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.