Tag Archives: friendship

Lovely ladies

Posted in About Blogs, Diapers by

dscf1750Lately I’ve been feeling grateful for wonderful women in my life. Sometimes we let ourselves drown a little bit in the dreary details of motherhood, but a conversation with another mother I admire can lift my spirits, refocus my purpose, and remind me that I am not alone in what sometimes seems difficult.

When I was 16 years old, I was the only girl from my church group that was not invited to a particular formal date dance. When the next day at church, I was the only one who showed up in a regular dress, and the rest of the girls were all wearing their formal gowns from the night before (for the record, I’m not fond of that “trend”), I felt like an idiot. And in typical teenage fashion, I felt dramatically sorry for myself. I went home and moped for most of the afternoon, until the doorbell rang. There on my doorstep was Julia, the president of my young women’s class. Julia was a senior at my high school, and she had recently undergone a bone marrow transplant in an attempt to escape the cancer that had come and gone more than once. She was bald, but had a lovely smile, face, and grace about her. Anyway, she showed up at my house that afternoon with a small flower pot and a card. It said “Bloom where you are planted.” Apparently, she sensed my hurt feelings at church and went out of her way to reach out to me and encourage me. The irony was not lost on me. My problems were small and insignificant in comparison to hers, yet she was noble enough to acknowledge them and encourage me.

This trend has repeated itself many times in my life, especially recently. In the last month alone I can pinpoint conversations I’ve had with women who have significant struggles that make mine look ridiculous at best. But like Julia, they have served me. They have showed me kindness and made me feel their love and God’s love through them. One has a handicapped daughter and struggles daily with decisions related to her care and balancing her needs with those of her other children. Another recently overcame cancer while caring for her three small children. One has five, yes FIVE, children with special needs and amazes me frequently with her spiritual insight and willingness to listen to me. Another, pregnant with her fourth child, was just diagnosed with cancer. These women are AMAZING. They think they are ordinary, but they are great examples to me, and I thank God I know them.

President Ezra Taft Benson said, and I whole-heartedly agree:

The fellowship of true friends who can hear you out, share your joys, help carry your burdens, and correctly counsel you is priceless. For one who has been in the prison of depression, the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith have special meaning: “How sweet the voice of a friend is; one token of friendship from any source whatever awakens and calls into action every sympathetic feeling.” . . . What a boon to be in the company of those who edify us!

I’m also constantly amazed by those of you who drop by this blog and whom I read about as I surf the blog world.  You are good women with good hearts doing good things.  We should all tell each other that more often.  We need to say it, and we need to hear it.

A few shout-outs, just because I feel like it:

Jana at The Meanest Mom always makes me laugh.  Her post today cracked me up.  I love her integrity in parenting; sticking to her guns despite the pushes and pulls of children and critics.  (She’s also hosting a great giveaway, but you don’t need to pay much attention to that.  I believe 47,000 people have already signed up for it, so your chances are probably better with Powerball or the NFL draft.)

Heather at the Extraordinary Ordinary wrote a great post this week about the lessons that motherhood forces us to learn.  It made me think so much that I had to email her instead of leaving a comment because I was so verbose I would have been a comment pirate and taken over her post.  I love her authenticity and substance.  Incidentally, I spent some time with her in person recently and she’s just as lovely in real life.

And all of you that have commented on the General Conference Book Club posts have impressed me so much.  Thank you for being as cool and insightful as you are.  Really.  I’ve spent the last two nights falling asleep while reading Elder Christofferson’s talk, but I’m going to jump in tomorrow with my own feedback.  Hope to hear from many more of you, too.

And I have to mention this lovely lady:  dscf2015

She’s one spunky, delightful little girl who keeps me smiling.  Her daddy’s out of town this week and it’s endearing to see how much she misses him.  Today, she bumped her nose and said, “When daddy gets home, I will show him my nose and he’ll kiss it better.”  When I  grow up, I bet she’ll be my favorite woman on the planet.

How stay-at-home moms go clubbing

Posted in Uncategorized by

clubbingI don’t care how dedicated you are to motherhood, every woman needs some friend time.  Adult conversation and empathetic encouragement do wonders for a tired (and snot-covered) soul.  Maybe I only speak for myself here, but “clubbing” in its traditional sense is the last thing I need.  I get enough noise, annoying pick-up lines (“Mom, I dropped my spoon again.  Will you pick it up?”), and spilled drinks at my own house.  I prefer good, uplifting conversation, and really connecting with other women.  Blogging has been a great tool for this.  Anyway, I dedicate this post to two clubs that may help you meet some of those needs as well:  Make-ahead Meal Club, and the new General Conference Book Club.

I recently started a Make-ahead Meal Club as an enrichment group for the ladies at church.  I’ve loved it, and just wanted to pass along the details (plus some of you said you were interested) so that you can maybe duplicate this among some of your friends/acquaintences/neighbors.  Here’s a copy of the original invitation to show how mine works:meals

I will be starting a monthly Make-Ahead-Meal Exchange where several of us can prepare one meal in bulk, come together and exchange them, and go home with several meals we can just pull out of the freezer on a busy day.

Objective: learn new recipes, get together briefly with girlfriends from church (invite friends and neighbors to participate, too), save time cooking and have dinner on hand for crazy days.

Scheduling:

First Thursday of each month
7:30 p.m – 8:30 p.m.
at my house

Details:

1.  Pick a meal that can be frozen and saved for later.  It should be an entree/casserole/hot dish/main course.  The club will not exchange side dishes or desserts.  The recipe should feed 6-8 people.  (If you have a smaller family, then leftovers will last longer!)  Make FIVE of it (plus any extras you want to keep for yourself).

2.  Put meals in disposable, freezer-safe containers:  freezer-bags, gladware, or aluminum-foil baking dishes and label it clearly.

3.  Make 5 copies of the recipe, complete with preparation instructions.

4.  Bring the five dishes ready to exchange on M-A-M Exchange night.  We will choose a random order and then take turns selecting meals to take home.  Each person will leave with five meals.  (Be sure to make something that you know your family will eat and enjoy *just in case* it’s not all selected by others you end up taking a couple back home among your five.)

5.  Bring a big cooler or box you can use to happily carry off your dinner haul. 🙂

6.  Eat a light refreshment and visit briefly with friends.

And no one has to RSVP.  The more that show up the merrier, but if there are only two of you, then you still split up the meals you made and they made and save them in the freezer for another day.  Also, if someone doesn’t have time or budget, they could always make fewer meals and then take home as many as they brought.  It’s pretty slick.  We’ve done it for two months now.  The first month, 5 showed up.  This month there were 6, and I keep hearing from others that they’re interested in trying it out.  I’ve really enjoyed it a lot.  It’s a totally guilt-free girls’ night out that benefits your family too.

Next club up:  General Conference Book Club (GCBC, because every club needs a cool acronym).  The idea here is that we (an online community of moms and friends) commit to studying one talk a week from the most recent General Conference (see this post if you feel confused).  By the way, I really do TRY to control my use of parentheses, but I just can’t help myself.  (See?!)  I realize that the Ensign won’t be published for several weeks, but I felt anxious to start anyway while we (I) feel the momentum and desire.  So our first few talks can be found and printed online.  Sue Q suggested making a new blog for it, but to be honest, I don’t feel that ambitious, so I’ll make this a regular Sunday installment on my blog here.  Look, I even made a cute little image that we can use like a button (if I can ever figure out how to do that).

genconfbutton1

So watch this Sunday for round one.  There will be a talk #1 announcement and then you have all week to study and ponder the talk.  The following Sunday, I will post my own insights about the talk and you can do the same in the comments section.  This is one of those occasions where it’s completely acceptable to have many long-winded comments.  And I’m not bent on the main post always being mine.  Feel free to volunteer to guest -post the talk review and the rest of us will chat in the comments.  Each Sunday I will also announce the talk we’ll be studying the following week.  I’m open for suggestions if there are talks you want to read and study right away.  I think the comment thread will be really cool.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed before, but my comments are set up so that you can reply to another person’s comment and it will squeeze yours right under theirs as a response.  It’s kind of fun and conversational.  Anyway, I hope you’re in, and we’ll start this coming Sunday.  I’m excited.

Alright, ladies, let’s get clubbing.  🙂

The detours of motherhood, or why I’m like prophets and my children are like Lamanites

Posted in Divinity by

detour20signsI’m currently at my parents’ home in Atlanta for Spring Break.  Unlike the great white North where I live, Spring actually lives here, so it’s been a nice change of scenery.  Outdoor weather has allowed my children to play hard and sleep hard.  My nights have been mostly quiet and peaceful.  The night before last I fell asleep face-down diagonally across my bed, on top of the covers with my scriptures open.  Before I dozed off to sleep, however, I managed to have an epiphany while studying Alma chapter 17 in the Book of Mormon.

I don’t know if this is a common struggle with other mothers or not, but I have some dear friends– friends I consider “kindred spirits” in the Anne of Green Gables’ sense– with whom I have not had decent contact for years.  I still love them as much as I ever did, and I do think of them often and wonder how they are.  Occasionally, we drop each other a quick “hello” on Facebook, and we exchange Christmas cards religiously, but despite our mutual admiration, we’ve kind of fallen out of each others’ lives.  Sometimes I mourn that a little bit.  I miss my Sunday afternoon drives up in the mountains with best girlfriends where we listened to sappy love songs and poured out our fears, struggles, dramas, and memories together.  And we laughed.  A lot.  I don’t live even within a few states of most of them anymore, but the life I have chosen is no longer my very own.  I share it with a husband and three little children.  I love them all and wouldn’t give them up for anything, but they’re pretty darn time consuming.  My friends are living similarly busy lives, and I truly understand it.  It still makes me a little sad, but as I read my scriptures Tuesday night, I saw it all a little differently.

There was a group of tight friends:  Alma the younger and the four sons of Mosiah.  These verses explains the missions they were called to:

11 And the Lord said unto them also: Go forth among the Lamanites, thy brethren, and establish my word; yet ye shall be patient in long-suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls.

It struck me that this is very much like my calling to be a mother.  The words patience, long-suffering, and the command to be a good example stood out to me.  And the work of saving souls is literally in our hands and homes.

  12 And it came to pass that the hearts of the sons of Mosiah, and also those who were with them, took courage to go forth unto the Lamanites to declare unto them the word of God.
  13 And it came to pass when they had arrived in the borders of the land of the Lamanites, that they separated themselves and departed one from another, trusting in the Lord that they should meet again at the close of their harvest; for they supposed that great was the work which they had undertaken.
It really does take courage– doesn’t it?– to give up portions of your life as you know it because you hope to teach your children and make a difference in your own family.  And that is truly what happens among friends who begin/accept the motherhood journey; we “depart” in a sense, with faith and hope that we’ll meet again.  And we couldn’t do that if we didn’t believe that “great was the work” we have chosen.  (My commentary is in brackets and italics below.)
  14 And assuredly it was great, for they had undertaken to preach the word of God to a wild and a hardened and a ferocious people [have you seen a toddler or preschooler’s temper tantrum??]; a people who delighted in murdering the Nephites, and robbing and plundering them [okay, there’s not much murder going on in my house, but my fridge has definitely been plundered many times]; and their hearts were set upon riches, or upon gold and silver, and precious stones [or Webkins, the candy aisle at the grocery store, and Chuck E. Cheese tokens]; yet they sought to obtain these things by murdering and plundering [whining and manipulating], that they might not labor for them with their own hands [“No! Mommy do it!”].
And why again do we throw ourselves into that kind of mess and responsibility?
 …  16 Therefore, this was the cause for which the sons of Mosiah [a group of dear friends] had undertaken the work, that perhaps they might bring them unto repentance; that perhaps they might bring them to know of the plan of redemption.
 17 Therefore they separated themselves one from another, and went forth among them, every man [woman, sister, friend] alone, according to the word and power of God which was given unto him [her].
And for the first time, I saw myself and my unseen-but-not-lost friends as teammates on a holy mission.  We are working together more than we know, and I am strengthened by their efforts in far away lands with their own little Lamanites.  I feel unity with them, and frankly, with all of you readers, too, as I consider how we are truly serving a mission together to instruct an entire generation about God’s plan of happiness and their role in it.  It’s amazing actually.  It makes me realize that I’ve been closer than I realized to my fellow-mothers all along.
The first verses in this chapter (before the flashback in the verses I’ve quoted) show the joyful reunion of this group of friends and how they are even happier to know that each of them has remained faithful to their mission and worked hard and even suffered much in their efforts to save souls.  I think this is why we pick up right where we left off with beloved friends we have not seen for a while, because we have a cause and a deep commitment in common.  It makes me pretty darn excited for heaven or those retirement years (whichever comes first!) when we will have the time again for Sunday drives with good friends, laughing about our days among the Lamanites.
 
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Don’t be shy… try your hand at the limerick contest.  Come on, it’ll be fun.
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