot, why not go somewhere even hotter?), and all the staying up late and sleeping in late I've been doing, I've been way too tempted with foods I shouldn't be eating. I'm stalled at the moment--losing and gaining the same two pounds for the last several weeks. I thought a comparison photo would be a good way to see the progress I've made while also facing how much weight I still have to lose.

It's working. I do feel motivated to renew my efforts. Plus, I'm not wearing that blue shirt again until I've reached my goal. Spandex/rayon blends are unforgiving.

On the left: at Sian's wedding last August.
On the right: today.

Why Grammar and Punctuation Matter

It's not a scintillating title, unless it's read by someone like me: fascinated with the art and science of written communication.

This is me:

• I spent the majority of my time in grade school finishing my regular work as quickly as possible so I could get to what I really loved doing: reading and writing plays and stories.
• I took the grammar and composition course in high school FOR FUN! 
• I resurrected the literary magazine because I was sure my fellow students were as obsessed as I was with wanting to write beautiful prose. 
• I aced my honors creative writing course in college, and I especially loved it because there were only eight students in the class and I, therefore, got more attention from the instructor. 

For me, powerful written communication must include correct punctuation and grammar. It's the only way to clearly say what you want to say. It's your job as the writer to craft words into sentences that clearly and accurately convey your ideas. Grammar is the method by which you string words together coherently to make sentences and paragraphs. Punctuation gives the readers clues as to your true meaning. Failing to utilize even the most rudimentary grammar and punctuation skills means you expect your reader to somehow glean your meaning through a form of telepathy. It's a risky business; most of the people I know, including myself, are terrible telepaths.

I would never critique anyone's grammar or punctuation in a casual email, text, or social media post. But the sloppiness becomes an issue when the mistakes are repeated over and over and morph into bad habits. When I was on Facebook, I noticed punctuation trends sweeping across the digital landscape. For instance, I watched with horror as people quickly became convinced that apostrophes are to be used to make words plural. Now I see it everywhere in real life, and it makes me shudder every time. And don't get me started on the horrific (but often unintentionally hilarious) misuse of quotation marks. Or the way more and more people slap a comma into a sentence when they feel it's where the reader would take a breath to emphasize the next few words. That's not how commas were raised.

I have a friend who is a successful businessman. He's smart, savvy, and a good guy. One day, he proudly posted an image of his new business cards on a social media account. I immediately noticed a common spelling error and privately messaged him about it, concerned that his reputation for excellence would suffer from such an obvious mistake. He messaged me back and told me that he'd ordered a gazillion cards and didn't want to order new ones. He said the error would be our little secret. I didn't say anything about it after that--it's his business, after all--but I guarantee it won't be our little secret. Someone is going to notice, and they won't be impressed, and he might lose business because of it. I know I regularly quit reading articles by professionals when I realize they couldn't be bothered to re-read their text or get an editor to do it for them. It just tells me the author is sloppy and doesn't pay attention to details. Why should I listen to someone who is supposed to be imparting valuable information but can't be bothered to make sure they're doing it as clearly as possible? If a 500-word article is so poorly written, I would never buy one of their books or subscribe to one of their newsletters. Sloppy professional writing makes me crazy: I can't stop mentally editing, and then I completely miss the point they're trying (poorly) to make.

I think that the joy of cleaning up poor writing and allowing the author to express his/her ideas in the clearest, most coherent way possible is why I love to be an editor. There's a real thrill in helping someone communicate valuable information in the best way possible. I'm a total nerd that way. But I also understand how hard it is to write. How many of my blog drafts sit, languishing in their digital limbo, because I became disgusted with my lack of ability to write the way I want to? Answer: most of them. Even now I'm tempted to erase this entire post. It's like an itch you can't quite ignore.

So why do grammar and punctuation matter? They matter because the written word is one of the most powerful ways through which we communicate with other human beings. These rules aren't arbitrary, even if they change a little over time, and they are tools in making that communication as clear and understandable as possible. They aren't difficult to learn, but I suppose that if fewer and fewer people know them, it won't matter so much if they're used at all. But then we regress in our ability to communicate. That's what makes me sad.

A note: I do want to point out that different people write differently. Husband was reading this over, and he mentioned several places where he would have created two sentences out of one or added slightly different punctuation. He would have been correct in how he changed it, as well. I acknowledge that there are different styles of writing. But you have to know the rules before you can play with them, as any good cook or actor or athlete knows.

I'M A GRANDMOTHER!

Hello. I'm a grandmother.

I'm a GRANDMOTHER!

I'm a grandmother a couple months earlier than we all expected.

Sian developed preeclampsia and was hospitalized for a couple days because her blood pressure started shooting up so high. When medication and magnesium sulfate didn't bring it down, the doctors decided to take the baby via C-section.

I was a little too late to the hospital to see Sian before she went into surgery. I had spent most of the previous day at the hospital, but the doctors and nurses were so certain that Sian would be able to keep the baby inside for a few more days that I didn't stay overnight at their apartment. I really like sleeping in my own bed, and their apartment didn't have air conditioning and was 95 degrees F. Tell me how you can sleep while you're sweating out your weight in fluid.

(Husband has since rigged up a frame in which he set a window air conditioner, which was difficult because he couldn't put any nails or screws into the sill and because he had to work around a tall metal slider rail in the second-story window. But he did it. It took him 12 hours of building, traveling, and fixing, but he got it done, and now the kids have some air conditioning. I'm not sure how they survived that apartment up to this point!)

Nathan called me early the next morning, and I could tell he was tense, even though he always keeps himself calm and measured. I hopped right into the car and started driving, but he called again to ask where I was when I was still 20 minutes out and stuck in traffic, and this time I could tell he was about to explode with anxiety.

By the time I got to the hospital, Sian had already been wheeled into the surgery, and I was told to wait in Sian's room. About 15 minutes later, she was wheeled back in on her bed, and I spent a while helping her come to grips with the fact that she was no longer pregnant and that she is a mom and has delivered her first child. She also had the shakes, which is totally normal after childbirth, so the nurse and I got her all wrapped up in warm blankets and I stroked her head and told her how proud of her I was. Nathan went with the baby to the NICU to make sure everything was okay there before coming back to make sure his wife was recovering.

The good news is that both mom and baby are going well. While Sian's blood pressure continued to spike dangerously high even after the delivery, it has since started to come down. It's still really high for her, but they're thinking of discharging her tomorrow because it seems to be on a downward trend.

My new grandson, Tyler, is so tiny. He was only three pounds and 15 inches long, propped up in his little box in the NICU. When I saw him, he had a breathing tube down his throat, along with a bunch of other feeds and wires stuck to his wee little torso, arms, and legs. But for such a peanut of a kid, he's got some seriously long fingers and toes! I told Sian and Nathan that they need to get him piano lessons as soon as he can sit up on his own. You can't let fingers like that go to waste!

The breathing tube has since been removed, and Tyler is breathing fine on his own. His nurse is feeding him breastmilk through his feeding tube (Sian has been extracting), so he's getting excellent nutrition. While he has developed a bit of jaundice and is on antibiotics for inflammation or infection, neither of these things is abnormal for a preemie. He'll probably be home in about eight weeks.

What's absolutely lovely is that he wiggles and responds when he hears Sian's or Nathan's voices. He knows his parents.

I reassured Sian that in 15 years, Tyler will be eating her out of house and home and will probably be taller than his dad. No one will be able to tell he was so eager to be born that he came a couple months early. For now, she's very lucky to have such an attentive, caring husband. He adores her, and he's obviously fallen in love with his tiny little son. Plus, she has parents, siblings, aunts and uncles and cousins, grandparents, and a great-grandmother who are all praying for her and Tyler.

I'm a grandma! It's a pretty sweet feeling.

Pageant Winner in the House!

After a very exciting pageant, Sophia was crowned the new queen of our city. She's the one in the lovely green dress, below, flanked by her two sweet and talented attendants.

I suspect Sophia competed mostly for the sparkly crown. Well, and the $2000 scholarship and the other great prizes. But mostly the sparkly crown. Like her mom, she's kind of drawn to sparkly things.

To get that scholarship check, though, she has to show up to a number of events throughout the year, culminating in crowning a new queen next July. What's funny is that one of Sophia's very good friends won the crown last year. She is a year older than Sophia, and Sophia has been following her in theater since they were both in elementary school. Fortunately, they were never jealous of each other, even as they auditioned for many of the same roles. We have a picture of them together from when Sophia was in sixth grade (about age 12) and Kat was in seventh grade; Sophia played Sleeping Beauty the younger, and Kat played Sleeping Beauty the elder in the same play that year.

Tonight was the first night the three girls started their official duties as the new city royalty, with a car show, BBQ, and karaoke contest in the city park. They didn't have to wear formal gowns this evening (phew!), but they do have to have some security with them at all times, which is sad. Sophia came home and reported that many of the men at the park kept asking how old they were, and when they were serving up hamburgers and hot dogs, they were asked if kisses were also on the menu. Now I'm not so thrilled about her being royalty. It didn't occur to me that having a crown on your head made you such a target for dirty old men, and it was a good thing her dad wasn't there.

Becoming royalty in our burg is small potatoes compared to winning at state, national, or international pageants, but I'm proud of Sophia for the effort she put in. She worked really hard on choreographing and perfecting her dance for the talent competition, and she practiced for the interviews, as well. She was fortunate to know some people who were familiar with pageants and helped her prepare, and I think that made a huge difference in how she presented herself. Also, that dress! It was a show-stopper. No one else wore a green dress, and that particular shade of green in that iridescent silk is my absolute favorite color in the world. I had many people stopping me for days to ask about that dress.

Sophia has no plans to compete in further pageants. She's satisfied with this win, and she has other things she wants to do. For now, though, she'll really enjoy the duties that come with being pageant royalty, and she'll very much enjoy getting that check next year.

Around the House

This is the first time in years that I haven't had writing deadlines hanging over my head. Having a true vacation has been wonderful, though I'll eventually have to scrape up another freelancing job. My last contract job fizzled, though it didn't have anything to do with me or my work. The short story is that there was a management shakeup at that company, and everyone there is either jumping ship (including my liaison, Clint, and my brother) or figuring out where they fall in the new and confused hierarchy. So glad I don't work in the corporate world!

The good news is that my brother's new marketing manager job at Perfectly Posh means we benefit from the largesse of product samples. It's not like my brother is going to use all the creams and lotions and face masks and soaps that they give him, so he hands them off to us. As a household full of girls, we are extremely grateful.

Since Husband also has the summer off, we've had goals: the front yard; pulling out all the carpet and re-flooring the upstairs level with laminate; writing for fun; making flutes (Husband); and refinishing a lovely thrifted dresser (me).

The front yard is partially completed, with planting containers put in and walkway pavers being set Still to go: weed cloth, rock covering on the ground around the planters, selecting plants, and populating the planters.

I think insisting on growing a green lawn in the desert is simply stupid. Don't get me started.

I plan to put a mix of flowering culinary herbs and ornamental vegetables into the long planter and into the "rockery" on the right, as they get full sun most of the day. The whiskey barrel in the middle will have something showy and flowery. I'm still deciding what that will be.

Since the above picture was taken, Husband decided to rip out the boxwood hedge and the spiky red hedge around the side of the porch and put an L-shaped planter in their place. The boxwood is gone now, and Husband and my FIL are busily leveling out the planters and pavers in order to go get the two tons of rocks they've ordered for the ground covering.

The laminate flooring for upstairs has been purchased (an amazing sale for 22 cents a square foot!), as is the underlayment and the tools for putting down the laminate. Bonus: Husband just purchased a used table saw in extremely good condition for an extremely excellent price, which has been one of the things on his wish list for ages, and which will be very handy in cutting the boards to fit.

Husband has perfected a process of making tuned, clear-sounding pentatonic-scale flutes in 30 minutes. He uses a food-grade, completely non-toxic plastic for the mouthpieces since he's making the flutes out of PVC and didn't want to take any chances that the plastic might be dangerous. He's even started an Etsy.com  account and started making YouTube videos on the basics of the flutes.

I'm working on the dresser. This is the "before" picture. I'm covering the drawer fronts with a pretty contact paper I purchased and will paint the body and legs a glossy white. Pardon the weeds where the driveway has dropped. They have been dealt with firmly and thoroughly.

All this and I've lost 30 pounds and a ton of inches since late March!

One last thing: in my continued effort to cure my ongoing and sometimes horrible fatigue, I've ordered a magnesium glycinate supplement that has great reviews. I have made and used my own magnesium oil (magnesium chloride) before, and I try to eat magnesium-rich foods, but I'm heading into the realm of oral supplementation because I am desperate. While losing weight is making my clothes fit better and my butt not as wide, it hasn't helped my energy levels. There was a slight energy bump right at the beginning, but--as it always goes--that went away and my fatigue returned full-force. Discouraging. I'm so tired of being exhausted. Hopefully, this is the summer that yields the cure.

The Main Headlines

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Strangely, holding down a couple jobs and being a mom has kept me busy. You know I don't like being busy due to my natural laziness. I enjoy activities mingled with time to sit and think and not be running around, so I take those moments when I find them.

Now is one such time, although I am multi-tasking by also cooking dinner. I know you're impressed.

So, because of the time gap, this post is going to be newsy.

First of all, thank you, Magazine Fairy, for the Better Homes & Gardens subscription. I love to look through those glossy pages and fantasize about decluttering my house and making it two-page-spread worthy. It may never happen, but a girl can dream.

And now, an announcement: I'm having a grandson! It's a boy! I admit I was kind of hoping for a granddaughter because a) she would be the oldest daughter of an oldest daughter of an oldest daughter of an oldest daughter of an oldest daughter (all living), and how cool would that be? And b) cute little girl clothes! But I am thrilled to contemplate loving and spoiling a little grandson this year. Sian and Nathan won't tell us the name they've picked, but that's ok. I wasn't planning on monogramming anything yet. But I'll start loading up on diapers and onesies soon.

Poor Sian has been so sick. She's still able to function because she only took one class last semester and goes to her part-time job in the afternoon, after she's got her morning sickness a little more under control. Finals are over, so she's looking forward to the day she can quit her job in preparation for giving birth. But the girl is nauseated just about all the time. She says her growing baby bump is worth it, though, and I totally agree. I went through that six times, and I wouldn't give any of them back. Most of the time.

My son-in-law, Nathan, switched his major from applied physics to computer engineering, and he's loving it so much more. He's very brainy, which is totally the type of guy I expected Sian to marry. He works as a tutor in the computer engineering department, and he's very much in demand because he has the ability to explain concepts clearly while also being encouraging to his tutees. He's not at all condescending. He is also taking very good care of my pregnant daughter, so I love the guy to death.

Gabrielle got herself into the honors program at her university and even wrangled a scholarship, so she's pretty happy about the decreased financial burden. She's decided to switch from video game design to animation because she loves the animation side so much more than the coding, although she is good at the coding part, too. She designed a new lynx mascot for Husband's elementary school, so that's something else to put into her portfolio. Every time she comes to visit, we sit and talk and she shows me her newest stash of funny memes she's saved for me. I usually end up laughing so hard I can't breathe, which delights her. I think my kids find it gratifying to see me gasping for air and making little squeaky noises, unable to talk, and wiping tears from my eyes because I find something so ridiculously funny.

Gab would really, really like to meet Mr. Right. For some reason, she tends to attract the boys that turn into stalkers almost as soon as she says something nice to them. I keep telling her that she's just been unlucky that way, and that there really are guys who aren't creeps out there. There are, right? It's been so long since I've been in the dating scene that I don't know how difficult it is anymore. Do the kids still date? Or do they just "hang out." Or "talk," as in "oh, I'm talking to someone right now." Sophia is "talking" to a boy right now, but even she isn't sure if they are dating exclusively or what.

Speaking of Sophia, she's done a splendid job of saving money to go to England this summer. She and Elannah are planning to go and spend a few weeks staying with each of the aunts and uncles that they have scattered around England and Wales. Husband and I have been encouraging the idea because when else will it be so convenient for them to travel like this? Plus, with all their aunts and uncles and cousins willing to put them up and show them around, it's the perfect way to get an up close and personal look at the land of many of their ancestors.

Elannah just took the silver medal for humorous monologue at State drama competitions. (I have to get her to perform her monologue again so I can record her and put it on here.) She's nearly finished with her dental assistant certification, as well, which means she can take our dentist up on his offer to let her do an internship to complete the program. After she graduates from high school, she's planning on going to Dixie State University, which has one of the best dental hygienist programs in the country, despite its reputation as a party school. She and Sophia are both going there, so they'll room together and keep each other out of too much trouble. Elannah may or may not go on to dental school, while Sophia plans on majoring in business marketing.

Joseph is doing so much better. The poor boy has been through the wars with his eczema, allergies, asthma, and anxiety. We recently saw an expensive allergist, and she put him on a regimen of salt baths and salves that has almost completely healed his skin. It's so wonderful not to see him scratching and scratching at open sores all the time, and he can finally sleep at night. We also found out that he's been using the wrong inhaled steroid for his level of asthma for his entire life. Once that was fixed and we got the right medicine (for which the doctor also gave us a coupon for a free year, which is fortunate because this stuff is tres expensive!), he's barely needed to use his rescue inhaler, which is a huge improvement. While he is very allergic to environmental allergens (trees, grass, weeds, etc.), he's not allergic to soy, dairy, eggs, or nuts. That's a huge sigh of relief. Now that we're getting his allergies, asthma, and eczema under control, we can work on getting his weight down. His weight ballooned after he had to take several courses of steroids for severe asthma attacks, and he's very self-conscious about it, poor kid. I'm sure losing weight will boost his confidence and help get his social anxiety more under control.

Little Gary is his bright, resilient self. He is finishing up fifth grade, and he's excited to finally be at the top of the heap in his elementary school next year.

Husband has been making flutes. He's perfected a template, so he can finish a PVC flute in about 90 minutes. They have good sound and are in tune, so once he figures out how to reduce production time even more, it might be lucrative for him to sell them. He's enjoyed doing that.

As for me, I won't be crying when the school year is over. Driving a preschool bus is probably one of the easiest jobs in the world, and my bus aide and I get along very well; but, like any job, it gets a bit tedious after a while. I'll enjoy taking a break from that for the summer. I plan on writing a book over the summer, so it will be good mental exercise, and then driving the bus again in the new school year will be a nice change.

I have kept up with writing work to a certain extent. I just completed a manuscript evaluation, commissioned by someone who somehow heard about me and tracked me down on behalf of her husband. She paid me what I asked for, as well! Regular blog writing for my main client is on hold, however, as they go through a management shakeup. My brother no longer works there, and my liaison also moved to greener pastures. I've never met or talked to the guy who was paying my invoices, and last I heard, he was trying to save his job and figure out what he does now that everything's gone topsy-turvy. It makes me quite glad I don't work in the corporate world. I haven't looked very hard for more freelance work. I've been tired.

The best news for me is that I have been losing weight. My friend and health coach signed me up with the program I'm doing, and while I was a little skeptical that it would work for me (one of my core beliefs was that it would work for everyone else except me), I had seen her and others lose weight and then keep it off for years. So I tried it, and I've now lost 15 pounds in the first 30 days. I'm pretty happy about that. I have a long, long way to go, but this has been positively easy. I'm never starving, I don't have to count calories, and I don't have to do strenuous workouts. When I sat down and calculated my weight gain, I was absolutely stunned to find out I'd gained 60 pounds between 2010 and now--just eight years--and I was already about 30 pounds overweight before that! That's horrible! I believe it started when Husband was diagnosed with leukemia and I started really stress eating and my adrenal glands cracked under the strain. After that, things were just even more out of control, and I quit trying, except when I did some crazy diet and then gained the weight right back. I hated looking in the mirror. I hated buying clothes. I even got to the point, sometimes, when I was convinced that I was so ugly that going outside would be a travesty against the other people of the world. That was the devil on my shoulder, I know, and I fortunately didn't fall for that particular lie--at least not for very long--but I was disgusted with myself and my body and had no idea what to do.

So this is definitely a positive step for me. I sleep better now (Husband says I don't snore anymore), I have more energy, and my clothes are getting pretty loose. I'm still fat, but I'm also excited knowing the fat is steadily coming off. By the end of the year, I should be forced to buy a whole new wardrobe of skinnier clothes. I might not hate looking in the mirror, either.

Marmite, our dog, is currently our only pet. The three cats either disappeared during the Great Cat Lady Debacle a couple years ago (I'll explain more about that later, hopefully) or died of old age (Myles). Joseph is definitely allergic to cats, so we won't be getting any more of those. Fortunately, he's a lot less allergic to Marmite, who is a schnau-tzu (shih tzu/mini schnauzer mix), who has hair, not fur. If we tried to get rid of Marmite, there would be a rebellion and revolution the likes of which have not been seen since 1776. Not that we're going to get rid of him. He is beloved. I've said multiple times that Marmite better never die because I just don't think any of us will recover from that.

Oh, we do have a goldfish that Elannah won at a fair about five years ago. Somehow, that little tiny fish has survived and thrived. He's grown pretty big and has lovely, flowing, transparent fins. But if I didn't feed him and clean his bowl, he wouldn't have lasted this long, since everyone else forgets to take care of him. He has not been named. He is, simply, Fishy. He lives on our kitchen shelf, and he gets very excited when he sees me. If it's a he. It might be a she. I have no idea.

So that's the news, minus the small details. All the main headlines are covered here. If you got this far, well, hello! I'm impressed! And I hope you have an absolutely wonderful day.

A Thrilling Announcement

I'm going to be a grandma.

What a strange mixture of joy and worry that announcement has brought. I'm so happy to be a grandmother to new, precious children of my children. My grandchildren are going to know their grandparents love them to pieces.

But of course I worry for my daughter, too. You never stop being a mother, either. I hope and pray my daughter will be okay. The poor girl is so nauseated all the time. If she's like me, she'll be throwing up for the entire nine months of pregnancy, which doesn't make pregnancy all that pleasant. Fortunately, the end result makes it worth it.

Anyway, the happy announcement came in the form of a phone call from my daughter and son-in-law on Christmas Day because they were spending the holiday with Nathan's parents (we got them for Thanksgiving). Best. Christmas. Present. Ever. I cried. Of course I cried.

Sian is due on September 3rd. I have until then to buy all the onesies and make all the baby blankets Sian will ever need for an army of children.