What's on my mind...

In case you ever wondered why I am so scatterbrained...

Key to Lara's brain:
Roadshows:  I am assisting in trying to rally 50 teenagers in our church congregation to put on a  roadshow this weekend. I am also creating the paper program for the night.  The whole thing has been a fun, but challenging task to say the least.  Let me know if you're interested in joining us for some quality free family entertainment on Saturday night. 

New Beginnings:  Right after roadshows are done, it's time to buckle down and finish planning for New Beginnings (a once-a-year program for the Young Women in our ward).  I've been creating invitations, planning, and researching ideas like crazy.

Food:  Cami, Emma, and I are trying to cut out refined sugar out of our diets.  It's been a mostly good adjustment, but we keep trying to find ways to make sugar-free treats.  So far we've tried using honey, coconut sugar, and dates.  Let me know if you have any good recipes. 

Glen and the rest of the kids:  Life is busy, hectic, and good.   Spence and Cami are getting ready for lacrosse try-outs this week.  I love seeing Spencer healthy and strong!   For the most part Glen is enjoying his new job and the more positive work environment.  Emma gave her first talk in sacrament meeting today.  The topic was temples and she did a fabulous job!  I was especially impressed with how she wrote it completely herself several days ago and presented it confidently and with even a bit of humor.  Adam is Adam and is constantly finding ways to work his hobbies (like building Legos) into his school projects. 

Ellie:  Between Ellie's upcoming 8th birthday (for which she has grand visions for) and an increase in the frequency of her seizures, she is on my brain a lot lately.   I am especially sad that the seizures are beginning to affect her schoolwork and her interactions with her classmates.  We're in process of trying to get her some accommodations for her educational needs, but in the meantime I find myself worrying about her an awful lot (even more than Spencer lately). 

Everything else:  Email, blogging, laundry, etc. are getting only a tiny sliver of my brainpower right now.   

Lara Has Run Out of Things to Say?

I keep racking my brain deciding what to write about.  I keep starting posts and not finishing them.    After almost 6 years of blogging, I have realized that I am in the middle of one of my longest streaks ever of writer's block.  Last month I blogged the fewest number of posts since the very beginning of my blog and even with a batch of homemade valentines to brag about (or make fun of as the case would have it this year), I just can't seem to put two and two together.  

One day in desperation for blogging inspiration I decided to look in my old journals. 

That's when it dawned on me. 

I haven't been blogging for 6 years....

I've been blogging for 31+ years. 

I started this journal on my 8th birthday, filling it with recaps of fights I had with friends, what we ate for dinner, and....

even a newspaper clipping from when I won the 4th grade district spelling bee. (my winning word
was "vaccination")
 

If you had asked me 20 years ago whether I liked writing, I would have unequivocally said absolutely not.   Yet I have journal after journal after journal that prove otherwise.   For nearly 32 years I've been writing about my life. 

It's fascinating to go back and see what was important to me at each stage of my life. 

My teen journals are rather boringly filled with lists what boy said hi to me that day and evaluations about why certain boys may or may not have liked me, but thankfully I was thoughtful enough to paste in a few old pictures to occasionally entertain as well.

Some of my entries are interesting. 

Some of them are hilarious and depressing at the same time....

and some of it is downright embarrassing....

So there you have it. 

I've been blogging for most of my life and have now run out of things to say. 

In the olden days I would have written an entire blogpost (or journal entry) to  how I should have enlisted a proofreader to correct my awkward phrasing and odd choice of words before I started mass producing the kids' valentines, but simply adding a few lipstick marks is so much easier and  more interesting...

Stay tuned for tally marks of how often Glen sends me flowers and debates on which outfit I should wear each day. 

Happy Valentine's Day!  
xoxo


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One Saturday in February

Today....

I had a YW camp meeting,

4 of the 5 kids had a service project (mulch flyer distribution),

Glen ran an 18-mile training run,

I took Adam to the Pinewood Derby district championship where he raced 25 other pack champions.

He made it to the finals and ended up taking 4th place!

Glen took Cami to the DMV where she passed her written exam and now is the proud holder of a learner's permit....

While Glen was at the DMV I started getting phone calls and texts from concerned friends who noted that Glen's email had been hacked.  Within about 2 minutes of the hack (by some idiot in Turkey), I changed the password to his email and facebook accounts.   We hope that that's the end of it.  In the meantime, he is annoyed and embarrassed. 

I went to the consignment store to do a cheap mid-winter wardrobe update.

While I was at the store, Glen was grilling some burgers and brats for dinner.  Randomly the grill burst into flames singeing the hair on Glen's arm and completely torching the food. 

We went out to dinner instead. 

We came home to find that Rocky had helped himself to his own dinner when he pulled a rotisserie chicken off the table and ate it in its entirety, all the way to the bones.   It was meant for tomorrow night's dinner and was forgotten in the hubbub of the flaming grill.   He totally knew his own guilt and hid from me when I walked in the door.  I think he was surprised when I refrained from getting annoyed at him and instead pulled him back over to the scene of the crime, so I could take a picture of him.

While the kids were all off at evening activities, Glen and I had an at-home date night while we waited for kids to come home. We watched, "Here Comes the Boom!" and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now I am typing, playing with the photos on Photoshop Elements, and thoroughly enjoying the memory of a totally normal--the good and the bad--kind of day! 

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Before and After Bedroom Pics

A tidbit that you may or may not know about me (depending on whether or not you've been inside our house), is that I am the very antithesis of Martha Stewart.   Not only does home decorating not really excite me, but I also find shopping tedious  and I tend to get very overwhelmed whenever I think of house projects.   It's so bad that my Better Homes and Gardens magazines actually cringe in horror when they cross over my threshold. 

Sad, but true. 

So, we are in process of trying to take advantage of the super low interest rates to refinance our house again.  I knew that an appraisal was part of the refinance process, but in our previous experience the appraiser has never had to come to our house before.   I was shocked and more than a little horrified when I learned that someone would not only have to see every nook and cranny of our house, but that they'd be taking pictures of it too. 

I actually wondered if it was worth the effort, but when I thought of the kitchen upgrades that we're planning to do after the refinance goes through, I decided that maybe the appraiser coming could be just the bee in my bonnet that I needed  to jolt me into action.    So we decided to start at the bottom of the barrel, which in our case was our bedroom.  Since nobody but us ever saw it, I never bothered to decorate it much or find solutions for the clutter.  Combine that with the fact that it's rather small and it's sadly become pretty pathetic over the years.  I decided that it was time for a change and the appraisal was just the motivating deadline that I needed to make it happen. 

Here's the BEFORE picture:  (yes, I know how ugly it is)  We have cluttery nightstands that don't have enough space, a bedspread that I've never loved, and kids drawings bedecking the walls with scotch tape. 

 I kind of enjoyed the researching part, but did not love the countless trips to Home Goods, TJ Maxx, Ross, Marshalls, and Target.  Nor did I love the hours spent poring through all the stuff, deciding what was worth keeping and where I was going to put what we did keep.  Organization does not come naturally to me and I found the whole process rather painful....   

...BUT, I AM SO EXCITED BY THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!!!!!

We got the new antique dresser thingy, storage bench, and nightstand from Home Goods, the lamp and curtains from Target, the chalkboard from Marshall's, and the bedspread from Ross(?).  We're waiting for a dust ruffle to arrive from Amazon.   Although it's not 100% done yet, I love having a place to put our things and I love that it actually looks pretty in here! 

I don't want to walk into another home store again for 97 years, but I am relieved that the appraisal is over and not only did I not have to be embarrassed, but I actually enjoy spending time in our beautiful, uncluttered bedroom!   

Next up....the kitchen!    

Another month...

and another clean check-up! 

Hooray for 8 months of being strong and healthy. 

He is especially excited to be feeling good at his pre-season lacrosse practices!  He missed the entire season last year and is thrilled to be running and playing hard again.  Additionally, all of his college applications are in and now he's just waiting to hear what his options are going to be for next year!    

Happy day! 

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Clinic Stats:
WBC=4700, ANC=2180, Hgb=15.7, Platelets=134 (still a little low), Weight=74.2 kg


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Pinewood Derby 2013

Ahhhhh, it's that time of year again.   The time that parents of Cub Scouts everywhere either love or hate. 

It's time when you get to help your son turn a block of wood into the car of his dreams. 

I wish I could say that we were the kind of parents who love and look forward to breaking out the power tools with our children, but as any power tool will kindly attest, Glen and I are a bit on the inept side when it comes to anything handy.   

After a couple of years of middle-of-the-pack finishes, this year Adam finally recognized that  relying on parental advice for designing his car was perhaps not entirely wise. 

Cue an impulse purchase from Michaels, a paperback book confidently titled Pinewood Derby Speed Secrets. 

Adam was enraptured to know that there were actually tricks to the trade and studied it diligently before completely designing the car himself.  Glen helped him with the power tools and with tweaks, but the ideas were all Adam's. 

There ended up being a few hiccups on race night, but after drilling a few holes in it to help it make weight and using a little glue to reattach the wheel which had broken off,  Adam and his car (which he dubbed, "The Tornado," were raring to go! 

Then something weird and unexpected happened....

Adam's car averaged 158+ mph and never lost a single race the entire night...

Now he and The Tornado are off to districts to race against the winners of all the other local packs....  

Now if only I could get him to use some of his sweet skills to fix up a few things around the house...

Spontaneity

What do you get when you combine a four-day weekend with a healthy dose of spontaneity?

Here's a glimpse: 

SIX hours of driving....


OODLES of junk food to keep the kids happy and me awake while I drove ( I have to point out that I do not drink soda or have caffeine on a regular basis, so me drinking Mountain Dew meant that I was reeeeeaaaaaalllllly tired, a fact which unfortunately shows up too well in that picture) ....


TWENTY-FOUR hours at an indoor waterpark...


LOTS of friends to play with....

ONE waterproof camera....

FIVE happy kids enjoying the 40 degree warm-up from one day to the next! 

And now we're back home and have ONE kid so worn-out from all the fun that she had to stay home from school to recuperate! 

And I won't lie and say that I've been tempted several times to join her there on the couch, except I have yet to find my way there through all the piles of laundry.

Top Ten of Growing Up in Minnesota

My family in front of a Minnesotan winter tradition--
A part of the Winter Festival in Saint Paul, every few years they would construct a palace entirely of ice.
I believe this was 1987 and apparently I was way too cool to smash my big hair with a hat.

10- I can tell my kids 100% true stories about how every day I walked almost a mile to and from elementary school in waist deep snow. 

9- I can calmly laugh at people who are in the throes of full blown panic when they experience the sensation of their nose hairs freezing together for the first time.

8- While other people groan, I am always rooting for a good snowstorm. 

7- I am not ashamed to dress in lots of layers. 

6- I can brag about how I was raised in one of the weirdest political states in America and came out relatively unjaded. (Why is it such a weird state?  Well,  not only was Minnesota the one and only state in the union to carry Walter Mondale for president in 1984, but they also elected Jesse Ventura, of WWWF fame, as their governor in 1999.)

5-  We shopped at Target before Target was the hip discount place to shop.  In fact I didn't even know Walmart existed until I was like 20 years old.

4-  I can tell people from what they call cold weather states (like Utah or Colorado) that they have no idea what real cold feels like.  And when they happen to visit Minnesota on a -30 degree day, they agree with me.  (True story)

3- I can blow people away with the little known piece of trivia that Minnesota, with its 10,000+ lakes,  has more shoreline that California, Florida, and Hawaii...combined!

2-  I can brag to my kids that our school superintendent worked on the twelfth floor of a skyscraper and wouldn't even consider canceling school until the snow was up to his office window.

1-  ...and then I can laugh (and enjoy the opportunity to sleep in) when our schools are delayed after receiving one measly inch of powdery snow.   

An Open Letter to Adam's Orchestra Teacher

Dear Adam's Orchestra Teacher,

With two cello players in the house, I've sat through a lot of beginning strings concerts before and have never left without a headache and the feeling that my ears were somehow damaged afterward.  There's just something about the scritchy sounds that a beginning strings player makes as they're learning the instrument that is literally painful....both to my ears and to my nerves.  

That is why I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you...  

Thank you for listening to this week after week after week (which with the accompaniment playing probably doesn't even sound half as bad as I'm sure the practices do)....


in hopes that they will someday sound like this....



You are a saint. 

Sincerely,
A Mom with Earplugs

New House Rules

We've recently had a few incidents around here that are causing me to rethink a few of our family's rules.   I usually try to go with the "less is more" philosophy on rule making, but in the interest of the well-being of our family I've decided not to take any more chances. 


1.  Thou shalt not let the leaf of the poison ivy plant touch thy face, nor thy eyes...lest they be smitten with a sore curse exactly like the sore curse that inflicted thine sister in days' past. 

2.  Thou shalt not retire to thy bed early and expect that the floors of thine abode will sweep themselves.

3.  Thou shalt not go to the doctor's office and expect that they will have the FluMist nasal spray, for in the day that thou goest shall be the day after they runneth out and only have flu shots administered with sharp needles.   And after the needle have poketh thy arm, it is kind, yay even saintly,  to thy mother to keepest thyself from engaging in half-hour long sobbing fests and near-faints. 

4.  Thou shalt heretofore remember that the steams  from the depths of a covered pot  can be hotter than hell itself and forethought should be taken to keepest thy body far removed from those cursed vapors that seek to destroy all in their path.

5.  Thou shalt not turn the station on the car radio and try to makest me hear thy music.  For insomuch that thou thinkest my music is boring, thine music smiteth mine ears from off mine face.  I ask thee is it good for mine ears to be smitten?  Nay, I say it is not good. 

6.  Thou shalt not steal thy mother's bathrobe from off of the hanger and think to use it for thine own purposes.  For thy mother's anger is kindled against those who causeth her to be left cold and dripping with only a damp bathrobe to covereth her nethermost parts.

This Week's Top 5

5--Cami was approached by a member of the school newspaper about doing a report on her New Year's cupcake sale that raised $450 for Glen's Team in Training fundraiser.  Later she was approached by the journalism teacher about the possibility of writing about it in the local community paper.  I will post links as they are published! 

4--I am slowly discovering the joys of taking pictures on my new iPhone and being able to send them to people immediately.  It means that I'm not toting around my big camera as often, which while great for keeping track of home remodeling ideas while I'm out and about, unfortunately seems to be taking a toll on my blogging frequency. 

3--Emma made a gorgeous Danish for our Sunday morning breakfast.  I definitely could get used to the 1:00pm church time with fancy breakfasts like this coming my way! 

2--Glen received his order of custom wristbands to give to people who donate to his Team in Training fundraiser.  They say "Livestrong" on the yellow portion, "Beat Leukemia" on the orange portion, and "Team Spencer" on the purple portion. 

1--With the help of my awesome sister, Heather, I finished the YW project I was working on and absolutely LOVE the way it turned out! 

A Year Ago Today

This time a year ago, life was good.   We had our normal concerns (including why Spence was so pale and low on energy), but for the most part we were a normal busy family. A few hours later, our pediatrician called and dropped the unexpected bombshell that would change our lives forever.  Little could we imagine in those first horrible moments after hearing the word, "Leukemia," the journey that we were about to  embark on.  A journey that would include some of the darkest, most fearful moments of our lives.  And at the other end of the spectrum, a journey of more kindness and generosity being heaped upon us that we could have ever imagined. 

Here's a little glimpse of that journey:

• 118 nights in the hospital

• 10 months of unemployment

• Developed and/or discovered allergies to 5 different kinds of medications, including 2 classes of antibiotics (penicillin and sulfa)

• 4 rounds of intensive chemo

• 2 bouts with the dreaded stomach infection c-diff, which meant isolation in the hospital room

• Severe mucositis in his throat and mouth

• More medications than the rest of our entire family (and probably our extended families) combined have taken in our lifetimes

• Unexplained chest pain

• Weeks of having no immune system

• Five months of being hairless,  often even without eyebrows or leg hair

• Emergency appendectomy

• Lost 40 lbs.  (most of which he so kindly transplanted  straight to my belly and hips)

• Countless blood and platelet transfusions

• Buckets of tears and worry that still haven't ended

Although I would never, ever, ever want to relive this past year, I would be remiss if I didn't also list a few of the many blessings that were poured out on our family during those months.    They were every bit as part of the experience as were the negatives. 

• Fresh homecooked meals brought to our family every-other-day for 18+ weeks

• Friends that left their house extra early and drove out of the way  every single day to pick up Cami for early morning seminary

• Dozens of people who shaved their heads in a show of solidarity for Spence

• Long lost friends and relatives who used Spencer's sickness as an opportunity to get in touch with us after many years

• A housecleaner paid for by friends who came every-other-week ( I miss this)

• Dozens and dozens of people who took time out of their busy schedule (often on a weekly basis) to visit Spence in the hospital

• Increased faith in God's individual love for His children

• 3 of our 5 kids who have changed their ideal future careers to something in the medical field

• 400+ cards received for his 17th birthday

• Caring docs and nurses, who not only took care of him around the clock, but also answered our gazillions of questions and made us feel important and loved

• Hundreds of people around the world who prayed daily for Spencer and our family

• Celebrating seven months in remission

I find myself woefully short on the right words to say today, but on this year anniversary of the day of his diagnosis, I just wanted to pause and express our deep gratitude for all that you have done to support our family this year.  That support has meant the world to us. 


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Project-a-holics Anonymous

I love diving...

• but I don't scuba... 

• in fact I've never in my entire life even dived into water before.   (Feet first, yes.  Belly first, sometimes.  Head first, no. )  

• I don't dumpster dive either, although there was a time in my life that I would walk around the neighborhood and swipe people's coupons out of their recycling bins, but that's a story for another day. 

So how do I love diving? 

I love to dive head-first into projects.    Give me a deadline and something hands-on to do and I can throw myself 50000000% into it, knocking everything and everyone out of the way in the meantime.   

I don't really mean to do it.  It just sort of happens.   I have something I need to do and then I have an idea.  An idea that would make it so much better, that I just can't help but do it.  

So I dive in....and while I'm in the process, I invariably get sucked into the adrenaline rush.  I get caught up in the awesomeness of my plan and it almost seems intoxicating to make it happen.  I literally thrive on that feeling and feel lost when I don't have something "fun" to work on.

Then I finish. 

Sometimes I'm glad to have done it.  Most of the time though, it's a huge let-down.  I'm off the adrenaline rush and realize I've spent too much money, put too much time into it, my house is a gigantic mess, and I'm not really sure it meant that much more than it would have been without all the effort. 

I've been going through this process over and over again my entire adult life and even knowing that that's how it usually ends, I still manage to let myself get sucked in.   I feel like I need to go to a Project-a-holics Anonymous and learn how to temper the enthusiasm with which I pursue my projects, but I can't seem to find the number for it in my phone book.    

Maybe I'll just start my own chapter of it.   We'll meet every Tuesdays at midnight on top of Mount Kilimanjaro.  Bring hiking boots, a water bottle, and your laminator. 

We'll get started....

right after I finish up this project I'm working on.



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