Happy Mother's Day!

Years ago, when I started a streak of walking every day, I did it because it seemed like if I missed a day, suddenly one day missed turned into 7 or 10 or more. It seems like it's the same with blogging. It's been 8 days since I've blogged. I'm going to get back to working on a streak.

Today was Mother's Day and it was a great day. It was an unusual Mother's Day because we had nowhere we could go thanks to the pandemic - but that was okay. I talked to my mom in the morning and had a great visit. The rest of the day was great too. 

I know that a lot of people have trouble with Mother's Day. They don't like the "pedestal-ing". They feel inadequate. I've never really felt upset by people talking about how perfect their mothers are or were. I guess I really don't believe that they were that perfect and maybe it's also because I'm okay with my imperfections. Perhaps it was because I never felt like my mother felt that way. She just seemed to enjoy the day. It wasn't until I became an adult and realized some of the women around me truly hated Mother's Day. Don't get me wrong. I had those awkward years where I felt like a fraud taking the the flower or the chocolate at church when I wasn't a mother. There is some kind of strange idea at church that all women are mothers. They're not and the push we have to seem to try to believe that is weird. All that being said, I love my children's and husband's efforts to make it a lovely day for me. Their efforts are appreciated. 

This morning I woke up to a gift bag of fun beauty products from Allen, which was quickly followed by a "Welcome to Mom Spa" from Jill. She brushed my hair, massaged my scalp, gave me a pedicure and a back massage while the boys made breakfast. What a breakfast it was! Scrambled eggs, granola, yogurt and apple turnovers. Yum! 

Allen made an amazing lunch of French Onion soup and garlic toast. Yum!! I spent the afternoon reading and relaxing. Peirce got me some new oven mitts. He's been disturbed lately by my ability to burn my inner arms as I take things out of the oven. Really, it isn't the oven mitts fault, but I appreciate his concern!

Tonight we had a French style dinner. I'm starting to really enjoy this Sunday tradition. Really, it isn't that different than a regular dinner, we just do it in courses. I like having a salad course first. We all eat many more vegetables as a result. And of course, my favorite is always the cheese course. I love cheese!

We had a "Zoom Devotional" tonight with Elder Evanson where he talked about motherhood. He tied it in with the nature of God and how mothers give us physical birth so that we can one day return to God and God gives us spiritual birth. We can't get back without both.

Day 83 Friendship

What do I love about spring break today? Long drawn out coffee shop conversations with good friends! There is nothing like a steamed milk with hazel nut syrup and a good conversation!

Today I met my good friends, Lana and Lucy, at a Second Cup and we had our bi-annual catch up session. I am so grateful for these two. We have been friends since university. We have each had different struggles, but have remained friends for 20+ years. Each of us have very different lives. We have changed a lot since university. Our friendship has remained strong. We have celebrated happy events through the years and helped each other through tragedies. Marriage, divorce, death, babies, struggles in our careers and fitness.....those have been some of our topics over he years. We don't see each other a lot, but I know that whatever I come to them with, they will love me and support me.  They are simply fantastic people.

It seems right that after visiting with them I should have the chance to deliver some of the final products from our RS Anniversity party. We made sewing kits, as requested, for the Women's Emergency Shelter. 

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When I came home I made a darn good dinner. Sure was white though! LOL

Balsamic chicken, cauliflower, potatoes and coleslaw. It tasted delicious!

Little Rays of Sunlight? Day 22 of My 52 Days of Summer

I have been feeling rather down this week. With all the problems in the swim club I have just had a really had time getting out of the dark cloud. Then this week Allen's car died. We thought he had it fixed when he and his friend put a new radiator in (and got it changed quite easily!) but today it seems to have a new problem. Hopefully it's something that our mechanic can quickly fix - maybe they just didn't get things hooked up quite right.

Tonight our crazy kids decided to try some more independence skills and they took the bus downtown to go to Shakespeare in the Park. This left me home alone for the evening as Allen was off on an appointment. It was really great to have some time to myself. Luckily, I listened to a really interesting podcast today. It was about women in the church and the importance of women having a voice in the church and easing the pain some women are experiencing. It was about people and the things that they go through when they are ostracized or excluded from a group that they were a part of. It really helped me work through some of my feelings about the swim club's issues.

A couple of points I really liked about women in the church:

• Elder Ballard's book, Counselling with our Councils, says: One of my main purposes in writing this book is to encourage priesthood leaders to invite the sisters to more fully participate in developing solutions to the difficult problems facing members of the church. 

• If you are within an organization and you damage relationships you lose your ability to bring about change.

Oh....to add to the kid's story. After Shakespeare in the Park somehow they ended up at Olympic Plaza (not sure how that happened....they're not that close together!) and there was a festival there. They called me to see if they could stay. Seems they didn't have enough change for the bus ride home (although, Peirce seemed to have a different story in the background). Allen picked them up after his appointment. Phew!! Glad to see they didn't get kidnapped and shipped to some third world Latin hovel.