In Loving Memory

 A few weeks ago, we received word that Ryan's grandma on his dad's side had passed away. Her health had struggled for quite a while, but regardless of how poor she was feeling, she was always looking for ways to serve others. Near the middle of January her health took a sharp decline and she was taken to the local hospital, then life flighted to Utah Valley Regional where they felt she had a better chance. She spent about a week there, and though she definitely recovered from where she was, she had reached the end of her stay through insurance but wasn't well enough to be discharged home. They transferred her to a nursing and rehab center nearby. From there she was discharged home. Ryan's sister Jodi, her hubby and kids rolled through Casper to spend the evening with us for Superbowl Sunday. From there they were going to Utah where Jodi would stay with grandma and help take care of her. (Jodi is a CNA). Things were going well, but then dropped off horribly. We knew the time had come.

Grandma was such an amazing woman. She is known for her kind, loving nature, her desire to serve, and her amazing cooking skills. I learned from my very first visit to Holden before Ryan left on his mission that any trip to Holden meant amazing food and lots and lots of over eating. :) Every meal Grandma would say, "Are you sure you have had enough?" and try and heap up a whole extra plate of food for you. It was amazing. :) When I think of Grandma, I think of two things in particular: her incredible, always perfect rolls, and Mt. Dew. She had Dews piled up by the case, but it was because she suffered from headaches. This is something we have in common. When I can't kick a migraine, I will take a couple Excedrin and drink a Dew too. I learned during the funeral, however, that in addition to her amazing rolls and bread, she was known for her out of this world cinnamon rolls. I feel cheated. I never had one. In the next life, Grandma, in the next life. :)

The funeral was probably the most amazing service I can remember. All of the siblings except Donna gave a little talk. It was so beautiful! We laughed, we cried, we rejoiced. I was asked to do a special musical number, so a couple days before the funeral I went to a store here in Casper looking for something appropriate. They don't have an "LDS" music section here, but most of our hymns were taken from other churches anyway. I found a book that had a couple that I recognized and chose "Sweet Hour of Prayer." Man, that was nerve racking. There at the end I thought I was going to bounce my way off the bench I was shaking inside so hard, but it turned out really beautiful. I was praying my guts out and I think I definitely had help - especially since I only had two days to prepare.

(You gotta learn to drive young in the country.)

Grandma left behind an incredible legacy. She is such an inspiration and example. Grandma and Grandpa served for 9 years as temple workers in the Manti Temple and served a mission to Nauvoo. She pretty much always had a calling and gave everything her all. She will be sorely missed.

As an in-law, I would like to add that I had my own appreciation and love for grandma. Of course I didn't know her as well as the others - obviously - but from the moment I met her, even as young 17 year-old dating her then, pre-mission grandson, she welcomed me into the family as one of her own. She was always so sweet and so loving. She always asked about my family and took a genuine interest in them. To date, I only have one grandparent living, and that's my Grandma J at 94 (this summer.) I lost my Grandpa J when I was about 2.5, my Grandpa N around 12, and my Grandma N a few years ago. I felt just as close to Ryan's Grandma as I did to my own Grandmas. I love her dearly. I feel very lucky to have known her and had her as another Grandma.

Following the funeral and luncheon, we headed back to Grandpa's to do some sledding down "The" tubing hill. It is on their property, but it gets use from people all over town. Amazingly, after being part of this family for almost 10 years, this was my first time ever sledding down it.

Pierscen was totally exhausted. He had only had one 20 minute nap in my arms the whole day, so we didn't know how well he would handle it.

His first trip down was just with dad. Ryan said he got a smile out of him at the end of the hill.

Then he went with me and I am not such a great driver. We spun around backwards at the end and this freaked him out.

Then this happened:

Don't worry. Ryan had him very well protected and barely touched the snow. But it did scare him. :(

After that I took him inside where Ryan's mom watched him so I could go out for a couple more runs.

Our second to last run of the day was definitely the best. We were the only ones left on the hill, but Ryan's dad and several of the grand kids were on the other side of the field and at least saw the awesomeness... though not nearly as well as if they had been right there.

Right at the very end we spun and flipped, but the sled dumped us so quickly we both landed with our heads stuck in the snow like an ostrich with its head in the sand, our butts in the air. Neither of us could move for a bit because we were stuck so unceremoniously. By the time we were able to right ourselves, I couldn't breath I was laughing so hard. It was fantastic.

All of Ryan's siblings expect Jen and family stayed the night and went to church with Grandpa the next day. It was really great to be there with him. We stayed until mid afternoon and then headed back to Orem for dinner with my family.

We stayed until Tuesday morning and then drove home. Although the purpose of the trip was sad and we are really going to miss Grandma, I think this is one of the best trips we have had out there. Just really good balance with family time and everything else. 

I am grateful to have the knowledge of the Gospel, to know that Grandma has moved on to a better place, and that she is happy, serving, and pain free. My only sadness remains with Grandpa as she was his everything, and I know he will be lonely. But it is a great comfort to know that we will all be together again and that this isn't the end, but really the prelude to an amazing eternity.

Winter Projects

 As mentioned, I don't know, a couple dozen times before, Ryan and I are not winter people. So we have done our best to try and find small projects to work on to keep us busy. Here are a few of the updates we've made:

New hardware for the kitchen. It's a small thing, but it makes a big difference. We replaced all the wood/bronze hardware with stainless steel. Okay, okay, it's actually brushed nickle, but that's okay. It looks like stainless steel. We replaced all the handles and the hinges (though the pictures still show the bronze hinges.)

Some day we will upgrade to stainless steel appliances too and then it will look really sharp. :) Also in store, new countertops and backsplash. Currently, the backsplash consists of the same yellow Formica as the counter itself. Not very pretty. Unfortunately, all of these upgrades are pricey, so they will come little bits at a time. 

We also replaced the hardware for the vanity in our bedroom: 

Bet you can't tell which one is the old vs new. :) Also in store, new countertops, sinks, faucets, and lighting. 

Our "Black Friday" splurge (it was really just sometime around Thanksgiving - not actually Black Friday) was new interior doors. Home Depot had a sale for a free upgrade to a solid core door. We have been wanting to replace our doors anyway, that getting solid doors for the price of hallow? Heck yeah! The doors we had were the plain stained wood ones - no decorative cuts, hallow, and falling apart. Thanks to the dogs that lived here before, many of the doors had nasty scratches and chew marks. In fact, the door going downstairs, besides not being able to close all the way, had splinters coming off left and right. More than once we had to stop Pierscen from pulling wood off and eating it. We opted to save even more money by getting doors that did not have the holes precut for the handle, or grooves for the hinges. Making the cuts for these certainly made it a much more labor-intensive change, but it was worth it.

All together we replaced 8 doors. Five on the main floor, three upstairs. They still need to be painted. (I really need to get my act together and see if we have the matching white in a can downstairs. The previous owners left us lots of paint, most of which is labeled - just not the white ones.)

Changing them to white doors was a huge improvement. It made everything feel so much more spacious and clean. 

That carpet has got to go... 

I finally hung the first "personal" picture -  The Family: A Proclamation to the World. I have been waiting for years to have a place of our own that I could finally really decorate, but now that I can, I find I am rather intimidated by the process. We actually don't have a ton of art work because we had no need for it before. Yet art work really makes a house a home. You know?

One of Ryan's projects was building himself a work bench. With the exception of the pegboard backing, pretty much all of the wood used was scrap wood from Home Depot at .51 cents a piece. Pretty sweet!

The finished product cost probably $25. Pretty snazy, right? 

On one of the weekends when it warmed up, Ryan decided to tackle the tree between us and our neighbors to the east. We don't have a ladder yet, so this was pretty difficult. We do have a chainsaw, but it was low on gas, so he couldn't lift it above his head without it dying (not that that's safe anyway.) So he climbed up and started sawing away using a bow saw. Talk about hard!

This branch rolled lightly down the roof and stopped where I was able to push it up and over the railing on the deck. 

Going...

Going...

Gone.

With all the main branches down, we gathered them up and Ryan cut up the ones that could be used for firewood later. The rest of them we tossed into a giant pile in the unfinished driveway section. All piled up, it looked a lot like the wall of thorns in Sleeping Beauty Prince Philip has to fight his way through to fight the dragon. In fact, this darn tree it quite thorny. Beside the fact that it is tearing the fence apart, it is a mean tree!

It really is unfortunate that of all the trees we have in our ward, there isn't one that was placed where it wasn't going to ruin the fence or get tangled in telephone or power lines. Bummer.  

We have lots ahead of us, but progress is progress! :)

Don't Count Me Out Yet

Shortly after Pierscen and I joined Ryan in Casper this last summer, I attended my first Relief Society activity. It was located in one of the sister's backyards (a large, beautiful area with great gardening space and fruit trees). Before things got started, various groups were gathered and chit chatting. Though I was not intentionally eavesdropping, I caught a small piece of a conversation taking place at another table. One of the sisters who I am guessing is in her 50's said, "Someday when I write my best selling novel..."

I didn't catch the rest of it. That sentence struck me with horrifying force. I am a fraud, I thought. I have been saying this exact same sentence for years, and suddenly I had a visual of myself in my 50's (not that that's all that old... but ya know) still saying the same thing and doing absolutely nothing about it. Granted, I feel I have been "mature" about it over the last few years. Though writing a best selling novel is a dream of mine, I know that you have to pay the bills in the mean time. Thus full time employment at the hospital, lots of piano students, and even teaching dance for a time. However, where my "maturity" failed me (and by mature I simply mean that I knew I had to work vs just saying "good luck Ryan" while I stayed home to write) is that I didn't work on anything at all. I had a million excuses, sure, some of them valid, some of them crap. But regardless I was nothing but talk. I had lots of ideas, but I didn't feel any of them were really going anywhere. (I also didn't invest the time to help them go somewhere either.) But all along when people would ask me what I got my degree in I would say, "English - Creative Writing." Every time I would get that blank stare that I knew all to well meant, "Why would you do something like that? What on earth are you going to do with a degree in Creative Writing?" Well, that may be a valid question, but I can say that my degree absolutely helped me in my course of work at the hospital. It's not an obvious match, but it did help. And of course, I would always add that I want to be an author. 

To give myself credit, I did start working on one book. I was really excited about it, but I didn't make it beyond a couple of pages. I still like the plot for that book, but it needs some revamping.

The other day I was watching Family Guy, (awful show, I know, but it has its moments) and Brian, who is always striving to be an author too, finally writes a script for a play that does pretty well and he enjoys some small town fame and great reviews in the paper. All goes well until he reads a script Stewie wrote and realizes that his own play was "garbage" in comparison. Stewie takes his play to the "big leagues" and Brian, in his mourning I guess you could say, says the following to Stewie,

"I was so happy until I read your play Stewie. I finally had some kind of success as a writer. It wasn't big, but it was mine. I was fine being an okay writer until I discovered I was living in the house with a brilliant one. I know we don't talk about doggie years a lot but I just wish you could have waited to find out how talented you were until I was gone. By the time I am dead you won't even be 10. You'll have 70 more years to be great. I just wish I could have had 5 to be good."

Stewie replies, "There's your voice, Brian. It's a depressing voice, but it's yours. Write from that."

Brian's little monologue really struck home. I will admit, I may have even teared up a bit. I am not a "great" writer. (In fact, I am sure there have been many people who have read by blog and wondered how I could even fancy myself a writer. I am totally aware that my blog is riddled with typos and grammatical issues. I am not good at proofreading my own stuff and quite honestly I don't like doing it. And, just to try and defend myself a little more, when I am writing a book or a paper, my "voice" is different than it is here. That and time spent on trying to come up with accurate descriptions and plots is quite different too.) Anyway, I know I am not the best writer, and though I would LOVE to be a best selling author, I realize the chance of that is pretty darn slim. And you know what? That's okay. What I would love, is just like Brian said - success that "isn't big, but it was mine." To be able to walk into a store and see YOUR book with YOUR name on it. Wow. Wouldn't that be AWESOME?! And what would be even more cool is if someone other than family or friends bought it. Someone with no "obligation" to do so. And if that person liked it, well... yeah, that would be icing on the cake.

Well, don't count me out yet. I have started writing again. It may have taken my sister-in-law starting her own book to motivate me to start mine, but I am working on it. For me, the next big hurdle is allowing other people in. I have a really hard time letting other people read my stuff. I mean, when I was in school it was no big deal. It was part of the process. But for whatever reason now it is so much harder. It's a vulnerability that is hard to describe. I do want honest feedback, but it is terrifying to think that the feedback might not be what you want to hear. No one likes criticism, but it is part of the process. For me, it's just hard to separate myself from the critique. It's not me they are critiquing, it is my writing. In some ways one and the same, but in other ways, very much separate. Besides the critique though, some part of my silly old brain worries about people stealing my ideas. Pretty paranoid and selfish, right? I just have to "find my voice" and go for it. I might not ever get published, but I need to stop letting fear of "failure" get in my way. Writing makes me happy. And hey, if I think it's good, who cares what everyone else thinks, right? Haha. Besides that, self publishing is all the rage right now. :)

On a different note, (no pun intended) I have been thinking about music a lot lately too. I am not a great pianist. Some days I wouldn't even venture to call myself "good." I think I probably could have been if I had worked harder, talked less, and spent less time writing my own songs. I had an incredible teacher who was crazy supportive of me. I wasted so much lesson time blabbing away with her. It was honestly not my goal to avoid actually playing during lesson time, but I loved talking to her. And she was so good, kind and understanding that she helped me fuel my love for writing music rather than force me to perfect my Hanon exercises. 

A few months ago when I bought my piano, Morris, the man I was purchasing the piano from, asked me to play something. This is always hard for me because I have nothing memorized. I was never very good at memorization and unfortunately, I didn't have any Bach or Mozart up my sleeve. I tried to worm my way out of it, and then realized I could play one of my own compositions. It sure sounds fancy, but that's only because I have played it so many times I can make it sound difficult by speeding it up. Hahaha. Anyway, the song made him cry and ever since then he has been asking me to record it somehow and send it to him. I finally sat down and recorded it on my phone a half dozen times, none of which were perfect, and finally uploaded it to YouTube. Then the giant dilemma arose. (I swear only I would find a dilemma in something like this. I over think EVERYTHING.) Make the video public or private? Public or private? Well, I could keep it private and send it to Morris and that would be that. Easy. But if I went public, well... it would be fun to get compliments, but that also allows for critique. (That dang critique again.) How sad would it be to get a thumbs down?! And what if someone stole it? I mean, it's MY music. I wrote it. Could someone take it? (You are probably thinking, "Wow, she must really think highly of herself if she is always worried about people stealing her stuff.") And in a way, you would be right. But it's less that I think I am so awesome, cause I don't, and more exactly what Brian said, "It wasn't big, but it was mine."

Well, I kept it private, sent it to Morris, then changed my mind. I made it public. It's not like a lot of people were going to suddenly flock to it. In fact the chances of people finding it were/are so crazy slim that I figured that was the best way to go. If people stumble across it, fine. A couple days later I was checking my email when I saw that someone had "subscribed" to my channel and left the comment, "Nice! Really liked it." Who was this person? I have no idea!!! That's the magic of it! It wasn't family or friends or anyone that felt like they had to comment. I have no idea how this guy stumbled across it (well, obviously by typing in something that I used for one of my video tags) but the fact is, he had no obligation to comment or like it. But he did! I can't even tell you how thrilling that was to me. One person. One person in this huge world liked my song. That feeling is almost as great as being given the "best selling author" title. Okay, well, maybe not, but still. It was awesome!

Herein lies my question. (Didn't know this was leading to a question, did ya?) Actually, I don't really know what my question is. I have been thinking a lot about talents lately. Please be patient with me. I feel a big chunk of my personality is at odds with itself. I like compliments. Who doesn't? But I have a very hard time excepting them. (Thus my paranoia with people reading my books or listening to my music - I feel like if people compliment them, they do so because they feel like they have to.) I love to perform, but it terrifies me. I want people to hear my music, but I don't want people to think I am looking for attention. (I called my brother James after I got that first "like" on my song and told him all about it. He is the opposite of me and very much believes in promoting and trying to get it seen as much as possible. I am just too embarrassed to do so. He put the link to my song on his Facebook page and tagged me in it. It made me really happy, but I don't think I could have done it myself. But then he must have erased the post because the link disappeared. That made me sad, but I didn't ask him about it or post the link myself.) I struggle with the balance between sharing talent, and looking like I want attention. Where is the balance? The reason why people are successful in this world is because they share and pursue their talents. So why do I have such a hard time with this? Probably because I care too much what people think. I have no desire to be the next Jon Schmidt or Marie Digby (a chick that did a lot of covers and original pieces on YouTube and actually got a contract out of it.) Like I said, I love to perform, but that's not my future. What I would love, however, is to have my music written out and available for sale in music stores. I wouldn't make any money off it, but to have other people buying and learning my music - GOLDEN!  So what do I do guys? If anyone has made it through this post, I guess I am desperately hoping someone will understand what I am asking (while not actually asking it) and have the answer. How do I find that balance of being paranoid that all compliments are obligatory, and how do I find the confidence to share my music without feeling like I am reaching for attention? I'm not! I'm not trying to be all, "Look how awesome I am." I just want to share my music. I like it. So maybe someone else would too. Haha. 

Well here is a start. Here is the link to my song. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8UM_ZDOWvE   

I am trying to understand what the Lord meant in the parable of the talents. I don't want to bury mine, but I severely lack the confidence to go out and "multiply mine by ten." Thoughts anyone?