Lazy Bites Back

The older I get, the more life seems to be a collection of small daily efforts that keep all the requisite balls in the air. Order, discipline and regular daily efforts are not things that come easy to me. My ADD brain gets fuzzy, fatigue sets in and I forget critical elements in the things that keep me sane. Sometimes I begin to think that I don't need these elements, these regular activities, and that I can free up time, energy, money, etc by eliminating them. I am most often wrong when I think that.

After a year or so with a neurologist, he got me on a regular regimen of vitamins and nutritional supplements to keep migraines at bay. There were drugs too, daily ones and migraine only ones too. First, I let go of the daily NSAIDs. I think I'm still okay with that decision, probably because I made it more consciously as a desire to wean myself unnecessary meds. But then, I slowly forgot to refill my days of the week pill container with all the vitamins and supplements. And then I tired of gathering them all out to take them when I hadn't refilled my container. And since I still didn't have any migraines, I lulled myself into the false security that I was okay. That maybe I didn't need them anymore, that I had passed the migraine season for now. The first symptom of my foolish neglect was sore hands. I have had sore hands since CW was born. At the time the doc said it wasn't RA and it wasn't osteo arthritis, but saying it wasn't anything didn't make the soreness go away. Usually it's just soreness, but after a while of neglecting my pills, my joints began to swell and increase in pain until there were many "no-wedding-ring days" because I couldn't get it over the middle joint and even if I could put it on in the morning, getting it off at night became an endeavor requiring lotion, cold water and twisting. Not smart. And still I didn't reevaluate my pill consumption.

The end of May, smack dab in the middle of crazy town end of school year + DH out of town for months on end, I had a migraine at the end of M's dance dress rehearsal. It took an entire day longer to shake than it usually did. I chalked it up to the stress of the months and still failed to reevaluate my pill consumption.

July brought monsoon season, not the crazy tropical stuff of weather channel videos, but the desert version which can result in 100 year floods, but more likely results in a couple of days of rain that consist of the bulk of our precipitation for the year and a few weeks of stupid (relatively, it is the desert) humidity, heavy, hazy air and wonky barometric pressure. Wonky barometric pressure is a migraine trigger for me. So, I wasn't too surprised to have a migraine last week in the midst of some rainy days. But I did refill my pill minder and begin to get on a better schedule and added joint pills to the mix. It takes a while for things like nutritional supplements to work. It took almost a year for them to get me to a place of minimal migraines the first time. I should not have been surprised that today was a double migraine day. But I was. I'm silly like that. I have to get all the balls back in the air again and hope it doesn't take another year.

I've, in the midst of crazy, been able to keep a handle on almost daily scripture study and daily family scripture study for a while now. Things are getting better, but it has to be steady. We had a better handle on FHE until I began to get lazy there too. I don't want family "migraines" to erupt because of my laxness. 2 Nephi 31:20

20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

Pressing forward is such a daily endeavor. Reading this scripture sometimes makes me very very tired. It never ends, but it's essential and I get it, or at least I can be taught to get it. Pressing forward is taking all my daily meds, daily. It's drinking from living scriptural waters, daily. It's teaching and caring and fighting and loving, daily. It's getting out of the mindset that daily saving measures are giving me energy and life and not sapping it from me. It's not allowing lazy to bite back.

Sweating with Harry

I'm trying to be healthy. When I was younger and fewer of children, it was a great deal easier. I ran some miles outside in the morning and life was grand and I was thin-ish and fit. Well, age sets in. Children multiply and time diminishes and numbers I don't like expand and I am not healthy.

I have a no-frills gym membership that sometimes intimidates me but almost always fails to fit into my schedule whether it be their lack of childcare when I need it or the 30 minute travel time in which I would talk myself entirely out of exercising in the first place. What I have cobbled together currently, and which I hope leads to better health and cardiovascular fitness is a crazy compilation of things.

We have a treadmill that we inherited from a friend who inherited it from his dad, who is Harry Reid. It is old and possessed of few bells and whistles and when I use much of an incline, it squeaks like crickets live inside.

I have a resistance band that I got with a purchase of Pilates DVDs which I hate, but which works (tied to my bed post) as a pretty decent approximation of a leg extension machine.

I have a collection of hand weights. The three pounders, apparently, double as light sabers so that Bam and M can have epic battles in my room next to me while I lift.

I have a step stool that works pretty well as a weight bench, that my mother insisted DH buy for me when I was pregnant and we were moving into a new house and because I am short. It is sturdy and can withstand a great deal of jumping and stepping and activity.

I have a stability ball, well this one is the third in a series. The first two were popped. Because boys must pop large inflated things. They just must.

I have a BYU basketball which doubles as a playground ball for killer burpees and pushups and other things where a medicine ball would probably work better.

I still am able to run some miles outside with a friend. These tools help me fill in the blanks.

Probably the best part of exercising with this rag tag collection of equipment is that it is in my home. I am not at all afraid of embarrassing myself in front of my children (isn't that one of motherhood's most prized duties, anyway?). I turn my music up loud and sing louder and more off key. M gives me "exercise badges" (stickers) for my effort. I earned two this morning. I may go back to the gym on a regular basis eventually, but for now, battling fitness alongside light saber duels, rocking out to embarrass my 13 yo and sweating with Harry is hopefully going to get me where I need and want to be.

Wondrous Variety

On Mothers' Day I got to be in Relief Society. The squeaky, newly sustained RS presidency talked on President Uchtdorf's talk from some years back entitled Happiness, Your Heritage. One part of the lesson was about creation and a thought clicked into my head as the teacher discussed the wondrous variety of God's creation. I suddenly remembered an argument had by a few missionaries while on my mission. We were all in one of the smoothie shops prevalent in Brazil. This one was small, we were packed in on a Pday, trying to decide which delicious Brazilian fruits to have in our refreshing smoothies. Brazil is a country of extremely varied climates, from the Amazon rain forest, to coastal waters, equatorial heat to desert, to southern cooler climates. All this variety means that there are varieties of fruits that exist only in certain parts of Brazil and nowhere else in the world. Açaí and guaraná are two that have made their way onto the world nutritional stage as "super foods." But there are so many that these missionaries were comparing fruits of their home regions and discussing rather heatedly the benefits of each. I had this memory flash in my mind along with memories of some of these crazy fruit, along with other more sedate varieties I can still get like dragon fruit, star fruit, mango, papaya etc. And the thought that clicked in was that if God expressed so much variety, so much creativity in the vegetation of the earth, why should I think that He prescribes only a certain kind of motherhood, personhood, or expression of talents? The world creates so many round holes and tries to cram all our various shapes, whether they be square or star shaped into them. I don't know if this has always been so, or is a product of the industrial revolution and assembly line production. Schools teach our kids in a prescribed way that is notoriously hard on boys. They are more and more tied to standardized tests. We see our worth as mothers, as workers, and people measured and found wanting on the cover of every magazine for not being someone's ideal of air brushed perfection. It is so exhausting; so very daunting. How do I teach my children to be themselves most truly while at the same time teaching them how to get along in the world and listen to the Spirit guide them to their celestial natures? All while wrestling with my own failure to listen, to know, to be true to my truest self, to even know which that should be.

Ultimately, I just have to keep plugging, keep praying, keep creating each new day and not get too discouraged when many look more like jaca than like carambola. God truly loves wondrous variety.

Family Fun in the Desert Sun

We spent last week at a family reunion. A great deal of time and effort put in by Grandpa and Grandma F yielded great fun for all. We were able to navigate stomach bugs (only a little vomiting during the family pictures--thankfully navy blue shirts masked any problems) and exhaustion, different sleep and nutritional habits (Some of my children's cousins were seen voluntarily consuming vegetables on a daily basis!)and a house filled to bursting with cousins. The place we were staying had a lovely pool with a killer slide and the kids spent as much time as possible either swimming or cajoling adults to come outside and lifeguard so they could swim. There were tennis courts and grass fields for fun games of tennis, badminton and kickball. Grandpa brought up his celebrated wagon for rides for the little set.

Some of these cousins live near.


Most live far.






We loved connecting with them all while playing, relaxing, hiking and hanging out. There's never time enough and it seemed the week was over in less than a wink. But we are so very grateful to have been able to be together in the first place!

When Good Friends Leave

Dear family friends just moved. I truly don't know how we will do without them. The mom has been my visiting teacher since they moved in and has been a bastion of awesomeness in my life. She is a fabulous preschool teacher (she was Bam's) and her four children fit almost perfectly with four of my five children. (CE and her oldest were at girls camp, otherwise they would have their pictures here too)










Not only do these kids fit so perfectly in our family age-wise, but temperament too. For example, CW and their equivalent child are one of those kid equations where the combination is greater, much greater than the sum of the parts.

It is a wonderful thing to have a mom-friend who really, from deep personal experience, understands some of the crazy that lives at your house, because it lives at hers too.

We've lived here in Henderson for almost 12 years now. Desert life is all my children know. Unfortunately, due to the somewhat transient nature of Vegas living, moving friends is also what they know and it sucks. Perhaps it would suck less if I were better at keeping in touch. I really really need to be better so that, at the very least, and very most selfish, we don't entirely lose the awesomeness of this family in our lives.