Violet Jelly, take 2.

Due to the fact that I finally got around to taking a picture I wanted to share these with you.

In order to make jam from violets you follow these steps-

• Collect an astounding amount of violets, making sure none of your neighbors have any left.
• Boil water.
• Pour the boiling water over the violets and let it steep for hours.
• Then you add the other ingredients in to make the jam.
• Can it.

So I never got around to making my second try. I only made the infusion and then froze it. Here is what a frozen infusion of violets look like.

Pretty neat huh?  The recipe calls for lemon juice.  When you add that in it turns this awesome shade of purple. When you process it correctly, it looks violet.

When you let me process it incorrectly, it will look like honey in a jar.

I just wanted to share the one and only picture I had of the process. I was impressed by how dark the color turned out.

P.S. No I won't have awesome pictures later. That was my second try and it leaked out of the bag all over the refrigerator when I was "thawing" it. My egg cartons are now more purple than they were previously.

Summer evening

One advantage to living where we do is lightning bugs. Or fireflies if you prefer. They are seriously awesome. The highlight of the summer.

I am not sure what is going on in my next door neighbor's yard, but she literally has hundreds of them. It is incredible. We caught a jar full last night.

I realise it is hard to understand this picture. This is a Mason jar filled with about 40 fireflies. The spots that looks yellowish are where the insects are glowing.

There is nothing more awesome than a warm evening at twilight catching these things. They are easy to catch and don't bite or scratch or sting.

Due to the difficult nature of catching a good picture, I opted to attempt a video. I don't know that it is particularly great, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what is going on all around us.

Somethings just make me so happy. I don't think it will matter how old I get, lightning bugs will make me smile.

See ya in a month!

Let me start by saying I am NOT currently pregnant.

However, one of my memories of previous pregnancies is how annoying it is to constantly have Dr's appointments.   

If you have little experience with pregnancy let me share some of the fun with you.

The Doctor expects you to show up for appointments once a month. (Where all they do is have you pee in a cup and measure you, listen to the baby's heart beat and tell you to go schedule another appointment.) As the pregnancy progresses into the third trimester (last 3 months) they want you in more often. Every two weeks at this stage. In the last month they want you to visit every week.

This may not be how it works with every doctor. This has been my experience. I know they have reasons and it helps them catch problems, that isn't my focus in this post.

I just find it so tedious. Finding a babysitter that often for what seems like a real waste of time just doesn't feel worth it.

Switching gears now, Phebe is still dealing with fluid in her ears. So we took our trip to the specialist. She has had this problem for at least 2 months now. I arrange to have the car. I find a wonderful neighbor willing to watch the other 3 kids.

Her name is finally called, we are seated in a fabulous room just packed with gadgets and tools and chords and all kinds of fun if you are an 18 month old. We wrestle in that room for what seems like a good while. Oh yes, the nice nurse turned on Sponge bob for her, but she is 18 months old. So her attention span isn't up for that long.

After what seems like way too long in comes the specialist. He is very kind. He speaks to me very respectfully and explains things to me.

Then he says "ok, we aren't going to do anything now, come back in a month."
Dang it. I wanted to get this taken care of now. I don't want to have monthly visits for my baby now that she is born. I felt like I was suddenly in prenatal care.

So in a month we get to go back and do it again. Though he seemed almost giddy at the idea of her having another infection and having her come in so he could see it. (Fluid and infection are not synonomous.) It looks like he may just get his wish. I can only hope if she does have another infection we can get tubes and be done with this drama.

Godzilla for lunch

Here is my list of note worthy things of today.

• I started with a grand plan of making strawberry jam.
• I received the check for our totaled car in the mail.
• I packed up what I was doing and convinced my mom to drive me to the bank and my sister to watch my kids.
• Drove to visit my husband at work to obtain his signature.
• Gladly accepted his idea of taking my mom out to lunch as a thank you.
• Enjoyed a truly fabulous lunch at a Japanese steak house I have wanted to try out for along time.
• Ate a Godzilla roll.
• LOVED my Godzilla roll.
• Would highly recommend to any sushi eater to order a Godzilla roll.
• Picked up kids, came home. Tried to put youngest two down for naps.
• 3 year old announces he is not tired and should not take a nap.
• 7 minutes later same 3 year old returns clutching his favorite blanket asking me to come take a nap with him.
• He never does fall asleep with me in his bed.
• He falls asleep on the couch instead.
• Baby tells me "Iwanteat." All this babbling is finally forming into distinguishable thoughts.
• 3 year old also managed to get shampoo in his eyes during a bath.
• Never did make any jam at all.

Yes, other things happened. They are just less note worthy. The main thing you need to get out of this is "Godzilla roll is good." Glad I could share.

Take the challenge!

Today I would like to inspire you. Inspire you to do something most of you know you should be doing. Something that I didn't do for years. Something someone else inspired me to do 2 years ago and I have done nearly everyday since.

Are you ready to find out what that is?

Journal writing.

Yup. I keep a journal. There are a lot of things I don't do. There are a lot of things I get down on myself for failing in.

Keeping a regular journal is not one of them.

For years and years, I kept a sporadic record. Meaning, I wrote something in there 1-15 times ALL year. Someone then shared with me a secret that has made keeping a journal easy and rewarding for me. I'll share that secret in a moment.

One problem I had, the biggest problem I had, with keeping a journal was that it was intimidating to try to write all the things that were going on. This is especially troubling if you haven't written in 18 months. I didn't do anything so many times on the grounds that there was too much to write and I didn't know where to start.

I also have the obstacle which made it appear that I only wrote in my journal when I was upset over something. That wasn't how I want posterity to remember me.

If you have these problems also, let  me share with you the secret that got me going.

Get a journal, notebook, whatever you want to keep a record in. Then each day pick 3 things you are grateful for. Write just those 3 things.

For me just having to think of 3 things too so much of the pressure off. It also helped me to keep my eyes open to what a great life I really have.

I'll admit it, some days it a bit more difficult to think of 3 whole things to be grateful for.

Some of my entries include things like-

• I am grateful for chapstick.
• Running hot water.
• That the baby generally sleeps better than she had that night.
• My bed.
• That I usually have more control over my temper than I seemed to have that day.
• That my kids had never before poured whole pitchers full of water on the living room rug.
• My dishwasher.
• Ice cream.

Most of my entries are only about 1/2 of one page. I love going back and looking over things. Everything is so positive. I have reminders of funny things that kids said or did. I have good things to turn to on bad days.

I have learned to love my journal dearly. It makes me happy I have been doing it for so long, for all the happy memories to reread. For how simple and quick it is.

So grab a notebook and think of your first 3 things.

Help!

I needed the car today so I took my husband to work. While I was at his office I went into the restroom.

Then I tried to leave the restroom.

The door wouldn't open. No matter how hard I tried.

Locked? Nope. Push harder? Nope.

I finally gave in and started calling for help. As predicted, they started laughing. Someone came to my rescue.

They also couldn't get the door open.

Then in walks a customer. So the help on the other side quits to go assist them. I just sit quietly in the bathroom listening to discussions about additional insurance coverage. The person is then walked out to the car.

Ethan comes back to help me again. Eventually, he forced the door open. The handle was broke before I went in.

It had been replaced when I came to pick him up.

Bet you didn't spend part of your morning trapped in a bathroom.

Salt of the Earth

While preparing my lesson for the Young Women class my husband found this awesome article.

Ever wonder how salt loses it's savor? We have all heard the phrase. This article talks about it. Really neat.

Salt of the Earth

Car Update

I have an update about the car situation. You can read about what happened here.

The insurance adjuster finally came out and looked at the car. Due to the fact that they needed to fix or replace-

• Both bumpers
• Both air bags
• All 6 seat belts
• The entire passenger front seat

They decided to total it. The accident happened at a near stop. The damage was surprisingly minimal to look at. The poor man that hit us looked far more "wrecked" than ours. However, adding it all together leaves us in search of a new car.

This post is not about the search for the new car. This post is about the term "totaled". I feel as though it is so misleading. If I tell someone I was just in a car accident. So bad the air bags went off and the car was totaled it seems surprising that there are no real injuries.

This evening at church I spoke to a woman that I have attended church with for years. A long time ago she was in an accident. I was a kid so I didn't pay much attention to the details. While I was talking about my accident she told me how blessed  I had been. How I needed to look at how protected we had been. I was pleased to recall I have actually done that. I continue to be amazed at how little damage seems to be done.

I proceeded to ask her some questions about her accident.

She was pulling into her driveway when a drunk driver hit her at 85 miles per hour.

She was unconscious for 5 days and didn't recognize her husband when she woke. She walked with a cane for a good while after it was over.

Her son's ear needed to be sewn back on. 


I feel like somehow the term "totaled" is inappropriate in my case. Here is a family who's lives were so heavily effected by it.

This woman wouldn't even get in a car, let alone drive for a significant time afterwards. She had to force her son into getting his license on the grounds that if he was sent on a mission that used a car he would be in trouble.

How could my car possibly carry the same label as hers?

I am so grateful for the small scale that I am dealing with. I was almost annoyed that even if it isn't our fault how much of our own time and effort, and some money will be spent putting our normal life back together. It wasn't our action, why do we have to do anything here.

Because life is like that. You don't only suffer consequences of your own actions. Fair or not, other people can and will effect you with their actions.

I am glad for my walk with this woman tonight. I am glad I already recognized the blessing of safety. But I am so grateful to have things put into perspective for me.

My car may have been totaled, but my families lives were not.

Closing Remarks

The closing remarks from General Conference can be read here. There are still some talks from sessions held at other times during the year I am going to share. this just happens to be the last from the Sunday session.

If you ever wondered what a prophet of God would say if he only had a few minutes to talk to his congregation, here is your opportunity.

We are a global church. Our membership is found throughout the world. May we be good citizens of the nations in which we live and good neighbors in our communities, reaching out to those of other faiths as well as to those of our own. May we be examples of honesty and integrity wherever we go and in whatever we do.

I believe that none of us can conceive the full import of what Christ did for us in Gethsemane, but I am grateful every day of my life for His atoning sacrifice in our behalf.At the last moment, He could have turned back. But He did not. He passed beneath all things that He might save all things. In doing so, He gave us life beyond this mortal existence. He reclaimed us from the Fall of Adam.
To the depths of my very soul, I am grateful to Him. He taught us how to live. He taught us how to die. He secured our salvation.

Whoops...

So my kids aren't always the most ...um... tactful human beings. We do not live in an area with a high population of African Americans. Here are two examples that I cringed at during and laughed at later.

While Victor was about 2 1/2, maybe 3 we were shopping for groceries. When we rounded the corner he spotted a man refilling the freezer case. Suddenly the yelling starts-
V: " Mom! That man is brown!"
Me: " Yes, yes he is."
He keeps yelling about it. The man looks up at him.
V: (completely surprised ) "He has eyes mom! Look at him! He has eyes!"
Me: "Yes, yes he does. So do you, and grandma and nearly every one else around us."
Luckily the man just kind of smirked about the whole thing.

Naomi had the following conversation with a black woman with a thick city accent helping her out of her rock climbing harness-
Woman : " I am so impressed! You did a great job! I underestimated you!"
Naomi: " Yea, I did a good job."
Woman :"It was really amazing. I didn't know you could do that."
N : " That's because you speak a different language."
Yet again, luckily she thought it was funny. We came back later and she was telling her co worker about the funny comment the little girl had made  to her.

I am glad people can just love kids and be amused by their ... less than politically correct comments.

Some days she's my hero

I recently discovered one of the reasons that some days I LOVE my daughter and other days would like her to GO AWAY for a while.

It is her high levels of passion.

She goes from one extreme to the other, there is no middle ground. Nothing is OK, or fine, or kind of fun.

Either I am the meanest mom that has ever lived because I told her to unload the dishwasher; or the greatest mom ever because I authorized them to watch an episode of Speed Racer.

Go to the park- "This is the best day of my life!"

Clean up the pile of her own clothes on the floor -"Oh! I hate that! I am NOT cleaning that up!" ( Oh  yes you are ma'am.")

She has many, many moments of  "Ohhh, this is SO boring." They are so quickly followed by "I LOVE this game!"

Sometimes her moods are hard to follow. When she is angry though, the whole house is WELL aware.

She is crazy and rather hard to live with at some moments but she really is my hero sometimes. Here are some examples of things she has done lately that I am proud of.

- She is not easily intimidated. While at a party recently, I watched her get rather riled up. There was a boy (not a small boy mind you) of 11 years who was on a tricycle. He had been on for a while and she wanted a turn. ( I was far away and watched this from a distance. Mind you I do not encourage her to fight, she does that one all on her own. I also didn't see the lead up to the situation.) He was unwilling to hand it over. He didn't have to, that didn't bother me. The thing that I was amused by in this situation was that he is more than 3 times her size and she was in his face. "You are acting like someone who is MEAN!" Intimidation is not something that she is familiar with. Did she win that one? No. I was just amused that she was so willing to take him on. If she thinks she is right she will fight to the end.

- She has incredible drive. We also went skating recently. She is not good at it A. because we don't go that often and B. they don't make roller blades her size.( Yes they make skates that small, but she trips over them.) She fell down again, and again, and again, and again. Yet, all she would say to me was " I am getting really good at this huh mom?" There were lots of breaks for the water fountain, but never to sit down. A full hour and a half of skating in circles falling down over and over. Getting back up over and over. I was impressed at how quickly she just gets back up and keeps moving. She is indeed improving, but only because of the effort she puts forth.

-While one one of our "Most fun day of my life!" days ( which later involved a car collision ) she was given the opportunity to climb an indoor rock wall. She was THRILLED. (And technically too light, but they overlooked that.) She made it maybe a third of the way on her first try. I was kind of surprised, this child climbs everything. Later she invited me to climb with her. So up we went. Every time I hear rock climbing I think "Wow that would be so fun!" And then when I am physically in the air suddenly I think "Wow! this is completely terrifying." I climbed for a while and kind of gave up. She just kept on moving and encouraging me. She kept me motivated. I climbed much higher because of her than I would have on my own. Then the moment came to let go of the wall and come down. More terror, 20 ft in the air terror. She simply let go and repelled down. Watching her helped me have the faith to just let go. I only relaxed and let go because of her example.

I am so glad to have her in my family. She can be a bit extreme some days. But some days she is extreme in ways I wouldn't want to part with.

Gratitude in a scary situation

Yesterday we were involved in a 3 car accident on a major highway. While merging together the person behind us hit us shoving us into the next car. The air bags deployed. We pulled over and from the car spilled 4 terrified children, a shaken mom and a father who was immediately making phone calls. There were no ambulances involved. Everyone seems to be OK.  Here are some of the things that I am really grateful for.

• We were nearly stopped in traffic when it happened. I am so glad this was a low speed incident.
• Phebe was facing forward. While she faces the rear, my seat sits much father up. I would have been slammed in the face with the airbag. As it was, it didn't even touch me.
• Seat belts. Car seats. My family all strapped in.
• No one was really hurt.
• The bottles of water I had packed earlier. While sitting on the side of the highway in 90 degree weather it was the only thing that kept my toddler from panicking.
• There was only a brief moment of screaming from the baby until we got out of the car. After that no one cried.
•  There was grass to sit in instead of a cement barrier to stand against.
• The random beach ball that was sitting in the grass they grabbed and played with.
• The daisies my kids worked on collecting for me.
• I had been to the chiropractor just that morning. I am glad my spine was already in pretty good shape when this all went down. (We went again this afternoon. The accident threw it all out of whack.) The Dr. said that it had saved me from having much more significant damage done.
• We were on our way home from having a grand adventure. I am so glad it wasn't on the way to.
• The very smiley tow truck driver who helped me pack everything up and carry it to the car. Turns out he is a friend of my husband's who has already done work on our car. He was so nice.
• The sweet police officer who allowed all 6 of us to sit in the back of his air conditioned cruiser and drove us to a nice cool restaurant.
• The other drivers involved were so kind.
• My husband works with rental cars. One of his coworkers jumped right in a car and came on down to get us. Granted traffic was horrific so it took a while, but she was on her way immediately.
• The kind manager of the restaurant who let us go into one of the little private party rooms to drink milk shakes and wait for our ride.
• The person at fault has good insurance. (Last time we had something like this the other person didn't have any at all and we wound up having to fork over  the deductible  money and it wound up on our own insurance.)
• My husband who rubbed my neck and back last night. It was lovely.

I knew there were a lot of things that went our way through all this. Writting it all down makes me realise just how much I really am grateful for. This situation could have been so much worse. God's hand is there in everything. So many details I would not have imagined on my own made this incident so much more bearable.

The toad

These are the things I have learned from nursing back to health an seriously injured toad.

• Neosporin works to help heal, ok at least it doesn't hinder.
• They smell funny.
• They shed their skin. Ours insisted on leaving it in his water dish.
• Toads really do have an incredible regeneration skill. We literally though he was missing one eye when we got him, his head was that messed up. By the time we turned him lose he had not only gained that eye back, he could even see out of it.
• Garter snakes and toads are not very chummy. They each staked a side of the tank and there was no invading the other side.
• They can let go of an incredible load of pee when a terrified young girl is carrying it outside.

Those are my toad observations. It was a fun little experience. I am glad he healed and we could turn him lose.

Press here

I have found an exceptionally cute children's book. It just makes me smile. My daughter tells us it is magic.



So simple, so sweet, so completely original. It is impressively interactive. I would never have dreamed a book could be so hands on. Next visit to the library, look for this one.

Couponing, to do or not to do.

I am considering stepping into the world of couponing.

Considering.

I am not committed yet.

I am not even entirely convinced it will help my family's situation.

Luckily I do not have access to cable or satellite television so I am spared the shows about people who save millions of dollars devoting their lives to using coupons. I do admit there is a bit of jealously though. It is an impressive skill. It obviously pays off. Not only do you save money but apparently people want to watch you on TV too. I hope they get paid for those appearances.

Here are some of my hang ups with the world of coupons.

• I am lazy. I don't know that I want to devote hours to finding deals for every single item I intend to purchase.
• I also don't want to spend the money to buy news papers I never intend to read only to get the coupons inside.
• My observations thus far have lead to me to believe that simply buying the generic brand saves me more money than a coupon ever will. I was recently introduced to the idea of looking for things on sale and then adding a coupon. I guess that could lower it below generics sometimes.
• Coupons seem to be nearly 80% for foods I have no intentions of buying. OK, so yes, I have a discount for Captain Crunch . But I don't need 2 boxes, I wasn't going to buy any to start with. It doesn't save me any money if I am buying foods I wasn't going to get originally.
• Shopping with children and trying to use coupons never seems to end well. I always end up standing there for 10 minutes per item trying to make sure the product and coupon line up. Half the time I have missed some detail like the expiration date, wrong ounce, incorrect number of items etc. So I didn't save any money when I get it wrong on a product I probably wouldn't have bought otherwise.
• Things I need to buy- lettuce, apples, chicken, fish never seem to have coupons. When is the last time you saw coupons for fresh produce? (It is possible you have, I don't come across them.)

I did however clean out an abandon email account and signed up for some free coupon sites. I have stumbled upon a few that are things I do want to buy such as Vanilla Almond Milk. I love that stuff. I don't mind getting a dollar off. Especially since I don't drink regular milk, it is my replacement.

What about you? Do you use coupons? Are they worth devoting lots of time to? What are your tips for shopping? I would love to hear your suggestions.

Relax already

I feel like I have been holding out on you. I am finally ready to share.

A year ago my husband and I stumbled upon Ludovico Einaudi. ( No, I can not pronounce his name either.) He does mainly piano music, some orchestral arrangements. As Ethan has noted "Primavera is like the perfect piano piece." Everything you ever imagined a piano piece to be is in this video. OK, as long as you wanted it to be peaceful, inspiring, beautiful and fun. We have his CD and highly recommend it. Put it on in the background and just enjoy. It is fabulous. This is one of our favorite pieces. There are many more. Take the next few minutes and just listen.

I hope you loved it as much as we do.

Let me hold your crown Babe.

I wanted to share with you one of my new favorite artists. Her name is Sarah Bareillis. I really enjoy her music.

This is "Love Song." The piano part is fabulous. I also love this video. I think the concept fits so well with the lyrics.

Next up is "King of Anything." Yet again, the video has some neat ideas. The silverware piano is something I would never have thought of. There are moments where I think it is hard to look at due to the disrupted focal points.  The beat in this song is so fun.

She has another hit out right now called "Uncharted." Still very distinctly her style, thus I enjoy listening to it. Though there maybe some mild profanity and I watched the video and am not sure I am ready to share that one.

I hope she keeps making great music. I really enjoy her songs.

Here are some of my thoughts from the day.

• I love the library. I also love looking up a book before I show up and then knowing exactly where to go, thus speeding things up for my less than patient children.
• Today's weather was perfect. Seriously. Perfect.
• The green beans in my garden are doing fabulously.
• My strawberries are growing so well. Mulch them in pine needles for bigger sweeter berries. I tell you it works.
• Maintaining a level of cleanliness should be easier than a massive over haul. Why can't I remember that?
• My son Caleb gives the best hugs.
• My daughter Naomi can radiate bad attitude from 20 feet away.
• A week when the weather is so hot you keep the fans on high all night long is an excellent week for having a broken dryer. At least I won't be using the electricity on the dryer. I will have to spend that money on the bills the fans bring in.
• I recently finished the 3rd Hunger Games book. I really enjoy that series. It is so well thought out. I love the concept and how they each fight back in their own way. I also enjoy that although I may think I know how it will end, and maybe I'm right, she still throws in some serious curves. Whoa, wasn't expecting that.
• Phebe can sing the "clean up" song. OK, so there aren't distinguishable words in there, but the melody and intent is definitely recognizable.
• Pizza is positively one of my most favorite breakfasts.
• Tomorrow is my son's last day of school. Yes, I am celebrating!
• Today, I received a phone call saying not to allow my son to talk to school using a certain route that was only a few blocks from the school.  It was blocked off due to a show down with a SWAT team and a veteran suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It was kind of a bizarre morning. 

Summer deep thought #2

In the summer I can run the dishwasher or the washing machine without worrying about it effecting my shower. During the winter running them to close to bathing time is terrible.

In the summer however, hot water is less desirable. Thus I can run my appliances and happily take a cool refreshing shower at the same time.

I enjoy that.

Teaching the Bedlamites

In my opinion this was one of the most humorous, uplifting and educational talks. I really enjoyed it. Sometimes I was laughing, sometimes the spirit touched my heart. Please take time for this talk. You can read the text here.

I know there were some questions about what general conference is. He speaks quite a bit about the actual event of general conference. He answered a lot of my questions concerning it.

Clearly anyone who thinks Jesus taught no-fault theology did not read the fine print in the contract! No, in matters of discipleship the Church is not a fast-food outlet; we can’t always have it “our way.” Some day every
knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ and that salvation can only come His way. 


^{This one made me laugh out loud.}
We know that most in our audience are not guilty of such things, but we are under a solemn charge to issue warning calls to those who are—wherever they may be in the world. So if you are trying to do the best you can—if, for example, you keep trying to hold family home evening in spite of the bedlam that sometimes reigns in a houseful of little bedlamites—then give yourself high marks and, when we come to that subject, listen for another which addresses a topic where you may be lacking.