#Goals

My left fingertips, my arms, my hands, and my back are sore.

No, I haven't suddenly decided to exercise. Don't be ridiculous.

I'm practicing my cello again.

I was asked to be part of an ensemble to provide some music for a Relief Society conference in March. Specifically, they want a piano, cello, and flute trio. I've found some music I can adapt for that  particular request (a lovely arrangement of "Nearer, My God, to Thee"), but this means that I have to start building calluses and muscle now if I'm going to be fighting fit to play in March without horribly embarrassing myself.

To that end, we have removed the chairs and table in my bedroom (which weren't really getting utilized anyway) so that I now have a permanent place to stand my cello. And by "we," I mean my husband has done this because he's very sweet that way. He also managed to find my cello stand so I don't have to push furniture around, wrestle my cello into and out of the case, and set up the music stand every time I want to practice, all of which really puts a damper on wanting to practice. Now I can plop myself down and play whenever the mood strikes.

I'm always surprised at just how much muscle it takes to play the cello. I took that for granted when I was young. I was very active as a ballet dancer and crew rower, among other activities, so while I have never been muscle-bound, it was very easy to play the cello for hours at a time, and I never gave it a second thought. Now, I will have to build myself up to being able to play for any length of time. I'll also have to suffer through the hot sting (and sometimes bleeding) as I develop calluses on my left fingertips.

This is a perfect example of "no pain, no gain."

This was a 2020 goal for myself anyway, so it was fortuitous that I was asked to play in March. What I would really like to do is play in an orchestra again. I was thinking of playing in the orchestra for "The Messiah" for next Christmas, which would be really fun. Handel would be a challenge. I'll also have to check to see if there are any community orchestras around here and work on an audition piece.

Thanks for listening. Wish me luck! And Happy New Year! I hope you're feeling optimistic for all that 2020 will bring.

Playing with the Christmas Toys

Husband, master of finding amazing things for way less than retail, found a PS4 VR system for the kids for Christmas. It's a kick. I loved playing it, but I found out really quickly that virtual reality makes me ill. A good twenty minutes of play will leave me feeling like I have raging morning sickness for the rest of the day. No, thank you! The kids don't seem to suffer those side effects, so that's a happy thing. If I wasn't going to barf all over everything, I'd be fighting them for turns. I had so much fun playing Space Pirate and Job Simulator. Surprise plot twist: I'm a pretty good shot when I'm a space pirate in an almost 3D environment.

(whispers) "Virtual reality is real!"

(Remember this little nugget from the mid-nineties? Husband and I still make fun of it.)

VR.5

Another weird thing that happened was that I had some spatial reasoning problems after I finished playing. When you're wearing the VR headset and moving around in the game, you obviously have to be careful not to run into furniture and walls in real space. But my brain refused to accept that I was in real space after I took the headset off. I had to keep reassuring myself that what I was seeing was actually what was sharing space with me--that the couch was really, actually in front of me, or that I was really walking around the dining table. For a while, I found myself flinching, expecting myself to run into walls or furniture even though I was literally walking around in real space and could see all the walls and furniture. It was a very unsettling sensation.

These issues might be age, but they might also be related to the fact that when I was twelve years old, I broke the record for spinning the longest on our sit-and-spin.

See, we used to pull the wheel off the sit-and-spin and place the seat of the piano bench on the base of the sit-and-spin (the piano bench seat had come completely unscrewed from the base, which sometimes caused painful yet hilarious accidents if you didn't balance it perfectly on the base before sitting down to play the piano), and then we would kneel on the seat and push on the floor to get a really good spin going. I spun like that for over ten minutes to break the record. If you don't think that's very long, go ahead and set the timer for ten minutes and just spin around without stopping. I'll wait.

Since that day, I have never been able to spin on an amusement park ride or even ride in a fast elevator without feeling the urge to projectile vomit. Virtual reality must really mess with my equilibrium.

On that pleasant note, I hope you had a happy Christmas. I'm still enjoying my time off, and, weather permitting, will be going to see my grandson at the end of the week because Sian and her family came back from Las Vegas early. This time, I'll try to remember to take pictures.

Showing Off My Christmas Crochet

This year for Christmas, I've done a bit of crocheting.

I finally finished the Sackboy I'd been promising Little Gary's friend, JJ, for the last couple of years. It's the blue guy on the left. Little Gary's Sackboy is on the right, slightly worse for wear after two years.

JJ was so happy to finally get his Sackboy that he carried it around all day while he hung out with Little Gary at our house on Christmas Eve. That made me smile.

Leading up to Christmas, I decided I didn't want to make sweet treats for my bus driver friends. I was kind of all sweet treated out by that time. Instead, I crocheted a bundle of Christmas light bulb ornaments and handed those out. It was doubleplus good because they gave the recipients a little chuckle and I enjoyed making them.

Christmas Plans and Wishes

I took the sleep test and the results indicated that I have mild sleep apnea.

At first I was quite offended. Mild sleep apnea? Mild sleep apnea?

I don't think I'm just a lazy layabout, though. Decades of not enough sleep will turn you into a zombie no matter how much you strive for naps (and don't succeed) or go to bed early, just to wake up feeling like it's still eleven pm after you've already been up for forty-eight hours. So I'll use the CPAP machine and the new pillow Husband bought me and we'll see what happens. Maybe I'll get really energetic and plow through my massive bucket list of Things I'll Do When I Have Energy. It's a long list. Reading it makes me tired.

My mom has seen some real success using her CPAP machine. She's been using it for about three months now, and she's so pleased with the results. She can now sleep on her sides, which she hasn't been able to do for years. Before, her hands and feet would tingle and go to sleep unless she lay on her back. She's also feeling a lot more energetic, as well. This is a woman whom I have never known to just sit down and do nothing, so I know it's been hard for her to be so sluggish and tired.

In other news, I finally stepped inside a Trader Joe's grocery store. We wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and since we were visiting Sian and Nathan, we stopped by a store in their city. It was Saturday, so, of course, it was a madhouse, crawling with young, cute couples and their well-dressed children.

As far as we could tell, it's a regular grocery store with expensive things, so I'm not too worried about missing out on it up here in our little burg, even if they do sell Brussels sprouts still attached to the stalk.

Tomorrow, I have a morning dental appointment in The Big City, so I'm going to be hitting the Asian market afterwards. Sophia's boyfriend has been talking about getting curry pastes and a durian fruit, so I'm going to get him a couple of my favorite curry pastes (massaman and panang, although red, green, and yellow curry pastes are also all so good), some fish sauce, some Thai basil, and some tamarind concentrate so he can make Thai curries.

I'll look for a durian, as well. I'm interested to try one. How can something that smells so awful taste so good?

Sian and Nathan are spending Christmas in Las Vegas with Nathan's family. Gabrielle and Raine are coming up here, however, to spend part of Christmas Day with us and to attend our annual Christmas dinner at my mother-in-law's house. I had a chat with my own mom a couple days ago, and given the circumstances, we aren't going to try and get together until January. My grandma isn't doing so well right now, so traveling to our house or having a lot of people over at my parents' house would be difficult for her. I kind of feel like she won't last all the way through 2020. She'll be ninety-three in January. She's really losing her memory now, and the doctor keeps having to increase her diuretic medication as she keeps collecting more and more water around her lungs.

Tomorrow I also need to deliver the presents our ward has purchased for a couple families whose finances are hurting right now. I've got piles of presents stacked up in my bedroom, some of which still need to be wrapped. Compared to getting last week's funeral meal for two hundred people sorted out in a couple days, this is cake.

If I don't get back here until after Christmas, I hope your Christmas is a wonderful, joyous time. I wish you love and comfort with friends and family and the happiness of knowing that a Savior was born to save the world. There are no limits on love, and the universe is absolutely packed full of it. So am I.

What Does It Take to Become a Leader Like Lenin?

For some school district employees, our Christmas gift is two whole weeks off work.

Today is my last driving day for two weeks. There's no preschool classes, so I'm only picking up and dropping off my high school kids, which takes a total of about two hours between the two runs. And it's early day, so my Christmas vacation starts about 2:15 this afternoon.

Yesterday, I wore earrings shaped like Christmas bulbs--green, in this case. They light up when I push little buttons on the base, so I had them blinking when I picked up the high school kids yesterday morning. It was dark, so they were really showing to good effect. But would one of those cold, sleepy, silent kids look at me? No, they would not. They climbed stolidly up the stairs (some of them wearing nothing but t-shirts and shorts for some inexplicable reason) and avoided all eye contact, only a few of them giving me a muttered response to my "good morning." I wasn't surprised, as that's normal morning behavior for teenagers, but what an opportunity they missed! Green blinking lightbulb earrings!

The preschoolers loved them, however, so my efforts were not entirely wasted.

The high schoolers aren't always surly. They're different people by the time they get onto the bus in the afternoon. I get smiles and greetings and even a few conversations.

There's one kid, probably a junior or senior, who has decided I'm not too old to communicate with. The other day, he got on the bus and said, "Are you a fascist?" I said that I was not.

He said, "You should be fascist."

I said, "Why should I be a fascist? I'm curious."

He obviously hadn't thought about it enough because he didn't give me a real answer, but then he said, "I want to be a Communist. Except there have been some terrible leaders, like Stalin."

I said, "With Communism, you always get leaders like Stalin. That's how it works."

He said, "I like Lenin better than Stalin. I'd be a leader more like Lenin."

Obviously, he's got some power fantasies going on in his young and still uneducated head. Megalomania isn't that uncommon with teenagers, right? They usually gain some maturity and life experience and become less psychotic that way. Right?

More kids got on the bus and we didn't talk anymore until I got to their drop-off stop. As he was getting off the bus, I said with a smile, "Now don't go Communist on me overnight."

He smiled back, but before he walked away, he turned around, grabbed the side of the door opening, and said, "I would be a good leader. I would do it the right way," before dropping his hand and turning toward his house.

Ah, the naive good intentions of the young who are convinced they can defy human nature and force the world onto a permanent path of peace. How much damage they can do when they get some real power.

Yesterday, this same kid got on the bus and excitedly told me he'd scored a full ten on his diving for swimming class. I gave him a high five and enthusiastically congratulated him, which made him pleased. He didn't mention anything more about turning to Communism and I didn't bring it up. Let's hope it's a passing fancy, one that will evaporate once he becomes more educated. He seems like a fairly sharp young man, so I'm hoping for the best.

I hear sad tales from Elannah and Sophia about some of their former high school friends who have turned to the dark side. Kids who are convinced that socialism and communism are forward-thinking and brave because they don't actually understand how those systems work in the real world. Kids who came from good families who now drink heavily and smoke weed and take mind-altering drugs and namecall anyone who doesn't agree with their radical ideas.

But I digress from my original point: Christmas gifts in whatever form they arrive.

Not only do I have a pile of sweet little gifts from many of my preschool parents (mostly treats, which is why it's never a good idea to start a new healthy eating plan in December), but Husband bought me a new pillow. It's a wonderful pillow. I immediately slept better and didn't snore on this pillow.

You know you're an adult when things like good pillows are a Christmas treasure.

I'll tell you more about the pillow, my sleep test results, and what's happening with my energy levels in a future post. This one is long enough already.

Many Are Cold, But Few Are Frozen

Today I attended the farewell talk of a girl I've known since before she was born. Her mother, my friend Shanna, desperately wanted a second child yet had such a hard time getting and staying pregnant that it was truly a miracle that Taylor was born. I babysat her as an infant all the way until she started school. She and my daughter, Elannah, have been friends their whole lives.

She's been called to serve an LDS mission in the Minnesota Minneapolis Mission, Spanish-speaking. I'm excited because that's my home mission. I grew up knowing the missionaries who served in our branch. It was so common for our family to have missionaries (elders and sisters) over for dinner or for holidays that many of them became like parts of our family. As I grew older, I spent some of my time working with them as they taught people about Jesus Christ and His grace. I also played with them when we had volleyball games once a week. There are some amazing missionaries who have served in that mission, and I'm so blessed to have met them.

Taylor will be heading out to the mission home in Minneapolis after she finishes a few weeks of training at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. Then she will brave the cold and snow while she finds Spanish-speaking people to talk to. She'll do a fantastic job.

Believing Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

"Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

"'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'"

~Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

I once questioned what I had believed to be a universal truth, a fundamental part of what I know about who I am, where I am, and what is real. I only did it because I was presented with evidence I couldn't deny, and this evidence seemed to contradict what I had been told all my life was a solid fact. I couldn't dismiss it, and I couldn't ignore it, so I hesitantly started looking at alternatives to the so-called hard facts, laughing at myself a bit for my doubts, only to be stunned to find that there was plenty of evidence to support a valid explanation for my observations, an alternative to what I had been told all my life was absolute and unquestionable.

It was a mind-blowing experience, and it started me down a path that has been equal parts eye-opening and infuriating. Challenging every belief you have held dear for your entire life is not an easy or comfortable quest.

Sorry to be so cryptic, but it's a necessity. I don't like to talk about these experiences with people except in very non-specific terms. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes them angry. Most peoples' knee-jerk reaction is to immediately dismiss me as ignorant or crazy, even if they have never engaged in more than the most superficial of thinking about the subject and refuse to do any further thinking about it. I find that particularly irritating, so I shut up about it, even if I don't stop researching and observing. The genie is out of the bottle, however. I can't go back to who I was before. I am not the same person I was before I asked that particular question.

The specific subject of my research isn't important here, anyway. What I consider vitally important for myself is being able to find and accept truth, no matter how hard it is to do. Truth is hard and uncompromising. It doesn't care about societal norms. It doesn't care about my feelings. It doesn't require my approval. It simply is.

Truth is.

I went through a period of rage at the beginning of this particular journey. The anger I felt was baffling in its intensity. It didn't manifest itself outwardly, but it was an internal battle of gigantic proportions. At the beginning, I couldn't even name a particular thing I was so angry about. I just felt this nebulous, undirected seething against....something.

This, I've since come to learn, is a normal reaction to having your core beliefs shattered, forcing your fundamental paradigm irreversibly onto a different track. I've heard others describe the same internal battle as they've gone through the same paradigm shift. Perhaps it's because we as humans like so much to be comfortable in our knowledge. We have this need to be set, to know, to be certain about what is going on around us. When that certainty is removed, when nothing is certain anymore, we naturally rage against it.

After a while, the rage died down but left in its wake a rawness, a distrust of everything I'd learned as scientific fact. But even as I felt this rawness, I also felt increased hope. I knew that I had taken a positive step in being able to start accepting truth no matter how difficult, no matter how bizarre, no matter how inconvenient it is. I know I still hold onto most of my former biases and prejudices about what is real and what is not, but I have taken one step toward truth at least: I can now question. Being able to formulate a question in the face of what I used to accept as certainty is a big step. I know I'm still naturally resistant to having my worldview torn apart and put back together in a different pattern, but at least I know I can survive it--though maybe only in small bites at a time.

That process is really what this post is about: being open to learning and understand what is true, what is reality. No, I'm not taking mind-altering drugs. I'm not, like, one with the universe and everything, man. But I have come to understand that what I want to be true is pitiful in the face of what really is true, and I prefer to know what is rather than live in my fantasy, as comfortable as that fantasy might be. I say that even though I know my ability to accept absolute truth is still in its infancy. I just hope to grow.

One thing I know is truth: God Is. All my evidence is subjective and unquantifiable, but I don't care if anyone else believes me. I know. My hope and faith have been strengthened immeasurably. Where truth is hard and unyielding, and God is truth, God is also merciful and kind. Everything else my be up for review, but that one, solid, comforting constant is a balm to my soul.

Someday, maybe I'll feel like sharing some of the experiences that have led me here. Someday, maybe, I'll share some of the spiritual experiences, as well. Like how I absolutely know prayer is one of the most powerful things any human being can do for another.

For now, I'm just trying to be big enough and strong enough to accept truth.

No Despair. Only Hope.

My daughter, Sian, suffered a miscarriage on Thanksgiving.

Sian and Nathan didn't tell us until Saturday because they didn't want to ruin our holiday. I don't care about having some sort of holiday if they need help. I care about them. I care about my darling daughter and her sweet husband and their beautiful, wonderful little baby boy.

I was sad. I cried. But they're philosophical about it, and they feel a great deal of peace. That little spirit is still their child. I don't know how these things work, but they feel strongly that the mighty spirit that couldn't use the defective body that was miscarried will still be able to experience mortality and come to their family in this life. I feel that way, too. Again: not claiming theological revelation, just telling you how I feel.

A Sordid Little Tale of Betrayal and Deceit

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! The weather conspired against us and kept us home instead of hanging out with family in The Big City, so I've got some time to write a post.

A very bizarre thing happened to us this last week.

I was walking home from a neighbor's house with one of my Relief Society counselors when a car pulled up near us. A woman in the car said, "Can you help me? I'm looking for [my address]."

I hesitantly said, "That's where I live. It's that house right there."

The woman in the car got all excited. "Oh! Are you Eva?"

"Yes..."

Now she was really excited.

"Oh, good! I'm just going to park my car. I need to talk to you."

She parked her car and quickly got out, followed by another woman. They came into my driveway and she started talking, fast, tripping over her words. First, she introduced herself as Nicole and then introduced her friend (whose name I have forgotten).

"I know your parents-in-law live right up the street, but they aren't home right now (I tried their house first), and your husband is a twin, right?"

I still didn't know what this woman wanted. I said, "Yes my in-laws live up the street but they're out of town at the moment. My husband has brothers who are twins, but he's not a twin."

"Oh, okay," she said. "But I know he had leukemia ten years ago, right? And you have a daughter named Sophia and a couple more brothers-in-law who live in...Ohio?"

She was wrong about where they lived, but I didn't correct her. Just then, Husband came out to put some garbage in the garbage bins. I called him over. Meanwhile, Carol, my counselor, who was freezing and wanted to go home, excused herself to go back to our neighbor's house so she could call her husband and get a ride home. Husband and I invited this woman and her friend inside because it was obvious she had something she desperately wanted to tell us and the situation didn't seem dangerous, just weird.

Over the next hour, Nicole proceeded to weave a sad and sordid tale of betrayed love and broken hearts. Without being quite as wordy as she was, I'll give you the relevant details.

Ladies, beware!

Husband has an older brother, Warren, who lives in Salisbury, England. Husband and Warren have never been close because Warren has rarely been kind to him, even when they were children. Warren is an interesting character, and by "interesting," I mean that he most definitely has narcissistic tendencies and might even be somewhere on the sociopathic scale. Certainly, he's a practiced liar, spinning tales that make him appealing to whatever audience he has at the moment. The thing is, I think he really believes the lies he tells, which is probably why he's fooled so many people. At the very least, he mixes truth with lies, which makes the lies mostly believable. But he spins the stories to put himself in the best light, whether he wants to be the poor, good-hearted victim of a conniving shyster or a warrior with a golden heart. The truth is that he has borrowed money repeatedly from his family, been a drunk and druggie for years (he says he's over a year sober now, but I have no idea if that's true), and burned all bridges with his siblings with his false accusations and threats. But he has dozens of others fooled into thinking he's absolutely wonderful--mostly women.

In this particular tale, he'd made Nicole fall in love with him.

They met online. She thought he was cute and sent him a friend request. They started messaging. They sent thousands of messages and pictures to each other. Over the course of a few months, they fell deeply in love despite never having met in person. He regaled her with his story of woe: of being a former addict and having been to the US for rehabilitation; of being the victim of a physically and emotionally abusive ex-wife; of having been beaten nearly to death by a gang of Irish gypsies after having tossed a couple of them out of an exclusive London club where he was a bouncer.

He also developed a fatherly relationship with Nicole's autistic 13-year-old son, who came to adore Warren. He helped Nicole try to mend things with her estranged daughter. Nicole told him she'd recently divorced a narcissistic and abusive husband, and Warren made her feel beautiful and confident again.

Warren called her his American Princess. He told her how lovely she was and how she made him feel like a person again.

Then he told her he loved her and asked her to marry him.

Shocked but delighted, Nicole finally accepted the proposal. She thought that her dead brother's spirit had guided her to Warren, as she'd always felt she would fall in love with a dark haired English man. Warren seemed like a dream come true.

Warren mentioned that when he was sad, he liked to watch Harry Potter movies. Nicole then started buying every piece of Harry Potter paraphernalia she could get her hands on and sending them in packages, which he sometimes couldn't afford to pick up because of the custom fees he had to pay, so she paid those for him. In one of the packages, she included a silver necklace that had been her brother's, a brother who had died eleven years previously from cancer. She adored her brother, and she had been wearing the necklace for the last eleven years. She wanted Warren to have the necklace as a token of her love and as a pre-wedding gift. She also told him she'd arranged a job for him in the States and that she even had a car for him to drive. He cried with tenderness, and when he received the necklace, he sent her pictures of him wearing it.

But then a few cracks appeared. Nicole started catching him in little lies. Though he had told Nicole he was divorced, she figured out he was living in the same house as his ex-wife. He admitted to that, finally. He just had nowhere else to go, he said. He'd had a girlfriend who'd stolen all his money and his house, he said, so he had been forced to ask his ex-wife for a roof over his head. The injuries he'd received from being beaten by fifteen Irish gypsies meant that he hadn't been able to work for over a year while he recovered.

Then, though he had promised to visit her in the States on her birthday so they could finally meet in person, he regretted he had to cancel. When she offered to come to England, he told her he was actually going to be in Spain for that month, visiting his cousin. She called him out on that, telling him she knew he didn't actually have a cousin in Spain (ironically, this was one of the very few true things he told her). She told him she'd come to him in England, but he obviously didn't think she'd actually go through with it.

Nicole's father had saved up enough money for Nicole's birthday that she could take a trip to England and meet her fiance. She got a hotel in Salisbury, and on her birthday, she showed up at his doorstep and rang the bell.

Nicole said that when he opened the door and recognized her there, he would have shot fire out of his eyes if he could have, he was so angry.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded. He pulled the door mostly shut behind him, but not before she saw one of his teenage sons sitting in the living room, watching the exchange.

"I told you I was going to come to you on my birthday, since you couldn't come to me," she said.

"Well, you can't come in. My ex-wife is at the store right now but she'll be coming back and she'll be mad you're here."

I guess he kissed her there on the stoop. She says it was a pretty solid French kiss. I tried not to feel ill when she said that. Then he sent her away and promised to contact her and meet with her at her hotel.

Over the next few hours, Nicole started realizing she'd been lied to. Warren is, in fact, married, for one thing. She was horrified. She never would have tried to develop a relationship with him if she'd known he was married. Warren never did show up at her hotel, and when she finally asked for her necklace back, he refused and told her he would mail it to her. She said that was ridiculous, as she was there in England, so he should give it to her now, even if he didn't want to see her in person.

She tracked down Warren's wife by doing some social media sleuthing. Then she showed up at Julie's place of work (a hair salon) and asked to speak to her. She even offered to pay her ten pounds for a few minutes of her time. She wanted Julie to know that she had been duped and that she would never have tried to break up a family and that she just wanted the necklace back. But Julie had been warned by Warren that a crazy lady was heading over to see her and that she should call the police. Julie wouldn't listen to Nicole at all, so Nicole left.

Nicole actually did call the police once she returned to her hotel. She explained that she had been catfished and that she just wanted her dead brother's necklace back. They were shocked, as catfishing isn't very common in the U.K., I guess. But though they were sympathetic, there wasn't much they could do. She'd sent him the necklace as a gift, even if it was under false pretenses, so they couldn't arrest him or demand it back.

Through a series of texts, Warren told Nicole he was no longer interested and wasn't attracted to her at all. When she questioned him about the French kiss on the doorstep, he said it was just a friendly kiss. She  disagreed that putting your tongue into someone else's mouth is what just friends do, even in France.

Nicole did say she also got to see London, and she enjoyed her stay in England as much as was possible under the circumstances. In Salisbury, she made a lot of new friends, and she told everyone about Warren and his deceit. There's even a picture of him in a tattoo parlor wearing the necklace so that people might be able to identify him and demand he send Nicole the necklace back. As an outgoing American with a solid sob story, she gathered quite a bit of sympathy and help. Salisbury isn't that large of a town, and because it was the off-season, she was probably the only American around, and she's memorable.

It was about her necklace that she was at our house. That was all she wanted back, and she was asking for our help.

By this point, we were sympathetic to her plight. We cleared up a few other things Warren had lied to her about. For one, while Warren was, indeed, beaten nearly to death by Irish gypsies, it wasn't because of a bar bouncer job (though he did, at one point years before, work as a bouncer at a London club). What really happened was that he was drunk and crossing a field where a carnival was being set up. The carnival workers told him he needed to leave the field, and, smart-mouthed as he is (and drunk), he told them to get lost, it was his field, he lived there and crossed it all the time, so step off, curly. I don't know if it was just his belligerence or the fact that he called one of them "curly" that set them off, but they beat him and beat him until they thought he was dead. Then they dragged him into the woods and left him for dead under a bush, where he was later discovered, unconscious and barely breathing, by a woman walking her dog. He survived, but I've seen the pictures of his injuries. There's no faking those. He's lucky he's alive. The Irish gypsies were never arrested.

He also has never been to the States. He is scared of flying.

His wife is literally too small to ever manage to physically beat him. If she's emotionally abusive, I wouldn't know, but she has every reason to be disgusted with his behavior over the years as he's cheated on her time and time again.

As we continued to straighten out some of Warren's other lies, Nicole put her face in her hands, realizing she'd been even more duped than she thought. This woman has had her life turned upside down because of the self-serving lies Warren has told. For Warren, it's all about getting adoration and recognition. He craves attention, but he doesn't consider the feelings of the women he's deceiving. He desperately wants everyone who meets him to think he's the best thing ever. He's obviously willing to say whatever he needs to to accomplish that. And when his family members expose him, he threatens them--sometimes threatens their lives, as he's done to Husband's sister and her husband. The sister, by the way, has been vindicated. She's been trying to tell their parents for years that Warren is a nut job, and I don't think any of us actually realized how bad he truly is until now.

It's a sad story. I feel bad for Nicole, and I'm glad she seems to be strong enough to get her life back together again, and I hope we can get her the necklace back. After a flurry of phone calls to family members, however, the consensus seems to be that Warren (who likes the finer things in life and likes to show off his excellent taste in fashion, even if he doesn't admit he's just really good at finding things at thrift stores) probably has pawned or sold it, and that is why he refused to give it back to Nicole. And none of us know why Julie hasn't divorced him. Even Warren's parents have asked her that.

At least Nicole got to go to England, something she's wanted to do for a long time. She took her friend's 25-year-old daughter along, who appears to have met the love of her life there. They are still corresponding and plan to get together as soon as possible. At least she's met him in person! I need to keep in contact with Nicole and see if that relationship works out, because it would be a bit of brightness in an otherwise terrible experience.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Sophia is currently a substitute bus aide, so when my aide, Reuben, needed a day off, she was assigned to my bus. You can't tell in this video, but she was really thrilled to be riding with her cool mom. I just don't think she conveyed that adequately in the video, so I wanted to clear that up. Thrilled! She's just too hip to show it. (I originally sent this video as a MarcoPolo to my oldest daughter, Sian. And yes, the bus was parked and turned off when I filmed this. Don't get your panties in a wad.)

In other news, my mother, one brother, and one sister have recently been diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and are now using CPAP machines. Guess who's taking a sleep test next to see if her unutterable and increasing fatigue is a result of sleep apnea? The equipment is on its way, and one of our former neighbors was even kind enough to offer me her CPAP machine for free. She can't use it and she didn't want to toss it, so I came along at just the right time. So, if I do have sleep apnea (I would be shocked if I don't, since it does tend to run in families), I have the machine already, even if I have to change masks.

The only problem with being officially diagnosed with sleep apnea is that I might have an issue with my commercial drivers license. There is no law currently that requires CDL holders to have sleep apnea testing, but a medical examiner can temporarily suspend a CDL until a driver diagnosed with sleep apnea is getting treatment and is deemed safe as a driver. However, I am willing to take the risk. As I see it, I have two options: live like this forever and be worried that my increasing fatigue will cause cognitive issues that might impair my ability to safely drive children on a bus, or have my CDL temporarily suspended (if that does happen) but start to feel better and have more energy. I'll take the latter every time.

Reducing the #BossBabe Population One Logical Point at a Time

If you are ever faced with watching a loved one succumbing to the sweet siren's song of an overly hyped MLM, show them this video. This anti-hunbot babe has produced the best anti-MLM video I've ever seen. Numbers! Analysis! Logic! A bonus rap number at the end! (warning: graphic language in the song,-and only in the song--but it's otherwise hilarious).

A Dose of Grandson

Fall break for the school district means I got to visit my grandbaby.

You cannot tell me there's anything cuter in this world. And when Husband faked some dramatically expressive sneezes, I got my dose of baby belly laughs. This is happiness.

Food for Thought

I admire both Jordan Peterson and Dennis Prager. This interview of Jordan Peterson by Dennis Prager is a must-watch. It is profound. Peterson can take concepts I have had floating around nebulously in my brain and articulate them so clearly that all I can do is nod in agreement.

One thing they talk about is the idea that one cannot be truly happy unless one has endured trauma or has recognized the darkness in one's own soul and chosen to feed the light. This is something I've thought about for years, this concept of the potential for evil each person carries with them. I have looked into my own soul and seen the horrors that I could perpetrate were I to feed that part of myself. It scares me sometimes how monstrous I could become if I turned my back on Christ and quit trying to be what He would want me to be. Peterson talks about feeling gratitude every day for the fact that we, as humans, don't act like animals and rip each other apart (for the most part). I'm very grateful for a better way than living like an animal.

Anyway, enjoy!

Happy Happy Grandma Time

I have passed this graffito nearly every school day for the last two years, so I finally took a picture.

I've checked the Urban Dictionary, and I can tell you with confidence that I've only ever been zooted on life, bruh. Well, except for that one time I was fed marijuana brownies at church, and then I was only really, really sleepy, which I found strangely disappointing.

But I do have a reason to be high on life right now. My sweet oldest daughter, Sian, is going to be a mommy again! She and Nathan announced her pregnancy last Sunday when I had all my children in the house at once for a couple hours, which is all I need to make me the happiest woman alive. Sian had been happily anticipating my reaction, and I don't think I disappointed her with my squealing and jumping up and down and kisses on her cheeks and lots of hugs for my son-in-law. The baby is due in June, and that will make almost two years between Tyler and his little brother or sister (don't know which it is yet). That's a good spread.

I got to spend almost all of Sunday holding and playing with my darling grandson, who is, of course, the cutest and most wonderful baby on earth. At just a little over a year old, he's almost walking on his own, and he does a ba-a-a-a-ing sheep impression that keeps me in stitches. I was so busy playing with him that I didn't take any pictures, sorry.

Just wanted to share the happy news!

My Son Joseph: Budding Comedic Genius

I realize I've been very wordy lately. Here are the events of the last few months summed up in one-line blurbs:

I've been feeling really tired.
Eating high fat/low carb and keto has helped me feel a lot better.
Someone hurt my feelings and then unjustly hurt my friend's feelings, and that made me really mad.
I still drive a preschool bus, and I get along with my new aide.

Now you're all caught up.

Joseph, my fifteen-year-old son, recently edited a video, and the result made me and Elannah laugh so hard we got stomachaches. Thought I'd share.



Here's another one he did. I honestly can't tell if anyone else would laugh so hard they cried while watching this or if it's just the fact that this particular brand of humor is so illustrative of what makes my family (including my parents and siblings) laugh. You be the judge. Title: "You're trying to sleep as your neighbors play Scatmans World at 3am".

Well, Isn't That Special?

I haven't ugly-cried in years, but I had quite a session of that last night. No one has yet been throat punched, so relax.

Now the rant. I know that no one will find this more interesting than I do, so it's your fault if you read any further. You've been warned. (quirky smiley face emoji, finger guns emoji)

I am a Relief Society president in my congregation. It's a volunteer position (absolutely no pay is involved in any of the callings within the Church), and the bishop of the ward and his counselors are the ones who decide, based on prayer and the Spirit, who will be asked ("called") to become the next Relief Society president and when she will be released from the calling (it's usually a few years). There is no popular vote amongst the congregants, though they can choose to formally sustain me in my calling or not by a raise of hands. I was called--and accepted the call--last October, so it's been about a year that I've been doing this.

I admit that I haven't loved it. That's largely due to my own health issues, which have made everything I do very hard. I have to pick and choose very carefully where I will expend my limited energy. And while I do care intensely about people, I'm not very demonstrative about it overall. I don't have that ability to embrace every person and make them feel like they're thoroughly and utterly loved just by walking into a room. I always struggle with the introvertedness that makes it difficult to open myself up to more than just a very few people, though I can pretend to be extroverted for short periods of time.

I've had many wonderful examples of Relief Society presidents past, and it's hard not to compare myself unfavorably to them. Having been in leadership positions before, I already knew that being in a leadership position within the Church does not in any way grant me superhuman spiritual powers or bring me any closer to perfection. I'm still woefully human and flawed. But the Lord qualifies those whom He calls, so by His grace (and ONLY by His grace), I keep trying to do my best and hope to be guided. God knows me, and He can use me--even as flawed and imperfect as I am--to further his purposes. That's the only thing that keeps me going in what can sometimes be a difficult calling, though the spiritual rewards of serving the women in my ward are often amazing. But the self doubt always remains--an insidious, critical voice in the back of my head.

As a president, I have two counselors and a secretary to assist me. As soon as the bishop extended the call, theirs were the names that popped into my head. I didn't even have to ponder it. We're a great team, my counselors and my secretary and I. I love those ladies. They are kind, helpful, and very supportive. They are wonderful women. And they are also human.

The women in our congregation are also wonderful. Each of them is unique, and each of us have our little quirks and faults as well as our strengths; but when we lift each other up, there isn't anything that we can't accomplish.

So when I got lambasted out of the blue a few weeks ago by a woman I thought was a friend, it really, really hurt. This woman (we'll call her Prunella) had, until that point, thought very highly of me and told me so often. We'd been friends for years. I knew she had quirks, but I accepted those things about her and appreciated her for who she was. One day, however, she began a series of texts to me that ended up in her quitting our friendship. Her reasoning was that I (and others) just don't appreciate her enough. Her particular beef with me was that I responded to her but never initiated contact (sadly, that's mostly true, and it's true because conversations with her took such a long time that I often put it off). Long story short: Prunella didn't feel that I deserved her friendship or her regard any more. As a bonus, she listed all the reasons she thinks I'm terrible at being a Relief Society president and a person in general.

That really hurt. I'm not overly thick-skinned, and it crushes me when someone I trust betrays me and skewers me exactly in all the areas of my insecurities. I mourned for a few days while I scrutinized my actions to see where I had been at fault. While I have many areas that need work, I realized that Prunella had put me on a pedestal of what she expected me to be--and not what I actually am--and when I didn't live up to her expectations, she became incensed with my "betrayal" and lashed out. That realization helped me cope with the situation, and I was able to face her without feeling so much acrimony.

But last night, Prunella went too far.

I taught the lesson in our Relief Society meeting last Sunday. It was based on the talk "Careful versus Casual," by Becky Craven, from the April, 2019, General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We had a good discussion amongst the women in the class, and I had shared some thoughts I'd had about what it means to be careful versus casual in our worship of the Savior.

I noticed that Prunella got up and left the lesson about ten minutes before it ended, and something told me her leaving had to do with me, but I mentally shrugged and continued. I can't be accountable for her feelings about anything.

It turns out that after Prunella left the room (she later told me she left because in sharing an anecdote with the others, I had driven the Spirit from the room because I wasn't teaching purely from the scriptures), she went to speak to the bishop about being able to start going to another ward (she doesn't feel the Spirit when I teach, which, ergo, means that I am unrighteous and am not close to the Spirit in any way), and as she was sitting by the bishop's office, she was reading a General Conference talk in the Ensign magazine. Our class adjourned, and my second counselor (we'll call her Jane) walked down the hallway towards the bishop's office after leaving the Relief Society room. As she walked, Jane absentmindedly clicked her ring against the metal bracelet she was wearing on her other wrist.

The clicking bothered Prunella, who has a deep dislike for repetitive noises (just learned that yesterday!), and she told Jane that the sound was annoying. Jane, who is a jolly, sweet woman, realized what she was doing and clicked the ring deliberately a few more times while she laughed and made a self-deprecating joke, apologized, and then turned to walk away. Prunella, incensed that one of God's Chosen Leaders (sarcasm) would not have the spiritual insight to see that this was entirely the wrong response, said, "You laugh, but it isn't funny." Jane was puzzled by that, but thought nothing more of it until later.

Later in the day, Prunella texted Jane and told her that the clicking and subsequent joke had been annoying and inappropriate. Jane, taken aback, sincerely apologized and told Prunella that she had meant absolutely no offense. Prunella texted back, "Thank you." Jane thought it was done.

A few hours later, Prunella began texting Jane again. She must have been working herself up into quite a self-righteous snit. In a series of texts that extended into the late evening (and to which Jane did not reply), Prunella castigated Jane for not being spiritually led in any way. Jane's little joke about the clicking had been, according to Prunella, utterly irreverent. Would Jane have said something like that in the temple? she asked. Prunella then told Jane that Jane obviously never knelt and prayed at all for spiritual guidance on how to serve the women in our ward if she wasn't able to know, through the Spirit, that making a joke of something so serious as annoying clicking sounds would be entirely the wrong way to approach Prunella, and that her inappropriate joke was an indication of the terrible example Jane had set for her children, all but one of whom do not attend church. Prunella also told Jane that she couldn't ever feel the Spirit when either I or Jane give the lesson and implied that the bishopric had made a mistake in calling us into leadership positions. God, after all, allows His Chosen Leaders the gift of telepathy so that we can read the minds of those around us and know, immediately, how to respond correctly in any given situation. If He doesn't give you that gift, He must not find you worthy. (sarcasm again. Prunella didn't actually say that, but it's the only conclusion her logic could come to).

There was more, but that was the gist. I know that Prunella sounds like she's an evil busybody and that we shouldn't take anything she says too seriously, but she has never said things like this before. If you know someone is a self-righteous prig, you kind of expect that kind of behavior and take whatever she says with a grain of salt; but Prunella was showing a side of herself that she's never let loose before, and that's what has made this all the more hurtful and shocking. Prunella accused Jane of personal insults to herself that Jane has never consciously made, and Prunella managed to hit on every one of Jane's particular insecurities in the process. She was utterly cruel, and what made it even more awful was that she felt absolutely justified in saying all of it because she felt she was on the Lord's errand of setting the wayward straight.

Jane's callings have been working with the children at church for years now. She hasn't been in Relief Society in probably a decade, so for her to go from teaching the children to leading and teaching adult women was a difficult adjustment. She didn't really feel adequate for the task, but she took it on anyway, having faith that the Lord would help her figure it out. This is what makes Prunella's comments so damaging and heinous.

Yesterday morning, before I knew what she'd said to Jane, Prunella texted me for the first time in weeks and asked if we could get together. She said she was ready to express her feelings rationally, and it was important to her that I understand. One of her texts read, "What I want to say is just my experience. It may help and it may not. I'm sound spiritually and emotionally. I feel I'm stronger now, and grounded. I know who I am and where I stand before the Lord. And I don't want to be silent about issues that could help the forward progress of our strength as the Lord's people."

The meanest people are often those who are convinced of their utter righteousness.

I had made a comment about how I found being a RS president difficult (stupid of me) and she responded with a little anecdote about a young Relief Society president she met in 2014 who so loved the calling that she wished all the women could have the opportunity to be president for a couple weeks each just to see how wonderful it was. It was a comment on my lack of spirituality, of course, that I don't find perfect bliss in my calling all the time, every day. Prunella, incidentally, has never had a leadership calling.

I met with Prunella at her house. She offered me some tomatoes from her garden and a glass of water. Since I hadn't had time to eat all day, I was grateful. Then she pulled out her notebook and started telling me her "rational thoughts," all of which were directed at my incompetence. Fine. I can take that. I kept my face neutral while she talked, but I didn't find her any more likable than I have in the past few weeks. But when she started in on Jane, I got mad. I think Prunella could see that. I couldn't keep the neutral expression on my face. I hate confrontation, and I can be very diplomatic and try to see the other side of an argument, but every vile accusation that Prunella made against my friend made me more and more angry. I couldn't take any more. I stood up and told Prunella that I didn't agree with her. And then I left. I could have said more--a lot more--but I don't like to speak out of anger. You say things you end up regretting. Or you throat punch someone.

I left Prunella's house, shaking with rage, and went to talk to Jane. That was when I read the texts that Prunella had sent to Jane, texts that shook Jane's confidence to the very core. Poor Jane had been suffering from a tension headache for three days over the whole affair. "How can I teach anymore?" she exclaimed. "I don't know if I can ever stand in front of a group of women and lead a discussion again. I don't even know if I should have this calling."

For that, I am having a hard time not hating Prunella. For that, I want to throat punch her. For that, less violently, I want to write a strongly worded email. I went home and cried for hours, which I do not do, because I was so upset on Jane's behalf. I couldn't sleep. I'm exhausted and my eyes hurt today.

EDIT: It's been a couple days now, and I feel like I have a better emotional grip on the situation. Writing and talking about it (and I've only talked about it to people, other than Husband, who are not in my ward or my stake so that I'm not causing a rift) has helped me see the ridiculousness of Prunella's accusations. While I have much to work on in my character and my actions, I am also not the anti-Christ Prunella has made me out to be in her mind. And Jane is none of those things that Prunella accused her of, either--not that I had any doubts about that at all. I still don't want anything to do with Prunella, and I'm not sure how I'll handle running into her at church or elsewhere, but I'm not spending any more hours crying about it.

Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.

Meet One of Our Newest U.S. Citizens

L to R: My dad, Husband, Little Gary, my mom, me (with a weird shadow on my teeth), and Sophia

It's official: yesterday morning, Husband was sworn in as a citizen of the United States. It was a nice ceremony, even if it started an hour late. My parents came, as well as Sophia and Little Gary.

Husband's mother and father would have been there, too, but my FIL was actually taking over Husband's fifth grade class for the day. Yes, FIL is now a substitute teacher for the school district. MIL also had to work. She works for Visiting Angels, people who go and assist senior citizens to get to appointments or to do light housework or just to be safe. Though she spent her professional career as a nurse, she doesn't have to do medical stuff. Funny that she's a senior citizen herself.

But it's my parents who were the most anxious about Husband becoming a citizen. In fact, my father, when he was taking on piano students, saved the money he made and donated it to Husband's citizenship fund. Applying for citizenship costs a little over $800 at this time. Husband's brother also donated to that fund. My parents had heard so many horror stories of legal residents still getting deported on stupid technicalities--even without a criminal history--that this became their mission. Husband applied for citizenship over a year ago, and he had the interview a couple weeks ago, but yesterday was the official swearing-in ceremony for about 130 people from all over the world in our session (when we left, we passed a long line of future citizens and their friends and loved ones waiting to be checked in for the next session).

Other news: 
I started eating a ketogenic/high fat, low carb diet and experienced an immediate and profound relief from depression. My mood changed practically overnight, from despondency-and-despair to my normal state of slightly-stressed-but-generally-hopeful. I lost five pounds in one week, as well. The fact that my mood changed so quickly and profoundly is a strong testament to the damage that sugar causes in my body.

Sadly, while my energy levels did rise considerably in the first couple days, they dropped again--but not nearly as far as they had been before. The energy rise and drop has happened in the past when I've switched to a lower carb diet, but energy levels never rose again even when I lost fifty pounds, so I know there's an underlying issue with my energy that has nothing to do with my weight. I've been studying new research on the link that has been found between fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, and how both conditions are actually misnomers and are probably both part of the same, more general, auto-immune problem, but I won't go into that here.

Remember this scene from The Emperor's New Groove (my favorite Disney movie), when Cuzco is frantically downing Isma's potions in order to turn back into a human, but in the process turns into all kinds of different animals?



At least I'm back to being a llama, even if I was hoping to be completely human. I'll still try to figure out the energy thing, but I'm just really happy that things are moving in a positive direction again. I did have a doctor's appointment, but when I showed up, I was informed that the doctor I was seeing no longer accepts my insurance. I'll reschedule with someone else maybe.

So things are looking positive in the Aurora household. I'll share more about Little Gary and Joseph later, because things are happening there, as well. For now, I'm just very grateful that I can handle life a lot better.

Meet Reuben

My bus attendant, Reuben, is funny.

It was his birthday yesterday. He turned sixty-three years old. He was telling me excitedly about his Everquest game, which he's been playing practically since it was created over twenty years ago. Twenty years! Since he was in his forties! He's really into it and he's really, really good at it (from what I can understand), and I've been trying to put together a picture of the whole thing based on what he tells me, but I mostly hear a string of words and phrases that I know were English but that don't mean a lot to me because they are in technical gamespeak. I ask questions when I can understand enough about what he's saying to figure out what question to ask.

He's a dark elf. Apparently there are all kinds of things you can be: elves, dwarves, ogres, clerics, paladins, warriors, healers, and so forth. There are raids that involve a vast number of people working together, and they fight against computer-generated mobs. Increasing your focus synergy (or something) makes your character tougher. When he said his friend went on a campaign and gained an og, I was trying to picture what sort of creature an og was. Today, I realized he meant aug, as in augmentation. Everything is now clear. /sarc

Not only can he beat the Everquest creators themselves at their own game (and has several times), he makes YouTube videos teaching others how to do what he can do.

The guy is 63. He's got grandkids and he's way more tech savvy than I am--which, admittedly, isn't hard to do, but I'm still impressed.

I yawned today and he shouted, "Quit yawning, you old woman! You're making me tired!"

He was a star athlete in high school: football and wrestling. He tells everyone he meets that his wrestling name was Big Fat Grandpa and loves it when they believe him. When he lets the kids use his phone and his picture pops up on the wallpaper, he says, "Isn't that the handsomest man you've ever seen?" followed by a big, partially toothless guffaw.

He tells me stories about his wife, who drives one of the other buses in the district, and he always paints her as a total saint for putting up with him for forty or so years. It's obvious he adores her.

Two days ago, he called in sick between the first and second bus runs and I was surprised, as he seemed fine on the first run. Turns out he'd gone to get a burrito from a local Mexican restaurant and the meat must have been off. Even as he was eating it, he felt a disturbing rumbling deep in his gut and had to make a mad dash for the bathroom. While using the toilet, he had to grab the trash can and vomit out the other end. Needless to say, he was indisposed with food poisoning for the rest of the day. I heard all about it yesterday in very colorful and inventive terms. Let's just say he's not shy.

The kids love him after they get used to him. He's always joking around with them, and he's also very kind and caring with them. He treats the preschoolers like his grandkids.

He's a hoot. He's so, so different from my last bus aide, Kris, but he's a hoot.

My Thai-Inspired Mixed Soda Recipe

There's a local diner that offers a Dirty Dr. Pepper, which is Dr. Pepper soda and a shot of coconut syrup. That's fine and all, but it's not my favorite. What I really liked was their Dreamy Dr. Pepper, which is Dr. Pepper with coconut syrup and a dash of heavy whipping cream.

But my favorite soda is not Dr. Pepper. My favorite soda is Diet Ginger and Lime Coke. I decided that combining coconut syrup and cream in a ginger and lime flavored soda would create an awesome Thai-inspired soda flavor.

So, yesterday, I used a can of coconut milk to make some simple coconut syrup (see the very easy and delicious recipe here and use it on pancakes as well!) because I don't like the synthetic flavor of commercial syrups (I know, I know: the irony is that I still like the very synthetic Diet Coke). Then I put a teaspoon of that into twenty-four ounces of the soda (two cans worth), stirred it in, and then added a teaspoon of heavy whipping cream.

If Thailand made a cold, carbonated soup, this would be it. Or, rather (because ew!), this is a liquid version of my favorite ginger- and coconut-flavored hard candy from the Asian market. "Icy cold carbonated soup" doesn't make good advertising copy.

Anyway, if you're game, here's the recipe in recipe format. You could add the syrup to any soda or seltzer water and leave the cream out if you want. I'm not going to be the soda police around here.

Spry Superfly Thai Soda

24 oz Ginger Lime Diet Coke
1 tsp coconut syrup
1 tsp heavy whipping cream

Stir. Add ice if needed. Sip and enjoy.

I'm Too Tired to Create a Title for This Post

It's been a rough week, to be honest. Nothing really terrible or anything, just rough.

Monday was the first day of preschool. That was an unmitigated disaster, but nothing that couldn't and didn't get fixed. The mechanics got my bus going eventually (it wouldn't start, so I took a spare bus for the first run of the day), and we shifted some of the kids from my bus to the other bus so that I wasn't going to always show up to the school twenty-five minutes late because I had too many kids on my route. Once we sorted out those issues, the rest of the preschool week went just fine.

The problem is that this fatigue from which I suffer (I don't like to say "my fatigue" because qualifying it as mine and not as an unnatural state of being somehow seems to me like I'm owning it and accepting it as a normal thing) has taken a sharp turn for the worse. Where I was tired and worn out before, I can now barely do anything even somewhat energetic without suffering physically debilitating consequences.

The problem with fatigue isn't just that it makes physical effort so much more difficult. The other problem is that it messes with your head so much. It decreases my cognitive abilities--I can literally feel myself getting more and more dumb! I've also noticed that I'm somewhat unconsciously prioritizing my expenditures of physical energy, so plenty of things aren't getting done because I have placed them lower on the hierarchy when it comes time to spend my finite and limited energy.

I'm going to see a doctor. I have seen doctors before, back when the fatigue wasn't nearly this bad, and all of them have told me the tests are all normal and that I'm probably depressed and that I should take anti-depressants. That's a load of crock, and it's why I'm so reluctant to see a doctor. If I'm depressed, it's because of the underlying physical issue, and when that is fixed, this weary brain of mine will also find some relief; but I don't think taking an anti-depressant is going to do anything to solve anything at this point.

Based on my extensive research, I believe I have adrenal fatigue--and that it's just amped up into serious adrenal fatigue. That's not a generally medically recognized condition at this point, but there are doctors who are beginning to recognize it. And there are things I can do--and have done! I won't give up yet.

Thanks for letting me vent. I'm so very, very tired, but I'm not suicidal or anything. I'm fighting that loud, critical voice in my head that keeps telling me how thoroughly I'm failing at everything. I'm frustrated that I'm not smart enough to figure this out and that, even if I do, I'm too tired to make all the effort it takes to get better. I'm possibly looking for another, less strenuous job, even though I love those preschool kids and get along fine with my new bus attendant, Reuben. But I have a wonderful family who support and love me, and I am constantly blessed by the Lord, and if I can see and appreciate those things, I can still find hope.

Sophia and Elannah Go to the United Kindgom (Duckface Edition)

Sophia and Elannah have been visiting their aunts, uncles, and cousins in England and Wales for the last two weeks, or fortnight. No shooting involved (game reference) and, in fact, you can't even carry a knife around in that part of the world (political reference).

I lack Instagram wits, meaning that I forget Instagram exists, can't remember the password for the account I set up long ago in order to do research for my content writing, and don't care enough to look at it. I'm sure they've been posting plenty of supercute pics to their Instas (or is it cooler to call it IG?), but I'll post the ones they've sent me on WhatsApp. There are a lot of duck faces going on. I am praying they are duckfacing only in an ironic fashion; otherwise, I've failed as a mother.

Duckfacing in the Nottingham Caves

Duckfacing in the car whilst traveling on the left side of the road

 

Not duckfacing whilst shopping in the town centre, bless their cotton socks

A town cathedral. Bath? Devizes? Nottingham? Not sure. They don't feel it necessary to explain their pictures

Sophia on the porch of a manor somewhere near Nottingham

You can tell Elannah was taking these photos and laughing so hard she almost couldn't stand up

The girls didn't get to London (not sorry about that, honestly), but they have seen a lot of southwest England (where Husband's sister and her family live in Devizes), including Bath; Cardiff and Pencoed in Wales, where Husband grew up (they even got to see the house he grew up in!); and the Midlands, including Nottingham and Bradford (where one of Husband's brothers lives with his family). They desperately wanted to see a West End play, but we really didn't want them traveling into London to see one. It so happened that the West End production of Les Miserables was touring the country, so when they went up to Nottingham to see that uncle and his family, they headed further up north to Bradford one afternoon to see a matinee. They loved it, of course.

They've seen Stonehenge, the Avebury circle (a cheaper, less dramatic stone circle), castles, the ocean, chip shops, kebab shops, lots and lots of town centres for shopping, and they've climbed up to the Westbury White Horse. They've also been able to hang out with aunts and uncles and cousins, of course. One of their cousins recently got his mission call to South Africa, and because he and the girls are such good friends, it was great that they got to see him before he leaves in September.

From what I understand, the girls are paying the cost to bring home an extra suitcase which they are filling entirely with chocolate and other British treats. I think they've spent a lot of money on British chocolate, which is so expensive here and so cheap there. Plus, they're bringing home flying saucers (styrofoam-y discs filled with a powder that turns creamy in your mouth), Parma Violets (my favorite favourite), and sherbet fountains (Husband's favorite). Also Monster Munch crisps (pickled onion flavor), prawn-flavored Skips (another type of crisp) and Battenberg cakes (Elannah's favorite).

They're exhausted. I've spoken to Elannah several times on face-to-face calls, and she's homesick even though she's having a great time. They're happy they got to go, but they're happy to come home, too. I told her it's like traveling to another dimension, where things are familiar but different enough that you just can't quite get comfortable. Also, jet lag. She agreed. She has revised her desire to get some sort of job that requires her to travel all the time. Turns out she's really a homebody.

Aren't we all, really? Don't we all crave some place of grounding, a place where you feel truly relaxed and comfortable?

I'm missing them. We're all missing them. But they'll be home tomorrow night, late, and the dog will probably pee himself with happiness when they walk through the door.

Summer's Over

Summer's over. I had my first official work-related experience of the new school year today. I had to do a bus driver physical assessment, which drivers have to take every other year. It's not hard. You'd have to be pretty badly off physically to not pass. The fact that I set the day's record for speed does not mean much, although I'll certainly brag about that to Husband when he gets home.

Sadly, my bus attendant, Kris, will not be coming back this year. We've kept in touch over the summer, so I know that she decided to stay home with her mother, who has Alzheimer's and dementia and is in late-stage renal failure. The doctors now give her a year or less to live. Kris herself also has multiple sclerosis, and being a caregiver for her mother has taken a massive toll on her own health. Kris is going to really miss "her kids," as she refers to our preschool students. She loves them.

Her decision to quit meant that the attendant route for my bus was put up for bid last week. When a route goes up for bid, other route drivers or attendants (in this case) can put in a request for that route. A new driver or attendant is chosen based on experience (attendants most often deal with special needs children), seniority, and the needs of the transportation department. It starts off a route shuffle, as well, as drivers or attendants switch to a new bus, which means the old route then has to go up for bid, and so on. If no route drivers or attendants bid on a route, the next substitute in line is offered the route. Substitute drivers and attendants cannot bid for routes.

The bidding closes today at 4pm, and when I asked the supervisor over attendants if anyone had bid on it, she said that seventeen people had bid for the route. I was astonished. Because sub attendants can't bid for routes, that's seventeen route attendants who have bid for a route that is only listed as getting 13.5 hours a week. Either they're desperate for a shorter route (why?) or they really want to work with preschool kids or they don't like their current routes. I'm not sure how many routes require an attendant, but it can't be more than thirty. My route will have more hours once school starts because we pick up a few Behavioral Unit elementary school kids at the end of the day and transport them home, but because that part of my route changes year to year, they can't include that in the official hours count. Also, preschool kids keep getting added to my route throughout the school year, so by the end of the year, my route gets at least twenty-five hours a week. Despite the lower hours, I do have an incredibly easy route for attendants. Preschoolers are energetic and bouncy, but they're strapped into their seats and are easily contained. I've never had huge problems with the elementary school-age behavioral kids, either, and we've only ever transported two or three of them at a time (that number can always change, of course). Some of the special needs kids on other buses can be very, very difficult to deal with on a daily basis. Most of them are great, but a few of them are large, strong, and hard to control, and that's wearing on the attendants and the drivers.

Drivers don't have any say in who gets the job as their bus attendant. I can only cross my fingers and hope it's someone I can get along with.

During my physical assessment, my boss (who still looks like he's barely into his mid-twenties) asked if I would be willing to do some driving the first week of school. Preschool doesn't start until a week after all the other kids start, and the bus garage has four routes currently without drivers. I said sure, of course. It's more money for me. Plus, I like my boss and the people in the office, and they're in a tight spot. But what the heck are they going to do for drivers, I wonder. Our small, mostly rural school district can't afford to match the pay that larger, more affluent school districts in The Big City can afford, and we bleed a lot of our drivers to those districts or to better-paying trucking jobs. With the rate of growth our little burg has seen in the last two years, we probably have at least three or four new routes in the valley--or will have by next year. You can tell thousands of people are moving in to our town based merely on the fact that we now have traffic jams on Main Street and commuters are always complaining about being backed up on the interstate waiting their turn to take the one exit into our valley--a trip often made even more frustrating by the frequent car accidents on roads not designed to handle this volume of commuters. Dozens of new subdivisions are popping up in former ranching pastures in town and all over the valley, new neighborhoods into which buses will soon be weaving. If you want to move here, do it now while housing prices are still somewhat reasonable and you can expect good appreciation on your property. I suspect that in a few years, the state will decide that it's financially expedient to blast a pass through the mountains into the valley where The Big City lies, cutting the commute time in half or a third, and then we'll become just another suburb of that city, enjoying even more traffic and an even higher cost of housing.  (However, it's more likely that they'll expand the commuter rail system out to our valley. That's got to be cheaper than blasting mountains apart to make roads, right?)

Ugh! I say it again: ugh!

But I digress.

Tomorrow is a day-long training. School starts next Monday. Summer's over.

Musical Clickbait

I was going down music rabbit holes today and found this.



The piece is amazing. It's absolutely lovely, though I couldn't hope to play it--at least, not once I hit the cadenza. But what I found hilarious was the comments.

Sleeping Under the (Stenciled) Stars

I'm exhausted but proud.

All the carpet is gone and we now have laminate flooring on the second story of our home. All the rooms are freshly washed and painted.

While I know it's gauche for those who drink their tea with their pinkies extended to speak of money and cost, I am not one of the gentler class. I'll happily admit that we couldn't have done this if we'd hired professionals or paid full price for everything; plus, we learned a lot of new skills in the process. The laminate flooring was bought at a massive discount, so we paid about twenty-seven cents per square foot for that. The paint we bought on sale, as well, and it hung around in our garage for a year before we used it. We just took the paint cans back to Home Depot and had them reshaken.

In the months between when we bought the laminate flooring and when we actually used it, Husband found whatever flooring tools he could at pawn shops and bought the rest when they were on sale on Amazon. He used every single tool he bought, and they all made the job so much easier.

Sophia's room was already painted (she did that on her own a couple years ago), and it was the first to  get new flooring the weekend before she moved back in. Then we moved on to the hallway and the two boys' rooms before finishing up in the master bedroom.

The walls got washed and Little Gary wanted to help me paint. I love this deep peacock blue that we put on two walls. The other two walls are painted with the light blue I used in the hallway.

It doesn't look like a glossy magazine photo, but all his stuff is back in and he loves it. The room is pet-odor-free (yay for Kilz odor-blocking paint!) and contains a dresser that I will someday get my hands on and make very pretty.

The hallway, done in "Winterscape" by Glidden paint. There is no natural light here, so I thought it was best to keep the color light and bright. I'm on the lookout for fabulous wall sconces for more and better lighting. The door at the left on the edge of the picture is the linen closet. At the end of the hall is Joseph's room, and at the top of the stairs is the master bedroom.

Joseph's room got a coat of a sage green paint, which is a massive improvement on the dark jailhouse gray that was originally on the walls (forgot to take a before pic, but it was a color the owners before us had painted on). Doesn't the wall color look so nice with the floors?

We were going to use the same sage green in the master bedroom that we'd used in Joseph's room, but I just wasn't feeling it. I love green, but I've been craving indigo forever now, and that's what I wanted on the walls. Fortunately, Husband was game, so we picked this luscious deep sapphire blue and put it on all four walls. There's so much natural light in our large room that the dark color doesn't make the room cavelike, but at night the color becomes cozy and enveloping.

I also loved the idea of stenciling a wall or two instead of using wallpaper. When I first suggested that idea to Husband, he had this mental image of a row of bowtie-wearing geese marching around the walls near the ceiling, and he said, "Ookaay...you can do whatever you want." He was very relieved when I explained what I actually wanted, and we were both thrilled that the Royal Design Studio stencil I fell in love with was on sale.

I love the way it turned out, but I was so sick of stenciling by the time I was finished.

I made a plumb line with materials I had nearby--orange yarn and a paint can key--so that I could keep the stencil on the straight and narrow. Pro tip: work your stencil along vertical columns as much as possible. I went diagonal once when I was first starting, and that created a situation where I had to tape off and repaint some of the wall to correct the pattern.

Here I'm making progress, but I realized that I have to wash the stencil after every nine or ten uses to prevent paint buildup on the spokes of the star. I started scrubbing the stencil of all paint after completing each column. It added more time to the project, but it was worth it.

After several days, I had a completed wall. The last column took about three tries, and I had to keep taping off sections and repainting them until I got the pattern to align correctly. I love the high contrast with the blue and white, but I could have gone more subtle by using a shade or tint of the blue or even a quiet silver or gold.

It was late by the time I got the headboard painted and hung. I used Vintage Mustard chalk paint from Behr on my brown vinyl headboard that I made a few years ago. It took three coats, but it turned out really well. I love the yellow against the starry background. 

My mother's neighbor ordered this rug from Wayfair but found it was too large for the room she wanted to put it in. Because she offered it for free, we happily took it off her hands. Unfortunately, we both hated it once we had it unrolled in our painted room. Its traditional pattern clashed heavily with the style of the room, even though I was using it to inspire my color choices. I don't mind an eclectic style, but the rug really is awful with everything else.

We found a smaller, more serviceable area rug at Walmart to use until we find something we really like. Meanwhile, that same neighbor who gave us the rug also didn't like the chairs she ordered, so she gave those to us, as well, and we created a little seating area at the other end of the room. I'll put a small coffee table in between them as soon as I find one that I like. We moved only one of the three bookcases back in (the other two fit happily in the hallway without impeding movement) and heavily culled our book collection. The massive massage chair is by the window now, and the office desk is gone.

Husband found a glass and metal bar with a definite art deco vibe that someone was selling for a very reasonable price. We needed a place to showcase his rock collection, and on the bottom shelf, he has his flutes and the speaker he uses when he hooks a mic up to whichever flute he's playing. 

I'm working on the details of the room--the wall hangings and the bedding and all the other little decorating touches that make a room look cozy and lived in. I'll bore you with more pictures once I'm satisfied with the result.

Meanwhile, we got tons of apricots off our tree this year. 

And in other news, Husband found a great deal at the place where we stay when we go to St. George, the Sports Village, which has a nice pool, tennis courts, mini golf, racquetball, and a bunch of other fun things in the clubhouse. Usually, we go with my in-laws and as many of the kids as are available to come with us, as well as any relatives who have come in from England or elsewhere. The two- or three-bedroom condos we've booked are spacious and very clean and comfortable.

This time, it was just four of us: Husband and I and the boys. My in-laws were out of state visiting two other sons and their families, and my parents were dealing with some health issues. We booked a one-bedroom that said it comfortably slept four (there were mattresses we could bring in from the garage).

Unfortunately, although the condo was impeccably clean and stylishly decorated, it was tiny. Microscopic. The kitchen was so small that you couldn't fit two people in at the same time, and so narrow that you couldn't fully open the dishwasher door. The bed looked absolutely lovely, but it was a queen, and it was stacked so high on two bases that you couldn't sleep on the edge without rolling off. The two of us with our body pillows were uncomfortable all night. We ended up putting a mattress on the floor of the bedroom--squeezed in between the bottom of the bed and the closet--where Husband slept. There was a rollaway bed that Little Gary used in the living room while Joseph slept on the couch, but Joseph snores. Loudly. We were all uncomfortable and tired, and we ended up leaving a day early because the boys were homesick. Other than that, we had a good time.

The road home.

Summer's just about over. Husband has mandatory meetings this week, and I start my mandatory trainings next week. I'm feeling more than a little dread, but I suppose that's not unusual when you've become accustomed to decadently controlling all your own time.