The Elegant Universe

I've never been good in a group.

I'm good one on one, or even one on two. Oddly enough, I have no problem being in front of a large group either. What intimidates the heck out of me is a group of about 4-10. Especially 4-10 other women.

I think I'll chalk it up to a slight attention deficit disorder.

It's the same reason that I don't like to play Phase 10. By the time it's my turn, I've totally lost interest.

In my defense, I do have some pretty interesting stuff kicking around in my head lately. Ever since Layne gave me a Kindle, I've been reading like mad. On my sister's recommendation, I started reading some James Rollins books-- kind of like Dan Brown, but he combines a lot of science in with history and action.

These books triggered a desire to learn more about physics, and, thanks to my magic Kindle (and Layne's Amazon account), Ta-Da! suddenly I'm learning all about quantum theory, relativity and superstring theory.

It reminds me of reading in Portuguese.

Instead of reading 2-3 pages a minute like usual, I am now trying to understand The Elegant Universe by Briane Greene. Luckily, Kindle has a dictionary built in, so when I don't understand a word (such as quixotic, gluon, or tau-neutrino), I just highlight it and presto! Definition at my fingertips.

FYI-- quixotic is a very cool word which means "exceedingly idealistic, unrealistic and impractical." I.e. My plan to lose 25 pounds in 3 months is a quixotic dream.)

Back to the group thing. I found myself sitting around recently with a bunch of 7 or 8 friends. Sometimes there were 2 or 3 conversations going at the same time, and sometimes everyone was talking about the same thing. It was all hard for me to follow.

And then all of the gluons and neutrinos and muons and such started dancing around in my brain and I swear I had an out of body experience. In watching the complex ebbs and flows of the group dynamic, I think I came up with my own Unified Theory of Everything. Well, not of everything. Just of women.

Everyone wanted to be heard. Everyone wanted to be understood. This force, like the strong force that keeps particles united into molecules, kept everyone tied together. Just like with particles, there were also certain emotional forces, not unlike electromagnetism, which repel us from each other and try to push us apart. However, the over-arching, Holy Grail is string theory-- which essentially says that everything is made up of strings-- and the resonant pattern of the string's vibrations determine what it is-- be it part of a bar of gold, part of a brain cell, or part of a supernova star.

In other words, at the core, we are all made of the same stuff-- just vibrating in different frequencies. To simplify even further, we are more alike than we are different.

I don't know why that mattered to me-- but when I re-entered reality and applied the idea to the conversations I heard going on around me-- you know the ones all groups of women will eventually revert to such as child birth, mothers-in-law, and shoe shopping-- I realized that we are all the same.

Our experiences may be different, but at the core, what we really need (if not want) is to feel peace, love and acceptance. Our methods of seeking that nirvana are all different, but somehow sitting around talking about everything and nothing at once validates us all.

To my friends, I hope that me sitting in the corner didn't come off arrogant or like I was mad. I apologize for retreating into my own crazy head-- Little did you know that the conversation you were having was providing me with my own little glimpse of the Elegant Universe.

Of women, that is.

The One Good Thing In January

January sucks.


There's just nothing for it. The news reported the other day that psychiatrists have declared that this week is officially the most depressing week of the year. Your Christmas bills are all here (and you're regretting them.) Your New Year's Resolutions have resolved as failures. And, it seems like winter will never end.


I believe it.


So, in an effort to thwart the blahs, I made-over my blog. (BTW, I lost my blog list, so if you fell off my list, it's because I couldn't remember your URL-- send it and I'll get it fixed.)


The one good thing that has ever happened to me in January turns 6 years old tomorrow.


Six years ago tonight, I was the mother of two, with a wiggly thing in my belly. I was being induced the next day, so we dropped the kids off at my mother's and came home to get one last good night's sleep.


Yeah, right.


By the time all of the finishing touches were complete, it was well after midnight before we went to bed. I slept for an hour or two, then woke up and realized I could hear something that wasn't quite right. That something turned out to be a drip. From our waterbed. Onto the carpet. (No, my water DIDN'T break-- the BED did.)


Goodbye good night's sleep.


The rest of the night was full of frozen hoses, holes burned in carpet (trying to defrost said hoses), wet carpet, and a sad hour or so spent trying to sleep in Mike's toddler bed. Morning came way too soon.


They started me at 7:00 and Doug was born a little after 1 p.m. I was exhausted-- as much from the bad night as from the labor-- but all of that disappeared when they put my darling little son into my arms.


Doug has been such a blessing for me. He was an easy, contented baby. His big eyes and wonderful smile always warm my heart. He has been my little buddy since his brother and sister went to school-- I don't know what I'll do when he starts first grade!


More than all of that, Doug is a wonderful juxtaposition of complimentary qualities. He is a relentless tease-- he uses considerable energy to carry out practical jokes on people. And yet, he can turn around and show a deep side and out of the blue ask, "Was it part of Jesus' plan to hang on the cross, or did it just happen to Him?" He loves to be wild and crazy with the big boys, and yet he has a fan club of little kids who love him because he always includes them in his play. He yells "chicka-chicka-wah-wah" in the microphone after his talk in primary, but he says prayers that reduce me to tears.


Doug is unpredictable, crazy, sweet, tender, smart and kind.


Happy birthday, Little Man. You are definitely my Sunbeam in this frozen hell we call January. Thank you for always melting away my icicles...

Toe Pick!

Last night was free skate night for Barratt Elementary at Classic Skate in Orem. I'm not sure exactly what possessed us, but we packed up the kids and a couple of their friends and went roller skating.

For the first time in probably 20 years.

A little background. My parents were super-cool. We didn't have a ton of money, but they found ways to entertain 5 little girls. (It was either that, or drown in a sea of estrogen.) I remember one day, our mom pulled out 6 pair of brand new roller skates. (Caree was too little.) Knowing my mom, she must have found them for a good deal or something, but either way, we thought they were awesome. Ours were white with red and blue trim and those bearing-wheels that make a cool sound when they spin. There was even a pair for my dad-- black with neon-orange wheels.

I had one of those gold Olympic jackets (think 1984) which I was sure made me skate better. The coolest part was that we cleaned out the entire unfinished basement and made the whole thing into our personal skating rink.

Now we all know that I am the Queen of All Things Ungraceful. I'm afraid that this title applied for roller skating as well. The first night I had my skates on, doing my best Dorothy Hamil in the basement, I started to fall and jabbed my eye on one of those things that stick out of cement basement walls.

Par for my ungraceful course.

I was not deterred, however, and eventually learned to skate-- forward, backward, and around in circles.

Fast forward to last night. Most of the parents sat around watching their kids. Not me-- I rented some stinky, ancient leather roller skates and out I went-- looking to reclaim some of my former grandeur on wheels.

And then I stood up.

And I remembered exactly how it was that I nearly lost my eye the first time I laced up skates. Who invented shoes that could just roll out from under you anyway?




Now, to my credit, I have to say that I didn't actually fall down. Not even once. Amazing feat for me-- I'll chalk it up to all the core strength training I've been doing. (Which is NOT helping me to shed extra pounds-- but that's a gripe for another day.)

I did remember something, though-- roller skating is HARD! It is also pretty good exercise-- as is evidenced by the stiffness I am feeling over pretty much my entire body today.

I tried to teach my daughter and her friend to skate. My teaching consisted of strapping wheels to their feet, gently shoving them onto the floor, then laughing at them as they fell all over themselves like baby giraffes. I know. Mom of the Year for me.


But it back-fired.


We had a blast and we all laughed about our aches and pains on the way home. Em and her friend both complained of sore wrists from falling down. I didn't think much of it.


Until today, when I saw said friend. With a blue cast on her arm.


I broke Em's friend.


Do you send flowers for that?

I'm pretty sure that the last time I tried to teach these same two girls something-- to throw a baseball not-like-a-girl-- this same friend ended up with a goose-egg on her head.

Maybe I'd better keep my teaching to my own kids.

Gotta go now. Anyone know where you can buy a pony and a card that says "Sorry I broke your arm?"

MAJOR Disappointment

I knew that 8 pounds in 2 weeks was too good to be true.

I KNEW that, but I'd been working so hard that I believed it anyway.

Chalk it up to the $39.99 stupid scale from WalMart.

Yesterday morning, I stepped on the scale and found myself UP 5 pounds from the day before. I got in the shower in shock-- trying to figure out what the heck I ate the day before that was the equivalent of the 15,000 calories it would take to gain that much weight. While I'm wallowing in my despair, Layne comes in, gets on the scale and I hear, "What the heck?"

Happened to him to.

The good news is that I had not gained 5 pounds in one day. The bad news is that I had not lost 8 pounds either. More like 3. I don't know what caused the scale to fluctuate like that-- but I do have to give myself a little bit of credit for not just saying to heck with it and consoling myself with a hot fudge sundae.

Damn. I hate January.

Lost in Translation

As always, Doug continues to make me laugh. He picks up on the ironies and nuances of life that should be oblivious to a 5 year old. Well, I guess he will be six next week.

Tonight was Mike's turn to teach the family night lesson. He'd chosen to give a lesson out of the Friend-- one on "Words that Build Up"-- paying compliments to people and not saying bad words.

Family night was held right after dinner-- stir fry which Michael had said was "gross." He earned a pretty severe reprimand for his bad manners. As we started the family night, Doug started to laugh when Mike was talking about using good words. He pointed out quite bluntly that, "Hey Mom, that's funny that Mike is teaching a lesson on using good words 'cause he just got in trouble for using rude ones!

That sent Mike into tears and what could we say? It was pretty ironic. He's also the one who pointed out how funny it was that one of the kids was cheating at the family night game last week-- the lesson was on honesty.

Somehow, we're losing something in the translation between learning gospel principles and living them...

BTW-- update-- down total of 8 as of this morning-- after a weekend and all! 17 more to go!

My Reward

As of this morning, I'm down 7 pounds and, according to my highly scientific $39.99 scale from Wal-Mart, I'm also down 1% of body fat.

I won't lie-- it hasn't been fun. Things are a little grouchy around my house-- I can't decide if it's because Layne has a pretty serious case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, or if he's just hungry. He's down like 13 pounds-- enough that you can already see it on him.

I'm just happy that my Christmas Cookie (and ham and cheeseball and fudge) weight is gone.

I'm making progress on my 25 pound goal. I've decided that my reward for hitting that goal will be this:

or this:
or this:

on my bike handlebars. The pink camo is so ugly it's awesome and the silver or metallic pink would just look freakin' hot on my bike. Which one do you think? This is my bike:

I'm not very good at waiting for things-- this will be a new experience for me...

A New (And Clearer!) View

We've lived in our house for over 11 years. My in-laws built it. Layne grew-up here until he was 19, then his parents moved when he was on his mission. A little while after we got married, the house came up for sale and Layne wanted to take me through it-- just to see what his house looked like when he was young.

I fell in love.

Layne's parents wanted the house back in the family as badly as we did and they helped us to get into it.

The house is perfect for a family and we have loved living here. But, like every older home, it is starting to show some wear and we are having to do a few things to take care of it.

We've wanted to put in new windows since we moved in, but it's never been the right time. However, with a huge tax credit, utility rebates and a generous Christmas gift, today turned into the right time.

Here's the house this morning:


And here's this afternoon:

Isn't that awesome? Thank you to Layne's parents for the awesome Christmas gift. Thank you to my fantastic bro-in-law Jared and my sister Nicole for helping us take down blinds, move stuff (including a horrible dead mouse!) and putting everything back together.

My house feels warmer and quieter and who knew you could actually see out of windows? Poor Layne, though-- one change around here usually begets another. Wonder how much it would cost to get new doors? Redo my bathroom? Carpet in my room? Maybe a new roof?

Closer to Love

I'm sitting here tonight after hearing that the father of one of my best friends in the world died. He's been sick for a while, but it was still sudden.

When the phone rang, I was in the middle of one of the best workouts I've had in a long time. I was blown away with a hundred things running through my head-- where are her kids? What does she need? How can I help? Mostly I just felt sad.

I've been thinking about how quickly your world can crash around you-- how you are usually doing something as mundane as lifting weights when the weight of the world suddenly falls on your shoulders. (Speaking of my friend.)

I think that the first lyrics of Mat Kearny's "Closer to Love" say this all better than I can:

She got the call today
One out of the gray
And when the smoke cleared,
It took her breath away.

She said she didn't believe
That it could happen to me
I guess we're all one phone call from our knees.
We're gonna get there soon.

If every building falls
And all the stars fade
We'll still be singin this song
The one they can't take away
I'm gonna get there soon.
She's gonna be there too
Cryin' in her room
Prayin' Lord come through
We're gonna get there soon.

(Chorus)
Oh it's your light
Oh, it's your way.
Pull me out of the dark
Just to show me the way
Cryin' out now
From so far away...
You pull me closer to love.

As I'm typing the lyrics (somehow there is black magic that prohibits copy and paste for that kind of stuff), I'm realizing how much truth this guy hit without probably meaning to. To function, we all have to pretend that it is a certainty that we and the people we love will be here day after day. It does us no good to become paralyzed by the reality that we have no control and no idea what will happen in the next hours of our lives-- let alone days, weeks or years.

The only thing we can control is our own faith-- a faith that weaves itself around our insecurities and ties us to the Master Plan. We are not spinning out of control. There is purpose. There is reconciliation. There is Love.

Sometimes it takes a good wake up call to "pull us closer" to that Love... and in those moments, we realize that it has surrounded us all the time.

Stay strong, my friend. Reside in His love and let it lighten your heart. You're in my prayers.

And When Does the Weakness Become Strength?

What is it about January that puts us all on diets?

Is it the average 7 pounds each American gains over the holidays? Is it the pressure of a year ending where none of us were as good as we wanted to be and we're determined to do better? The constant weight-watchers, Bow-Flex, and HCG diet commercials I see on t.v. would indicate to me that I am not the only one who gets caught up in all of this crap.

To be perfectly honest, 2009 was not a good year for me in the weight department. For the first time since I lost the 50 pounds a few years ago, I put 12 of it back on in the course of the year.

It makes me sick.

It was so easy to put on and, after a lifetime of this same war, I know how hard it's going to be to take it off.

I've put the whole family back on the wagon. (If mamma ain't eatin' no cookies then ain't no one eatin' no cookies!) I purged out all of the leftover chocolate and other crap. I filled the fridge with veggies, fruit, lowfat yogurt and cottage cheese. I'm trying to remember how to cook stuff that's not fried.

I'm hungry, dammit! And what's more, Layne is dropping pounds like flies and in 4 long days, I've actually GAINED a half a pound. (And no, it is NOT muscle.)

I am resigned that this is my lot in life. It's not so different from the war on terrorism-- as long as there are chocolate chip cookies, Doritos and mint truffles in this world, my battle will continue.

I have waited and prayed for my whole life for this weakness to be turned to strength (think me turning into Jillian Michaels from Biggest Loser), but now I am just praying for strength enough to get through each weak day.

It's about endurance. It's about committment. It's about faith. And ultimately, it's about forgiveness and the realization that this particular weakness was GIVEN to me by a Heavenly Father who needed some way to tie my rebellious soul to Him.

My goal is 25 pounds by my first century ride in May.

Well, after getting on the scale this morning, I guess it's more like 25 and a half.

Oh crap. Here we go again...

2009 Top Eleven

2009 seemed to be a rough year for a lot of people. More than one person has told me that they are glad to see it go. I hope that better times are in store for all of them.

We had a really good year-- so good, that I almost feel guilty about it when I think of all of the trials that many around me have faced. However, I know that gratitude is the beginning of humility (which we all know that I could use a little more of), so here's my list of things I'm grateful for in the last year. (Top ten lists are cheesy. Top eleven lists are cool.)

11. My iPhone. I know that this seems like a really superficial thing, but it has done some really fun things for me. I've become more organized, I always have a camera, my tunes, and the scriptures with me-- not to mention Scrabble for when I'm bored, and a bunch of other games for when Doug is bored. I seriously don't know how I would do the part-time working mom / Relief Society / PTA / crazy life thing without it.

10. My bike and the two thousand or so miles that I put on it this year-- including 3 full century rides. That was the one goal I set last January that I actually accomplished.

9. Our hot tub. I know-- another superficial thing, but that's me. The reason I love that hot tub so much is that when we get in it, there is no t.v. and we can't hear the phone or the doorbell. For however long we are in there, I have my husband's undivided attention. It's cheaper than marriage therapy (in the long run, that is), and it feels pretty dang good on tired muscles too!

8. Our business. Going back to work with Layne has been eye-opening as to how much stress it is for him to support our family. It is very gratifying to work in an industry that can really help people to live better. I work with amazing women and I am grateful for each of them.

7. My calling. I switched from being the Relief Society secretary to being the first counselor this year. Honestly, I don't know which is more demanding. I do know that I work with some wonderful women and that getting to know the amazing sisters in my ward is a huge blessing in my life.

6. Fun trips. At the first of last year, I didn't have any trips at all planned for 2009. In spite of that, I found myself going to Rome, Las Vegas (twice), Bryce Canyon, and New York City. All were very fun and opened my eyes to just how big our world really is.

5. Good books. I have made a lot more time for reading this year-- a past time which I had almost forgotten that I love. Thanks in part to my new Kindle, now I never have to be without a good book to read. That is, unless I forget to charge the darn thing!

4. Family and Friends. I have the best of both and there's nothing else to say, except for thank you!

3. My children. Should they count as their own top three? People tell me often how great my kids are and I always laugh and say something trite like "not always!" or "you should see them at home!". However, they actually ARE almost always good and at home they are sometimes even better than in public. I really do have fantastic kids and I can only take about 10% of the credit for them.

2. The Book of Mormon. At the risk of sounding like a zealot, I can't say enough about how reading the Book of Mormon has helped our family this year. It started with Mike wanting to read it before he gets baptized in March. We all decided to help him and read it together. Every night, we've read 2 or 3 pages with everyone taking turns. We've even read in the car when we've been out doing things late. I can't tell you what a great spirit that has brought into our home. You hear that all of the time, but until you actually try it for yourself, you just don't realize what a difference it really makes.

1. My awesome husband. You know, the tall handsome guy who puts up with all of my crap 24/7 and very rarely calls me on it? He is my greatest asset no matter what kind of year we've had and he just keeps getting better.

Season Summary

It's all over.

I don't know how I feel about that. I usually love the holidays, but I had a pretty big roller coaster ride during this season and, even though there were some great highs, I find myself a little bit relieved to be on this side of the calendar. Between sick kids (including a visit to the emergency room), family "issues", and a general PMS mood on my part, I think that calling me the Grinch this year would not be a stretch. (I'm talking the Grinch BEFORE he met that annoyingly cute Cindy Loo.)

I've avoided posting about the holidays because, well, I wasn't quite sure I wanted to talk about any of it. I still don't, so I am offering a small picture summary of our holiday, then I am MOVING ON.



Below: Sledding at the cabin on Christmas Eve-- one of my favorite traditions. The mountains were cold, but beautiful.

Our family at Zoo Lights-- not to be sacrilegious or anything, but I think this is more fun than Temple Square.

Here's carolling on a blasted cold Christmas Eve. I thought this picture was kind of fun-- everything was in motion except for Emalee.

This is what Christmas morning looks like for 25 people at Layne's family's house.

Here are the kids at my mom's house-- they made puppets of themselves and put on a puppet show for my mom for Christmas.

This is New Year's Day. We went sledding at the cabin again and had a blast.

Here's Em after a "white wash" from Layne.

And in a nutshell, that's it. Lots of fun, busy stuff, too much food, and now it's onto a cold January...