I mowed the lawn today. It was awesome. (more…)

When I lived in Germany, I tried to keep a little flowering plant alive. It didn’t do so well. It did so badly, in fact, that a friend threaten to take it from me, saying he felt sorry for any living thing that came under my care. He branded me as having a black thumb.

And it wasn’t hard to believe him. I figured I came by it honestly. After all, my parents never gardened, never even had live plants in the house. I even watched my own mother kill an inside tree she inherited from her aunt. This tree that had thrived in my aunt’s home for at least 15 years. My mother killed it in 11 months. It seemed natural that I would be destined to kill things, too. (more…)

I am TRYING not to be old and let technology outpace me.  (I still hate twitter though #voyeurism #haverealconversationswhydontyou).  My latest attempt is at on-line calendaring, and using my phone as my appointment book.  I’ve been kind of using both paper and electronic versions, and it’s resulting in a lot of time spent going “did I write that down?” “Did I put it on my phone”  “Are you sure?”  So this weekend I boldly tossed my Franklin in the trash and embraced the technology.  I must keep up.  MUST. KEEP. UP.  (not with the Jones’s.  That would be sinning.  Keep up with the TIMES.  Totally different.)  (more…)

“There is a stage in a child’s life at which it cannot separate the religious from the merely festal character of Christmas or Easter. I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began ‘Chocolate eggs and Jesus risen.’ This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.” ~C. S. Lewis

I’d like to tell you that Easter at our house was a sugar free event. That we spent the morning before church talking, reading, and rejoicing in Christ. Maybe even took some time to sing some hymns, or at least have me playing them softly on the piano while my children quietly participated in Sabbath appropriate activities. That I filled plastic eggs with pictures of Christ, or scriptures, or something else that reminded them that today is the glorious of all days, the celebration of the miracle of resurrection, the promise of eternal life.

I’d like to tell you that. But I can’t. (more…)

Come tell me what battles you are willing to pick with your kids, over at Segullah.

Or, what I would have said if I could write like Tina Fey: A mother’s prayer for its child. .

And I know we’ve been slow around here at MMW, but it’s spring and there is yard work to be done and playgrounds to frequent and gardens to be planted. I do have a post brewing about public affairs in the church–that is my calling and I just got back from a hard core PA meeting with our area authority–but it is a long, invested thought processing kind of a thing, and frankly, I haven’t had two minutes to thought process it out. So when I have thought it all out in a way that is neither boring nor incoherent, I’ll dump it on you. Until then, enjoy Tina Fey.

I have permission from my physical therapist to run. 1 mile. I’m going to try tomorrow. The sad thing is, I bet it will be tough. I’m about 3 weeks into PT, which means I’m about a month without outside exercise. And when I say without exercise, I mean NO exercise. I got felled with a nasty cold, which turned into that nasty sinus infection. I’m not one for pain meds, but me oh my, I haven’t been in that much pain in a long time. The antibiotic I got kicked it pretty well (and thanks again for all y’all’s advice), but not before I spent the better part of 2 weeks in bed. Not ideal.

But on the plus side, not moving for 2 weeks has done wonders for my hamstring. Lying in bed tends to be pretty easy on the joints.

My physical therapist is very nice, and I like her. It’s interesting being on the other side of the evaluation. I hope to learn from it to be a better therapist myself. I often think back on my early career as an SLP, and wish I had done things differently. Youth and inexperience can be energizing, but I sure made a lot of mistakes. If and when I go back to work, I’ll be better prepared to handle the things they just can’t teach you about in grad school.

On a random side note, my son and I taught Maggie, our big fat lab, to catch a frisbee this weekend. She IS an old dog, and yes, it’s a new trick. Especially tricky for her, considering she weighs over 100 pounds. My son and I haven’t laughed so hard together for a long time. Maggie caught about 4 tosses until her big snout broke the frisbee in half. She has more distraught about it than we were, and pawed at it, like a cat trying to revive a mouse.

She’s sweet, but stupid. But surprisingly agile for a creature who resembles a warthog.

I spent much of last night battling a migraine.  It would win some battles, I’d lose a few others.  This morning, it is mostly gone, but I have that “post headache” sluggishness going on.  It’s a weird feeling.

To those of you who deal with chronic pain, hats off to you.  Seriously.

This morning, my 9 year old son cried out in terror, screaming, “MOM!” I stumbled to the door of his room, where he rushed into me, wrapping his arms around my waist, saying, “I had a nightmare!” He told me all about it, how he dreamed about a murderer who used to be good at cubscouts when he was a kid, so he pretended to be a cubscout leader so he could kill little kids. It sounded so freaky, I was ready to crawl into bed with MY mom. (more…)

I have none. No food we always eat, no place we always go, nothing. I grew up watching conference in the comfort of my own living room, or occasionally at the Tabernacle (which was always fun, but those benches can give even the most faithful a serious case of numb cheeks). So I can’t really remember anything special we did for conference.

I would love to change that for my family. My kids hate conference. They look at it like some extended version of torture by boredom, or, at the very least, being ignored by mom and dad. We tried to take them to one session at the actual church, and oh my, it was a disaster, and why torture everybody? So now we stay home (or at a friend’s, if somebody with a big screen and cable feels generous and invites us—otherwise we watch it snuggled in bed with a laptop). But I’d love to give something to my kids they can look forward to, even if it has nothing to do with the actual spiritual feast of hearing the apostles speak.

So I want to know–what are YOUR favorite conference traditions? And spring cleaning the house while you listen doesn’t count.