The Fears That Stalk Us

 The last couple of years have further cemented my suspicions about what people are willing to do when they are fearful and refuse to either ask or entertain questions that refute that fear.

We ask how the atrocities of war can happen, where whole societies can look the other way as groups of people are singled out for ostracization, imprisonment, and even extermination. We have our answer: fear and control. Most people, it would seem, will abandon their morality if they feel justified through fear and a sense of authority. The people who, in the last couple years, self-righteously declared that anyone who didn't comply with the arbitrary rules of covid should be ostracized from society and refused medical treatment are the same people who would justify sending Jews and other undesirables to prison camps because they were supposedly a blight on society. Yet those people had the gall to call us, the non-conformers, Nazis.

I can't un-know and un-see what I've learned and seen since 2020. I can't look at people the same way that I did before. 

I did have inklings before 2020, of course, because I have asked uncomfortable questions. I know that people, by and large, refuse to question accepted knowledge. You might study and research a topic that contradicts something that "everyone knows," and you might have very good reason to question it, but most people (having done exactly zero research on the subject) will immediately poo-poo your questions and shut down any discussion. They won't want to hear what you've learned or what you're thinking. They will call you names for asking the question. They will laugh at you. 

When I served a mission, I created a name for this. I called it "the fear of being sold something you didn't want to buy." There is this irrational fear we have that somehow, someone will talk us into believing or buying something that we don't agree with; and somehow, we will have no control over this process, and we'll just wake up one day and realize we're stuck against our will and can't get out. 

It sounds silly when you name it and describe it (how would you be completely unaware of the process until it was too late to question it?), but naming and describing a fear is how you overcome it. Until you name it and describe it, it lurks like a demon in the shadowy places of your heart, causing nebulous anxiety and worry. An unnamed fear is a truly frightening thing. A named fear is a tamed fear. But to name a fear, you must face it and examine it thoroughly, and that can seem like a daunting process. Most of us are not interested in doing that work even though the more you face and name your fears, the easier it gets.

Once you name this fear, you can comfortably have conversations with people who are presenting a different viewpoint from yours, learning to understand where the other person is coming from and calmly choosing which points you agree with or disagree with, pondering those points later at your leisure. Only when both participants have tamed this fear is such a conversation possible. When you have faced and named this fear, you can ask questions that challenge the narrative. You have the mental capacity to reject "common knowledge"--or at least to have reservations about it until you have done more study and research to your satisfaction.

There is also a fear of being different, of not being seen to conform to society's standards, of being on the outside. It's a powerful fear. It works to keep most of us compliant with society's rules--which isn't necessarily a bad thing since it can prevent people with a weak moral compass from committing crimes. But when the fear is too strong, people will commit atrocities against each other in order to remain acceptable to the larger group. 

In the last two years, we have seen how fear rules most people. We have seen how seemingly normal, kind people will immediately turn on those who are not complying with the authority that the larger group has accepted as valid. We have seen how people will refuse to ask questions or allow others to ask questions that challenge the accepted authority. We have seen neighbors, friends, and family members cast out the undesirables. 

We have caught a glimpse of what we, as otherwise normal people, are willing to do to others we don't agree with or who are not toeing the line. And it is truly frightening. 

Does fear rule you?

Kidney Stones and Influenza for Christmas

 It's been an exciting couple of weeks, but not for the reasons I would have hoped. Still, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, no?

A preface: 

A year-and-a-half ago, when we were driving to Indiana to visit my MIL and FIL, I had an incident of pain so bad that I actually shed some tears and asked Husband to call an ambulance, which I had never done before (or since). We were literally in the middle of nowhere, and, if you recall the story, I ended up opting out of the two-hour ambulance ride to a hospital back the way we'd come in favor of just being miserable in the car with my family for the two hours it would take to get to our next destination, only to happily have the pain dissipate about ten minutes later as quickly and mysteriously as it began, never to recur again.

Until December 13 of this year (da da DAAAH!).

This time, I started suspecting a kidney stone based on the pain that wrapped around my left torso just under my rib cage. After a couple hours of serious discomfort, the pain dissipated again. I got influenza the next day, which added insult to injury; and to go along with the fever, aches, and chills, I also had the persistent sensation of urgently needing to pee but not being able to. I cannot describe to you how annoying that is.

I got over the flu--except for this pesky cough that is hanging on for dear life--and then had yet another kidney stone attack on Tuesday of this week. This one was really bad. It felt like I was in the beginning stage of active labor. The pressure was unbelievable, and if I had actually been pregnant, I would have birthed a child every time I had to cough, which was frequently. 

By this point, I realized that I could use pain killers to manage the pain, which is what I did for the hours and hours that this attack lasted, and which made it barely tolerable, because I was NOT going to the hospital if I didn't have to. I imagined the hours-long, deeply uncomfortable wait in the ER, the prodding and pushing and "Does this hurt?," the tests that would probably not reveal anything of significance, and, finally, the instructions to go back home and take pain medications and then make an appointment with my doctor for a follow-up. Followed by the hefty bill. No, thank you. 

At some point in the night I had finally dozed off in exhaustion, and when I woke up at 5am, I realized my kidney was no longer killing me. You know how the cessation of severe pain is such an intensely blissful relief that you feel so very grateful for everything you've ever been blessed with? If you know, you know. 

I had attempted to make a doctor appointment after the first kidney stone last week, but the receptionist was stupid and sent me to the voicemail box of a doctor's coordinator not in my insurance network and that couldn't help me. I had the flu pretty bad by that point, so I kept putting off calling back because I didn't feel well. This week, though, I tried again. The stupid receptionist tried to fob me off and tell me that there were no available appointments until January, but I mentioned kidneys and stones, and she magically found an appointment for me. I just went to that appointment last night, and the doctor wants me to have a CT scan of my entire abdomen. He's a little concerned. I, however, am not currently having any kidney stone symptoms, which is lovely.

Meanwhile, there is good news:

I got my new set of hormone pellets, and the higher dose of testosterone seems to be doing something. I am sleeping better and have more energy. 

While I was sick, I decided to use the time to also overcome my diet cola addiction. I went cold turkey rather than taper it down. The withdrawal headaches were impressive, but I'm now a week free of all soda/pop/Coke. I am drinking a lot more water, and I'm chugging down warm lemon water to try and eliminate future kidney stones. I am well aware that drinking soda might have contributed to my having kidney stones. I am grateful I was able to use the unpleasantness of last week to kick the habit. I now associate soda with pain and suffering, and the temptation to drink it is gone.

My kids, sons-in-law, parents, and siblings are coming over for Christmas. I'm setting up a baked potato bar with chili, and everyone has instructions to bring a snack to share. It will be casual and fun.

The Humor of the Youngsters

Joseph showed this to me, obviously hoping for an epic reaction. Apparently, this is the epitome of Gen Z humor, and, according to the glowing comments, this is laugh-until-you-cry funny for people of a certain age.

I don't get it, for I am old. I mean, I get why it's supposed to be funny (to a certain extent), but it just doesn't really tickle my funny bone into side-splitting gales of laughter.

Humor is definitely generational. I remember trying to explain Gen X humor and terms to an older male adult when I was about 17 or 18 and being confused as to why he was confused. 

I am he. He is I.

The Bare News

 I just counted, and I have seven drafts that I have started and abandoned since my last entry--mostly because I re-read the drafts and found them utterly boring. 

There's been lots of news, though I obviously feel I haven't conveyed it very well, so I'll just list some things that have been happening:

Full House

Siân, Nathan, and their boys successfully moved in at the end of October, and we've all been getting used to living in the same space. I love having my grandsons here. I love getting a warm and excited "Good morning, Nanna!" from Tyler every morning when I head downstairs. I love Nicholas's huge personality in his little body and how we've become good friends now that he's comfortable with me. 

Jealous Canine

The dog is really jealous. Every time I talk to or hold Nicholas, Marmite is right there stuffing his nose into my hands to get me to pet him and pay attention to him. I've had Tyler give Marmite treats and throw his toy for him, and Marmite is slowly warming up to his competition, though he is still unsure of his new position in the pack and has been extra clingy. Marmite has always been convinced he's just another person, so this has been confusing for him. He's so much like a fuzzy, jealous toddler that it makes me laugh. 

Dave, the parakeet, remains unfazed and has, instead, welcomed the addition to our flock.

New Grandchild on the Way

Siân is pregnant! After three miscarriages, she's now into her second trimester with this baby, which is exciting and hopeful. She's nauseated most of the time, and it's nice that I can help her out with the little boys when I'm at home, though she doesn't complain much about how icky she feels. Husband and I try not to insert ourselves into their family dynamic in a way that steps on Nathan's duties and privileges as a father, but we help where we can. Nathan is a great husband and father, and it's so wonderful to see our oldest daughter so happy with her little family.  

Siân in due towards the end of May, which will fit in nicely with the ending of the school year, as I will be around more to help with the two older boys. At this point, we do not know the sex of the new baby, but I know he or she will be both whip smart and exceedingly cute (not that I am biased or anything).

Mutated Cancer

We just had some very bad news about my mother-in-law's ongoing battle with ovarian cancer: a new, fast-growing, chemo-resistant tumor has emerged around her intestine, which began pressing on her left kidney, facilitating a trip to the ER as the pain from a restricted ureter became excruciating. That's when MIL's oncologist found the tumor, which they originally thought was scar tissue from her recent surgery; scar tissue does not, however, triple in size over the course of a few months. 

MIL now has a stent, which has relieved the pain from her kidney, but her prognosis is not good. The tumor is terminal, but MIL delivered the news in an admirably calm manner on a recent emergency family Zoom call. She will start a new, exceedingly caustic chemo drug on Monday and will have to repeat it every 28 days until either she is emotionally done with the treatments or the tumor overwhelms the treatment. It is highly unlikely that the chemo will shrink or remove the tumor, and surgery is not an option. The best they are hoping for is to slow or stop the growth at this point, and to say she has even a year left is very ambitious. 

Her children were all very sad at this news, of course, but they are also supportive of whatever decision she chooses to make in order to maintain the quality of life she desires. After nearly losing her last Christmas, they have appreciated every moment of the time they've had with her over the past year. I think my SIL expressed what we all were thinking: "Mum, you need to do what's best for you. We will be okay. Don't try to be brave and strong by enduring a treatment that may be worse than the disease itself. You get to choose your quality of life, whatever that means." 

Trip to England

This new prognosis led to a plan for MIL and FIL and all their children to meet up in England one last time. To this end, Husband and I just bought tickets to England for a week in January. One of my brothers-in-law booked a 15-person AirBnB somewhere in Wiltshire called Mews Cottage (so British!), and that's where we will be staying. MIL and FIL are very excited about it, though I am worried about how MIL will be feeling on such a long and arduous journey for someone in her condition. Still, she is looking forward to being able to see all of her children together for possibly the last time (even Husband's older brother will be there, the one who estranged himself from the family for a couple decades and is now talking to us again) as well as to be able to visit her sister and some close friends in England. Tomorrow, I will need to start the process of getting a new passport.

That's the bare news with a little of my commentary. It's dry, but I'm only occasionally funny in print, as you might well know, gentle reader.

What Is Science?

I've probably said this before, and I may bore you by repeating myself, gentle reader, but I am again struck by the memory of my introduction to fifth grade after I moved to Northern Minnesota.

In Idaho, my young, female teachers were idealistic and inventive: they allowed me to explore my passions as long as I completed my regular work. When I wrote plays in fourth grade (when I was about nine years old), my teacher allowed me to cast my plays and rehearse them during school time in order to perform them for the class. Because I was an avid reader (thanks, Mom!), I was allowed into the "big kids'" section of the library in third grade because that was where the books were shelved that were at my reading level. I wrote stories and invented games and had a wonderful time at school -- so much so that I was very upset if my mother ever made me stay home if I got sick. And I loved learning. I loved school because I could fill up my brain with new information that was taught in a creative, dynamic way that was perfect for my age. I wasn't any smarter than most of my classmates, I just loved to learn and was encouraged to express the things I learned in creative ways, and that made school enjoyable and fulfilling for me.

When we moved to Northern Minnesota, I was turning ten years old and going into the fifth grade. I had spent the summer making friends with the kids in my neighborhood, so at least I wasn't entirely alone when I started a new school, but it turned out that my friends were the only thing that was interesting about school. My grumpy fifth grade teacher, a man who seemed impossibly old to me at the time because he had gray whiskers, immediately squelched any creative aspirations I had. I was no longer allowed to explore beyond the curriculum. All would be done in order and lockstep. No one could stick their head above the crowd. This continued through sixth grade and into junior high. 

School became a prison, and with only a few exceptions, my teachers became my guards. I did the school work, but I went home from school and gave myself an exceptional education in English and American literature, for instance, by reading and pondering the great works on my own, writers like Charles Dickens and George Elliot, whose portrayals of the human condition far outshone much of the stuff on my class reading lists.

My Minnesota public education taught me was that I was not allowed to think for myself. Where my Idaho teachers encouraged me to take what I learned and explore it in my own personal idiom, my Minnesota education told me that I would be taught what to think and would be chastised for thinking beyond that. 

Fortunately, I rebelled. I was lucky. I knew what true freedom tasted like, so even the oppressive "progressive" education of the more liberal school district in Minnesota didn't entirely crush my spirit. The problem is that progressive education like that has crushed many, many peoples' spirits, and I have also found myself more likely to stay silent than argue against obvious fallacies that are taught as gospel truth (more shame be upon me for my cowardice). The appeal to authority these days has people so cowed and unsure of what their own eyes are telling them or the validity of their own experiences that they cannot -- or will not -- have the courage to think for themselves and question the narrative. I do not believe I'm any sort of genius -- far from! -- but I do think that I, and all others, should be taught to have more faith in (and the importance of) our abilities to observe, ponder, hypothesize, and come up with answers about many things in life and try them out to see if they are right. Instead, the popular method of "education" has become to force all people into the correct thought prisons, helpless to step outside of the prison walls for fear of ridicule and gaslighting. We are even taught to ridicule and gaslight our own selves, which is a most heinous crime, for then we can never even desire to be truly free.

The reason I'm on this soapbox today is because of this video, below. 

Those questions haunt me...

Blood Draw

 When I started getting the bills for the blood test and the hormone pellets that have done nothing for me, I had myself a little rant, pacing back and forth and waving medical bills in my fist. Even after the insurance paid their portion, the blood test, the pellets, and the doctor visit together cost us nearly $1000. We have a health savings account, but still! The pellets are not covered by insurance, and they cost a pretty penny all by themselves.

Husband patiently waited for me to calm down (for the record, he wisely never told me to calm down) before stating that he thought that one dose of pellets was not enough to determine if they would work and that he felt it was worth the money to do a second dose. "I just want to find out if it can help this fatigue you've felt for so long," he said.

"That makes me fall in love with him even more!" exclaimed Denise when I told her later, which is a very Denise thing to say and made me laugh. "Me, too!" I agreed.

Today, I had to get my blood drawn in anticipation of my next appointment. I chatted with the phlebotomist as he got my arm ready. 

"Last time, having my blood drawn knocked me out for two days straight," I said. "I forgot to eat all day before coming here, and, afterwards, I was so tired for two days I could barely move. This time I made sure I ate something, and I see you're not filling nearly as many vials."

The phlebotomist was skeptical.

"Even when you donate a pint of blood, it's only 500 mils, which should not be enough to bring on any sort of anemia." He held up one of the tubes and looked condescendingly down his nose. "This is only 80 mils." 

Shut up, Phil. I know how I felt. I have never before had a problem after having blood drawn, so I was not expecting such debilitating fatigue. It was surprising and unpleasant, and it was not all in my head.

"Yeah, well, I have never been able to donate blood," I said lamely. "I was in England at the wrong time."

Phil remained unimpressed. At least I'm not afraid of needles, so I had the satisfaction of not wincing or looking away as 160 mils of my blood swirled into two test tubes. And, as an update, I'm not feeling unusually fatigued five hours later, which is a good sign.

My second appointment with this gynecologist is next week. I am eager for more answers. Hopefully, they will be more forthcoming, given the cost. 

British Roast Dinner: the Key to My Husband's Heart

 I can make an entire British roast dinner for six people in 90 minutes, but that is as short a time as I can go, given that the roasted potatoes take at least an hour and fifteen minutes to complete. I have a double oven, which helps, and I also use the Instant Pot to cook the meat. 

Want to know how to do it? 

1. Preheat both of your ovens to 450 deg. F and start preparing the roasted potatoes: bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. While it's heating, peel your yellow roasting potatoes (I use 5 lbs of Yukon Gold potatoes) and chop them into large chunks. Rinse and set aside to wait for the water to boil.

2. Get the meat going in your Instant Pot (IP): pat a dry rub of your choice on a 3-lb beef roast after setting the IP to Sauté mode. When the IP is hot, sear each face of the roast for a few minutes before adding two cups beef broth and scraping up the fond. Set the IP to Meat or Manual for 60-70 minutes, depending on the cut of beef you are using (tougher cuts get longer times).

3. When the potato water is boiling, add 1-2 tsp baking soda to the water before carefully ladeling in the chopped yellow potatoes. Give them a stir and let the water come back to the boil before turning the stove down to medium heat.

4. Get your other roasting vegetables ready. For convenience, I usually use two pounds of bagged baby carrots and six or seven young parsnips that I have peeled and cut into pieces of similar size to the baby carrots (if you are using larger parsnips, make sure you cut out the core, as cores in large parsnips are tough and stringy). Toss the veggies with oil as well as salt and pepper, to taste. Set aside.

5. Make Yorkshire pudding batter: season the flour (about 1 1/2 cups or so) with salt and pepper to taste, along with any other herbs and seasonings you like. Mix in two beaten eggs and then add enough milk mixed with water to make a thick but pourable batter, like pancake batter. Beat the batter to remove lumps. Cover and set aside.

6. Check the potatoes to see if they are fork tender. When they are, drain them in a colander and then shake them around to rough up the surfaces. Let them release some steam and dry a bit while you rub some oil on a large backing sheet. Mix the potatoes with more oil and some salt and pepper, to taste. Spread them out on the baking sheet so that pieces are not touching each other. Put them in one of the ovens for 25 minutes.

7. When the IP is done cooking the meat, let it do a natural release for 15 minutes. Check the tenderness of the roast. When it is done to your liking, slice the meat and return to the broth to keep warm.

8. When the roasted potatoes have cooked for 25 minutes, pull them out and turn each piece over. Put them back in the oven for another 25-30 minutes.

9. When the roasted potatoes go into the oven the second time, get your carrots and parsnips onto another backing sheet and into the second oven (or onto the second rack of the oven if you only have one oven). Check their tenderness when the timer goes off for the roasted potatoes.

10. Prepare mashed potatoes: peel and chop mashing potatoes (I usually use 5 pounds of russets). Rinse and put into a big pot, covering them with water, adding salt, and setting on the stove to boil.

11. You can use this time to prepare boxed stuffing and frozen peas. I also make gravy by making a roux with butter and flour and then mixing in the broth from the meat, seasoning to taste, and bringing to a boil to thicken. Keep all of this warm on the stovetop while everything else finishes up.

12. When the roasted potatoes come out of the oven, put them into a bowl to keep warm. Check the carrots and parsnips for tenderness and adjust cooking times as needed. Turn the heat of the empty oven down to 425 deg. F.

13. Pour a little oil into the cups of a six- or twelve-cup muffin tin. Set the tin into the empty oven to heat--about three minutes (you want the oil sizzling hot). When the oil in the muffin tin is hot, pull out the tin, give the Yorkshire pudding batter a stir, and then carefully fill each cup 2/3 of the way full with batter. Put the tin back in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the puddings are puffy and golden brown. 

14. Drain the boiled potatoes, add butter, garlic powder or chopped garlic, cream or sour cream, and salt and pepper. Mash with a potato masher--not an electric mixer!--tasting and adjusting seasonings to your liking. 

15. When the roasted carrots and parsnips are ready, dinner is ready to be served. 

16. Assign someone else to clean up the mess.You did your part.

Boomerang Kids

Yesterday, a job opening became available with a major Institute of Religion that I am fully qualified for and is full-time with benefits. If I was hired, it would also be a major jumping-off point in my career if I wanted it to be. I mentioned it to my boss, Griff, and he said he would make calls right away to get my name in the right ears if I decided to apply. The rest of the faculty, bless them, tried to be supportive, but each of them told me either publicly or privately that they really don't want me to go. That warmed the cockles of my heart, to say the least.

After talking about it with Husband last evening and praying about it, I decided I will not apply. It doesn't make practical sense to try and get a job in The Big City (on the farthest side of the city, no less) with gas prices going up, winter coming on, and family moving back in (see below). Besides, I absolutely love my job, and I would miss the students terribly. Next year, the first batch of kids I've known since they were freshmen will be seniors, and I'll have to say good-bye to them as they head out to serve missions, attend college, or go to work in the real world. I already told the kids who show up at my office every day to say hello and have a chat that the only way I would disappear from this job was if I was dead. I would hate to worry them.

I had to take a couple of sneaky pics of my boss for a recognition that his boss is conducting and asked me to participate in. This is the faculty during in-service meeting, where they discuss the upcoming block of scripture and share their thoughts and insights on how to teach it effectively to the students. From left to right: Josh (new to our faculty this year), Ryan, Griff (my boss), Denise (new to our faculty this year), and Kim.

From left to right: Josh, Ryan, and Griff. I love these meetings. I get to listen to scriptorians discuss scripture at work and get paid for it!

Meanwhile, Sian's and Gabrielle's landlord sold the block of townhomes where they are each renting with their husbands, and now their rents are doubling. It was inevitable, I guess. The landlord was in his 80s and did all of his own maintenance, and his wife was bugging him to sell the rentals and finally retire. The real estate corporation that bought the townhomes immediately informed the tenants that their low-rent days of bliss were over and that they would have to pay twice the amount (the current market price) or get out by the end of October.

Sian's husband, Nathan, makes good money working for a major financial corporation, but they haven't yet saved up enough for a down payment on a house, so they called and asked us if our offer was still good to let them live with us should the need ever arise. They are happy to pay us rent, but they wanted to still be able to sock away as much in savings for a house payment as they can. Fortunately, we have the room. A bonus is that Nathan's commute into The Big City will actually be shorter than it was before.

Gabrielle works for a major software company in the area where they are currently living, so she and her husband are still deciding what to do. A modular house on Raine's parents' large nearby property is an option. They are also welcome to live with us, but I'm afraid they would have to be satisfied with a mere bedroom rather than a suite of rooms; also, the daily commute for Gabrielle to work and Raine to school would be arduous.

With only a month to prepare, we've been scrambling to get the basement ready for Sian, Nathan, and their two darling little boys. Fortunately, the basement is already finished with a bedroom, bathroom, and large family room--all of which will become their space--but some maintenance needs to be done before we're satisfied. That includes new flooring (Husband has been laying vinyl plank in the bathroom and bedroom, and we'll have the family room re-carpeted), new paint (Behr's Cottage White, which is a lovely candle-lit off-white that is bright but very cozy for a darker basement room), and drywalling the bedroom closet. Also, all the stuff we've stored in the family room has to go somewhere else.

I'm excited to have my grandsons in the same house. (I'm also excited that they will be sleeping two stories below us, as my days of being up half the night with babies are far behind me.) We lived with my parents when our kids were little, and the bonds they developed with my parents and my younger siblings (who were in their teens and early 20s at the time) are strong and precious. I very much look forward to having that kind of bond with my grandchildren. Staying put at my current job, which is about a five minute's drive from home, will allow me to see them so much more than if I was trekking back and forth the The Big City every day. For me, that's well worth staying here.

He's 7 months already! It's about time he learned to read!

Tyler is almost always happy. He's a sweet and contented little boy.

Deep Thought Fail

 Elannah texted me at work yesterday: "Do you want to make a Costco run just for funsies?"

Absolutely. 

Husband was not interested in taking a long drive into The Big City after an exhausting day of work just to shop at Costco for no particular reason (hello! snagging a carton of Darigold heavy cream is always a reason!), but Joseph wanted to come along, so the three of us hopped into Elannah's car (which has air conditioning; mine doesn't), and I drove us to Costco in the rain (yay! we need rain!). Elannah prefers it when I drive on long trips, and I also prefer to drive on long trips, so that works out pretty well.

While we were there, we found some Kirkland brand baby formula, which my oldest daughter can never get at her Costco, which is in an area of Utah where the babies are exceptionally numerous and hungry. After grabbing two packages of the formula (to her great delight after I called to check with her), we proceeded to add a lot of other items to the cart, not all of which were necessary (the story of a Costco run, amiright?). Well, thirty rolls of toilet paper isn't useless, but a big box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates is a bit unnecessary. But, yum. Ditto the bulgogi-flavored roasted seaweed snacks. And the eggnog (as Joseph assured me, it's never too early in the season for eggnog).

We arrived home a while later, after having waited a very long time for a pepperoni pizza in the Costco cafe, and it wasn't until the dog looked up at me with such a hopeful twinkle in his eye that I remembered we had forgotten to buy dog food. I was done shopping by that point, so Husband did get a chance to make a quick store run after all, bless him, but he only had to go a few blocks.

The Point of the Above Story

If you haven't already noticed, the above is just a little vignette of what happened to me yesterday evening. Nothing stands out about the event except that it was enjoyable because I was with two of my favorite people. There is no moral or lesson there. It's just trivial information. I hadn't really thought it out before I started typing, and the above was the end result. Usually, I would delete it all and start over, though whether I would have made it more meaningful is debatable.

I use this to illustrate what happens to my brain when someone asks me my opinion on deep subjects. No one asks me my opinion on deep subjects anymore, so I'm terribly out of practice with expressing myself when my thoughts on a subject have, until the point of vocal expression, lived in my brain solely as nebulous fragments strung together by visual images that make sense only to me. To cement them into defining words is frustrating and fraught with danger. 

I mentioned in my last post that one of the junior boys visits me daily at the seminary. I've known him since he was a freshman, and he started coming to me for long chats last year. He is a deep thinker, and he is chock full of insightful questions about the gospel, the scriptures, and life in general; and while our conversations are very interesting, they leave me mentally drained because I have to both recall every scripture, book, and talk by prophets and apostles I've ever read and then cement my formerly nebulous thoughts into concrete words. What makes it worse is that he genuinely listens to me and values my insights, which is rare for even the most non-self-absorbed of teenagers. It puts the pressure on.

His habit is to come in right before his seminary class, sneak quietly into my office, and then suddenly say my name so that I yelp in surprise (I never hear him coming. I've begged him to at least cough or something). Then he tosses his backpack on the floor and folds his lanky six-foot frame into one of my office chairs. I say, "Well, hello! How is your day going, and what have you been thinking about?" and he ponders for a minute and then blurts out something both fascinating and tricky, frequently something that I also pondered at length when I was a kid his age. Seeing the danger of getting too involved in a long conversation, I then say, "You've got two minutes, and then I'm kicking you out so you can go to your class," to which he makes a face of disagreement, but starts talking. After two minutes, I say, "Okay, now go to class and come say hi before you leave," but I also have to stand up and pretty much push him out of my office and into his class while he protests, "But I learn so much more when we talk than in class!" to which I say, "But you need to study the scriptures your teacher is talking about today. It's important! The Spirit will teach you something if you go with an open heart," and he finally, reluctantly, goes to class, which is a bit noisy and chaotic for his tastes. He's a classic introvert. 

After school, he shows up again, and this time I have twenty minutes to dedicate to a conversation before it's time to kick all the students out of the building, lock up, and go home to take Gary to work. I've fortified that boundary because, otherwise, he would stay for hours. Even if I know Joseph will take Gary to work, I still claim the need to leave to take Gary to work. I really enjoy our discussions, and I enjoy seeing him gain confidence in his ability to hear the Spirit and the fact the God loves him, but, obviously, there are professional boundaries that need to be maintained. The fact that I won't have much time at work for three months will help maintain that boundary. Today I suggested two other students he should seek out who also like to come talk to me about their thoughts.

The Point of the Above Story(?)

I'm just going to state the obvious: I thought I had a point to make, but it took a left turn somewhere and became just another vignette. At this juncture, I either roll my eyes and delete it all or just go with it. 

I'm just going with it. 

Actually, I think I did make my point that I have a very difficult time cementing my deeper thoughts into words. You'll notice I expressed no clearly delineated deep thoughts, though I'm pretty sure I thought I had some. You, gentle reader, will have to infer what it was I was trying to say (and then let me know).

Math Is Not My Forte

 I made a math mistake. That is not shocking in itself as I am no genius--and certainly not a math genius--but my mistake does have long-term repercussions.

For work, I get a certain number of hours per calendar year, and I cannot go over. For the last two+ years, I haven't had an issue, but yesterday I checked my hours and realized I was in danger of going well over my limit if I didn't do something. Rather than run out of hours and be forced to take off the entire month of December with no pay, I've had to cut down my daily hours to half. With all the no-school days and holidays between now and the end of the year, I should be ok.

I was confused about how I'd managed to get through the last few years with no hours issues when I remembered that for two of those years, Covid played a large part. I was quarantined three times: once because Husband was sick, and twice because I was sick. Quarantines were at least ten days each, and missing those days, plus the fact that I take most of the summer off, got me through the years without going over my hours. This year, I haven't missed a day since summer ended, and for various reasons I won't further bore you with, the craziness of this year has had me working some longer hours. 

The good news is that I get to sleep in starting Monday. Griff decided he would prefer me to be at the building for the last part of the school day rather than first thing in the morning, and I will leave a few minutes before the last bell so I can beat the mad rush from the parking lots. 

The bad news is that I won't have as much time to talk with the students, and I will miss those chats. On the other hand, one of the students, a junior boy, is probably too attached to me, so putting some distance between us will be the best thing for him. He'll be forced to go and seek out some of his peers instead of showing up in my office every day after school and when he has his seminary class. He's a great kid with a lot of brains in his head, and he does just fine socially, so I'm not worried about him. This could be a silver lining for him. 

Meanwhile, my youngest, Gary, ended up with not one but two dates to the other high school's Homecoming dance. 

Gary and Molly, the cutie in the black dress, have been besties since they were seven, and even though Molly has since moved to a nearby town, they still get together frequently to hang out. Molly informed Gary that if she was not asked to her high school's Homecoming dance, he would be taking her. Molly also invited her friend, the girl in the red dress (whom Gary found very attractive); and Molly's older sister, the girl in the back, accompanied them and drove them all to the dance.

Poor Gary with his trousers that aren't quite long enough for his long legs! Those are the suit trousers we bought for him to wear to Sophia's wedding last year, and Gary has grown so much since then that I had to let the hem down as far as it could possibly go, and they were still too short. He's long and lanky, with no fat or muscle on him, poor kid. He is growing so fast that his pants are perpetually too short for him, but he gets longer without getting wider, so finding pants with long enough legs but a narrow enough waist is very difficult.

The next time we buy him a suit, however, it will be much more fashionable.

Gary bought them all dinner (pizza, breadsticks, and hot wings because he has a job but he can't afford four fancy dinners at a restaurant), and they had a good time. I bet he was one of very few boys who showed up with two dates instead of one.

Impossible Dreams

 My brain concocted a brilliant idea in my dream last night: bathroom stalls with digital screens that light up with the name of the person in the stall next to you so you can have a conversation .

Amazing, right? How is using the potty in a public bathroom not the best way to meet new people and make new friends ? 

For some reason, right before I woke up, and as I was walking out of the dream bathroom, I heard Hannibal Lecter say, "Hello, Clarice," and my dream self thought that was hilarious. 

My subconscious is a weird, wild place.

So, it's been a week since I received hormone pellets (mostly testosterone and a little estradiol). I'm trying to be patient, but absolutely nothing has changed. I'm still fatigued and the weight hasn't magically started to drop off. I actually didn't expect the weight to fall off without effort, though it was a lovely little fantasy. What I was really looking forward to was increased energy, and I'm disappointed, to say the least. Obviously, I need to give it time and see what happens as it's only been a week; but if I paid a lot of money for something that didn't work for me (I sound whiny when I say this, but why do these things work for others and never for me?), and if future pellets also bring about no change, I'm going to be so horribly disappointed that I will never, ever see a doctor again. 

Now that I've voiced my little temper tantrum, it's time to go to bed. Good night, dear reader. May your dreams reveal the best and brightest of your hopes and yield the same brilliant bursts of inspiration as mine do.

Mildly Entertaining Stories

Chapter 1

Last week was Homecoming week for the high school. The seminary throws an annual Homecoming BBQ and invites the entire student body and faculty for the event. It takes a lot of planning and it is exhausting to do, but the kids look forward to free lunch outside on the grass with the band playing. 

I visited the grocery store a week in advance to make the order for a thousand hot dogs and buns, bags of chips, and all the other stuff we would need. I spoke to the grocery manager, Ryan, who wrote everything down and promised to get to work on it.

The day before the BBQ, I visited the store again to verify that the order would be filled in case I needed to travel to The Big City to pick up whatever I would be missing. I asked for Ryan, but a manager named Brian arrived to meet me. "Oh, I'm sorry," I said, "I spoke to Ryan last week."

"Ryan is...no longer with us," Brian said, and the way he said it made me a little worried for Ryan. 

"He also didn't leave us any notes about your order," he continued.

Well, crap. Screw Ryan!

Fortunately, Brian was a rockstar and managed to put together our order in under twenty-four hours. The next morning, I drove my big car, The Beast (because it growls when you press the accelerator), and Brian and another kind employee helped me load up thirty-two boxes of hot dogs, ten pallets of buns, seventy bags of chips, cups, condiments, etc. It barely fit into my car, but we Tetrised it all in.

After I delivered the food at the seminary, the guys started cooking hot dogs to be ready when first lunch started. They cooked and cooked and cooked and just couldn't seem to make a dent in the number of hot dogs we had. First lunch came and went and second lunch came and went, and we were urging the students to stuff themselves silly with hot dogs. Take another! Take ten!

After second lunch and cleanup, we stood, exhausted, in the copy room/kitchen and stared at the twenty-eight boxes of hot dogs that we still had. How in the world did we not cook a thousand hot dogs? What were we going to do with the leftovers? Donate them? Freeze them? Where would we store them? 

Then we started doing the math: each box contained thirty-two eight-packs of hot dogs, which meant each box contained two hundred and fifty-six hot dogs. Wait. Given that Brian had given us thirty-two boxes, that meant we had eight thousand hot dogs! Brian had given us a thousand packs of hot dogs, not a thousand hot dogs, but he'd only charged us for a thousand hot dogs! Brian was probably wetting his pants!

I called the store and spoke to Brian. Until we spoke, he hadn't realized his mistake, but when he worked through the math and exclaimed, "I gave you a eight thousand hot dogs!" I heard someone start laughing really hard in the background. He graciously accepted the return of the remaining boxes of hot dogs, which solved our dilemma and his. 

Chapter 2

During the BBQ, one of our students attempted to pull too sharply into a parking spot and scraped up both the side of her car and the bumper of the teacher's minivan next to her (this wasn't the minivan of one of our faculty; we allow high school teachers who work in the portable units next to the seminary to park in the visitors' section of our parking lot). The student was in tears, of course, this being her first accident. The high school's resource officer was called, and he made a police report as the student and the teacher exchanged insurance information.

Today, that teacher was in our building to use the bathroom, and one of our faculty asked her how her minivan repair was coming along. 

Well, she said, the bodyshop had called her husband and told him that they couldn't fix the bumper because of the previous damage to the car. This was mystifying, as the car was only a year old when they bought it from a used car dealer, and Carfax had no record of any insurance claims for accidents for that vehicle. Upon further investigation, the mechanics found that the van had been in a major accident, which had crumpled the floor of the vehicle. Obviously not wanting to report the accident to their insurance, the previous owners had attempted a terrible DIY fix. They'd pounded the floor flat again and then used sealant to reattach it to the frame, not welds! They had also failed to disclose any of this to the dealer who bought the car, and the dealer must not have seen the damage (I'm really hoping the dealer didn't just lie to this teacher). Because of the shoddy fixit job, the frame and the floor were beginning to rust, loosening the already precarious connection, which meant that, in the event of even a minor accident, the teacher's small children could have been in serious danger. 

While finding this out because of a little fender bender might have saved all of them from serious injury or death--which the teacher acknowledged as a very shiny silver lining--they were now facing an $8000 repair bill to get the vehicle safe again. The student only sideswiped the van, so insurance won't pick up the tab beyond the cost of replacing the bumper. The teacher's husband is a lawyer, so he's trying to figure out a way to get the dealer to pay up, maybe. $8000 is still cheap compared to the cost of buying new or even finding another used car, but it's a big chunk of change if you weren't prepared to spend it on a car quite so soon. 

Chapter 3

Husband was asked to do a little acting presentation to the children of the Primary in our stake. The theme was Gathering the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and Husband would play a man from colonial American times who had time-traveled to the present to explain the meaning of a standard, as in "rally round the standard of the cross." He already had a really good colonial costume (I made the knee breeches years ago, just to brag a bit), so I wrapped a blank book in leather to represent his journal, and he wrapped the end of a staff with a leather strap to be a walking stick. He used the walking stick as a prop to act out his story of being in battle, both as a sword and a standard. He also brought along one of his wooden flutes, which he played for the kids.

Husband had to find sport socks that didn't have logos all over them.

To say it was a rousing success is an understatement. He played the part so well and told the story so realistically that many of the children were convinced he had actually time traveled. Husband is an excellent storyteller. I remember many nights when the kids were little when he would tell them bedtime stories that had them laughing so hard they cried. 

Chapter 4

I was able to get an appointment with a gynecologist who specializes in bio-avaialable hormone treatment and thyroid disorders. I'm now the proud owner of two pellets of sub-dermal hormone treatment that will start the process of getting my hormones back in balance.

My blood test showed that in most ways I'm pretty healthy despite the weight gain of recent years. What is very out of whack, however, is my testosterone. That surprised me. I know women produce a small amount of testosterone, but I didn't realize that so many of my symptoms of fatigue and other things common to perimenopause could be caused by low testosterone. My testosterone is around 62 nanoparticles/deciliter when it should be in the high 200s (for men, normal testosterone range is between 800 and 1200 nanoparticles/deciliter). The doctor inserted a 185 mg pellet of testosterone and a smaller pellet of less than 6 mg of estradiol (she didn't want to overdo the estrogen/estradiol until I'm fully menopausal) into the skin of my hindquarters after giving me a little local anesthetic. I should start seeing results in three to five days, with my energy beginning to rise significantly. In six weeks, I will have another blood test to see how it's going, and that will determine what pellets she will use in three to four months. I'm very much looking forward to having energy, not least because it will make losing weight so much easier when I'm not absolutely exhausted all the time.

Having already done a lot of reading up on hormone replacement therapies, I am very enthusiastic about bio-available pellets versus cream or shots or any type of synthetic HRT. Pellets seem to produce the most stable results, and while they are pricey and insurance won't pay for them, it's worth the cost for me. Husband agrees.

Chapter 5

Elannah is on the waiting list for a nail tech class at the local technical college. She asked to do my nails yesterday, and I agreed so she could get some practice. I've never had fake nails before, and I never, ever let my nails grow beyond my fingertips because it interferes with playing the piano or typing. She did a good job, but I'm not loving the length. I might have her shave them down more.

Click, click, click, click.

Labor Day Weekend

The high school Homecoming Queen pageant was clearly run by someone who has never seen a pageant. This is what my daughter, Elannah, told me. Both she and Sophia were asked to be pageant judges, which amused them--both because they are sisters and because their minimal experiences in pageants certainly don't qualify them to judge one--but they didn't pass up the opportunity 

Last night, when Elannah was laughingly telling me the tale of the event, she declared that she would be happy to run next year's pageant because the student body officers who ran it this year had no earthly idea what it took to put a pageant together. Besides the nearly thirty minutes of tech issues, there was just no...pageantry. Sure, if you like minimalist stage decor and uninterested announcers, it was fine; but Elannah did not think it was fine. I told her I'm good friends with one of the vice principals, so she better mean it because I was going to pass her offer along and get her an unpaid job as pageant master. I assumed Elannah would back down, but she didn't. She was really upset by the amateur nature of the whole thing, having been Homecoming Queen herself at the same high school when she was a senior. 

I could not attend the high school's Homecoming Queen pageant, myself, because I was at our first official choir rehearsal for the Christmas season, and I had to play the piano while our real pianist is out until the end of September. Our choir has grown so much that we have had to move from Denise's large basement music room to her larger family room upstairs, a two-story room with lots of hard surfaces that bounce the sound around. It sounded great (those diva sopranos will use any excuse to linger in the reverb), but the electronic piano I was using got lost in the echo, and most of the time I couldn't even hear myself play. The only reason I accepted Denise's request to be the temporary accompanist is because I know that Paula, the other pianist in the group with far superior piano skills to mine, really resents being asked to play when she would rather sing. I'm good at plunking out parts; it's when I have to play accompaniment that I get stressed. Fortunately, I will not be playing accompaniment at our concert.

Denise's former math professor, who is Catholic, put together an interfaith musical concert for our area for September 11 and asked our choir to participate along with choirs from other organizations and religions. We will sing Rutter's "Distant Lands" and Michael Barrett's arrangement of "Mangisondele Nkosi Yam," both of which we just sang for our spring concert. This means I will have to reprise my small solo part in "Mangisondele Nkosi Yam," but I'm not worried as no one can hear me if I don't sing into a microphone, try as I might to project. Dallyn, the young tenor I sing with, has an amazing voice, so everyone will be happy regardless.

Finally, I played with paper and my laminator and made another traveler's notebook. I also made my own paper booklet inserts this time, using both lined and graph paper. I'll add a pen loop today so that I can keep a pen handy for writing. I didn't add any embellishments, but I might put some on the next one I make

I was thinking this would be a fun thing for the young women in my ward to do. Paper is simple.

I cut down some double-sided printed cardstock for the cover and ran it through my laminating machine after scoring the spine so it would bend more easily.

There are only three basic paper inserts at the moment. I'm trying to think of what other types of inserts I would need to use on a regular basis. A monthly calendar booklet would be a good one.

Making this scratched a creative itch. Sometimes I just have to do something creative, whether that is with food, yarn, paper, music, sewing, or words. When I plunk myself down to start a new project, Gary says, "Feeling the need to be creative, huh?" Yep. It's also a good time for us to talk about anything and everything.

Speaking of Gary, he's quick with the puns. The other day, he and his friend were walking to the store together, and his friend kept knocking his head on low-hanging tree branches because he was looking down at the sidewalk. After a while of this, Gary teased him, "Are you treegally blind?" 

Get it? "Treegally" instead of "legally"? 

Anyway, it made me laugh for a very long time.

Inconsequential Meanderings

 The other day, Husband showed me this cartoon. He couldn't stop laughing. He laughed for a solid ten minutes. Of course, the longer and harder he laughed, the more it made me laugh, too.

You know how it is when something just hits you right. 

....

The other day, I was in the shower when I heard the bathroom door quietly open and close. A moment later, Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" started blaring through the room, and since the bluetooth speaker was all the way across the room (and I was soaking wet), I couldn't throw the speaker against the wall. There are a few songs I just can't stand, and Husband knows that is one of them. 

A few minutes later, Neil Diamond's "I Am, I Said" started up. I gave up shouting at Husband to shut it off and started singing along at the top of my lungs, lamenting with Neil that our furniture refuses to acknowledge our existence. Husband just giggled to himself from the bedroom. 

....

My Italian friend, Marco, and his wife are visiting family in Italy at the moment. He sent me this pic from the white beaches south of Livorno to make me jealous. 

Jerk.

Wait, is he flexing his legs to show off the muscles he has from playing tennis? Probably. I would, too, if I had any muscles.

And this one.

He lives in Seattle. I guess I can't begrudge him a little sunshine. 

....

I thought of a good plot for a story: a girl excels at a sport and gets recruited to professional competition teams only to discover that, at those levels, the entire system is rigged because there is entirely too much money to be made to let anything happen by chance--or even skill. Once she learns this, she faces a serious choice.

....

My son, Gary, asked me today what my earliest memory is. It is when I was two years old. My dad brought me into my parents' room to see my newborn baby brother, whom my mother had given birth to at home (on purpose). I remember some mild curiosity but no attachment to the small thing lying next to my mother.

Don't worry, we got to be very good friends as we got older.

My next memory is when that brother was now two years old and I was four. We had a gerbera daisy in a vase, and the stem had split in two, and both ends had curled up in opposite directions. I thought that was the coolest thing in the world, so I took the daisy and my little brother outside to show it to any of the dozens of kids who lived in my neighborhood. The first kids we encountered were a group of older boys (probably about seven or eight years old), and when I showed them the daisy, they grabbed it and stomped on it and laughed. I remember being a little sad about the daisy and curious as to why the boys had felt the need to destroy it, but I don't remember feeling fear that the boys would hurt me, too. 

Also from that time period: my parents owned a lot of 5-gallon buckets--probably for food storage, which they have always taken very seriously. I would stack the buckets in the living room and sit in the top one while watching cartoons (in the brief time that my parents actually owned a TV before I was a teenager). In my memory, I was so high up off the ground that it was like sitting in the top of a teetering tower, but I was probably only three or four buckets high at the most. 

This isn't an early memory, but I very clearly remember the satisfaction I used to get as a tween by arranging my mother's spice cabinet several times a month. Also taking all the ornaments off the Christmas tree and rehanging them in a different (more beautiful) way. I often wonder where that deep sense of satisfaction in organizing and arranging things went to. 

....

I had to go to the high school today to get updated class rosters for each of our seminary periods. The counseling office was too busy, so I went and bothered one of the secretaries in the main office. They are all still struggling with the new system the school district is using, but she took some time to learn how to get me the information that I needed, which was very kind. On the way in and out, walking down the very long hallway to the exit closest to the seminary building, I encountered some seminary students and actually remembered their names. Small wins! There are plenty of times when I'm helping a student and know the student has been at seminary for a couple years, and I know their face, but I just can't remember their name, and I have to ask, and I watch them be just a little disappointed. 

Today I also enrolled Gary in seminary, even though he is still homeschooling. That means I have to run home and get him right before his class, but he enjoyed his class today. I put him in Kim's class. I wasn't playing favorites with the teachers. Kim's class had the lowest enrollment number at the time, so that's where I put Gary. 

Thanks. I'm done rambling.

And Just Like That, Summer Is Over

 Don't worry: I'm not going to regale you with lengthy tales of soybeans yet again, though I will say that the nut milk maker is awesome and worth every penny. I throw in a couple handfuls of raw soybeans, push a button, and thirty minutes later I have a liter of delicious hot soy milk before the thing starts cleaning itself. If I soak and boil a big batch of beans and store them in the fridge beforehand, I can have a liter of cold soy milk in three minutes (I just use the almond milk setting in that situation).

Did I mention it cleans itself? I made this video for my mom.

I have started taking both DHEA and 5-HTP, both of which help regulate female hormones, and I am happy to tell you that I have noticed a significant reduction in the frequency and intensity of hot flashes. I don't think the soy was having much of an effect on its own--delicious as it is--but maybe the combination of the DHEA and 5-HTP with the soy is what is making a big difference. I'm just happy to get some relief!

.....

Summer is over. I've been back at work for a couple weeks, and the students recently started their new school year. I have the best job. When kids yell, "Sister Aurora! I missed you so much!" it makes me smile. I spend all day having positive interactions with students and faculty. 

One of the students (a lovely young woman) left me this note yesterday:

How does it get better than that? I really didn't do anything special except be excited to see her and invite her into my office for chats because I knew she was going through some rough times. People just want to be seen and heard and loved for who they are. 

The former sophomore boys who decided I was their seminary mom last year all turned into high school juniors, sprouted a foot or two over the summer, are quietly proud of their (slightly) thickening facial hair, and are even more supremely confident that they are always welcome in my office--even at the most inconvenient of times. Well, they are always welcome as long as they refrain from turning all my paper clips into chains or using my office as a place to hide from classes they should be attending. As crazy busy as the first few days of school have been, I've managed to have some great talks with quite a few of them.

Working with the new faculty is turning out well. It's a different vibe, but everyone is learning to mesh. Griff is a strong leader, even if he is suddenly the youngest faculty member, and he has a knack for getting different personalities to work together without anyone feeling slighted. I have known Denise, one of the new teachers, for over a decade now, and I'm happy to say that we also work well together. As a former administrative assistant herself until three years ago, she has been a source of some really good tips and tricks for doing my job, though she is careful not to try to do my job for me and I am careful not to go to her with most of my questions. Griff is soft-training the other new teacher to our building, Josh, on the ins and outs of administration as a principal, so I try to include Josh as much as possible in the questions and conversations I have with Griff about day-to-day operations. Ryan, who ran a one-man-show in a Wyoming seminary for three decades before moving here for the 2021-22 school year, has now established himself as a trusted, loved, and respected teacher at this seminary and trusted assistant track coach at the high school. He only has four years until retirement, and he is happy to just be a teacher again. He is so good at building up the students he teaches and coaches, and many students love him. Kim still laughs at my jokes and still has an almost cult-like following amongst some of the students. Some of them will only talk to Kim about their troubles.

.....

Recently, our leather couch broke in a way that couldn't be repaired. There was no way I was going to put all that lovely leather out on the curb for trash day, so Husband helped me dismantle the couch for parts. 

We saved all the leather and the stretchy bands, to be used in future small upholstery projects. The dissected mess that ended up on the curb prompted some humorous comments from the neighbors about what must be going on in our house.

With some of the leather, I decided to make a traveler's notebook. I found a nicely-sized scrap and measured it out against some inexpensive composition books I bought from Walmart.

I ordered some eyelets and some elastic cording from Amazon, but because the cording will take a while to arrive, I bought some elastic cording from Walmart in the interim. The jewelry cording, the only kind I could find, is too thin, and the eyelets I ordered are too large, but it worked for now.

This is a blurry photo. Sorry! But you can see the eyelets I inserted in the spine in order to thread the elastic cording to the inside of the traveler's notebook. The cording provides four places for the composition books to be inserted by opening each of them to the middle and sliding one of the elastic cords into the spine. In the middle of the notebook's leather spine, I threaded another long piece of leather that wraps around and closes the notebook. 

I don't have a lot of leather tools, so I just rounded the square edges of the leather with scissors. I must say that the finished traveler's notebook feels very good in my hands. The leather is already soft and pliable after being on a couch for years and years, and it has a great patina. 

Aside from using smaller eyelets and thicker elastic cording in the future, I will also make a few handmade paper inserts and use the heavier composition books for something else. This will make the traveler's notebook a little lighter, and I can also include pockets for ephemera like receipts or other pieces of paper.

Now I guess I need to break it in by traveling somewhere. I currently have it in the purse that goes to work with me, but I believe it wants a much more ambitious adventure. 

My son, Gary, and his friend, JJ, saw my traveler's notebook and fell instantly in love. They both adore that kind of thing. I figured making a couple more would give me some more experience, so I found some pieces of leather large enough and crafted each of them their own traveler's notebook. They are both very happy with them, but, as fifteen-year-old boys, they will probably forget about them as soon as the immediate rush wears off, and the notebooks will gather dust under their beds or on a shelf somewhere. 

I am going to use more of the leather to make some bags, maybe as a gift for my MIL, who loves bags. The leather is thin enough for me to sew on my sewing machine with a special leather needle and heavy-duty thread. 

....

Can you tell I'm going through the camera roll on my phone?

....

Earlier this summer, Husband and I took Gary and his friend, Molly (with whom he has been besties since they were seven years old), on an impromptu trip to Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville, Utah. Whenever we pass through Layton, Utah, we make a point of stopping at A Little Taste of Britain to get some fish and chips. 

Of all the pictures I took of these two, this one was, surprisingly, the least goofy. 

Husband dug into beef-and-onion pie and chips doused with malt vinegar and smothered with curry sauce. I chose fish and chips--also heavily doused in malt vinegar--and they were delicious. 

After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon simmering gently in the mineral hot springs. It was really hot outside, but it was still incredibly relaxing to be there. I just floated in the huge Olympic-sized pool that is kept at 85 deg. F between trips to the much warmer pools. Husband and the kids bought passes for the two water slides, but I had no interest in all of that and stuck with lazy floating and transdermal mineral absorption.

....

In order to celebrate all the August birthdays, we got together as a family at a bowling alley. 

(I realize that, in all of the pics I have of Husband, he's wearing a dark gray t-shirt. The pics were taken weeks apart, at times, but he does own a lot of gray shirts. I promise he does not wear the same thing every day. Also, I do laundry regularly.)

Husband holding Nicholas next to our daughter, Sian, Nicholas's beautiful mommy.

Tyler and his daddy rode the roller coaster ride. Tyler did his very best to enjoy it, but he didn't really appreciate all the shaking.

Tyler loved bowling for the first time. He was so happy when he knocked down even one pin, and he cheered for everyone else's successes, as well. My daughter, Elannah, took particular pleasure in treating him to arcade games and winning him tickets for prizes. 

....

I don't have pictures of this, but Husband recently turned 50 years old. I'm the best wife because I did not throw him a surprise party, which would have been his idea of the worst possible turn of events. Instead, I made him homemade beef-and-onion pies and roasted potatoes for his birthday dinner, and we spent a quiet evening at home with the boys. 

Speaking of roasted potatoes, my roasted potatoes came up spontaneously in conversation again last week at work. Griff occasionally talks about them with longing, reminiscing about the times I made them for the faculty, describing their crunchy, crispy exteriors and tender interiors to the new faculty members. I think he's hinting at something...

....

I didn't accomplish all the things I planned to accomplish over the summer, but I really enjoyed it despite that. My older son, Joseph, made some great strides with coping with his anxiety/depression by finding a great therapist and working on positive coping methods. Husband managed to nearly finish the rough draft of his third book in his middle-grades series about a boy trying to prevent Ragnarok. My daughters each accomplished some of their own goals. 

I am content.

Flirtations with Soybeans, Part 2

 It is now established that I both need and enjoy soy milk. The problem is that making it by hand is such a long process. While I have the time right now before school starts again to spend an hour or so every other day boiling, blending, and squeezing the milk from the beans, there is a much more efficient method of doing all of that: buy a soy milk machine.

The only reason I didn't buy one right away was because I wanted to make sure that my initial passion remained burning. I so often get excited about something, and then, once the honeymoon phase wears off (usually when I get frustrated with how consistently terrible my initial attempts turn out to be), I set it aside for a while. I don't love that about myself, so I'm trying to make myself finish projects and be less of a perfectionist (after all, if a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing poorly until you get better at it). In this case, however, making soy milk might be time-consuming, but it's very simple, so I haven't managed to mess it up. I absolutely love the resulting milk mixed with a dash of salt, a tiny bit of sugar-free sweetener, and a dab of vanilla extract. I crave it. I actually had a dream the other night that featured people made out of various concentrations of soy milk. I won't try to go into detail on that dream because it was really weird and I cannot make any sense of it; but that's how much I've been thinking about soy milk. 

I started looking for soy milk machines, focusing on the sweet spot between milk-making capacity and price. I was thinking something in the range of about $140 would be acceptable. Even if I had to clean the machine every time I used it, it would still save me a lot of time overall. Then, Husband, noting the toll the hot flashes are taking on me, and anxious to help me stop spending my days going slowly mad by having a mini sun burst to life in my chest and causing me to sweat copiously at least once every hour, got involved in the search. When Husband gets involved, things happen--and usually for less than retail!

Long story short, this miracle is arriving to our porch on Monday:

This cost way more than my original $140 budget, but, of course, Husband found it on sale, and we decided it's a good investment because I will use it every day. We were also lucky to snag the last available machine on Amazon (sorry, everyone else!). 

This sucker has ten functions (including making various types of vegan milks, smoothies, and soup), but the most important functions to me are these: 1) it makes soy milk from dried beans; and 2) IT CLEANS AND STERILIZES ITSELF! I spend at least fifteen minutes cleaning up the pot, colander, bowls, blender, other utensils, and the countertop after making the milk. I soak a lot of beans at once so I have enough milk to last a couple days, but with his machine, I can choose to make a liter of soy milk or just one cup at a time--and, like a coffee machine, I can program it to start at a certain time. 

I tried making tofu for the first time yesterday, but the milk just would not coagulate into curds despite all my efforts. I wasted three liters of milk! I'll try again with a smaller amount of soy milk after I finish writing this. I asked my mom for tips (she's made tofu for years), so, hopefully, I'll have better luck with her advice. Maybe the nigari salts (magnesium chloride) I was using as a coagulant were too old and ineffective. Or I stirred it wrong. 

Wish me luck. I would absolutely love not having hot flashes anymore. There's nothing fun about them. If phytoestrogens can help me out, I'm all for it.