Author Archives: S.D. Sorensen

Any basketball fans out there?

Posted in Uncategorized by

I’ve always loved March because I’m a basketball fan, and college basketball is the best of all.

The first time I ever did a March Madness (NCAA tournament) challenge was with my older cousin Todd and all his roommates and buddies.  I was 19 and they were all returned missionaries.  They each put some money in the pot and the winner took all.  Boy, were they embarrassed when they all got beat by a GIRL.

I remember sneaking out of my Latin American History class in March to run home and watch some of the Final Four games.  I even left all my books and papers and backpack at my desk to make it “look” like I was just running to the bathroom or something, but I really went off campus all the way over to a friend’s apartment to watch the game and then went back later to recover my items.

I love to challenge friends to make bracket picks, and I’m competitive about it.  It’s fun. I love it.  Especially if I win.  And even though I don’t watch any of the regular season games anymore (Children seriously altered my TV watching habits), I still love to make tournament picks and watch the March Madness tournament games as much as I can.

So, anybody want to play along?  The NCAA brackets were all just announced and the first round of games starts on Thursday.  I created a group at CBS Sports.com called Cyber Moms.  Go in and make your picks.  Trust me, it’s fun, even if you have no idea who the teams are.  I’ll come up with some awesome prize for the winner.  (Let’s be honest, it will probably be chocolate and some of my favorite books, but I’ll try to spice it up a little.)

Go to this link, create your own user name and make your bracket picks.  You’ll automatically be a part of the CyberMoms group.  The password is momsrule.  C’mon, it’ll be a blast!!  I’ll try really hard not to trash talk anyone.  Please?

(Matt, you’re invited, too, of course!  And my brother, and anyone else who wants to play along even if you’re not a mommy blogger.)

Budgets and other things that make me want to throw bricks

Posted in Diapers by

Goals are good things because they help you measure success.  They also help you measure failure.

I logged onto my bank account this weekend and I saw that I had earned $4.12 interest in my savings account.

For the entire year of 2009.

*banging head on computer desk*

We have maintained a very strict budget for several years.  In fact, it’s so tight, it’s almost impossible to comply with, but the striving for it keeps us much closer to our goals.  If I could only list the many areas in which I feel we have measured great restraint (would you like to see my wardrobe? or our dinner menus the last week of the month?), and yet . . .

Sigh.

The good news is, we’ve managed to steer clear of consumer debt (and pay off any minor lapses in judgment before falling prey to interest and fees) and always pay our bills.

The bad news is . . . well, we’re not rich.  And I’m ticked.

I just wrote that because that’s how I feel sometimes, and writing it out makes me realize how stupid it is.  My version of “rich” is this:  to have money piled up in savings so whenever I really want to buy something (or travel somewhere— that’s usually the big one for me), there are funds just sitting there waiting to be used.  And I’m not kidding when I say that there are about eleventy-billion times that I have wished I could anonymously help someone out or bless someone’s life with money.  I would love to be some secret benefactress and go about stealthily doing good while still living the most normal lifestyle and never being suspected.  Is that weird?

Anyway, money stuff makes me crazy.  Not because things are horrible (Good heavens, we’re blessed!),  but because it seems so HARD to get to that place where you feel “ahead.” And the fact that Matt’s law school student loan payments start kicking in this month pretty much seals the fate on $4.12 interest for a few more years to come.

So maybe I should change my focus to the fact that we are lucky to have all we do have and we are able to pay our bills.  Maybe I should realize that sticking to our budget has prevented us from a lot of pain and worst-case scenarios rather than squelching all my dreams.  Maybe I just need to take a deep breath and eat a Toblerone.  🙂

This is a dumb post.  It doesn’t even really have a point or ask any specific questions.  But I already spent too much time typing it, so it stays.  And I’m not a bitter or unhappy person, I promise.  I just kind of unleash a little monster inside of myself when I start thinking about budgets.

The end.

p.s.  Your response to my post for book requests ROCKED.  Man, what are all you educated people doing reading my blog when you have so many books on hand?!  I am so excited to add them to my request list at the library and get reading.  I shall probably finish your recommendations in the Spring of 2017.

General Conference Book Club Week 23: Elder Clayton and Elder Renlund

Posted in General Conference Book Club by

THREE weeks left until General Conference!!  Only two more GCBC weeks to go, and then we’ll start all over again.  Woo hoo!

(Is anybody up for that?)

We have five talks left to read, so we’ll look at two of them this week so that we can finish up on time.

Both of these talks address trials:  the first focuses on the why of burdens and suffering, and the second discusses how to endure well.

Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy spoke at the Saturday morning session of conference.  His message was “That Your Burdens May Be Light.”

“Burdens provide opportunities to practice virtues that contribute to eventual perfection.”

“No matter the burdens we face in life as a consequence of natural conditions, the misconduct of others, or our own mistakes and shortcomings, we are all children of a loving Heavenly Father, who sent us to earth as part of His eternal plan for our growth and progress. Our unique individual experiences can help us prepare to return to Him.”

Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Seventy spoke during the Sunday afternoon session of conference, and he taught how preserving our faith and maintaining our obedience is the best way to endure our challenges well.  He also cautions us against complacency.  His talk was “Preserving the Heart’s Mighty Change.“

“Enduring to the end can be challenging because the tendency of the natural man is to reject the spiritually changed heart and allow it to harden.”

“To endure to the end, we need to be eager to please God and worship Him with fervor.”

So, enjoy these talks.  Just share some of your thoughts and insights as you read and study them.  I always love to hear what stands out to you and how it is meaningful in the circumstances of your lives.

You can go here to find the links to watch, or listen to these talks.  And here you will find more information about the GCBC if you’re curious how it works.

Let’s talk about books, baby. Let’s talk about you and me…

Posted in Uncategorized by

The title of this post is inspired by a popular song in the 90s that my roommates and I might have been blasting loudly through our open windows once when our home teachers arrived.  Ahem.  Where’s that stupid life eraser when you need it?

Anyway,

Books.

Only in the past year have I begun to read books again.  I have a college minor in English Teaching, people, and for the last 7 years, I have stumbled through an almost completely bookless fog of raising little children.  If you are currently in that fog and long to read something besides Maisy goes to the Hospital or the nutritional information on a box of Fruit Loops, you are normal.  And I promise you that the time when you and your brain become reacquainted is not as far, far away as it seems.

So my brain and I have begun a new quest for literature.  Toward the end of 2009, I read The Guernsey Potato Peel Pie and Literary Society.  Lots of people had mentioned it on their blogs, so I got curious enough to try it out, and I really liked it.  I also read Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons because I eventually want to read The DaVinci Code and I had heard that A&D was the prequel.  (By the way, I saw the movie after I read the book and there were some MAJOR plot deviations that bugged me.)  Despite that fact that I’ve seen all the Jane Austen movies several times, I had not read any of the books, except for one back in 2003 when I went on a cruise.  So last month, I read all three favorites:  Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion.  Loved them, of course.  Somewhere in there, I also read The Journal of Curious Letters, book one in a trilogy called The 13th Reality by James Dashner.  I have to admit that young adult sci-fi is not usually my genre of choice, but I figured that since the author took me to Homecoming in high school, I ought to give it a try.  It was pretty darn good, and I think any of your kids that liked Harry Potter would like James’ series.

Let’s see, what else?  (Be right back, I’m going to check Goodreads.com.)  Oh that’s right.  I started Wuthering Heights but didn’t really like it so I didn’t finish.  Is that bad?  I loved, loved, loved Jane Eyre.  It was the first one I read on my return to literature.  I couldn’t believe I’d never read it before.  Matt recently read The Undaunted by Gerald Lund and thinks I’ll like it.  I just finished Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl and right now I’m reading the “authorized” biography of Mother Teresa.

Here’s my current “Books I want to read list.”  There are so many that I feel like I should have read AGES ago but I never have yet:

John Adams (Paperback) by David McCullough John Adams (Paperback)
The Hiding Place (Mass Market Paperback) by Corrie Ten Boom The Hiding Place (Mass Market Paperback)
With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln (Paperback) by Stephen B. Oates With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln (Paperback)
Man's Search for Meaning (Mass Market Paperback) by Viktor E. Frankl Man’s Search for Meaning (Mass Market Paperback)
Les Misérables (Penguin Classics) by Victor Hugo Les Misérables (Penguin Classics)

So, help me out, O wise readers, and build my request list at the library.  Please.  (I almost forgot my manners.)

1.  What books have you always wanted to read and never have?

2.  Out of all your reading, if you could give me one or two must-reads, what would they be?

3.  I’m not in the mood for dark, depressing stuff.  (This is also why I never finished Crime and Punishment.)  I can appreciate it sometimes, but lately I’m in the mood for inspirational literature.  What’s been one of your favorite inspiring books?

And if you read any LDS literature, do me a favor and fill out this quick survey for my author friend, Rebecca Irvine.  It’s only 8 questions and helps her with some market research.

Thanks!  I can’t wait to see your recommendations.

p.s.  I am kind of a book prude, so show a tiny bit of restraint in your suggestions.  If the book cover looks anything like this, consider me uninterested.  (Sorry, Kristina and DeNae. *wink*)

‘Twas the night before motherhood

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

Today I dug through a trunk full of memories looking for a few specific things I’d promised to lend out.  You can’t look through a memory box without taking a journey far and deep.  I saw an autograph book from the 7th grade, photos of my grandparents in their twilight years, quotes saved from college Sunday school lessons, and a recipe box I made in Young Women.  Wrinkled in the corner, I found a folded piece of paper that had my handwriting on the outside:  A poem for Matt.  love, Stephanie

I figured it might be some cheesy love poem which I have no memory of ever writing.  I used to write quite a bit of poetry growing up.  After I served my mission and fell in love with the Spanish language, I wrote a lot of Spanish poetry.  I was pretty darn good at it, too, for a gringa— I even had several of them published in literary journals.  But I’ve written very little poetry since then, in any language.  So I was curious what had inspired me to write Matt a poem.  I opened the wrinkled paper.  It was dated Jan 7, 2003:  Four years since we met and just a few days before the birth of our first child.

Future’s Eve

Here we sit in the twilight of all our yesterdays,
still warm from the brightest rays, and full of memories.
The evening dews of destiny begin to fall,
beautiful and mysterious.
The tomorrows will be different days;
I am curious, but not afraid.
Thank you for harboring me in your friendship
and bearing me in your love.
In a magical way, that love defines our past
and will now somehow redefine our future.
We will be more than two, and yet, more at one.
The morning sun begins to break slowly through the unguessed dawn,
and the beams, like Spirit, fall gently upon us.
We go enhanced to the next day.

When Matt left for work this morning, I was having a moment of self-pity because Grant had almost missed the bus and Natalie was mid-meltdown.  “This will be my day,” I sighed as I looked at the small, weeping preschooler flopping and thrashing on the stairs.  He made some comment about how my life was so horrible and tortured, but he didn’t mean it and that’s not what I meant either, so I got annoyed.  I don’t think it’s an accident that I read this line today about how I had once anticipated parenthood to be:  “We will be more than two, and yet, more at one.”  Oh, how we need each other, but how easy it is to be selfish!

Children can draw a couple together in deeper ways than they ever thought possible.  I remember the days that Grant spent in the Pediatric ICU after unexplained seizures, and how Matt and I clung to each other and needed each others’ support so much.  And yet, when we are not careful, we can let their whims come between us, like a morning where a temper tantrum makes me pathetically dread the day rather than share a a goodbye hug with my husband and remind him how much I love him and still need him.

Every morning in parenthood is an “unguessed dawn;” We never know what it will bring, but we need each other and we definitely need the Lord.  When we let our selfish wish-lists go, and turn to the Lord to help us fill our unmet needs rather than demanding that someone else read our minds, heal our wounds, and solve our problems, I think the Spirit can work wonders.  And then, both individually and as partners, “We go enhanced to the next day.”