I'm a Mormon, Yes I Am

I'm feeling grateful for the church these days. Here's why:

1. This guy

just gave one of the best talks I've heard in a long time. If you want to, you can see it here. I felt strengthened and heartened after Saturday night's broadcast. Thank you, President Uchtdorf.

2. It's helping me raise my kids better than I ever could alone. Last week I went to Ethan's Court of Honor and saw so many dedicated, wonderful people involved in guiding him and teaching him. So much work and service is done in behalf of my kids. Elise and I also went to a "Mom and Daughter" party on Saturday morning with her Activity Days group and had a great time. Again, another example of a lot of people going to a bunch of work, out of the goodness of their hearts, unpaid and largely unacknowledged, so I can have a special experience with my child.

3. It allows me to serve and work, and allows my kids to serve and work. When left to my own devices, I doubt I'd be as interested in reaching out, but the fact that the church gives me the framework from which to do it . . . well, I get it done. Sometimes. (Which is better than no times.) And seeing Ethan get up early to set up chairs on Sunday, then stay late to do fast offerings door to door (Utah!), then FAST until 3:00 without complaining did my heart good.

4. Without it, I doubt this world would make any sense to me at all. Faith, hope, charity . . . all the good stuff is there, and I'm glad.

So Now I'm Supposed to Complain

Since I indulged in some bragging last post, I promised all seven of my regular readers that I'd whine a little to even things out. Here goes:

-Why does The Amazing Race keeping winning the Emmy for Best Reality Show? I'll admit that I'm a fan of the show, but my fandom is waning. The Amazing Race is waning. It's yesterday's news. Plus, it's won the Emmy in this category EVERY YEAR since the award was instituted. I suspect that the Emmy-voting academy isn't really giving it much thought--"Blah, blah, reality shows, we hate you . . . THE AMAZING RACE." Project Runway deserved it, especially since the evil Harvey Weinstein has SOLD Project Runway to Lifetime (LIFETIME!!!!) and it will never be the same. Sigh.

-I keep forgetting to make Ethan clip his fingernails before church on Sunday. It's especially important now that he's passing the sacrament, and yesterday I glanced down and went "uggh!" If I didn't get after him (him or any of them--well, except Elise, who picks hers so no clipping necessary :-) then I'm convinced they'd end up looking like this:

All of my children recoil in horror whenever fingernail clipping is even mentioned. They run away and hide. They whimper, they moan. Do they think *I* like clipping their fingernails? And when is it reasonable to expect that one will take responsibility for one's own fingernail hygiene??

-Why isn't Dreamworks putting more advertising $$ behind Ghost Town? Forrest and I went to see it on Saturday night and it was a wonderful little movie. It's not trying to be anything more than a wonderful little movie, either--not trying to be edgy or genre-defying or crassly obnoxious. Just a funny rom-com with some hilarious scenes (Ricky Gervais is a genius) and a predictable, yet strangely satisfying ending. It's one of those movies that plays the tone just right. Tip too far to one side, it's cloying and boring; tip too far to the other side, it's off-kilter and weird. But Gervais and Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear were all pitch-perfect. So do you think Dreamworks is just supposing a movie w/ Gervais as a leading man will never make much money so they refuse to spend any? Cynical, cynical Hollywood. It's a fun movie, though. PG-13, but two f-bombs (be forewarned).

-Although I love everyone in my ward with a pure and unsullied love . . . if you sign up for Fabulous Friday crafts, please please come to Fabulous Friday so I don't have to gather up all your supplies at 11:15 p.m. and put them in my car and drive around with them banging into each other, metal clanging, gigantic pieces of wood sliding under my seats, until I take them to your house to give them to you and find you're not home after all and I can't leave them on your porch because it's raining. I'm just saying.

-My aerosol deodorant, which I purchased from Wal-Mart three days ago, has stopped working. I squirt and only air is expelled. I've shaken, disassembled, poked . . . to no avail. And I realize I deserve this for buying aerosol deodorant and ruining mother earth with all those chlorofluorocarbons.

-My tailbone hurts. Still.

And there you have it!

Don't You Hate Those Braggy Blogs?

I know, I know. Me too. But one of the reasons I birthed four humans was to have the right occasionally to talk up their finer qualities. So here goes.

Wyatt Dean

When he's not "helping" his dad fix the sprinkler system in the back yard (hooray for Dads!) he's kickin it big time at the pediatrician's office. The doctor was impressed at Wyatt's impromptu rendering of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (and yes, I will concede that his lyrics go something like, "Na na, do do, le da mo," but he's got the melody down) she was also pleased by the fact that he--drum roll please--occasionally puts two words together (genius I tell you!). He's literally off-the-charts size wise. As big as your average 2 1/2 year old! 36 inches. And I wondered why his 12 month pants from spring all looked like dork pants. He weighs a healthy 27 pounds and is well on his way to being the biggest Hallstrom child so far. Go, Bubba, go!

Jonas Leo
Jonas is showing admirable sportsmanship on his soccer team as they've been heartily spanked two weeks in a row now (12-2, 13-3, respectively). He's learning the necessary virtues of introspection and disappointment-management. His second grade teacher thinks he's da bomb (that's not exactly how she put it, but she was pretty gushy about Joe's charms when I went in to volunteer . . . which I've gotta say is nice), and even though he has a hard time remembering not to put clean pants in the hamper--so much easier to do that than fold them and put them in the drawer--I'll forgive him because he's such a good kid.

Elise Julia
Elise is having a great time so far in 5th grade, and she's even getting up in the morning without much of a fuss. Hooray! Her biggest news is that she tried out for and made the Riverton Children's Choir as a member of the more competitive Concert Choir. Her friend Hailey made the concert choir, too, and many hugs were shared when the girls heard that news. Elise will be following in Mom's footsteps as an alto. I think she's going to love it.

Ethan William
There's been a lot of blog time dedicated to Ethan of late, since he turned the big 1-2 and was ordained a Deacon and went to Jr. High, but I have one more item to add to Ethan's list. He was chosen to be one of 100 kids in his Jr. High who will be serving on the "Hope Squad," a group of kids nominated by their peers and teachers for being helpful and positive and good examples to others. Their job is to help out kids who are having trouble (there's even a suicide prevention training that the group goes through so they can help other kids) and to basically be, well, nice. Which Ethan is. I'm really proud of him that his friends think he's that type of a guy.

Forrest Stephen
Of course I didn't give birth to this one, but I can still take some credit for his awesomeness, seeing as how he's known me and been talking to me extensively for 20 years. Yes, it's true there's a good chance he's turned out so well DESPITE my difficult influence, but he assures me that's not the case. I'll take him at his word.

Today he competed in Triathlon #2, the last one of the season, and did a great job once again. This one was up at Pineview Reservoir in Ogden canyon and the weather was picture perfect. Blue skies, hint of a breeze, the works. And thanks to Forrest's parents babysitting the chitlins, Forrest and I were able to head up there just the two of us. A six hour date! Nice.






What manliness, no? (Except for that one picture with me in it. Not manly at all. Well, half manly, half delightsomely feminine.) It's a lot of fun to be a spectator at these things and see all these driven, goal oriented people working hard and achieving. Not that *I'll* ever do one, nosiree. That swimming portion scares me silly.

And now I'm done bragging. I promise next time I'll complain about something, just to even things out.

Go Buy That Segullah Book!!

So my sister-friends at Segullah just got a book published by (dum, dum, daaaaaahhhh) Deseret Book. I, for one, couldn't even get them to return my emails, so I'm just sayin, I'm *impressed*.

It's a fantastic book about motherhood, chock full of great writing and even greater insights. Beautiful prose (and even, gasp, real poetry!) and some wisdom and humor to boot. Who could ask for anything more? It's the kind of book I'm thrilled to see Deseret Book publishing.

And hey, yeah, I can say that I wish I was a part of it. Unfortunately for me, I joined the Segullah gang after this book was already done . . . but if this book sells well enough, Segullah's putting together a sequel and I should be a part of that one. If I can ever get off my behind and revise my essay, that is. (Love ya, Kathy! :-). So buy lots of these, if only so someday I can say that I got published by the ever-elusive (except to all those friends of mine, plus my flesh-and-blood brother) DB.

Oh, and because it's really good. And written by lots of wonderful people, whom I love. And because not everything has to be about me, right?? :-)

Check out the link on my sidebar and you can read all about it. Plus look at pictures of my friends on the authors page and see how pretty all of them are. Really, I'm not jealous . . .

The Deacon

So last week Ethan finally turned 12. I say finally because, as an official Jr. High student, Ethan was one of the only 11-year-olds in the joint.

But one of the best parts of having a son who turns 12 is the chance to have a Deacon in the house. Ethan was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood by his Dad (and a bunch of the other important men in his life.) It was a great occasion worth celebrating.







So fun to have so many family members participate *and* celebrate. (And Wyatt enjoyed the Fritos.)

Other goings-on? I finished the tallying and hounding necessary to pull of yet another Super Saturday. Tallying: dozens and dozens of individual checks representing two pages worth of orders equaling almost $3,000 worth of stuff due to our much appreciated Super Saturday lady (yeah, we have these out here--it's a new profession that's sprung up in the crafting industry, roving craft ladies visiting wards with desperate Enrichment counselors like me). Hounding: Calling and cajoling, entreating, then begging women in the ward to come GIVE ME THEIR CHECKS. ("I want my two dollars!!" Quick, name the movie.) Luckily I only have three more outstanding payments to recoup.

Makes one feel a bit like a moneychanger in the temple. Sigh. But we're makin some dang cute square pumpkin porch decorations and modgepodged magnet boards, I'll tell you what! And we're doing some hygiene kits, just so we don't feel completely commercial and lucre filthy.

I also taught my very first creative writing class at BYU, lo this very night. Enrollment is pretty low in elective courses at the SL Center, and right now I only have SEVEN students! Egads. I was hoping for around 12--small enough that I can spend some real time with each student's manuscript, but large enough to encourage discussion--but, heck, it will be less work for me, and the students in the class seem engaged and interested enough. Man, it was fun to teach, though. So much more fun than Freshman Comp and rhetoric. Rhetoric. Blech. But now I get to talk about poetry, short stories, the writing process, what it means to be creative--all the stuff I actually LIKE to talk about. I feel so lucky and blessed to have this opportunity.

I was thinking about this while driving to the Triad Center tonight: I have been in school, either as a student or a teacher, pretty much continuously since I was five years old. I had a break of about six months after Elise was born before I enrolled in a creative writing class in MN, and I had another break of about a year after Wyatt was born (I went back to teaching when Ethan was SIX WEEKS OLD, crazy, and I went back to Hamline when Jonas was two months old). But other than than those short breaks and the inevitable summers, school has always--always--been a part of my life. Isn't that amazing? I went up to the BYU Provo campus last week for a faculty meeting and being on a college campus gives me an almost drug-like shot of adrenaline. I guess it's how some people feel when they're in the mountains, or near the ocean, or in the middle of New York City. I suppose roaming a college quad is a better way than some to get my adrenaline fix. But man, do I love school. And I'm so lucky to be able to have it be such a big part of my life.

Parting shot (and change of subject): Sarah Palin was impressive last night. I was skeptical, and she impressed me. John McCain tonight? Not so much. Forrest kept saying, "I'm Tim Calhoon" and I agreed completely. And for those of you who don't watch Saturday Night Live, here's the reference:



Harsh? Or eerily similar?