WHAT YOU FEED GROWS…

This concept is so beautiful to me. I know it is expressed many times in many ways in the restored gospel, but I like the Buddhist words. If you exchange “DOUBT” for “ANGER” or “SUFFERING” and “TESTIMONY” or “FAITH” for “COMPASSION” or “HAPPINESS,” you can read the story of what I have experienced the past few years:

“In Buddhist psychology, we speak of consciousness in terms of seeds. We have a seed of anger in us. We have a seed of compassion in us. The practice is to help the seed of compassion to grow and the seed of anger to shrink. When you express your anger you think that you are getting anger out of your system, but that's not true. When you express your anger, either verbally or with physical violence, you are feeding the seed of anger, and it becomes stronger in you. It's a dangerous practice….

“Happiness and enlightenment are living things and they can grow. It is possible to feed them every day. If you don't feed your enlightenment, your enlightenment will die. If you don't feed your happiness, your happiness will die. If you don't feed your love, your love will die. If you continue to feed your anger, your hatred, your fear, they will grow….

“Small enlightenments have to succeed each other. And they have to be fed all the time, in order for a great enlightenment to be possible. So a moment of living in mindfulness is already a moment of enlightenment. If you train yourself to live in such a way, happiness and enlightenment will continue to grow.

 “If you know how to maintain enlightenment and happiness, then your sorrow, your fear, your suffering don't have a lot of chance to manifest. If they don't manifest for a long time, then they become weaker and weaker. Then, when someone touches the seed of sorrow or fear or anger in you and those things manifest, you will know to bring back your mindful breathing and your mindful smiling. And then you can embrace your suffering.”- Thich Nhat Hanh

I have taken long stretches of feeding my doubt; I have followed up with feeding my faith. There is a beautiful contrast. I am happy and more peaceful and enlightened when I feed my faith; I feel restless and discontent when I feed my doubt. Some people like that feeling, so I say to each his own—search on, brother. Some people feed their doubt until faith is totally dead and doubt becomes a sure negative—atheism (which requires an arrogance and a worship of five senses I could never muster; agnostics, though, I can dig. There is a humility in saying “I don’t know” and I love that, but I digress...). As for me— I like the peace that comes to me from acting in faith. This is not to say that I have or ever will go back to my “all is well in Zion,” five-fingered testimony because the truth is I don’t have that anymore. But I traded it in for something else and I am better.

[aside: Did you know I think in songs? Well, I do. Here’s a little song that I sing to myself constantly like a mantra or self-soother; I love it…

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom;
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me.

 I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now,
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years.

So long thy pow’r hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone.
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile

- John Henry Newman]

I don’t know much, but I know to my bones that Christ’s atonement is infinite and eternal, and it is so much bigger than His church or this world or my little mind. Every soul matters to Him; every soul has a journey to experience that will lead back to Him eventually. I know He is that Good Shepherd, that He hikes through the rains and the wind and the dark to save The One, and that He loves that one as much as He loves little me who likes hanging out with the fold, and His atonement will reach into the crevices and speak to our broken hearts in ways that we believe impossible. I know He wasn’t kidding when He said we will come to Him with broken hearts and contrite spirits because that’s what life is. Nobody gets out without breaking. And then He puts us back together—over and over again if need be.

[And this is one of my faves about Jesus:

There is hope for every soul that’s lost

There is a way back home

No matter where you roam

Let His love heal you

And lead you there

There’s a place for every heart in pain

A place where there’s no hurt

And there’s no shame

Let His love reach you

And teach you

Every hour

--M. McLean, from The Prodigal Son video]

So if you’re tired of the negative, stop feeding it. Just try. We are children of The Divine and our thoughts and intentions carry energy and power (faith being the most potent, IMHO). I did the experiment and it worked…what we feed really does grow.

 

Ringing in 2013...

Wow. It's 2013...this blog turns ten in May. It has been a ride. I feel so sad to have slacked to much in my blogging this fall and winter, but I don't feel guilty. I know I am putting my time and attention where is should be, but truth be told, I do miss it a little. I still have the heart and soul and mind of a blogger. I miss sharing and conversing about our doings and the things life is teaching me. I'll be back in the swing soon enough, but now is just a very busy, unsettled season of life, not conducive to screen time for Mama.

So the things I want to blog are: Our move, Christmas Trip to Arizona, our New Year with Texas Melins, our grief as a ward family, our plans for the future, a touching podcast,  the small victories and cutenesses of our children. To name a few.

Our move in a nutshell is this: We are packing up 2300sf and 8 years of stuff and cramming it into a storage unit and 900sf of rental for a few months until our 3200sf of brand new coziness is built (which takes 3 months according to our beloved builder, but we're planning on 4-5 just so we don't get our hopes up). I would rather live like a hobo in a tiny duplex than pay somebody else's mortgage. I may regret my stubbornness...ask me again in March! Our house sold on December 3rd and we were supposed to close January 11th. Our buyers are moving from Minnesota and our closing is contingent on THEIR closing in MN, which had a legal glitch. That glitch delayed our closing--thank the merciful heavens--til January 25th. I think I blogged before about the complete lack of 5bed/3 bath homes in the market here, so we have to build our own. Which means we have to rent a place in the meantime. So we spent a month looking at rentals and I promise you would be shocked at the shanties people want to rent to us for $800-$1000. Not gonna do it. So we decided to find the smallest place that would take us for the least rent. We told the kids we were all going to make a sacrifice and pretend like we are camping or staying in a hotel for 4-6 months, and then our sacrifice would result in a bigger, better home in the end. They were thrilled! Just kidding. They cried for days, but now everyone is on board. I'm not sure I can do it, but we're all in. Let's just say we won't be entertaining for a while.

I will make a post of photos of our Arizona Trip. It was too fast, we missed seeing many loved ones, but were grateful for the happy reunions that did take place. We were a little distracted by our broke-and-homelessness, but we made the best of it. It was very much a lilies-of-the-filed trip for us, with money and food coming to us like manna from heaven the whole way. Thank you dear friends and family who fed and housed and loved us...it was a beautiful time, and every little kindness reminded me of Jesus, which makes for a pretty poignant Christmas.

I will make another post of our New Year's Eve at the ranch house and our New Year's Day Snow Fun at Pine Creek with the Texas Melins. It was wonderful to see Rich's brother, Mark, and his family again after 18 months apart. Mark as been in Afghanistan for the past year and his wife Elena has done a great job at home with their 4 children. We were happy to see them all together again and have some peaceful and low-key cousin time. The Texas Melins will soon be New Jersey Melins and will live near our beloved Caspers at Fort Dix, which to me is a sign that I should drive my brood out for an East Coast adventure and see them all (as soon as Niles is more travel-friendly).

We came home from our trip to sad news--two untimely deaths in our ward family. To me, it was if Heavenly Father was saying, "You wanna cry about a little upheaval? You think moving to a new house is a problem? I'll show you a problem...". I lost myself and my anxieties in the heartache of our dear friends and their crushing losses. After the funerals on the 31st and the 4th, packing and letting go of my anxieties seemed much less daunting.

As I mentioned, the rental situation here is hellacious, but we were blessed to find a builder who is a true craftsman, who inspires our faith and confidence in this big investment of time and our family nest egg. I consider it a small mercy to have that sense of trust a safety--peace is hard for me to come by in times like this, in big decisions like this. We looked at some houses he has built and happened upon a floor plan that would work for us. We asked him about customizing it and working within certain time and budget constraints, and after 4-5 hours of discussing, I think we have a good plan for our family.

I have so much more to share--I'll post the photos of the holidays soon, as well as some of the kids' doings, and some soul-satisfying, testimony-strengthening words from a beautiful podcast I enjoyed last week. Life is a challenge right now, but God is working it all out, throwing little tender-mercy-crumbs along the path, like "Lead, Kindly Light": :I loved to choose and see my path but now...lead thou me on...one step enough for me." At least that's what I tell myself everyday. One foot in front of the other...through the shadows into the marvelous light...

Oh, December.

Well, I have set a new record for blogging lameness. I don't know if I have ever gone more than a month without blogging since I started this blog, comin' up on 10 years ago! Go, me! But when I tell you why, you will empathize.

 So November--sick baby, trip to Utah for Thanksgiving, sick mommy...nary a photo of any of this, but trust me, it was a great Thanksgiving. Before we left I was released from the Primary Presidency and called to be the Ward Music Chair and the Ward Historian, which is kind of awesome, although leaving Primary makes me cry (I've found a way to linger longer by pinch-hitting as chorister while they find a new one, mwahaha).

Anyway, our trip-- Adeline turned 11 our first day in Utah. Nana and Aunt Jill gave a her a fun party. Our family dinner was sweet, and so was the post-TG cousin gathering the next day. But then we came home and I was tired and I got out all the Christmas stuff and we put up the tree for FHE on the 26th. Then Friday night November 30th our whole family went on the Christmas stroll and had soup and s'mores at The Pickle Barrel. It was super fun. The next day we did family pictures and went to Hailey Strupp's baptism and got an offer on our house. On Monday the 3rd we made a counter offer at noon and it was accepted that evening AND THEN MY HEAD EXPLODED. We got the kids to bed and stayed up late looking at real estate on the iPad and had our realtor call to make a verbal offer on a house we have liked for a while--the only house on the market nicer and bigger than ours. She called just as the owners signed the cancellation agreements with their agent and took the house off the market. After almost 2 years. WHAT? I know, you can't make this stuff up. So then we frantically looked at a bunch of houses, raised our budget a tiny bit (cuz hubs is a rock star and his credit score is near perfect and he scored us a rock-bottom interest rate) and got pre-approval and realized that we have to build a new house (here's where I start bleeding out my eyes...ARRRRRRGH!). So yeah...packing at Christmas time.

Oh, and did I mention that Niles has been freakishly ill since the end of September and we finally went to an ENT, got a referral,  and he had ear tubes put in and his adenoids removed so he can breath and hear now? Well, that happened yesterday and he is already so much better. Babies + General Anesthesia= almost too much for me. But he ruled that recovery.
Oh, and did I mention I am the new music chair? And it's Christmas, the most musical time of the year? Yeah, so there's that, plus a ward slideshow where I sorted through 600+ pix, created an awesome soundtrack, and then wrestled Windows8 into submission (Oh, and did I mention our computer died and we got evil Windows 8 and I have had to relearn everything I ever knew? Yep. I told Rich, "The spirit of Tom Hapgood is in this room laughing at us right now for not buying Mac!").

And we all lived happily ever after. (Well, after we drove 1400 miles each way to Christmas in Arizona and packed up our house and lived in a rental for 4-5 months)

So here are some photos:

This one is for Gramma Lyn...look at your snuggly boy!

Niles helped me fluff the tree on Nov. 26th.

We visited Santa on the Christmas Stroll November 30th, but Niles was having none of it.

Only with Daddy.

Addie & Heidi getting soup at Pickle Barrel

My Sunshines.

My big and my little lovies, post-s'mores.

Santa Daddy and James
 

Me & my girl
***
 

December 13th we celebrated St. Lucy's Day and the kids slept at Grandma's house that night so we could get up at 5am and take Niles to the Hospital in Bozeman for his surgery. We had a fun Lucia night with Grandpa & Grandma Melin.

Addie-Lucy serving peparkakor to James our star boy.

Lucia & Her attendant singing Feliz Navidad.
[We are nothing if not multi-cultural around here: Mormons celebrating a Swedish/catholic/Lutheran holiday with Mexican Carols!]

Niles is in awe
 

Star Boy, Lucy, &" Moon Girl"
...here's wishing you plenty of bright, warm days as 2013 unfolds...may your days be merry & bright like the light St. Lucy brought.

Early November Photos

If you're my facebook friend you know that my desktop computer died last week and I lost my bearings for a minute there. To add insult to injury, our new computer uses Windows 8 and it's hard to learn my way around. ACK! I'm too old for this, my brain is not as elastic as it used to be. Anyhoooo, here we are and I am thankful to be back in the blogging saddle. Here are some photos:

All our jack-o-lanterns, grown in the ranch garden by Grandma & Grandpa. Addie's Owl, Niles' silly face, Mommy's leaves, Daddy's PacMan, James' dinosaur, and Heidi's Spooky face.

Our Thankful Tree, put up on November 3 and thankful leaves added at family night on November 5.

The whole tree features these pretty ornaments from Mama B., Ellen Buchert. She paints the botanicals, then mounts them on handmade paper with a twine loop and they are beautiful. Looking at the tree with her paintings on it reminds me of "For the Beauty of the Earth"...good thought for a month of gratitude. The prickly pear is my favorite, and the pomegranate, as both grew in our yard in Arizona.

Thankful Tree is living in a real milk bucket this year, with a family photo hanging prominently.

Another shot of Ellen's pretty ornaments.

We had a blizzard just in time for a long weekend...the girls built a little igloo.

Snuggling in their snowdrift la-z-boys

cold Adeline

Wild Heidi

Cute sisters

Having a good laugh.
***

I've got more to write, lots of thoughts, a surprising pit in my stomach since midnight the sixth, and some gratitude mixed in there, too. I'll be back, now that I've learned how to turn this new-fangled computer on, heh, heh.

Learning from Alma in the Tub

I have been under the weather, taking things a bit slower than usual, which has given me time to read a lot. I’ve read so much good stuff this week, I want to share some of my favorite quotes and insights.

Later I will share about the Rich Young Man and some anti-behaviorism stuff I read from Alfie Kohn, but TODAY I read “The Book of Alma: Lessons for Today” in the October Ensign and I just found it so timely (I am sure that was the intent of the editors, I’m no dummy), given that Election Day is two weeks away, and considering the tumult in the world.

The author, Elder Peiper, introduces his ideas by pointing out that there must be something relevant to us in this book since Mormon did not edit it out. There are twenty chapters dedicated to telling us how the Nephites defended their system of government (judges vs. kings) and their liberty. He distills three main lessons for us to maintain our own liberties: (1) Maintain proper desires and motives, (2) Be kind and generous to the less fortunate (my fave), and (3) Listen to and follow inspired leaders. Here are my favorite parts, quotes I think we should ponder and take to heart:

I) “Their desire was to preserve their agency—the right to act in righteousness and to answer for their own conduct—rather than have a king prescribe their conduct. Their motive was to preserve equality under the law, specifically their liberty to worship God and maintain their church.”

“There are and always will be in societies forces seeking to manipulate public opinion to obtain power for personal gain. There is a temptation to adopt their motives and turn the conflict into a power struggle. The Lord’s way is to always act based only on pure desires and motives…” –If we want God’s support, we do things His way.

II) I am particularly fond of this next story because I'm kind of an Ammon fan, and I love that the people he taught were so committed to being like Jesus that they buried their weapons of war and vowed to never fight again. And did the Nephites mock them and call them dirty hippies? NO! They defended them and supported them... 

"When their former enemies, the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, were threatened with destruction, the Nephites voted to give them a place to live and build new lives and provided them with protection. Because the Anti-Nephi-Lehies had taken an oath never to take up their weapons of war again, they provided instead 'a large portion of their substance to support the Nephite armies during these critical times. Nevertheless, there is no record that the Nephites treated these immigrants with anything other than respect and love, even though they must have been an easy political target for those who wanted to stir up dissension.

"The kind treatment the Nephites gave to the people of Ammon, as they came to be called, was reciprocated and eventually contributed to the formation of one of the most inspiring military brigades in recorded history—the 2,000 stripling warriors. Ironically, the service of these young men may have been the key to preserving Nephite society from an early destruction.

"In times of internal dissension, external attack, and economic challenges, there is a tendency to become negative toward those who are 'not like us.' It becomes easy to become critical of them and make judgments. One might question their loyalty to and value in society and their impact on our economic well-being. These negative responses are inconsistent with the Savior’s charge to love our neighbors as ourselves, and they create polarization, contention, and isolation."

III) Then Elder Peiper talks about how Moroni helped the people prepare temporally by building fortresses and armor, and Helaman prepared them by strengthening their faith and righteousness so the Holy Spirit could guide them through the conflicts. "By listening to the temporal and spiritual direction of inspired leaders, the Nephites were preserved."

“We are blessed to live in a day when the Lord has called living prophets, seers, and revelators to warn us and guide us to prepare for today’s challenges. In 1998, President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) gave inspired instruction and warning to Church members: ‘The time has come to get our houses in order. So many of our people are living on the very edge of their incomes. In fact, some are living on borrowings. …The economy is a fragile thing. … There is a portent of stormy weather ahead to which we had better give heed.’"

Did you read that? Our prophet warned us CLEARLY that a financial crisis was building a full ten years before it crashed. It is wise to gain our own testimony of our prophet and inspired leaders today so we can follow and be prepared like the Nephites.A favorite quote of mine from D&C38:30  is "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear." I add my witness to that...we have no need to fear when our hearts and minds are aligned with the Savior's. I am grateful for this article. It reminded me that there is something to liken to ourselves in every story in the Book of Mormon. I am so happy to have this book "for our day, when people hunger; for our time when good men wander--a book is designed to give help divine for our day."

Chilly Thursday

For Activity Days last night (church group for girls 8-11) the girls took apples and pumpkin dip for their healthy snack. We had the leftovers for dessert tonight a discovered a recipe for mini-pumpkin pies. Here it is--you try, you like!

The ingredients are simple: Ritz crackers, Pumpkin Dip, Nutmeg, and Whipped Cream. Here's how you make pumpkin dip: Beat 2 cups of pumpkin puree with 8oz of VERY soft cream cheese; stir in 1-3/4 cup of Powdered sugar +2ts pie spice. We also love it on apples, pears, carrots, and Stacy's Gingerbread chips (like the pita chips).

So you spread some pumpkin dip on a Ritz cracker, top with whipped cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg. If you like pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, you also might like these with a schmear of nutella first, then pumpkin, cream, and nutmeg. Tiny, tasty pumpkin pies!



Addie's friend Sarah came over to play & have dinner with us one last time before she moves to Idaho. They had a ton of fun playing make over with our new hair crimper, and then they had fun making and eating mini-pies!



Here are the girls in action (oh, Heidi...!)



Addie & Sarah



Here are Sarah & Addie up at Pine creek...I think this was 2007.

Addie, Sarah, and Heidi

Heidi with freshly-crimped hair

Oh, it warmed my heart to see my boys wrestling today! The thing that really got me through my pregnancy with Niles was knowing James would have a brother, and it's so great to see them do brother stuff!

RRRRWAAAAAWRRR!

Glimpses of Conference Weekend

LDS General Conference Weekend has become quite the holiday around our house. This conference was especially pleasant and mellow for me because I was so prepared for it. I had the food and activities all ready, I cleared my schedule, and best of all I took the facebook Conference Challenge and read a conference talk from April 2012 every day of September and wrote about them in a  journal. I was ready to listen, but also relaxed knowing I would have six months to study what I heard this weekend. Good stuff!

Conference began with a BANG Saturday morning when President Monson announced a new temple in my hometown/heartland, TUCSON; and THEN he announced that mission ages had been lowered to 18 for men and 19 for women. You shoulda heard the hallelujah's pouring from our house! As I said on facebook, "19 year old sisters is just God's way of saying 'go on, girls--GIITER DONE!" We loved all the talks & music, the press conference and the World Report and just spending the weekend together in our "chill pants" being edified. Rock on.

Heidi's notes from first session

Potato Soup on the stove for Saturday night dinner. I had some friends & their kids over during priesthood session--FUN!

Elder Uchtdorf's talk= Conference Bingo Blackout for Addie Rose! Prize: jerky/

Daddy with his boys during second session.

Are You KIDDING Me?

 Yesterday when the kids came home from school it was 81 degreesF and super windy. Seriously.

We woke up this morning to 29 degreesF

(I slept with my window open, btw) and THIS:

Big kids and Dad leaving for school

Niles did NOT want to come in, but he also didn't want to wear mittens.

Well...Happy Fall, Y'all!

Happy Belated Birthday to the Hausfrau

I've posted before (but I can't find the link) about how miraculously our wants and needs are fulfilled sometimes (often). So here I go again...

It is my morning routine to get the kids dressed and start a load of wash (their dressers are in the laundry room). So yesterday I started a load, saw the kids off, then went back down stairs and heard a horrific grinding noise. I followed it to the laundry room where I found the washer growling--trying to run a spin cycle, but the tub was not spinning. FRICK!

[We knew this day was coming--the washer and dryer are 16 years old and I do 10-14 loads of wash a week, so, you know, do the math. But I digress...]

So I called Richard and told him the dreaded day had come. He sighed and said he would start looking for replacements. He checked the refurbished store here, he checked craigslist, and started pricing out our options. When he went back to craigslist, there was a new post from a nice neighborhood in Bozeman advertising a set--2002 washer & dryer in great condition-- for $250!! Two -hundred fifty bucks, y'all! So Rich emailed the guy and we waited with fingers crossed all day--Rich even showed faith by picking up our trailer on his lunch hour so he could haul them. Sure enough, the man called back and we had a fun family night picking up our new washer and dryer. We've done 4 loads already and they work like a charm--so quiet, so pretty. This seems like a lucky coincidence, but we know it's a blessing and we are so grateful!

Also, may I just give an enormous shout out to my amazing hubs? In less than 10 hours I went from having the old washer break to running a new load in my new washer (in a very clean laundry room, no less). Do you see the wonder in that statement? Not that there's anything wrong with taking longer, going to the laundromat, etc...but the beautiful thing is I almost never have to do things like that because my husband is a freaking GENIUS. He is a doer, and I love that about him (it pairs so nicely with my lack of patience, lol). K, end of brag. Love ya, Richard!