Spud Harvest - HUZZAH! for Idaho

*gasp* I just revealed where I live!
Is it really bad of me that I don't care? I guess we'll see who's laughing when my identity gets stolen. What a crisis that would be... (teehee, identity crisis)

Michael is working 16 hours a day, 6 days a week (we have ASSUMED he gets Sundays off) for the next three weeks. Oof. My poor man is exhausted. He drives a big once-garbage truck, which would be easy except that it's pretty dangerous trying to keep the truck in the right spots and stuff. Plus, it's the "tricky truck," so its parking gear breaks often. And he had two flat tires. One cool thing: he's growing a really handsome beard!

:D I don't usually like those things...anyway, he'll have to shave for Church. (I give a whistful sigh of surrender...we'll never see what he'd look like as an island castaway or something. So much for those dramatic daydreams).

We get up at 6:25 for scriptures and breakfast, and he's gone at 6:45. He gets home around midnight, and I'm most often asleep. I'm in bed by 10:00 and asleep soon after. But last night, I had reason to be awake! I worked at Snoasis from 7:00-11:00 because none of the girls wanted to work, so they were in a tight spot. I worked there for a short time about 2 years ago when I was pregnant. My poor employers. I wasn't that helpful! I had to call in at least twice a week (at LEAST) and excuse myself from work else I'd barf all over the customers. I don't think they'd like that.
I like working. Like, I really like it. I know I work all day as a mother, but I enjoy all of the people interaction and simple service of working a "job." I like to smile at everyone and make them feel happy. I like to be given a task I'm expected to fulfill quickly. Some people feel like any regular job is just dumb, brainless monotony. Well, I LIKE it.
I was talking to my mom about this a few weeks ago. Michael was (and kind of still is) looking for a job. I said how I kind of wished it were me getting the job because it just sounded fun to me. She gently reminded me that being a mother is the best thing I can do, and I should trust Michael to provide for us. And I do. I really do. But I appreciated her words anyway, because part of me felt a very tangible pull to the work force outside the home. Michael's mom is very willing to help with Ender...I wouldn't have to work very much...It would really help financially...I'd have even more motivation to keep to a schedule...It would be so fun! Mom said she never felt a desire to work aside from mothering. She so loved being with her babies that it never became even the slightest temptation.
At first I felt a little guilty. I DO love Ender! I love being his mother! But it's true, she's right: it's a sacrifice. And once you decide to be a mother, some things do need to be over. Mom wanted to be a chemist--and she'd be a famously good one, I guarantee it! SERIOUSLY! My mother loves education, and she has carried hers to the point that she's now studying in Harvard (yes, that's what I said, I'm the offspring of a genius). But she made a lot of sacrifices along the way so that her mothering never suffered for it.

Ahem. Here, I must interrupt myself to be a mother. Ender is stinky. *done!*

Basically...it felt really, really nice to be working, and I so enjoyed earning extra money (I got paid quite generously for four hours. Quite). The time went fast, and then I got to be with Michael!

Maybe some women feel that the best way they can help their husbands in financially tight times it to work. I have considered it a couple times, myself. I always come to the conclusion, though, that it would be infinitely better to be the mother of the home while he's the father of the home. We support each other in our best (and divine) roles. And Heavenly Father blesses us for our faith in living His family pattern!

While I wrote to one of my friends, I mentioned how hard times are often the best for learning things you couldn't otherwise learn. I haven't always liked that truth (who has?). It seemed to sink in better when I wrote that, though. I admitted to myself that it might be a while before we could describe ourselves as financially comfortable (which stretches into a lot of other kinds of comfortable). It's probably also true that people who gain that financial comfort early on with considerable ease never really learn just what it means to survive on a budget or to follow a budget by the tightest pennies. When I'm honest with myself, I really don't want easy money. I wouldn't want to be a rich person who has no idea just how much comes in and goes out. That's dangerous!

I'm sort of babbling...the short of it: yes, I want to be rich because I see so many ways I could bless others if I were. Ways I couldn't otherwise. I would love to have plenty for my own family, but I'm being honest when I talk about "silly" daydreams where I have the money to help people and family in ways they can't help themselves. I take those daydreams very seriously.
But when we start making that money, I want it to be Michael that's bringing in the bacon. Even if it means 16-hours a day for what will seem a very long time. It's a sacrifice for both of us--in a number of ways.

So I'll be a mommy. That's already a "job" anyway. ;)

OH! P.S. - and I will get paid handsomely for it. Some now, lots later.

She's Back?

No way! Am I really back? For real this time???



The worst part of this is that I could write about SO many things (because I've been "gone" for SO long). I could write about moving (uggghhh). About hiking (and nearly killing my poor toe). About family (one of the best subjects sometimes). About my nursery-age baby (weep weep).

Nay, I shall write about the harp.



If you've read Rae's blogs about her cello passions, you'll have an idea what things have been like with me and my harp.

The above picture is the only one I can find; I am sorry the harp is covered. At least this time I actually put up a picture! Yay!


Dot dot dot.



Well, I'm afraid I won't wax very poetic here, but basically, I've not touched the harp much. If I took the dust cover off (which makes the harp uninteresting to Ender and his toys), I would sit down for perhaps ten minutes to run some boring arpeggios and try to think of a memorized song. First Arabesque? Oh, but I play that ALL the time. Noel Provencal? No, same deal--and that's a Christmas song. Chanson dans la Nuit? A favorite! Alas, I've been so neglectful that I have forgotten even that one. I think I used to play it every day, too. It was engraved in my finger muscles' memory. (By the way, did anyone else notice that all those song title are in French? Maybe it's just such a pity to put an ugly English title with a harp song since the harp is notoriously romantic). If I actually got out the music, I felt frustrated that my fingers didn't pick up as automatically.

But enough! GUESS WHAT?!!! I've been practicing! Really! Almost every day! And tuning the harp, too, which is sometimes more than half the battle. 47 strings, guys. You violinists think you have it hard. Silly people.

So today I played a number of songs, among them (yes, in French again) La Joyeuse and Le Bon Petit Roi D'Yvetot. With La Joyeuse, I played it slowly through the first time, and it simply felt good to re-remember it. The song is entirely made of descending arpeggios with the top note sounding the melody. I promise it's beautiful! Just as I was about to put it away, though, I decided to run through the beginning (which I have never unmemorized) as quickly as I could.

*goosebumps*

I sounded like the virtuoso albums.

*shivershiver*

Please don't laugh at my description, I'm just telling how it felt: my fingertips tumbled over the strings and beautiful, rippling, bubbling harmonies rose from the depths of the harp! One of those exhilirating moments when the vibrating sound waves literally (I'm not using that word for the heck of it) enveloped me. Mmmmmmm. Music. Art. Passion. Heaven!

Then I played Le-etc. (The Good Little King of Yvetot. I know there are some really hokey arrangements out there, but mine is rather the coolest by Marcel Grandjany). Fun, fun. And then the END!!! Weee! I ripped out this whizzy-fast scale thing with bestartling chords erupting inbetween and finished with a zip down the strings and a most gratifying grace-noted finaleful blOOM of a chord.

I smiled. :)

And I thought,



"I'm back!"