Sunday, May 31, 2015
I am so done with May. It has been full every single day. Bring on June!!!
Bro T messaged me that you were in Ayutaya which is about 40 miles outside of Bangkok. It is a historic city which used to be the capital of Siam and the name of the city has Indian roots. The sites look amazing. That’s all I know. But I want to know what the membership is like there, what your home is like, and how things are different there. I want to know who your companion is, where he’s from, how long he’s been out, and if he has a blog. I want to know how you feel about things there and how things felt in the transfer.
I survived a very big week. Exhale. Memorial Day was great. After the ward breakfast (we only had rain setting up but not during), I took the kids to Savers for their big 50% off sale. Everyone found something. Elise is developing very distinct, classy taste. She found a cute skirt/shirt outfit I’ll email. Aleah, on the other hand, found two flouncy, bouncy skirts which she wears with leggings. Josie got a wardrobe in size 4. She spent the next few days trying on all her outfits. By noon Tuesday, she had worn five different outfits that I knew about, but Dad said she went through three in the morning while I was running kids to school.
Josie also composed a poem while I put my makeup on that morning. She “typed” it out on the large calculator. I can’t recite it for you, but it contained mortal life, summer, and extent. And while playing with the girls, Josie said, “This satisfies your “(But she didn’t complete that thought because the girls burst out laughing. And soon after she said “we’ve got to run away because there are horrible creatures.” Yeah, that well will never run dry, I think.
Tuesday rained all through the morning and we watched the forecast like traders in the stock market trying to decipher the chances of actually having a carnival. About 2:00 the decision was yes, rain or shine. And we had both during the carnival. Thinking I’d dove tail, I went and bought the water for 6th grade graduation and the otter pops for the kids after field day the following day just before the carnival. Don’t otter pops always freeze overnight? Especially in a -20 freezer which isn’t being opened all night? Well they were in a mass because they have to be contained to avoid ruining the food in the freezer. By the end of the carnival, the middle pops were still warm. I started fretting at that moment.
First thing Wednesday morning, I went into the school freezer to check the pops and about 20 of 800 were frozen. I added eight pounds of dry ice and checked again in a couple hours. More were frozen, but at noon I added 10 pounds more of dry ice dusted through the layers. It worked. By the time we were distributing them at 2, all of the pops were at least slushy and most frozen. However, if you were one of the punky, grabby, pushy sixth boys at otter pop time, now is the time to confess. I was not impressed.
Thursday I got up early to exercise and be showered and ready by the time Aleah had to be at school. I ran down to Sam’s to pick up the cookies for graduation. About the time I left the store for the dance festival, rain started to fall. I arrived and there was persistent rain and it was cold. I presented Mrs. G, who retired, with her thank you gift from the PTA. Mr. C gave me a nice Kneaders gift basket for serving as the PTA president this year and thanked me publicly. All in the rain. The kids danced in the rain, slipped in the rain, shivered in the rain. Aleah had crepe paper ribbon wands in her dance and they completely fell apart. And as soon as the dance festival ended, the sun came out and dried things up. It’s possible I felt a little persecuted at this point.
It was my responsibility to count out the binders for the 6th grade graduates and set them out. But the classes were putting on plays in the auditorium and the PTA closet is being converted into a classroom. So I was covered in drywall dust and had to haul big heavy boxes from the trailer to the auditorium because all the carts were in use moving classrooms. The one I took out with me disappeared and never returned.
After the binders were set out, Aleah and I ran home to eat Thai coconut soup and race back for her play. This was so cute. She was a narrator and she was on the set crew. The play before hers, A Porcupine named Fluffy, pretty much was propped out of our house. Was she the only one who brought stuff? Maybe. Her play was a variation of Cinderella, a big footed Cinderella. The narrators passed a mic around and in a pause near the end, the audience thought the play was over and started clapping. Then the stage crew took that as the signal that the play was over and closed the curtain. Aleah, animated as you imagine, called out: It’s not over. But of course, by that point it WAS over. I had to laugh and console her for a minute. She is so vibrant.
Then I was on to set up the cookies and water for graduation. Are you getting the picture that I was at the school for about six hours each day this week? Yes, I was. As I mentioned before, all the carts were being used. So I loaded the cookie trays on a multimedia cart in stacks of two. Going up the ramp from the parking lot, I checked the stability of the cookies just in time to see the top tray on the bottom shelf spill out onto the parking lot. Ugh. One quarter of our cookies unusable. I had to run back down to Sam’s to get another. Man! I was worn out. I rammed my cart into the backside of the lady in front of me as I waited for my receipt to be marked and then after it was marked, I pushed the cart over the foot of the lady who had just marked it. I was just thinking about how frightened I was to try to drive in my condition when a man from India who was behind me said to be careful driving home.
No, I didn’t get into an accident. But angels must have been clearing the way. I made it back with the cookies and everything went quite well. Did I mention not liking to feed brazen, self-serving sixth grade boys? Well near the end I watched a boy take one of the tray boxes that the waters had been on and load up ¼ of a tray of cookies and laugh to himself at his greatness as he went and shared his joke with his mother. Would you believe I reprimanded him? I feel like I could have handled it better by asking questions and letting him solve it. But the kid was walking away (and did I mention I was exuasted?). I told him this was not appropriate, that he was not being considerate and I TOOK the cookies from him. What in the world? We should just take because we can? My plan was to collapse when I got home. But of course there wasn’t time. I helped Aleah make kettle corn for her teachers and Mr. C. I straightened the kitchen. Dad and Parker left and after I got Josie down, I left Elise in charge so I could go to book group. I’m glad I went. It was a little trip away from the stress of the past days.
Friday was a short day, of course. I had to go into work to update software. There was just no time to collapse. We did have pizza that night, but Dad was gone helping VC move and I decided I WAS going to do something to replace some of the energy I’d spent. I went for a walk pushing Josie. Parker decided to join me.
Can you see the green on the mountains?
Yesterday I plodded through my list of things to do. At 10:30 last night as I was taking my makeup off, I had this dreadful realization that I was playing the flute with the choir today. While I did practice with them last week, I hadn’t even touched my flute in this crazy busy week. Thankfully the piece was simple and it came off nicely. I didn’t know what we were going to do in singing time until just before. But it came out great. I had visiting teaching this afternoon right after church and skyped Cambry immediately following that, and I didn’t know what we were going to eat for dinner. But we did eat: waffles with homemade ice cream and fresh strawberries. Sometimes not knowing frees you up to see possibilities.
We read the Book of Mormon as we ate dinner tonight. We read Alma 19 where King Lamoni’s wife asks Ammon if her husband is dead. He tells her that he is not and that he will awaken on the morrow. She waits over Lamoni who does waken and then all three fall into collapse. And Ammon is protected as the brother of the leader of those who scattered the king’s sheep at the waters of Sebus lifts his sword to slay Ammon while he lay unconscious, but the would-be murderer is struck dead himself. The Spirit was strong in our home. I love the Book of Mormon. Dad shared in his fifth Sunday lesson today the complete audacity of Joseph Smith to prophecy, in a day when the fastest form of transport was a horse, that his name would be had for good and evil all over the world. Who would prophesy something like that in that time if they wanted to be called a prophet? Who would write, if he was just writing a book as a fraud in that time, that his book would cover the earth. But there you are in Thailand fulfilling that prophecy.
Give me something good to think about that has nothing to do with school.
I love you, son. I’m so grateful for your service as a missionary.
Love,
Mom
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