Best Ever

Yesterday was busy. We moved my sons back into a room together so we could have the office and guestroom back, (and we know they just missed each other so much). What a lot of stuff they have! We reduced it WAY down. It was 80% school papers! At the same time, my daughter kept the laundry going, and then I took over when I needed to get out of the blue room. We got them moved in and straightened up, but it was a lot of time and work.
It was also my younger son's birthday. He shares it with his dad. We were already attending a youth activity that evening, so we had already planned to celebrate a different night. And it was okay, because all of yesterday, Jacob was able to spend the day with his 5th grade at the Thermopolis hot pools, and he said it felt like a celebration for him.
When we got home from the youth activity (where they sang happy birthday to my husband and had his name on a cake) we sang to Jacob and gave him his presents (he was okay with going to a movie with his friends another night, but still wanted his presents on his birthday) and he had a piece of leftover cake. He and his brother shot around the new Nerf dart gun he got, and pored over the literature that came with his new Banjo Kazooie game he got for the XBox 360, and then it was time for bed.
As I was tucking him in, feeling like I needed a free day to devote to my little guy who is fast becoming not so little, but knowing the weekend was full so we had to piecemeal it, I bent over him in his bed and he reached up and hugged my neck tightly. He kissed my cheek and let me go, saying, "Goodnight, Mom. That was the best birthday ever."
I stopped and looked at him, confused. "Really?"
He nodded, grinning. "Except for the luau in Klamath Falls." (he was 6)
I shook my head and kissed him. "You are so great, you know that?"
He nodded, still grinning.
It made my night.
Happy Birthday, my little Blondie. Can't believe you'll start middle school next year! Love you so much!

Catching Up

Easter

My Time Out For Women Weekend With My Friends

Chelsea, LDS Prom

Sinjon & Chelsea

CHS Prom

Andrew & Chels

My Prom Date

Before Maren's Cinderella Performance

Her Performance Rose

Jacob Earned His Arrow Of Light

(notice the impeccable uniform)

Writer's Best Friend

All the kids' laptops are going back to school for the summer, which leaves me, until we get the new computer, with B's laptop, which he takes to work.  The good news is, the school techs were able to get all our pictures and docs off the old PC.  That was a relief!  So, I am writing this post, thinking I will not have much of a chance to post until that shiny, new, working computer graces my computer desk.  Which may be awhile. 

I have an old laptop my B gave me, and I write on that.  It is basically a glorified word processor, and the battery holds a charge for about 5 minutes now (it used to be twenty), so I am plugged in when I write.  And it is too old to have internet hook-up because of the advanced firewalls.  But, it has become my friend.  I like the keypad, I love the double click button, and the fact that it fits perfectly in my red and pink padded laptop case... that is, it fits without the charger cord.  So, when I go to the library to sit in the Wapiti* room to write, I stuff the cord in my purse, and I try to plug in where nobody trips. 

After I finished the first drafts of my first little non-fiction book on the PC (which I fortunately transferred to old reliable a couple weeks before the PC took a nose-dive), I began to use this little Compaq Presario 2100, which was sitting in a backpack on the floor under my husbands waders in the closet.  And suddenly, I discovered I could write sitting anywhere I wanted (given there is an outlet nearby)... or even lying down, which makes it nice when you have chronic back pain, where sitting forward at a PC is painful, or you have the flu, which I did when I began writing The Inn.  And on this laptop, I took my first idea for a fictional novel, and discovered I LOVED writing fiction.  Never thought I would.  Never thought I could.  I taped a sign on the cover: Do Not Disturb, Writer At Work.  It doesn't do any good, but it makes me smile to think the the sign thinks I'm a writer.

So, a few months ago, my B came home with a brand new laptop for his work.  A sleek, slim, sexy MacBook Pro.  He had me work on it, just for kicks, because he was so excited.  I was skeptical.  Where was the double click?  Where was the cord, guaranteeing it didn't go blank in the middle of my unsaved paragraph?  And what was with the apple key?  Ctrl+c doesn't copy?  What, Apple is so full of itself it overrode the ctrl key?  But my husband just smiled as I worked out the kinks to this modern beauty I was sure was all looks and fluff, nothing more substantial than old reliable.

And then, I fell in love with it.  How superficial could I be?  The keys were smooth, soft, quiet.  The gel-like touchpad gave into my fingers like bread dough (you bakers know what I'm talking about).  I could grab and paste in one graceful stroke... pictures, documents... it was a whole new, tangible world of grace and technology.  And don't get me started on iPhoto.  How could I be seduced so easily?  

"I want one of these!" I declared after fifteen minutes.

But, B just laughed, and shook his head, and said, "Oh, my dear... the school bought me this.  I do not think they will buy you one.  But isn't it glorious?" (or something like that).  He gently took the sultry machine from my tightening grip, and with one last wrench, walked away with it.

But, my Compaq has been with me from the beginning... all eight and a half months.  I open it up and can see all my work there on my desktop (and a few photos that were somehow transferred there in 2003... family pictures on temple Square in SLC, with Maren making the squinky-eye Uncle Josh taught her the night before in every photo but one, which made the Christmas card... funny story).  I still love my Compaq.  I have always been loyal... I was born in the year of the Dog.  So, I will stick with what I know, what works right now, faithful and true, and grateful.

But I'm not stupid.  I know all that stuff would transfer quite easily to a new MacBook Pro.

*Wapiti is an indian name for Elk.  It is also the name of a beautiful little town between Cody and the eastern entrance to Yellowstone.  I have a freezer full of Wapiti.

What I Wish, and What I Know

I heard an exciting rumor this morning about a new computer... I hope it's true.  And I still hope we get our pictures back from our old one.  Just a couple of wishes.

Speaking of wishes, I was able to attend a wonderful conference a couple of weeks ago.  A woman name Kylie Turley spoke to us about wishes, and how some wishes are just that.  A wish for comfortable, cute shoes... a wish for a good hair day... a wish for chocolate covered cinnamon bears.

Some wishes we can look and look and look for.  Some we wonder about (the wish for our teenagers to listen to us with awe and respect like they did when they were five).  Some wishes need faith, and hope, and hard work (if I plant my Wyoming vegetable garden, I wish everything I plant grows, but it would be better for my sanity if I just wished most things grew... a little).

And some wishes... that my grandpa had been able to meet my husband and my daughter before he died of cancer... that I hadn't taken that babysitting job in Spokane, so that I wouldn't have been driving home on that road and been hit by that car, and wrecked my back so I hurt every day... that my book will be published, so my other books will be published, so the book I wrote about our baby Kate will be published... are completely out of my hands.

But there are some wishes... That my teenagers will one day be done being teenagers all too soon, and love me with their words again... that my husband and children will meet my grandpa one day, and they will embrace as old friends... that my back will be made whole, maybe not in this lifetime, but at some point in this journey of spiritual and physical development, that is life and the hereafter... and that no matter what happens with these books, that I will get to hold my daughter, Kate Afton, again, and love her as her mother, and that my children will know their sister, and not be sad we lost her, and my husband will feel as though the hole in his heart for her will be filled... these wishes are possible, because of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Some wishes, I know will be granted.

I know.