Category: Life according to Angela

Summary

We had a wonderful Labor Day. We visited the Desert Museum and grilled steaks on a new grill. I think food is a link to our extended family on holidays. Naturally, we make clam dip (Sanchez) and baked beans (Ross) and pretend we’re with everyone, I guess.

Our week brought a new course for Paige in school and a talent show performance for Daniel. Timothy loves listening to Treasure Island each evening. Mark writes letters. If you are a lucky recipient, I hope you know he loves you. Also, I can’t think of a prayer offered by Timothy or Mark since May in which they haven’t mentioned Ray. We hope your tests this week show no signs of cancer, Ray.

I’ve felt terrible for about five days now and I hope to feel better soon.

Richard and Mark went tool shopping on Saturday. Mark came home with a hammer but Richard only came home with a duster for the ceiling fans and some welding gloves that don’t really work. Bummer.

I can’t sleep because I am so uncomfortable. Say a prayer that I feel better. Thanks.

Sunday Sounds

Click below and listen as you read:

How was your Sunday? How was church? Did you make a decision to be better about something? I decided that I need to focus on a topic as I read the scriptures. In my study of the Book of Mormon, I am going to catalog the tender mercies of the Lord, specifically how he imbues his children with power.

How was your Sunday dinner? Ours was nice. We had a salad and some fruit and Rice Krispies squares for dessert.

Did you think about someone far away? I did.

Did you get a nap? I didn’t, but that’s ok.

Are you ready for a new week? I think I am. We still have fresh groceries, clean laundry and sheets, and the school lists are made. We have a birthday in our family this week. Paige turns 14.

Sweet dreams.

-A

The Week in Review

This week brought the first piano lesson for Timothy. His delightful expressions, if bottled, would be alcoholic.

Sardines, when played in the house, is best accomplished if you wear a Batman mask and Mom’s dark bathrobe.

“R-duo D-duo”

The ladybugs

Beowulf with duct tape over some passages

My dentist played 1940’s music while I had my teeth cleaned. All right!

We have a high school, middle school, elementary school, and preschool student in this house.

What’s that line?

One of my favorite movies is You’ve Got Mail. I am thinking of the scene where Meg Ryan tells her “surrogate mother” and female employee that she is closing her store. Her s.m. tells her “Closing the store is the Brave Thing to Do,” and then she says stepping off into the unknown “armed with nothing” means Meg is Daring to believe she can do something different. Or something like that.

Tonight I say, “Beginning school is the Brave Thing to Do.”

Here we go.

Sorting

We went rock hunting yesterday. After 10 minutes in the sun, we decided to count and sort our collections. We could only take two. It was hard to choose.

Sorting and prioritizing are good life lessons. If only excess commitments were as easy to fling back as little rocks! Just like those little rocks with their sparkling crystals and mineral deposits, each commitment is enticing in some way even after it’s been cast aside.

School starts on Tuesday. We are in full-sorting mode. Who will drive to seminary? And home from seminary?  Are you sure it’s not too far out of your way? Which children can I watch during German classes? Will Medieval (I *just* learned how to spell that correctly. Shameful.) History be too much on top of U.S. Government classes? You have room in your schedule to teach Timothy piano lessons? You want us to move our piano lessons so someone can take Latin? No problem. But I’ll need to shuffle park days once a month.

More than ever, life requires some cooperation among friends to make it all happen and some brave culling of activities.

I’m excited for the school year to begin. The books are arriving daily.

Thinking

I’m sitting in the house during a monsoon tHunDer StOrm. I’ve got the laptop unplugged because if lighting hit, I’d be seriously bothered. I run my life with a computer. It happened gradually and I still have my “I hate this machine” moments, but this computer is my friend.

I am glad my computer can remember addresses and phone numbers, help me communicate with 70 home school families in the area with one e-mail, and streamline my filing of school papers, notes, and artwork.

But I can live without it. While on vacation I went 2 1/2 weeks without it except to look up an address.

I could be a spokesman for digital scrapbooking. This computer has allowed me to keep a scrapbook that I can be proud of, despite time constraints.

Today I spent time catching up with people for my church assignment and “my community work.” The interaction was invigorating, in contrast to earlier this summer when it had become a great burden. I think that because I lack an off-site office, I don’t always see a line between my home and my work and my work easily trespasses into my home life. It’s good for me to set time limits on my community and church work and make appointments with myself to read that next chapter or escape to write a blog post.

Aren’t these red berries beautiful? My 7-year old took this picture.

Now I’m off to make dinner. End of blog appointment.

June Rejuvenation

June is set aside for important rituals like cleaning out the drawers, closets, spraying for bugs and doing whatever we please. We’re having a jolly time of it.

We’re NOT doing the summer reading program at the library but we ARE reading.

We are spending time in the mountains.

We are picking tomatoes, growing grass and watching flowers bloom.

I’m reading educational philosophy from my college files. I’ll share some of my favorite passages from my study today.

On reading:

“…there is a society continually open to us, of people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank or occupation:–talk to us in the best words they can choose, and of the things nearest their hearts. And this society…is…the chosen, and the mighty, of every place and time. And how can we have access to such a society? Most typically through books, especially the books and personal writings of the great and the wise.” ~John Ruskin, 1864

On the value of unstructured, joyful living:

“Dr? Nehru tells that in India ‘during every period when her civilization bloomed, we find an intense joy in life and nature and a pleasure in the art of living.'” ~Eric Hoffer, from The Ordeal of Change

“…’great’ thinking consists in the working out of insights and ideas which come to us in playful moments. Archimedes’ bathtub and Newton’s apple suggest that momentous trains of thought may have their inception in idle musing…the sudden illumination and the flash of discovery are not likely to materialize under pressure.” ~Eric Hoffer in The Ordeal of Change