Quinceanera

My 14 year old Hispanic neighbor and I were talking about her up coming Quinceanera. She told me about some of the traditions. I personally like how she will wear Sandles to the party and then her Dad will exchange them for High Heals. She asked me about our 'sweet sixteen' traditions. Do we have any sweet sixteen traditions? I always thought it was just sweet sixteen because you had never been kissed by a boy and that was a good thing! Then when I turned sweet sixteen, my best friends teased me about it! Wait- I thought it was a good thing! :) I didn't have anything to tell her. So much for good old fashioned American traditions!
Her 15th birthday is in October so I have time to plan this one. Does anyone know what to give a girl on her Quinceanera? Liliana is really wonderful and always translated for me when I can't think of enough 7th grade Spanish. She has babysat in a pinch for me and is just a great girl to have next door. I would love to honor my neighbor's tradition with a thoughtfull (but inexpensive) gift. Any suggestions are much apprciated.
Gracias!

Happy Birthday Lucy!

Happy Birthday to my niece, Lucy! She passed away over a year ago, just two weeks shy of her second birthday. Hailey still asks how long Lucy is going to be asleep and when will Jesus wake her up. Oh, her impatience! How wonderful to have family and cousins and the love to be with them. No one understands like my brother and sister-in-law just how impatient one can feel when waiting for the Lords plan to work it coarse course.
Happy un-birthday to my other niece and all my nephews, who we love even more and try not to take for granted (even though I may forget their birthdays).

Utah Or Bust

If any one knows of anyone going to Utah in the next few weeks, and wouldn't mind two stow-a-ways that would pay for gas, I'd love to talk. My Mom is missing her Grand kids and I am trying to remedy that for her.

Eat, Drink and Be Merry, for tomorrow you fry.

Confession time. All winter I have laughed at you. Yes, all my northern family and friends, I have laughed at your winter misery. The snow shoveling, black ice, and bleak grey days.I have listened to your woes and I have wondered why you would choose to live in a place where the weather could potentially kill you. Here in Arizona on a cold night, Chris and I would get our warmest flannel blanket out and sit on our patio with a cup of hot cocoa. Somedays, if it matched my outfit, I would even don a scarf, just for effect. 0
But judgment day is at hand. Actually it came April 21st, around the time Joe & Jen in Boston were waiting for their pile of snow to melt. The first day of 100 degree weather, the first of MANY!
Oh ye fair ones... ye better tan soon or it will be a long summer of sunburns.
Now is my day of reckoning, where I will drive with hot pads, and put sheets in the freezer so we can get comfortable at night. My cloths line complaints are mute now when cloths hung on the line are done faster than a hot pocket in the microwave. (disclaimer: I don't actually eat hot pockets, hot dogs, hot sauce or anything with the word hot in it until at least November)
I hear the maddening hum of fans, A/C's and computer tower fans like I lived in a self-sustaining, completely enclosed space port. I run from house to car to store and use lame mantras like "at least it's a dry heat". And I am sweaty from now until October, even in the pool. I will wonder why we choose to live in a place that cold potentially kill someone.
And just when I think I have served my sentence, and my day of penitence is at an end, September comes and you all tant us with pictures of crisp colorful autums, complete with a fall wardrobe and new colors to match. You will feel a change in the air and We will still be in the 100's, wearing our line-crisp, sun- bleached shorts and looking at our yellow lawn. We will be preparing for Halloween and planning costumes that won't over heat the kids while they trick-or-treat.
Yes, I laughed at you and now I am sorry. Forgive me and excuse me, I'm going to find an ice cube to put down my back!

Arthur Carl Hope

My grandfather passed away two weeks ago and so my family drove to Utah for his funeral. I love my Grandpa, but I never felt like I really took the time to get to know him. He didn't like little kids and my mom tells me he was a grumpy person. I also have lots of family in Utah including my newest Nephew, Peter. So this was not a singularly sad occasion, I looked forward to family and his eulogy just so I could hear more about his life.
Aurthur Carl Hope served in the Military, served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day saints and was the first in his family to ever go to college. He became a mathematician and worked at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. I joked that he worked on the Manhattan Project and that was why he was so reserved and grumpy. He was a great wood carver and has some of his artwork on display in a museum. And his obituary states that he loved dogs. He'd had four that I knew of.
The real measure of my grandfather is his legacy. And my real excitement for this trip was my Aunts and Uncles, and cousins. He had five children and 37 grandchildren. I have an Aunt and Uncle who served a mission in Mongolia, and one set who served in Singapore. I have an Uncle who wrote a book called 'Ground Pounders' (good read!) . My cousins are spread from the East Coast to the West and we don't see each other often, but we all get along and my cousins are fun, interesting, down to Earth and down right hilarious. Half seem to be Engineers- part of Grandpa's Legacy, maybe? We hadn't seen each other together in almost twenty years and still were genuinely happy to be together and feel a connection. After the luncheon, each of us stood up and took turns telling a memory. I heard bits and pieces of my grandpa in the memories we had all collected from him and was able to feel like I knew him better. What a good man, what a great family.
We are the ripples of his life that continue on and get greater and greater as we go.

your Challange

If you are reading this and have not yet been married, skip it and go to the next blog.

When I lived in New York, I meet a great gal named Liz Fuller. During one of our girls night chats, she told me of a challenge to make love with your husband everyday for a month. I wanted to try it, but then the laundry, kids, fatigue, head aches, jerky husband...
Then my husband joined the Police Force and the choice was no longer mine to decide. He worked some nights, slept days and the vicious cycle never ended. Poor pitiful me! Have you ever seen LadyHawk? She's a hawk by day and human at night. He's human by day and a wolf by night. Somehow they never connect. (In the above picture I can imagine him wondering if the hawk would try to scratch his eyes out if he tried to kiss her.) Great love story.
A couple of weeks ago my husband informed me he had training for a week and would be off work around 6 every night that week. Somehow (and that's a big somehow) I remembered Liz's challenge. Could I do it? With now 4 kids, a dog and so much going on, would it even be possible. Would I be up to the challenge? How could I pass it up, I had just been told I got my husband back, for a week at least. So last week while he trained by day, I schemed for the night.
Do you want to hear a secret? It was fabulous! A few 'quickies' mixed in and by the end of the week, I was flexing muscles I didn't know I had- Sex muscles! The amazing part was near the end of the week when I didn't feel quite as stresses about things and he seemed more attentive to my needs! We were connecting again. If you are a fan of sex like I am, you've probably read about all the healthy perks of a healthy sex life. I believe its true and more. It creates a healthy marriage and vies versa.
It was a great week.
(Thanks Liz. Hope you get your husband back too! And Liz, and Joy and all of us wives who have to live with out our husbands at times.)

oh, the potential

I secretly lament my own untapped potential. I have often thought, "If I'd just had more time, I could have done that better." Or " If I had all the money to put into that, I could have really created something amazing with that project." I feel that I want to explain myself when I give a gift or a meal, "This isn't how I envisioned it, if you could see the real me...
... but then I think about my neighbor Alfredo Cruz, and people like him. My neighbor is from Mexico and owned a ranch down there before coming up here (why would he leave that?). He worked on concrete until things slowed down and now I hear he works in a restaurant to make ends meet.
I often drive by men standing out on the street corner waiting for work of any kind. With out the hour long debate of who deserves what, politics, and immigration, I think of these men who just want to work and the lost potential of all those man hours. How would it feel to be able and willing and come home at the end of the day with nothing to show from your life. A good job gives that feeling of purpose and success in life- no doubt about it. I wonder if one of these people could discover cancer if they'd been given the change to even dream about college. What potential do some people live with and never achieve. Will we arrive in the next life with a a basket full of would've, should've, could'ves? (I love the Olympics because of the stories of potential achieved!)
I came across this quote from President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Thomas S.Monson and loved it.
"In the private sanctuary of one's own conscience lies that spirit, that determination to cast off the old person and to measure up to the stature of true potential."
I try to look at people and imagine their potential. I saw a women trying to shift decaying fence boards to repair her fence and wondered what she would be like if she were the Queen of England. Imagine the Queen in 'her go-to-corination crown' fixing a fence!
As for Alfredo, when our 'chicken' turned out to be a rooster and had to be 'disposed of', he came and did the deed and then showed me how to de-feather it. He was so remorseful when his dog bit my son, and is a very watchful parent of his own children. If his potential is nothing more than to be a great neighbor,father, husband, then I'm happy for him.
As for me, I'm not done yet.