I Think I Get It Now

There have been times in my life where I just didn't understand why the adults in my life would suddenly change their minds, or why they would suddenly decide that I couldn't do something, even if there didn't seem to be a good reason.  I think we've all dealt with this in our lives, which is why I am writing this in the first place.  Here is just one example of what I'm talking about.

When I was in my last semester of college I still didn't have a car, so I was still at the mercy of others when it came to getting places.  I was about to get married.  One weekend somebody in St. Johns was throwing me a bridal shower, and I needed a ride.  I also needed to meet up with Jeremy and go buy his ring.  My aunt and her daughters, who all lived in a little town near where I lived, were going to be headed to the shower, so I had arranged to ride with my cousin as far as Globe and then go the rest of the way with Jeremy after we'd picked up the ring.

All was going fine.  I got to my aunt's house and we were getting ready to go, but then somebody noticed a bunch of smoke coming from down the street a little ways.  My cousins ran down there to see and came back to confirm that it was indeed the neighbor's house on fire.  And not only was this a neighbor, but one of the ladies assigned to my aunt for visiting teaching lived in that very house.  Suddenly, all plans of leaving that day were cancelled.  Not even my cousin was allowed to take me.  Imagine my perplexity as I called up my fiancé to explain the situation.  I couldn't figure it out.  Why did the fact that my aunt's visiting teaching lady's house burned down mean that I couldn't go that day?  I puzzled over it for years.

Please know that while I was perplexed I wasn't angry.  I was worried because that would mean our time available for buying a ring would be pretty short and we'd have to get down the road quickly afterward.  But in the end we did get everything done that needed done.  It was all good.  No biggie.

Well, I think that after all this time I finally kind of understand my aunt's sudden decision.  And one reason I understand is that I've been watching Joshua.  You see, Joshua has to process everything in his world.  If something out of the ordinary happens, he takes a long time to process it and move on.  I've come to the realization that we all have to process things, especially when something big is happening.  In fact, I found myself making Jill wait today to have a banana.  When I thought about it, I didn't see any immediate reason why she couldn't have a banana right then.  The only reason I could come up with after thinking it over was that I was processing something.  I needed to process it and be done with it before I could move on. 

All these years, I had just thought that in some weird way my aunt felt she was being a better visiting teacher by not letting anybody leave that day.  I didn't understand.  Maybe that was a small reason, but I've decided that maybe the biggest reason was that it was more than she could process at that moment.  I can understand that now, and I am even more ok with it than I was before.  I still wonder if that was really it, but I think it was, and it makes me even more glad that I didn't get mad or make a big stink over it.  Besides that, my aunt has been an angel to me over the years and I love her a lot. :)

So what do you think about all this?  Do you find yourself just needing to sit and process for a moment?  Did you know that was what you were doing?  Isn't that an intersting thought?  Well, I think it is. ;) And I think it gives me another reason to excuse myself when I feel like I'm just being lame. :)

Happy Birthday!

Today my oldest son turned 12.  I can't believe it.  I've had all year to wrap my brain around it, but, alas, I have failed all year.  Hyrum is 12.  He will be ordained a deacon on Sunday.  And very soon he'll be able to have his own Temple recommend.  That means that very soon, Jeremy, Hyrum, and I can all be together in the Temple.  I am so excited! 

I'm thankful for Hyrum.  He is such a good boy.  I don't know what I would do without him!  We have been so blessed to have him, and we look forward to many more happy years with him.

Love you, Hyrum!

It's All Good

Life can be so stressful, you know?  I was thinking about it this morning after dropping Jeremy off at the high school - all the random things that I've been stressed about.  I'll list them.  Ahem:

1. Jeremy still hasn't received his fingerprint clearance from the state.  He's been working at the high school every day this week, but he can't get paid for it.  He's a "guest lecturer," teaching all the classes he'll get paid to teach one of these days.
2. This means that we're still not paid.  And every day we are getting poorer and poorer.
3. And we have 2 big bills that will need paid sooner or later.
4. I feel kind of bad that I'm not making any money, even though I don't have many options for that right now.
5. I feel bad that I wasn't able to buy school pictures for the boys.  I wanted to at least get them a class picture, but that would be $40 all together, and we've got to be careful with our money right now.
6. Hyrum's birthday is tomorrow, and we don't have much money for presents.  And this is a big one!  He's going to be 12!
7. Joshua wants a pet rat really, really, really badly.  I would really love to get him one, but he's got to wait, and that's been hard.

So I look at that list over and over in my brain, adding and subtraction other various worries.  It's not fun, and it is scary.  But when I really think about it, non of this is life and death.  None of the worries I ever have are life and death!  Why in the world do I worry so much?  We're doing our best, and things always come right somehow.  It's frustrating that we took that leap of faith and moved here like we were supposed to, and things still haven't come right yet.  I'm sad that we left that beautiful house and beautiful Cedar City and all those friends.  But I know that God knows our troubles and worries.  He knows this was a hard thing to ask of us, but because he always makes things come right, I decided I should be counting my blessings instead.  Ahem:

1. Jeremy doesn't have to sit at home.  That was really bugging him.  He's not getting paid, but he has work to do.  And he'll eventually get paid for coaching too.
2. We're not completely broke yet.
3. I don't notice the smell in our house so much anymore.  Maybe it's because of my allergies. XD I know the smell is still there, but I'm not smelling it right now.
4. Grandma Burk offered to take pictures of our kiddos for us and can print them for us for a great price.  Yea!
5. The homework load for all of our boys at this school has been so small I can hardly believe it.
6. Joshua had some stressful days at school, but even that is coming right I think.  Yesterday at bedtime he was wandering smiling all huge, for no obvious reason.
7. All the presents Hyrum has asked for so far won't cost very much.  I know that's partly because he knows we're short on money.  I'd love it if I could get him a huge pile of presents, but I'm thankful that he will be so content with whatever he gets.
8. Hyrum is going to be ordained a deacon on Sunday.  I can't tell you how proud that makes me feel.
9. Hyrum finished the Book of Mormon yesterday.  I'm not sure if he knows yet (or ever will know) how huge that is!  I can tell from that look on his face, that he feels good about it, that he feels the spirit and feels that he was blessed for doing it.  But he probably doesn't know how it blessed me, and he probably doesn't realize what a great example he set for his brothers.  Joshua wants to do the same (read the Book of Mormon before he turns 12). 

I know it may not make sense, but the fact that Hyrum did complete that goal, that he did read the Book of Mormon before he turned 12, and that he knows it blessed his life, makes me think that whatever happens in the future, things are really going to be ok.  I am so blessed, and I'm so thankful.

Pbbbbbt

Just what you always need on a stressful day like today:

I just found the brand new tub of butter upside down in a sink full of dirty dishes. 

Groan.

Things will look brighter after lunch, right?

We Lived after the Manner of Happiness

This morning I finally sat down and unloaded my camera card onto the computer.  I've been putting it off - for good reason.  I couldn't help but cry as I looked through those pictures.  And here is a big reason why:

 

I made this banner soon before Jeremy got home.  It just struck me one day that this is what I want our children to say when they look back on their childhood.  I want this scripture to be true for our family.  And so I've thought over and over again how our different choices help us find happiness or unhappiness, and I want to teach my children how they can find happiness in their lives.  I truly believe that real, lasting happiness comes as we live the gospel and take care of our families and those around us.  Real, lasting happiness comes from obeying God and loving those who He puts in our way.  That lovely truth has been proven true in my own life.

 

As we drove away on the morning of our move, we left this banner where it was.  What I created as a reminder became an epitaph of sorts.  And looking at it now, I cry remembering that we did live happily in that house.  I loved all the times when I would lay on the floor and Timmy would climb on me, bursting with giggles.  I loved the cool evenings when the children and I would go outside and dip our toes in the little stream that often ran in front of the sidewalk.  I loved watching Jill run in circles on the grass exclaiming, "I love grass!  I love grass!"  I loved the winter time when the children and I played out front in the snow.  We were usually the only ones out there. ;) Our neighbors probably all thought, "You crazy Arizonans!" 

 

I loved watching Jeremy and the children play "smash the meat" (steamroller) for a Family Home Evening activity.  I loved watching Timmy's stair-climbing skills evolve.  He got to be quite a pro!  And I even loved scraping ice off our windshield.  I grumbled about it from time to time (or maybe every day), but I still felt all sorts of pleased that we lived in a place where there was ice to scrape.   I loved that the homecoming parade went right down our street.  I am sad to miss it this year.  It was wonderful!  And I loved how blessed we were there in Cedar City.  Jeremy finished two master's degrees.  Joshua got his testing done.  Wonderful people helped us out in countless ways in our times of need.  The children and I survived 2 months without Jeremy there.  They were a hard two months, bu they were good.  All of this combined together with a million other things just prove the point I was trying to make - we are blessed as we obey God.  It was His idea for us to go to Cedar City.  We obeyed, and we were blessed.  We were happy.

And so, as we drove away, leaving behind that beautiful house full of memories, I thought of that banner, hoping that the people who come there will see it and know and feel that it is a good, happy place and that we lived happily there.

Random Happiness

I didn't do my "weekly" update again.  I am so dang behind!  I now have only a small window of time on Sunday that is available for such things.  (That's somewhere between feeding everyone lunch right after we get home at 12:30 or so and going to family dinner somewhere between 3:00 and 5:00.  And if we're hosting, forget it.)  It doesn't seem like it should be so hard, but it is, especially when I'm behind.  Maybe I need to find a different day again.

Jeremy's clearance still hasn't gone through to start teaching at the high school.  We are waiting for something to come in the mail.  And when it does he will high-tail it to Tucson to finish things up as quickly as possible.  The poor guy has been feeling the lack of work.  In the meantime, though, he subbed for a few hours out at the college.  Aaron teaches out there, but he took time off for their new baby.  So Jeremy subbed for him. 

Then when he went to the Globe-Miami football game on Friday he got roped into coaching the JV team.  Oh, goodness.  And after we just had a Globe Burk family discussion about why I don't like football.  Maybe it's not that I don't like it.  I just have never really been interested in it, and I have a bad habit of zoning out that I picked up back in my marching band days.  I am not good at focusing on football.  And part of that was the fact that I was bitter because the school spent way more money on football than music.  So the football team got new everything every year.  I know that's typical and kind of needed, but while they were getting new everything every year, the band was marching around in uniforms from the 70s.  I am not even exaggerating.  They came complete with the biggest collars you have ever seen, plastic square-toed shoes, and a plastic cowboy hat with a feather.  Oh, goodness.  Awful!  I have pictures!  And you know how cowboy hats have that dip in the top?  Well, in a hard plastic hat it rubs and digs into your scalp.  Lovely!

Anyway, so you get the picture - I have resented football in the past and have learned a little too well to tune it out.  Well, don't tell Mom, but I think I may be beginning to like this idea.  Having Jeremy go to practice and a game yesterday and have ideas swirl in his head about how to fix things has got me starting to get excited.  The proof of this is evidenced by an offer I made.  I told Jeremy that if he could get them all to learn how to hit good I would make them cookies.  And I am serious.  And I'm not talking about cake mix cookies or something silly like that.  I am talking about my super yummy, made-from-scratch chocolate chip ones.  And I am talking about A LOT of them.  I'd even quadruple the batch.  And I probably will even go to at least some of the games and cheer.  Maybe I can break my bad habit of zoning out and actually learn something. (And maybe I'll get past the fact that every 3 seconds they stop and start over.  How is that fun?  I don't get it.  Yeah, it's pretty obvious that I'm clueless.  I'll be the first to admit that.)

So anyway, Jeremy will get paid a pittance for coaching, and he'll get something for teaching at the college, but I don't know what, and we definitely don't know when.  But it's money coming in, right?  I must admit I'm thankful.  I'm still tapping my foot, waiting for the state to hurry up and do that fingerprint clearance, but I'm thankful for what we have. 

Oh, and get this - we got new doors yesterday!  That means that the knobs on both front and back doors work.  And the front door doesn't have a big hole in it.  And the master bedroom has a door!  The guy is here right now installing weather stripping and whatnot.  AND yesterday we went by the shop where Jeremy's car is getting fixed, and we saw that it was actually being worked on.  The engine must have finally come in.  Hooray! :D I'm thankful.

And another happy thing lately has been listening to Jill and Timmy's ever-evolving jabber.  It is so fun.  Timmy is learning to copy more words lately, and he's also been learning what they mean and using them.  In nursery on Sunday he blew me away by picking up the star shape and plopping it right into the appropriate star-shaped hole.  On that toy there is a red star and a yellow star.  The yellow one has more points on it than the red one.  He got the right one.  And to top it all off, he said, "Star," as he did it. Who knew that he knew what a star is?  I didn't!  Yea, Timma!

And in other news, I was just handed a bunch of little nails.  I turned them all head-up and the heads all together like that look like sequins or desk magnets or something.  Beautiful!  It's funny that such a simple thing can strike me just so.

Goodies of the Day

Today I loaded an app on my phone for Blogger. I thought it would make blogging from my phone easier. To make a long story short, it did not. But in the process it did give me a good laugh. I was trying to change google accounts, and my phone was trying to auto-correct. I ended up with "burkfamily1@yahoo.compensate." I'm still laughing.

And just now as I was getting Jill dressed after her bath she was pointing out all the little things on her dress. She showed me hearts, a bird, a rainbow, a popsicle, a spin around... Say what? I didn't remember a popsicle being on there. And what is a spin around? I asked her to show me that popsicle and spin around. They both turned out to be peace signs.

And last of all today is something not so funny. Aaron and Kenzie gave us a couch with an ottoman. I am so thankful. We haven't had a couch since before Christmas. And we got to hold their sweet new baby today.  I love him. :)  And another blessing I did not expect came today. I have been praying that we could get a new bed for Jill. In Cedar City she and Timmy slept on mattresses on the floor. They just seemed to prefer it. Well, here I worry about that. Not only did our renters make the carpet nasty, but there are lots of bugs here. I just feel better having them off the floor. Jill has a little toddler bed, but Timmy's still been on the floor. So my hope was that we could get a bed for Jill and put Timmy on the toddler bed. Well, as soon as Jill got home and saw the ottoman that her Papa and Aaron had hauled in, she exclaimed, "Mine bed!" I knew I had my answer. And her crib mattress sheet fits it too. God hears our prayers. He may not answer how we expect, but he hears. :) I'm thankful.