From Here to There to Here

Last week I flew from my local airport to Chicago, from Chicago to Denver, then from Denver to Idaho Falls. I now know that the Chicago airport has a dinosaur in it.

I also learned that United gives these gluten free goodies out as a snack.

Here I am with one of the people I came to visit, my youngest brother, Isaac.

It snowed while I was there. I was not pleased. I had to use my hotel key envelope to scrape the frozen stuff off my rental car. When that turned into a pulpy mess I resorted to just shoving the snow off with my arms.

My sister-in-law Falisha and I went to an art museum that included these lovely pieces. The combination of art and the written word really speaks to my soul.

She and I also enjoyed walking along the Snake River.

I took advantage of staying in a hotel less than a mile from the Idaho Falls Temple and walked over to do a session on Saturday morning. It was lovely. I especially appreciated that the weather cooperated, this was the nicest day we had while I was there.

On Tuesday I flew from Idaho Falls to Denver in a tiny plane.

As soon as we landed in Denver I took my phone out of airplane mode and discovered that my next flight (from Denver to Chicago) was delayed. Then as I exited the plane it was delayed even further. By the time I was in the Denver airport my next flight had been delayed so much that I was going to miss my connecting flight to get home.

I texted Bryan to update him on what was happening and we tried to find a solution. The United app gave me the option of rescheduling to a flight that would change my arrival time from 9:33 Tuesday night to 11:15 Wednesday morning. I didn't want to do that.

I decided to walk to my gate, even though the flight was so delayed. As I went I noticed a gate saying the next flight was going to Philadelphia. I had the thought that I needed to get on that plane. I tried to call United customer service and was bumped to a text conversation with an AI. 

When I got to my gate I saw that my Chicago flight was next, followed by a flight to Philly. I opened the app again and this time it gave me the option of a video chat. I was put through to a person almost immediately. I explained that my flight was delayed so I was going to miss my connecting flight. I said that if I could get to Philadelphia I could get home. I asked him if I could move my seat to the later Philadelphia flight. He said that plane was full, but there happened to be a flight to Philly leaving at 1:40 that had space that he could move me to.

It was a few minutes after 1:00 at this point.

While he changed my ticket I turned around and booked it back to the first gate I had passed, the one that I felt I should get on. That was the flight! I walked up as they were already boarding, told the situation to the gate agent, got a new boarding pass, then walked on to the new plane. The customer service agent stayed on the call with me until it was all fixed and I was walking down the gangplank.

I was so thankful that it worked out. Bryan was able to shift his schedule to pick me up and Cooper and Phoebe took over bedtime duties with Topher and Sophie (Peter was at work).

This is what the middle of the county looked like from the plane.

This is what Pennsylvania looked like from the air.

I exited the flight, so happy to be on the ground two hours earlier than my original itinerary dictated. I was waiting for Bryan at the curb outside the airport when I discovered that my third flight, the one I was going to miss, had been delayed. And delayed again. And then canceled. If I hadn't switched my flight I would have been stuck in Chicago.

I think that experience was a tender mercy.

Thanks for letting me visit, Falisha and Isaac!

Blessed

Yesterday morning we made the two hour drive down to Maryland to witness our nephew Legend and niece Zariah be given a name and a blessing. In our church this is usually done when children are infants. However, since Legend and Zariah were adopted into the family in January, they were given their blessings now as bigger kids. It was a gift to hear my brother Jordan be the conduit for both of the powerful and tender blessings.

Plus, we loved getting to see family, even if it was just for sacrament meeting.

Jordan and Leah, thanks for inviting us to be part of this special day!

 

It's Autumn Time, It's Autumn Time

The kids have named two of the trees in the backyard, one is Wally and the other is Veronica. They held on to their leaves much longer than I expected them to, it even took a while for them to change color. But almost overnight Veronica was orange and Wally was red. And they were both beautiful!

I wish I had thought to take a picture of Veronica at the height of her autumnal glory, but I didn't expect her to go bald as quickly as she did. She now only has a few dozen leaves left clinging to her branches, as if she's ready and waiting for snow. Wally is still a resplendent and glorious red.

We had a windy, rainy day last week and I realized that Veronica's leaves were flying off in full force. I grabbed my phone and stuck my hand out into the rain to snap a picture before she was totally bare. And then I turned my phone and took a picture in Wally's general direction, hoping that I got something since I didn't want to actually go outside in the storm. Wally is now a much brighter red, but this gives you a general idea.

I love having a backyard.

Like a Bear

I've joked for years that I would love to hibernate through January because the cold is so painful. I would definitely not call what I'm doing right now hibernating since that generally involves sleeping. However, I do get to spend January inside my house, only going outside if I choose to and not because I have to.

Today marks ten months since we started our at-home-all-the-time adventure, and it doesn't appear to be ending any time soon. But that's okay, because staying inside gets me through this cold month a little easier than usual.

And that, my friends, is a silver lining.

Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful

During the last nine months my calling at church as choir director has been essentially on hold. Then, shortly before Thanksgiving, I was asked to put together a virtual choir number. This would be a large undertaking and I knew it depended more on Bryan's willingness to edit it together than on mine to gather in the submissions. He said yes and the music chair and I got to work contacting people in our congregation who had sung with the choir in the past to see if they would be interested in participating. Not everyone said yes, but to those that did we sent an email with an instructional video, an accompaniment video of me directing, and a list of specific instructions. We counted up all those that had said yes and estimated we would have between twenty-one and thirty-two participants. We set a deadline for the videos to be sent in to give Bryan enough time to put it together.

The weekend of the deadline brought texts, phone calls, and emails explaining that people were either too busy, too anxious, or too stressed learning their part. We found a few fixes and extended the deadline. Then we extended it again. The song would be shown on Sunday December 20 and by the evening of December 17 we had, not including our family, eight submissions.

I panicked and sent one more email asking people to help, letting them know that we needed their voices.

We didn't receive any more videos.

On the morning of Saturday December 19 we asked Phoebe and Sophie to put on church dresses and let us record them singing the soprano part, then Bryan recorded himself singing both the tenor and the bass parts. We already had recordings of me singing the soprano and the alto lines. That brought us up to fourteen vocal parts and twelve videos, since we wouldn't be using anyone's face twice.

Bryan spent nearly the entire day and most of the night editing the sound and video. The first time he layered the audio parts on top of each other and played it for me I cried because it was awful. I had faith in his abilities, but the voices and the timing were all so different I didn't know how he would make it work. After several hours of tinkering and tweaking and calling me down to the basement to listen and give feedback, he had a final version. As he played it for me I cried again, but this time because it was so beautiful. Is it perfect? No, but it is certainly more than the sum of its parts. He is a wizard. Seriously.

With the permission of the participants, I share our virtual ward choir's rendition of Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful. The accompaniment comes straight from churchofjesuschrist.org, we have permission to use it.

Merry Christmas!

Give Thanks

I've definitely neglected the blog this week while I've contributed to and read posts from the #givethanks challenge on Facebook. For the sake of preserving them in this record, and as a form of counting my blessings, I'm going to copy and paste the posts here.

Saturday: I love the movie White Christmas, it's one of my favorites. Just yesterday, while making dinner, I was belting out the words, "If you're worried and you can't sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep, and you'll fall asleep counting your blessings." As I sit at my computer, overthinking what to write for a gratitude post, I find that my list of possible post ideas is overwhelming. So tonight I'm thankful for having too many blessings to count them. And for recognizing the gift that that is. #givethanks

Sunday: I love words. I love to write them, read them, speak them, sing them, and even listen to them. I love finding just the right word to express my thoughts. I love hearing them in the language I understand and in those I don't. I love how they can inspire me, make me laugh, bring out my deepest feelings, and draw me closer to those I love. Words are a gift and I'm so thankful for them. #givethanks

Monday: Tonight I am thankful for bedtime; very, very thankful. #givethanks

Tuesday: I'm nearly always cold and have been for as long as I can remember. When our AC died this summer and we were without it for the entire month of June, I finally warmed up in our 90 degree house while the rest of my family melted. I keep myself moving most of the time because it helps me be not quite as cold. All this is to say that I'm so very thankful for warm blankets, cozy socks, big comforters, and a husband that's always a furnace and is willing to hold my freezing cold hands. #givethanks

Wednesday: Someone made the mistake recently of asking me what I'm currently reading. After I finished rattling off my giant list they were mildly speechless. I was raised by bibliophiles, for which I will be forever thankful. We always had books, ready and waiting to be read, and we were unabashedly encouraged to dive right into the those books. Now I'm raising my own book lovers. They jump at the opportunity to go to the library. Birthdays and Christmas (and Easter and Valentine's Day and Halloween and sometimes random days in the summer or any other season) wouldn't be complete without a new book. Given the hectic nature of this season of my life, most of my recent book consumption is by way of audiobook, which I absolutely love. When I meet others that also love books I know I've found my people. I am so thankful for books. #givethanks

Thursday: Each November for the last six years we've had a Thanksgiving Tree. It's taken various forms, from butcher paper on the wall to a cloth tree I found in the dollar aisles at Target. Some years we write many things that we're thankful for on leaves and add them to the tree, some years it's a bit neglected and barren.

This has been a hard year for pretty much everyone, our family included. With stress and anxiety levels increasing throughout 2020, I felt prompted that we needed to increase our focus on gratitude as a family. So right at the beginning of the month I asked Bryan to draw a tree on a spare poster board we had and I ordered some leaf shaped gift tags from Amazon. Throughout the month we've added leaves to our tree.

I'm overwhelmed that during this hard, hard year we have more leaves on our tree than ever before. I'm not always able to see the blessings and the silver linings when I'm in the midst of the storm, but looking for the learning moments and the tender mercies helps heal my heart and mind. I'm thankful for the science and the practice of gratitude. #givethanks

Blessings in the Time of COVID

For our Sunday School/Primary lesson a few weeks ago we talked about the Nephites pondering the teachings of Jesus and preparing their minds and hearts for more instruction. Then we looked at how we're preparing ourselves for the Savior. 

Many, if not all, members of our little family have developed the habit of being critical and pointing out perceived flaws in other people. This has troubled me for a long time and it's something I'm continually trying to alter. So I told them that science tells us that the more critical and negative we are, the more our brains become hardwired to only see the negative. The more negative we are, the less prepared and receptive our hearts and minds are to hear the promptings of the Holy Ghost and the teachings of Jesus. As a way to help our brains see the positive, as a family we made a list of the blessings that we've noticed during the craziness that is 2020. In a pretty short period of time we came up with a list of 25 things.

1. We've made new friends at the new school.
2. We've gotten better at doing at home church.
3. We've gotten to spend more time together.
4. We have more free time.
5. PALCS (the cyber school the kids are attending this year)
6. We have more play time.
7. We have more time with Topher.
8. We've eaten healthier meals.
9. Topher's language development has vastly improved.
10. Sundays are now a delight.
11. More time with Cooper.
12. More time with Mommy.
13. More time with Peter.
14. More time with Sophie.
15. More time with Daddy. 
16. More time with Phoebe.
17. We haven't eaten at McDonalds.
18. Kids have become more obedient.
19. The kids are learning better time management skills since they decide when they do their schoolwork.
20. We wouldn't have taken our summer break virtual trip around the world if we hadn't been stuck inside.
21. The kids have gotten to use Google Hangouts to video call friends.
22. The kids have gotten to use Gmail to email friends.
23. We've talked to far away family more often on video calls.
24. Kenzie (Phoebe's best friend) isn't moving yet since her dad can work remotely.
25. Bryan has gotten to work from home.