This week we get to meet Amy, whom I also had the privilege of meeting in person at our girls’ night out in the Spring.  I was impressed with her happy demeanor and genuine friendliness.  I’m excited you get to meet her too.  Here’s Amy:

Hi! My name is Amy Hughes and I am a 35-year-old, married ten years last week to the most amazing man. I couldn’t have chosen a better husband than Brandon. I am the mother of two little boys that I couldn’t imagine living my life without. Kaalam (KAY-lem) is four and a half years old and he is the sweetest, kindest, most polite little whirlwind you’ve ever met. He never stops! But he’s nice, so it could be a lot worse and that makes up for a lot. Xander (Alexander) turned two last week and is the polar opposite of his big brother. He’s quiet, with a devilish sense of humor that I know is going to be dangerous in a few years and he hardly ever speaks a word. He can. He just doesn’t want to. While Kaalam is outside learning stunts on his bike, Xander is happily curled on the couch reading a book. But the two of them somehow fit together in the most beautiful way. I love to watch them be together. I am so grateful to get to be a mom! For a very long time it looked like I’d never get that chance.

I started life as a BYU baby, but I was raised in Canada. I was the second oldest of 6 children and the first of five of us in five years (no multiples). I had one sister and four brothers and because we were all so close in age, we basically grew up in a pack. Being surrounded by so many brothers meant that I was a tom-boy then and I’m still learning about how to have girly friends now. It’s a skill that I’m trying hard to develop. I lived in Lethbridge Alberta until I graduated high school, moved away to Provo for a couple of years and I haven’t really been back since. I served a mission in Las Vegas Nevada where I learned that dry or humid, 126 degrees is just too hot for any reasonable human being to withstand. I have companions that have moved back to Vegas and I have to admit that I really don’t get it. I loved the work, I loved the people, but I was not made for that kind of heat. Give me a winter I can bundle up against any day! And I say that having experienced -70 degrees. Not that -70 is comfortable either, but if I had to choose. Educationally, I’ve had a long and random history. I worked as a veterinary technician for a couple of years before my mission. After my mission I studied Herbal Medicine for a year, ran out of money and got married. My husband then convinced me that if I couldn’t be learning how to use the plants, I could at least learn how to grow them so I got a degree in Landscape Design that upon graduating I decided I didn’t want to have to use. It was a heat thing. I don’t like doing landscaping work outside in the heat 12 hours a day. After a break from school to renovate a house, we were still childless and I wasn’t sure what else to do with myself so I went back to school again. This time for an English degree. Though I think I may have taken more psychology and history classes than English. I was halfway through this last degree when we were finally able to adopt our first son. I’ve been at home ever since. In the last 16 years I’ve lived in 2 provinces and 5 states and though we’ve recently landed in Utah, we don’t think it’s where we’ll stay. Which makes both of us sad. We never thought we’d choose Utah, but it’s felt like home faster than any other place we’ve been in the last few years. I hope we get to stay for a while.

1.     What’s your favorite part of motherhood?

My favorite part of being a mother has to be that I get to be one.

2.     What part of motherhood would you subcontract out if you could?

I really thought I was going to answer this question with housecleaning, or laundry or something but this Sunday I realized that I was wrong. If I could subcontract out just one thing, I think it would be Sacrament meeting. You know that scene in Shrek2 when they’re in the carriage on their way to Far Far Away and they can’t get Donkey to keep his mouth shut for more than 10 seconds at a time? I realized with some degree of horror this week that Donkey is my son. I’m raising Donkey. My two-year old will walk into Sacrament, sit himself down on the bench with his arms folded and listen quietly through the whole hour. But I have a feeling he’s only doing to make his brother look bad. My four-year old is physically incapable of sitting still or shutting up for more than 10 seconds at a time and if I could pay somebody to deal with him through that hour I would jump at the chance. Unfortunately it’s the Sabbath and we aren’t supposed to cause others to work so I’m stuck with him. Someone shared a quote this week about gauging your spirituality by what you think about during the sacrament. I’m sure it was a prophetically inspired quote, but I’m thinking there’s got to be some degree of leeway for mom’s with little kids. If there isn’t then I hope I don’t die until they’re grown.

3.     Name 2 or 3 items on your “bucket list.”  (Some things you’d like to do before you die.)

I would love to be a published author. I went to a writing camp with Orson Scott Card a couple of years ago and I impressed him. I made him like a story in a genre than he has despised his entire life. Then he tore my work into little pieces anyway because that’s what we were there for. But it gave me the confidence to know that I really can write. If only I had the time in which to write.

I want to own chickens. I want to live on a little hobby farm somewhere and have chickens and a goat and maybe an alpaca or two for yarn. It would have to have a little orchard full of fruit trees too. I’ve wanted that life all my life and now my husband has bought into it too. Maybe if I ever publish that book. J

4.     Brag for a minute.  Do it.  What are a few things that you’re pretty good at?

I’m good at most things I try. And I hate to say that because I know it sounds really awful, but really there are few things that I’ve wanted to try that I haven’t been able to master. My biggest problem is that I’ll try something, get really good at it, then get bored and go look for something else to do. So I’ve done nearly everything at some point of another. Right now I’m designing knitted hats to open up an Etsy shop in the fall. We spent the week at my in-laws house and apparently I’m a nervous knitter because I came home with 7 finished hats in a single week.

 5.     Do you have a favorite scripture or quote?  Why?

“If all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men” (Alma 48:17). First off, my little teenage heart fluttered over the Captain Moroni in the seminary video the first time I saw it. But it also reminds me Continue reading →