End of May Wrap Up

School is winding down and the weather is warming up. The girls have been spending tons of time outside playing (which in turn means I've been spending tons of time inside sweeping and washing laundry).  They've had late nights, play dates, and fights galore.  I've been enjoying my last prolonged solo time with Kiki...Fall will bring kindergarten and I'm already having a little emotional crisis about that. 

She loves the "river park." 

The second grade at Kate's school does a little program called "Muffins for Moms."  They sing us songs, and then we eat muffins with them in their classrooms. 

This is Mrs. Lowry, aka "The woman who saved my bacon when I was compelled by personal circumstances to home school despite my personal philosophies on the matter."

May also brought Mother's Day.  We celebrated with my mom, brother, and sister-in-law.

Mom, do you remember that childhood picture you have of me asleep on the toilet?
I do.

For Memorial Day weekend, we went to Pocatello to see the Shelton's.  We had grand plans to go on long runs, long bike rides, and let the kids wear themselves out in the hills, but then it rained and rained.  And rained.  We were left to make our own fun indoors.

 There was quite a bit of arm wrestling.

Kiki was closely involved in a sheepdog modeling session.

And of course, we stopped by our favorite popcorn shop in town. 

On Monday, we celebrated with a barbecue with some friends in the neighborhood.  I think I fall in love with our neighbors more every day. We walked/rode bikes to the big party.   Kiki and Kate have been complaining that their bikes are too small.

I don't know what she is talking about.

This seems perfectly adequate to me.

Look at all of these kids!

We were very relieved to discover that this was actually a remnant of a roasted marshmallow.

And lastly, on the second to last day of school, awards are given out to the kids.  Kate received several, but this one made me laugh pretty hard.

I think a clerical error has been made.

Hatch Mini-Reunion

A couple of weeks ago we went to St. George to see Bruce's brother Mark compete in the Ironman.  The Hatch's were in (almost) full force.  Kate and Kiki were happily reunited with Aunt Lirio (the bearer of indescribably delightful gifts) and cousin Sophie, as well as the rest of  Bruce's family.

The Hatch siblings- we missed you, Cheryl!

Hatch ladies with the Ironman. 

While Mark swam and cycled like crazy, we went to the St. George Temple.

Someone had written me a very inspirational message on the road which was just what I needed on the four-block walk from temple to park.

Tiff made the kids their awesome shirts.
A good time was had by all...except for maybe the athlete.

I Can Not Tell a Lie.

Lately I've been thinking about honesty.  I consider myself a pretty honest person- I try to tell the truth and act in honest ways as much as possible, though I'm not above the occasional white lie ("Your pants look fine!"  "The tooth fairy is coming tonight!"  "Roast pork sounds delicious!") (Double parentheses: Now you all can tell when I'm lying because apparently all of my white lies require exclamation points.).  What has been bothering me though, are the lies I tell about how others' behavior impacts me or what my real feelings are about situations.  I want to rationalize this away sometimes, by insisting to myself that the words I speak don't really count as lies because I'm doing it to protect someone else or because I'm just trying to be nice.  The facts are this, though: that even though I'm hiding my own feelings to "protect" someone else, telling the lies is harming me and creating habits in relationships that I am really uncomfortable with. 

I have an example (but I can't go into too much detail just out of common courtesy to the others involved).  I've recently had to end the business relationship with a piano student over attendance.  Attendance has been sketchy pretty much since day one, but since the family was someone that I knew, I pushed my feelings aside and when lessons were cancelled on short notice, or missed entirely with no notice, I would say things like, "Oh, it was no problem." or "Sure, we can do a make-up." when in all actuality the missed lessons were a huge inconvenience to me and a major source of aggravation.  Recently, I decided I couldn't go on anymore- the student had missed or cancelled on very short notice over 20 lessons.  Understandably, the mother is pretty frustrated with me because in her mind (and according to my own behavior to a certain extent), I had communicated to her that the hit and miss attendance wasn't an issue when in reality, it was.  I should have been more honest with her from the very first missed lesson. 

I'm not trying to be a jerk in life.  I really try to be a nice person and I plan on doing that still, but what I'm talking about is being honest in situations where, even if it's uncomfortable, we probably ought to tell the truth in order to keep relationships healthy and live a life in which what we think on the inside and what we say are a good match. 

I had a great conversation with a neighbor the other day- again...it's her story to tell so the details are going to be minimal.  This woman is, by all regards, an amazing mother.  She told me about a couple of struggles she has been having in her life, and what she did about it.  I will say this: I was blessed by her choice to be a truth teller to me, because what she did to solve her struggles kind of went against the grain of typical advice for her situation.  It was very inspiring to me to know that even "amazing mothers" sometimes have to turn away from conventional wisdom and solve their problems in their own way.  My friend then told me that when she embarked on this experiment that she didn't even want to write in her journal about it because she didn't know how things were going to go.  But now, at the end of this particular trial, she was willing to share her little secret with me and I left the conversation feeling so uplifted by her.  And, because it was already on my mind, I saw that as this: There is power in being a truth teller. 

I feel inside like I'm searching for the right balance here.  I think sometimes white lies are a social necessity.  I've also been thinking that I need to be a truth teller about the positives in my life also- there are hundreds of people who have impacted me positively- I shouldn't be keeping that a secret!  I freely admit that I think being kind is tremendously important and I am hoping to find a way to be kind but still be truthful.

I promised a friend a favor: to help her niece with some wedding flowers.  It has been quite a bit of work to ensure we are ordering the exact right thing for her.  She is a grateful girl though, and after the last of several conversations two days ago, she said, "I bet this has been a lot of work, and I really want to thank you."  I started to say my usual "No problem," but I caught myself.  "You're right," I said, "it has been.  You're welcome." I said it smiling and it felt good.

Before and After

Transitioning back to our "old" life hasn't been easy.  It's been a lot of work to get things back in order- settling back in at home, starting school and lessons again, and, more than anything, make the psychological adjustment back to a life that isn't leisure the majority of the time.  Life here has felt a little rude, if you will.

So, I did what I always do when I'm feeling a little down- I conned Bruce into moving my furniture around.  Every time these wheels start turning in my mind I know he's thinking, "For the love of all that is holy, why can't you just go on Xanax like everyone else in the free world instead of turning our home life upside down?"  But, he's a good husband and got cracking for my sake. 

These first two are the "Before's."  I had some furniture in front of my fireplace but no matter how I arranged it it always felt a little cramped, plus there wasn't a good spot for a decent TV.  It sounds lame, I know, but I'm just going to admit that we like a nice TV around here. 

Here are the "After's."  I just swapped my dining area and the family room area, and perhaps you will notice the brand new flatscreen in the corner.  It was kind of an impulse buy:  I was in Costco for toilet paper and noticed it and after a couple calls to Bruce, we decided it was worth buying.  Truthfully, I'm way more excited about it than he is, and again, he sucked it up for my sake and hung it for me last night. 

Totally worth blowing my toilet paper budget on. 
Hopefully our guests are so distracted by the TV that they don't notice that they are wiping their hinies with pages from a Vizio manual.

Yes, I'm aware that many would say it is highly stupid to hide a fireplace with your table, but frankly, we are about a thousand times more likely to watch TV together than we are to sit around a fire together.  And you know what?  I'm not even going to apologize for that.

One fun thing that we have resumed is our membership to Thanksgiving Point.  Kiki and I have already been to the dino museum twice in five days.  She is so happy.

One not-so-fun thing that Bruce has resumed is the dawn to dusk Saturday 'o' yard work.  Jack came up and helped us rid ourselves of a couple of dead trees.  Kate was happy to help.

Eight is old enough to wield a chainsaw, right?

I received a very exciting shipment from the Philippines yesterday- a picture that the sisters in Relief Society had given me that my pal Cathy had mailed. 

She didn't even care what came in it, she just wanted "to live in this box today."

It's been installed in a place of honor.  Also, the shipping process did not turn my picture into a parallelogram, I'm just a below average photographer.

My furniture isn't the only thing that has a before and after-  I think my life will now always be divided into "Before Philippines" and "After Philippines."  Sometimes I think I know just how returned missionaries feel- you see your whole life in relation to that experience forevermore.  It truly changed the way I think and feel about my life, and I'm really grateful that I've learned to change my perspective on many things.  I feel so rich here- rich in friendships, rich in family, and definitely rich in material blessings.  I also find myself bothered by things that didn't bug me so much before.  I'll start with the driving- people are very inconsiderate drivers and I think it is terrible.  I came closer to  death by "Dimwit Blond in Escalade" than I ever did in all the months I ran in Manila.  (Even more incriminating: She was the only car on the road and I was the only runner on the road.)

Also, I must say this: it was so nice to attend church in Manila and never have the talk run to politics.  I'm kind of bugged that fellow church-goers here assume that we are all like-minded politically and therefore it isn't a problem to openly discuss political beliefs.  I personally don't think Mitt Romney is the political equivalent of the second coming of Christ, and while I wholeheartedly support the right of people to believe whatever they want to believe, I also wholeheartedly believe that church services should be politically neutral.  Period.  I know it's going to continue, and I have to know that it will only get worse since it is an election year, but I just don't think it is appropriate at all or whatsoever.  I'm not mad about it, and I'm not storming out of church, and I still like my neighbors, and my testimony isn't shaken in the least.  I merely think it should stop.

Another tough adjustment?  Our dry, dry, parched, desert skin.  We've all had split lips, bleeding cuticles, and chapped hands.  I can not get enough lotion on my skin, and I chase around Kiki with Vaseline.  She screams, "Not my sucking thumb!  Not my sucking thumb!"

My last before and after is about my sweet Kate.  I know I talked about how shy and withdrawn she seemed in the Philippines, and last week her gymnastics teacher remarked how outgoing she was and that she didn't even seem like the same child.  Who knew?  All that time she was just saving up her social skills to use here.  I'm relieved to know the whole experience didn't mess her up for life.