Yellow Wallpaper

Although many of my friends have blogs that seem to have fallen by the wayside a bit, I still have a few that regularly publish stuff. I really enjoy reading their blogs and every time I do I think "I should just write more." I shouldn't worry about waiting for a better title or a more coherent theme. I like writing about my life but I spend too much time trying to craft a fabulous post and not enough time actually practicing the craft of writing. The kids started school last week and we all started a new routine. So far things seem to be going along all right. They have made it to school on time every day and most mornings we have even managed to have scripture study first. I have been making a greater effort to get up early enough to manage the morning routine and I have also been trying to force them to stick with it. It still requires a lot of coaxing and reminding on my part, but I think we're making progress. Right now my main frustration is that when I leave ...

The end of summer is almost here. The kids start school next week; today the school posted the lists so that they can see what class they are in. S-Boogie has a teacher that I have heard good things about, but none of the friends she has spent the last three grades with are in her class. She has taken that bit of news well, thankfully, and at least they get lunch and recess time to hang out. Little Dude has a teacher that I'm not familiar with, but his friend is in his class so I think he'll be all right. I think we mostly had a good summer. It went by fast and I feel like I didn't do as much as I would have liked to. Next summer I should feel more settled in to my job and I'll have some time off, so that will help me be able to get a little more time for fun things. The kids did spend almost a week with my parents at their house, and then took another trip to California with my sister to go camping with my family. I am, as always, anxious for a new season to start....

Next to Love by Ellen Feldman I love historical fiction about World War 2 and its aftermath so this book was a perfect fit for me. I liked that it stretched from the war years into the next decade, because this a period in American history that is not often written about. My only complaint with the book was the fact that it jumps forward quite a bit in time and covers many of the same events from multiple perspectives; this made me feel like there was so much more to the story that I could have read about and I had a hard time just settling and really enjoying the book as much as I would have liked to. The Submission by Amy Waldman It's been a while since I read a book that pulled me in emotionally in the way that this one did. It is not a mystery in any way, but the twists and turns in the plot kept surprising me clear up until the end. I was also unhappy with the ending; that doesn't mean this isn't a great book. It made me angry, and sad, and frustrated, a...

Today in Sunday School we were discussing a few chapters in the Book of Mormon. They describe the missionary visit of Alma and Amulek to the apostate Zoramites, who had separated themselves from the rest of the Church and set up new worship rituals meant to aggrandize themselves above others. As Alma was teaching, he was approached by a group of people who were poor and had been forbidden from worshipping because their clothing and outward appearance did not fit the standards of the ruling class. As we went through the chapters that described what Alma and Amulek taught them, I realized that what Alma was primarily trying to get them to do was to change their self-theory, or the way they viewed themselves and their place in the worship process. The scriptures describe this group as being 'poor in spirit', which can be a good thing when it equates to being humble and teachable. However, they were also 'poor in spirit' because they had a poor idea of their spiritual agenc...

All my friends lately keep raving about the book Quiet , which is about introverts and how they are undervalued in our society. Apparently I have a lot of introverts for friends. I am also never quite sure if I'm an introvert or not. This seems to change each time I take a personality test. I've always wanted to be an introvert but I just can't help myself. I like people and I want them to like me. Right before my senior year of high school my family moved across the country to Maryland. Before we moved, I decided that I was going to try to change my public persona in my new high school. At my old school in California there was a boy in my grade who never talked. I always kind of envied him; I think I wanted to be mysterious, and I didn't want to bug people. Whenever I made comments in class or talked to other people, I was extremely self-conscious about looking silly or about bothering people. Yet, at the same time I craved connection and I liked sharing my thoughts. I...

The Death of a Disco Dancer by David Clark Although I'd read nothing but good reviews of this book, I was reluctant to read it. I think the cover is lame and I didn't find the description of the plot interesting at all. But then I decided to read it and I completely changed my mind. We talked about the book The Wednesday Wars this month in my book club, and it's interesting to compare the two because they have very similar themes. However, this book is much more nostalgic. It's written from the point of view of an adult looking back and trying to make sense of his life at a later time. I think I appreaciated it in a way I couldn't have fifteen years ago because I am an adult who is also realizing that my parents are aging, that I am aging, and that life in junior high somehow managed to mean everything and nothing for my future. Twitterpated by Melanie Jacobson I really loved Jacobson's two books that I read last year and so I was looking foward to this...

I'm afraid I've gotten in the habit of putting off posting until I have something nice and coherent planned out in my head and time to write it down. Guess what? That never happens. Plus I've developed a bad habit of sitting down to the computer, zoning out, and surfing through random pages until my brain oozes out my ears. Oops. So, what have I been doing the last two weeks? Working, for one. Going to work all day seems to make time speed up. The fact that it's summer has made me be more lax about bedtime for the kids, and while that means I get more time with them it also means that they aren't usually in bed and asleep until nine. I'm not sure if I like this or not. I have been putting the toddler to bed and then reading the first book of Harry Potter out loud to the older kids. Little Dude checked it out from the library the other week, but I realized that it would probably be best as a read-aloud for the family. S-Boogie read the entire series recently, b...

Last Thursday night my internet connection went down and I couldn't get it to come back up. I think it had something to do with a power outage earlier in the day. When I got around to calling Comcast on Friday morning, they were able to reset it fairly quickly. I sat down at my computer to catch up on things I had missed the day before and discovered a post called " Club Unicorn " that was being shared all over Facebook. I wasn't really shocked to read the content of the post, but I have been surprised by how many people have shared it and commented on it. I'm now feeling grateful that Facebook didn't exist six years ago when Mr. Fob and I were interviewed in the newspaper and on television . That was the right decision at the time, but I'm glad we turned down bigger offers and that things weren't shared more than they were. We first met Josh and Lolly a little over six years ago. In the fall of 2005, Mr. Fob published an essay he had written in Dia...

When I got home from my mission eleven years ago, everything I owned fit in a few suitcases and boxes. I had some books, clothes, pots and pans, a CD player, and other small things. I didn't own a car, a computer, or any furniture. When Mr. Fob and I got married shortly after that we moved into a one-bedroom apartment. We bought a loveseat at D.I., inherited a bed from family, and rented a kitchen table and chairs from the university. Now I live in a five-bedroom house and I own a car, a large amount of furniture, and even two refrigerators. There's a bedroom for each person in the family and one for guests. It's a bit ridiculous. I mostly enjoy my level of comfort and feel humbly blessed to have so much abundance, but sometimes I feel guilt at the high standard of living I enjoy compared to the rest of the world. Either way, I now have a lot of stuff. In addition to the stuff, I have a much more abundant life than I used to. I have three kids, three-hundred friends on Fa...

Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult This was a great book for a vacation; it was actually better than some of Picoult's other books, but pretty much the same in plotting and style. I really didn't like the main character, but I don't think he was supposed to be likeable. Love You More by Lisa Gardner I bought this book at a drugstore in Oregon while I was on vacation because I needed another book to read. It was the best of the possible options there, and for a paperback mystery it wasn't too bad at all. The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain I've heard Chamberlain called "The Southern Jodi Picoult" and I think this is a good description. Her books are very similar in their plot twists, psychological details, and soap-opera plots based on buried secrets. This was a good, mindless escape book that kept me interested until the end. How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm by Mei-Ling Hopgood This book managed to be both informational and enterta...

Yesterday was Little Dude's birthday and I think he had a great time. As usual, I spent several days preparing for the party. And, as usual, I think it was worth it. It is a lot of work to make food, clean things, and decorate a cake. But, it's the kind of work I like spending my time on because I cherish being able to spend time with people I love, and the way I show them I care about them is by doing things for them. I also spent a lot of time trying to convince Little Dude that he didn't need an Angry Birds cake. Then I got over myself and made him a round cake that looked like a red Angry Bird. For his birthday he got a lot of presents that had either Batman or Angry Birds on them. He was so happy that I realized that it really doesn't matter that much in the end that he likes so many commercial products. We still don't watch a lot of TV and he's not obsessed with any one thing over others. I think I'm just a bit of a snob. This weekend my parents ca...

I've been working at my new job for two weeks and I've been meaning to write about it for at least a week. The truth is, I've had the time, I just haven't taken it. I've been trying to readjust my thinking and speaking to reflect the fact that most of the time when we say "I don't have the time for that", what we're really meaning is "I haven't made it a priority." Apparently wasting at least an hour each evening on reading internet articles is a priority of mine. I think I need to make some adjustments, because other things really should be on the top of my list. People keep asking how my new job is going, and the truth is that at this point it's hard to tell. I always have a hard time getting used to new things and new situations. It's not that I dislike my new job, not at all (and things like this are why I hesitate to write about my employment on the internet). In fact, the people I work with are great and I love my new ...

Rearview Mirror by Stephanie Black I think I might have liked this book more if I had not been reading it in the middle of the Whitney crunch. I was trying to read it too quickly and I should have slowed down a bit. It was well-written and deserving of the Whitney award that it won, but it didn't make me want to read anything else by Black. Gifted by Karey White I kept putting this book down for a while and then coming back to it. The way it was written made it hard to read; it felt like reading someone's personal journal, but in a boring way and not one that brought out any sense of personality. It was a first-person narrative, but rather than reading like a novel unfolding as the protagonist tells us the story, it read like a rather boring chronology or life history. I also think that I am not the target audience for this book, because I felt like I was missing something. I wasn't entirely sure what the point of the book was or what message the author was trying to...

 There aren't any kids in these pictures so I can put them on my blog. I don't think I've put pictures on here for years. This year I decided to go on a trip for my birthday. I got some extra money from my tax return, and I just wanted to go do something different. I went up to Oregon because my sister lives in Portland. I flew up Tuesday night and spent the night at her apartment. The next morning (after a stop at Voodoo Donuts for a maple bacon bar) we drove out to the coast and spent a few days there. It was a lot of fun. Our first stop on Wednesday was Cannon Beach. I love Cannon Beach; the town is small and beautiful and the beach is gorgeous. I had originally thought of staying there, but even off-season it was more expensive than I would have liked. We walked down the beach and enjoyed the scenery. It was fairly cold most of the time I was in Oregon; I knew it probably would be when I scheduled the trip, but I like the beach even when it's cold. After Cannon...

Suddenly, it's the end of the month. It feels like April went by in a flash, yet when  I try to remember the beginning of the month it seems like light years away. Today was my penultimate day of work; they threw a little party for me and gave me a lovely card and parting gift. I wasn't expecting any of that. Tomorrow night I'm flying to Oregon to spend some time with my sister for my birthday. We're going to eat lots of yummy food and stare at the ocean. Should be fun. This morning I hired a babysitter who can start next week; I felt like I didn't really know what I was doing in my little 'interview', but she seems like she'll do a good job. I think May is going to be a good month. One last poem, in Spanish because I don't feel like I've done enough of these: Meciendo by Gabriela Mistral El mar sus millares de olas mece, divino. Oyendo a los mares amantes, mezo a mi niño. El viento errabundo en la noche mece los trigos. Oyendo a los ...

Last night I shut my computer at 10 in order to get some much-needed sleep. Then I realized that I had not yet posted a poem. Oh well. Yesterday was a full day and I think it helped. I went to the library in the morning to teach a computer class. I felt kind of grouchy about it, but after spending an hour showing 5 people how to create a basic budget with Excel, I felt better. They thought it was amazing; formulas are magic. Then I went to the temple, took Little Dude to his soccer game and out for frozen yogurt, and brought everyone home for dinner and Finding Nemo before bed. I actually didn't like that movie the first time I watched it, but it's growing on me. I just need to keep swimming; at least I'm at the top of the food chain and not the bottom. Here's a funny poem from Fire in the Pasture that's sort of Sunday-appropriate. The Short Books by Danny Nelson Now, Micah lives near Nahum in the Bible's closing pages. Micah is an optimist, while Nahu...

I think I forgot about posting yesterday. In other news, this is post number 1000 on my blog. It seems like we should have some kind of celebration but I just don't feel like it. I've been pretty cranky for the last week or so. Change is hard--I feel like I'm throwing a bit of a tantrum. I don't want a new job. I don't want to have to hire a babysitter. I don't want to spend this summer working while my kids play with someone else all day. I don't want to have to do that each summer for the rest of their lives. I don't want my life anymore; I want someone else's. I know that this is the right step for me and for my family. I have had a clear answer that this is where I need to go. And yet, it is still so hard. But I know I'll keep surviving; I have in the past and I can keep going. My mantra lately is "the only way out is through." After a bit of time on Google I found out that this line actually comes from a Robert Frost poem; that one...

Today Kellie posted on Segullah about ANZAC day ; it's not a holiday here in the US, and unfortunately tends to go a bit unnoticed. But I appreciated her post as a reminder that the world is a big place, and as a reminder of a time in history that seems to become the distant past even more each year. Whenever I read this poem to myself I can hear it in Thomas S. Monson's voice; I think that General Conference is when I first remember hearing it. In Flanders Fields by John McCrae In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place: and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In ...

From an Atlas of the Difficult World by Adrienne Rich I know you are reading this poem late, before leaving your office of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven across the plains' enormous spaces around you. I know you are reading this poem in a room where too much has happened for you to bear where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed and the open valise speaks of flight but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem as the underground train loses momentum and before running up the stairs toward a new kind of love your life has never allowed. I know you are reading this poem by the light of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide while you wait for the newscast from the intifada. I know you are reading this poem in a wait...

The cherry tree in my front yard finally bloomed, so I'm going to celebrate with this favorite poem of mine: Lovliest of Trees by A.E. Housman Lovliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten,          Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room,   About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.