I haven’t been writing in here for the past few days. I’m not sure exactly why. I keep mentally composing entries, but none of them feel finished. All these partially composed entries sit in my brain cluttering up my thinking space and making it hard for me to concentrate on any of them. I’ve decided to solve this problem by throwing them all into one entry in a sort of mental clearing out.
Shall We Dance? is a movie I saw several weeks back. I’ve been meaning to write about how much I enjoyed it. There are lots of movies about “coming together” and lots of movies about “falling apart” but not very many about “staying together while growing as individuals.” I liked it alot.
Friday night I played hooky. I put the kids into bed (well, half of them) then left them in Howard’s care while I jumped into the car and drove to see X-men 3. I enjoyed the movie, but it felt too big. I think the reason it did was because none of the characters with the most screen time really had a character arc. The result was a movie full of static characters, big explosions, and too many subplots. I don’t connect with a movie unless there is a character who grows and changes. I wish they’d spent more time on the characters who did have arcs. When the movie was over I realized that it was midnight on a dark, stormy night and I needed to walk solo to my car. Provo is pretty safe and I’d deliberately parked in a well lit area, so I wasn’t scared, not really. But I still made sure that I paced a crowd of people leaving the theater and I was very aware of my surroundings as I walked to the van. The perils of being a small female were very apparent to me during that walk. Were I to be attacked my only real safety would be in summoning help.
I had to process a big batch of lost-in-the-mail and damaged books this weekend. I don’t like to have to do those because it means that something somewhere went wrong. Unfortunately odds are good that at least some of the errors were on our end. I did lots of manual manipulation of address lists and that creates lots of places for human error to creep in. Hopefully this will be the last batch and everyone who ordered a book will have recieved their schlocky goodness.
Now that the rush of pre-orders is over and regular ordering has settled down, I finally took the time to do a detailed financial analysis. We have enough money in hand to get us into October. By that time we need to be ready to take pre-orders on book 2. It makes me nervous not to have more pad than that. I’d like us to have money to take us through December so that if there are production delays we don’t have to panic or borrow money to live. So I’ll be redoubling my efforts to help our family live lean. I’m also going to start doing ebay auctions again. Auctions won’t make up all the difference, but every little bit helps.
Church today wasn’t very pleasant. Howard and I have been lax in appropriate behavior enforcement lately and the result is cranky and frustrating. The most frustrating part is that I want my kids to be able to love church the way that I love it. I know that sometimes the meetings are long and boring, but we all put up with those because equally as often the meetings are uplifting and inspiring. Being at church is a thing that we are supposed to be doing and I believe strongly that we are blessed as a family for going as a family. Mostly the kids don’t mind going, but today several of them wanted to be doing other things. I need to figure out ways to share my love of church with the kids so that they can build their own love of church and of the gospel and their own faith. It is possible that one or more of my kids will not love church the way that I do, that they’ll stop going once they’re old enough to be free of my dictates. That would hurt alot because I would fear that they were missing a great strength in their lives. If that ever does happen I don’t want it to be because I failed to try to share the wonder and joy that I feel because of my faith and church attendance.
Speaking of being lax, I don’t think I mentioned that I got my book. It’s awesome! I’m very happy with it. I’m pushing it on my friends. You both did a wonderful job!
Speaking of being lax, I don’t think I mentioned that I got my book. It’s awesome! I’m very happy with it. I’m pushing it on my friends. You both did a wonderful job!
When I was a teenager I stayed home from church, on purpose. I felt SO BAD afterwards that I’ve gone to church ever since…
Also, I loved the message from the movie Singles Ward. Do the things you know are right NOT because you are supposed to, but, because you choose to. I feel like we are teaching our kids to want to make the right choice because they choose to, want to. I think that is why my brother went inactive, he went on a mission and got married in the temple because he was SUPPOSED TO not because he really wanted to.
But, then, when he stopped going to church and actually started doing what he WANTED to (false freedom)his life started turning into a sad sad white trash soap opera with a divorce and all sorts of unneeded drama. (I don’t think that was my mom’s fault, she did everything she could.)
I hope he’s learned something, he seems to be going to church now with his wife and two daughters. I hope that his life becomes more peaceful with the return to church and I hope he can see that. 🙂
I love it when my kids are excited to go to church and come home singing Primary songs. Hopefully that’s a nice start to a life of liking church. I like it when church is nice and fulfilling for me too. 🙂
When I was a teenager I stayed home from church, on purpose. I felt SO BAD afterwards that I’ve gone to church ever since…
Also, I loved the message from the movie Singles Ward. Do the things you know are right NOT because you are supposed to, but, because you choose to. I feel like we are teaching our kids to want to make the right choice because they choose to, want to. I think that is why my brother went inactive, he went on a mission and got married in the temple because he was SUPPOSED TO not because he really wanted to.
But, then, when he stopped going to church and actually started doing what he WANTED to (false freedom)his life started turning into a sad sad white trash soap opera with a divorce and all sorts of unneeded drama. (I don’t think that was my mom’s fault, she did everything she could.)
I hope he’s learned something, he seems to be going to church now with his wife and two daughters. I hope that his life becomes more peaceful with the return to church and I hope he can see that. 🙂
I love it when my kids are excited to go to church and come home singing Primary songs. Hopefully that’s a nice start to a life of liking church. I like it when church is nice and fulfilling for me too. 🙂
I’ve been stealthily reading your journal ever since you started it, due to Howard’s journal because I’m a big schlock fan (and am totally kicking myself for not ordering a book “because we were moving and I didn’t want it lost in the mail” since we STILL aren’t in our house. Order to be forthcoming. As soon as I’m in my stinking house.)
I’ve been reading your journal more lately because I’m expecting our first child, and I really see very admirable parenting skills in you. And not only that, you self-reflect on what’s working, and find new ideas when the kids hit a rut. Even though I’ve never met you, and I’m only outing myself as a lurker on your journal now, I really look up to you.
I honestly think if you teach your children the fundementals, and lead by example, even if they turn away, they will always know what it true, and that means that they will find thier way back. And you are averaging an incredibly good job.
But that’s just my opinion – as an outsider, looking in.
I’ve been stealthily reading your journal ever since you started it, due to Howard’s journal because I’m a big schlock fan (and am totally kicking myself for not ordering a book “because we were moving and I didn’t want it lost in the mail” since we STILL aren’t in our house. Order to be forthcoming. As soon as I’m in my stinking house.)
I’ve been reading your journal more lately because I’m expecting our first child, and I really see very admirable parenting skills in you. And not only that, you self-reflect on what’s working, and find new ideas when the kids hit a rut. Even though I’ve never met you, and I’m only outing myself as a lurker on your journal now, I really look up to you.
I honestly think if you teach your children the fundementals, and lead by example, even if they turn away, they will always know what it true, and that means that they will find thier way back. And you are averaging an incredibly good job.
But that’s just my opinion – as an outsider, looking in.
Thank you for writing this. It matters to me that people find what I write useful/interesting/inspiring. Thanks also for the kind words about my parenting. Any time I sit down and consider the responsibilities and implications of parenting I want to crawl into a hole and hide. But since I’ve already had children all I can do is dive into the middle and muddle through the best I can. And it warms my heart that my accounts of in-the-trenches parenting actually help others.
Congrats on expecting your first. Parenting is more wonderful and terrifying than anything else you could ever do.
Thank you for writing this. It matters to me that people find what I write useful/interesting/inspiring. Thanks also for the kind words about my parenting. Any time I sit down and consider the responsibilities and implications of parenting I want to crawl into a hole and hide. But since I’ve already had children all I can do is dive into the middle and muddle through the best I can. And it warms my heart that my accounts of in-the-trenches parenting actually help others.
Congrats on expecting your first. Parenting is more wonderful and terrifying than anything else you could ever do.