Ahhhhh!

Thank you so much Sally & Teri for making my life so much better! I arrived at work today to find them completely changing our record-keeping procedures that will make keeping up with how/what the kids are doing waaay easier. It was actually a pretty stress-free day today, though we were really busy.

Thanks!!! I needed that!!! (Oh, and I finished knitting two hats!)

The Benefits of Knitting

I have been experiencing unprecedented stress levels lately, and I've been really close to just curling up in bed and refusing to come out. I feel maxed out before the day even begins, and every day is an endless loop.

Work on Friday started out ominously for me--I could feel my heart pounding in my chest before I even got in the building. I talked to my endocrinologist about this the other day and she suggested I take up yoga. Know of any good teachers out there in Provo/Orem-land? Thinking of Middle Eastern dance, too. I considered joining a gym, but that many people in one place would probably raise my stress level rather than lower it, so I need some calming alternatives.

In the meantime, and always in addition to, I knit. I hadn't picked up my needles in several weeks, but I knit as though my life depended on it this weekend. While standing in line to get into "New Moon" with Elvira, I had a skein of yarn tucked under my elbow and I knit as fast as I could. In between piano stints in church yesterday, I knit. While I sat down and watched a rare show on TV Friday night, I knit. Even this morning, after playing for Tinkerbell's choir at 7:30 am, I came home and knit.

Despite my walking, the unbelievable amount of stupid pills I'm taking every day, and trying to eat healthy, my cholesterol went waaay up. I think it's stress. Maybe I should look for a different line of work. Know of anything I can do that doesn't involve children and large groups of people?

I'd better pop by Heindselman's for more yarn.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

My lovely niece Kate, who is herself a teacher, turned me on to this through Facebook. I would say that anyone who has anything to do with kids would enjoy it and find it interesting. But really, even those who have next to no contact with children will, perhaps, find themselves described in this. I know I did, and as a former Gifted/Talented teacher, it really hit home to me.

The bonus is that he's hysterically funny as well.

Enjoy!

Chicken Soup For the Soul

Things have been very stressful lately. I've had some interesting experiences at work that have taken it out of me these last few weeks, Elvira went through a bad patch with her diabetes, and there's always lots of this and that going on. My spiritual "reservoir" was pretty low.

But yesterday I watched President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's fireside that he gave at BYU just over a week ago, and it really calmed me down and made me happy. Some General Authorities click with you more than others. They're all great, but some I really look forward to. I adore President Uchtdorf. Could be the German accent--sounds like "home" to me.

Here's a link to his talk, and if you would like to know more about what we believe in our Church, you can click here.

Burn After Reading

What an enlightening evening I've had! All my sewing things are stuck in boxes all over the place while we're finishing off the laundry room, and I was looking for something important. I went through box after box with no luck at all. Then I found the bins where I had stored the things I had when I was younger, including some rather embarrassingly sappy diaries. These weren't the ones I was really interested in. The journal that meant the most to me is one that I liberally censored when I became a wife, burning and shredding much of it. Over the past 22 years I've only rarely regretted that decision, but I do sometimes wish I had kept a better record.

Turns out I did.

There in the box was my journal. And guess what? It was intact. It must have been just photos and letters I destroyed. There were loose pages, though, and I think I might have torn out some pages, rewritten them on identical paper, and just stuck them in. Why, I'm not sure.

Oh. My. Gosh.

There it was, in black and white. Not everything, certainly, because I am a sporadic record-keeper at best, but enough that I was sucked right into those pages. I could see myself writing them, remember how I felt at the time. Desperately in love on one page, heartbroken on another. Giddy with excitement on Thursday, despondent on Saturday.

I was seriously planning on going on a mission at one point. My relationship with my father is enormously complex. I have dated a lot of boys/men. I see clearly why things didn't work out with any but Sweetie. I was a challenging person in every sense of the word. My poor parents didn't know what hit them, I'm sure.

I hated advertising and couldn't wait to leave it. I was desperate to move to Seattle and talked about it a lot. I liked smart, powerful people with money and fast cars for awhile. Then my allegiances changed and I sided with the proletariat. My feelings about religion were conflicted and often ironic. I didn't see my family very often. I wanted to get married and have kids at a much earlier age than I remember. I was banging against the sides of my cage with my bare hands, impatient for my real life to start.

I like this person. I had guts, drive, tenacity, and resourcefulness. I wish I had written more, but I'm enormously grateful I wrote what I did. I remembered myself as being much more fickle and irresponsible, but looking back I would call it being infinitely adaptable. When something didn't work out, I made other plans right away. I'm still very much that way.

Makes me want to go write in my journal now.