Author: alicewgold

I would like to state that I am a brunette, but now I am a mix of grey, white, brown, and blonde. I would also like to say that I am 150 pounds, but that would be a boldfaced lie. How about I say I am work in progress because that is the truth? A beautiful work in progress. I love the sound of my fingers tapping on the keyboard and my greatest hope is that something that I write will lift someone else on their journey.

WT

Abigail’s “Barbie” blanket

Here’s another confession. Not a proud parenting moment.

When we moved with our three kids to Tennessee, I was plagued with anxiety about how people would view me and my family of 5. I think I was justified, as to the fact that we live on $12,000 of student loans a year + whatever wages my husband can scrape up in his spare time during the school year and summers. [The big fat greedy lawyers do not pay clerks enough. Whenever LG is high and mighty, he is going to fork over some cash to those starving students. Or, maybe he won’t, maybe it is some kind of passage of rite: if you can make it through law school alive, then you deserve a decent salary.]

Well, embarassingly enough, I was heard to encourage my children not to do certain things in fear of fitting into the “poor” role. I would give them good advice like: wear your shoes, brush your teeth, comb your hair, don’t say bad words, be nice to your friends…..all good pieces of motherly advice. Sometimes, I would put a little add-on at the end, “Now, you don’t want people to think that we are white-trash.”

One night, we were all taking a late drive home. It was a sure thing that all the girls would fall asleep on the hour and a half drive. Abigail had gotten her pants really dirty or wet so that she didn’t want to wear them on the long drive. We were caught without a change of clothes and so we told her to just take her pants off and put her blanket (pictured above) over her legs to cover her up. She was satisfied with the solution to the problem.

Well, we ended up needing to take a potty break and a stop for some more baby formula. We stopped in at the local grocer. I wrapped Abigail up and told her to keep herself covered as we ran into the bathroom. Abigail was only about 4 at this time. When she finished her business, she caught me completely off guard when she said matter of factly to me:

“Mom, now, cover me up good, we don’t want anyone to think that I am white trash!”

Be Grateful

Let’s play princess

This picture provided for free by ace-clipart.com

I often remind my children to be grateful for what they have. It isn’t uncommon to hear me say things like, “Be grateful for those shoes; some children in this world, don’t have any.” “Be grateful for your sister, some children never have any sisters.” “Be grateful for that broccoli, some kids are going to bed hungry tonight.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah….I know I sound just like my mom. As I am writing I am realizing that maybe I need to stop saying these things because my children may learn to only see the negative. But, then they may turn out a lot like me and wouldn’t that be so fun?

Well, when you are a mom, you get rare moments that let you know that your kids are actually listening to you. I had one earlier this evening. It went something like this:

I was in the family room with the girls trying to pick up all the toys so that the house would be clean when LG got home. My girls were determined to play dress-up, which means that they HAVE to dump out every costume item from the dress-up chest. I told them to pick ONE thing, so that we could put the rest away. They complied. I walked out to the laundry room to change a load and this is what I heard:

Sophia (3) says, “I want to be a princess, but I can’t because I have short hair.” Abigail (5) responds, “Some princesses have short hair; you can be a princess.” Phia then says, “No,I can’t, I need long hair.”

Abigail ended the conversation just as she has been taught. She sounded like an old pro when she counseled her little sister, “Sophia, you can be a princess, and you just need to be happy that you have any hair; some people in this world don’t have any hair.”

Oops!

some random person taking a plunge at Lighthouse Park: Jupiter, FL
Picture provided by: jupiter-rope-swings

I just had to find a picture of a good rope swing before I tell you this story. Here is the best free picture I could find in ten minutes. (Hey, it’s time to make dinner)Some company wants a startling $129 for a picture just like the one above (Ridiculous)

Well, when LG and I had been married about a year, I was privileged to be a leader at another girls camp for the church. This camp experience was really fun. Probably because I didn’t have a whole lot of responsibilites except to teach some clases and help other leaders out as needed.

The camp lasted a week up in the mountains in Utah. It was a beautiful place. By Wednesday night I really missed my new husband. So, you can imagine my surprise when on Thursday morning my knight in shining armor drove up a day earlier than expected. I was so happy to see him! LG had brought his mom and dad and sister with him. They had come to just say Howdy, but I ended up leaving with them because my responsibilities were really through, and I REALLY missed my husband. Plus, I thought it was more important to spend time with his family who had come all the way from Tennessee.

Well, before we were to leave, I had to give LG and his family a small tour of the campsight. I showed them the pavilion, the biffies, the girls’ tee-pees, and all the other points of interest. We ended the tour or maybe I should say I put an automatic stop to the tour at the small lake. I showed them the canoes and told them about the lakeside meeting we had on the first night where there were candles all afloat and a fire burning in the middle of the lake. We all stood on a small dock as I played tour guide.

At the end of the conversation, I told them about the recreation time we had, just that morning. I said, “The girls really liked this rope swing.” There was just one small rope swing that hung off a pole on the teeny dock. As I said this, I grabbed the rope swing and swung out over the water. The only problem was, I didn’t land back on the dock as I had intended.

I plunged down to the bottom of the lake fully clothed, leaving my four family members there in astonishment. Now, you know I am Crazy Ali and so, they were really trying to figure out if I was playing some kind of joke or if I had my swimsuit on underneath or if I dove in on purpose for their reaction.

To my dismay and utter embarassment, it was none of the reason above. My hands had just slipped, leaving me under the water trying to figure out how I could swim away. I was thinking, “If I stay under here long enough maybe they will go away”. Well, they didn’t. I surfaced with a squeal, at which point, they knew I hadn’t intended to take the swim. Their howls of laughter almost made my embarassment worth it.

But, for now, I am not going near any rope swings when fully clothed.

J.D.

The ONLY tractor

Images Copyrighted by Historylink101.com & found at Story of Farming Page

When you apply for Law School, you have to submit what they call a “personal statement” Well, a friend of ours on a Law School acceptance committee advised LG to do something different that would make him stand out as an applicant. Much like what you see Elle Woods do on Legally Blonde. Now, LG was not about to jump in a hottub in his bathing suit, much less, talk into a camera, tape it, and send it to actual living breathing people. But, we did come up with something to start his statement out with a bang. It is based on a true story.

While growing up in the lush foothills of Northeast Tennessee, I had a small lawn mowing business. The pinnacle of my mowing career was purchasing the Cadillac of lawn mowers, a John Deere. Even today I reminisce about the power of my John Deere and how at ease I would feel at the wheel of it. Shortly after the birth of our second child and several months before graduating with my Bachelor’s, I told my wife I wanted to get a J.D. Initially she thought I intended to discard my degree in Computer Science and become a professional lawn mower. I quickly assured her that what I meant by J.D. was Juris Doctorate, not John Deere.

No turning back

August 15, 1997

Don’t we look so happy? Well, we were. And we still are. I am a very lucky woman. Will you please remind me of that on the days when we are fighting?

Unfortunately, everyone has to come home from their honeymoon and deal with each other. (We didn’t really have a honeymoon and so our “dealing with each other” started from day one) For us, the whole first year was a veeeerrrrrryyy long process of figuring each other out. When we look back on our lives, staying married for that first year will definitely be a “greatest accomplishment” for both of us. LG and I are so different and I am willing to admit that I am hard to live with, and he admits that he can be too sometimes. Part of the reason that we have made it in one piece for the past 90 months is that usually we both think that we got the better end of the deal. And, we also both came into this marriage with the attitude that there was no turning back.

Well, one time, during this year from H – E – double hockey-sticks, we had one of our “discussions”. We were not happy with each other at all. This still happens, but just not every day like it did that first year. I had been thoughtless towards him and committed the unpardonable sin of demeaning him in front of other people. And, he had struck back in the car on the way home with a thoughtless remark. (No need to share the details…I am already sharing way more than my VERY private husband would like) Well, I was shocked and hurt because as far as I can remember this was the only time LG has ever said anything hurtful to me. (And, even though we hadn’t been married that long, he knew exactly what to say that would hurt me the most.)

LG had let his passive-aggressive side OUT, and it came OUT with a vengence. I was so angry, hurt, shocked, broken-hearted, and depressed all in one. I retreated to our bedroom with the cordless phone. (This is what I do when we fight; I call in all my troops…my sisters, friends, mom, even his mom sometimes) Well, usually my support group just listens and gives me small tips of how they would work out the situation. Well, this time my mom had some WORDS to say to me. I called her in tears and told her what he had said. Instead of defending me and telling me that he had acted like a jerk and I shouldn’t forgive him until he came groveling, this is what she said:

“Alice, that is the best man that you are ever going to find.”

And although I hate to admit it, she was right!

Home of the free

Land that I love

Since the 50’s the Mormon Church Leaders have encouraged Mormon families to set aside Monday nights as a Family Night. Monday nights are called Family Home Evening, we turn down outside commitments and spend the night at home with our family. We can read, pray, hold family meetings, sing, or do other fun family activities. In my family, Monday nights has to include a song, prayer, lesson, game, and treat. Because my family is very patriotic, we also have another tradition: The Flag Ceremony. The girls act as a color guard and we have The Pledge of Allegiance, and afterward we sing “She’s a Grand Old Flag“. It is really fun to watch the girls march around the family room with their flags every Monday night. Come on over and see what I mean.

This flag tradition started when I was a child. My parents were patriotic. Much like most people in this country, my great-grandparents, on both sides, were immigrants. My mom and dad started the flag thing during family home evening when we were kids and it slowly escalated into a full-blown production. We had a very long hallway in our house (all those kids + all those bedrooms = that long hallway) After, the flag ceremony, we would all march up and down the hall singing, “She’s a grand old flag”. After a while, my brothers got bored of just marching and they decided to surprise my parents, who always waited in the family room until we all decided to come back.

One night, my oldest brothers encouraged us younger kids to find a creative object from the bedrooms and to put it on top of our heads. Like in The Sound of Music, we always lined up, oldest to youngest. Of course, we did as we were told. We all got our objects, lined up in the hall, and marched out to the delightful surprise of mom and dad.

The objects started out: shirts, blankets, hats, toys. But the longer this game went on (which was quite some time) the objects got much more creative: underwear, laundry baskets, furniture, wastebaskets. (You get the picture) Looking back on this, we probably didn’t display the most reverence for the flag, but through this simple consistent tradition, my brother and sisters and I all formed a great love of the flag and of our mighty country.

Last summer, I was the Assistant Director, of the Knoxville Cumberland Stake’s Girls’ Camp. The Director was a good frined of mine and we worked REALLY hard at preparing a rememberable camp for the 100 girls that would attend this week-long camp at Pickett State Park.

One item of business that was especially important to me was the Flag Raising and Lowering. After reading my family’s history with the flag this won’t come as a surprise to you. My friend also knew of my love for America’s flag, but she didn’t seem to share my sentiment. I have been a leader for The Boy Scouts of America, and so I have witnessed how boys were taught about the flag. I felt like this camp was a rare opportunity to bring the girls up to speed.

Well, as the camp went on, it became more and more obvious that teaching the girls how to handle the flag was not a priority. I tried not to get frustrated as I wasn’t in charge, my friend was. One day, toward the end of camp, we were sitting together during a cheap attempt at a flag raising. I said to her, “What is the deal? Why don’t you care about this flag stuff?” She looked me straight in the eye and said, “Hello, I’m Canadian!”

Both of us just cracked up. I had forgotten that she was Canadian born. She is so “American”. When dealing with 100 teenage girls for a week, it is needless to say that this small bit of humor provided us with just 15 seconds of much needed laughter.

Moral of the story: Unless you are talking to Tom Brokaw, don’t expect your Canadian friends to love the flag as much as you do, and don’t try to have flag raising ceremonies with a Native Canadian leader.

My Fortune

Proud Daddy

Since Friday, my husband, LG, has been reformatting my hard-drive. It seems that this blogging business has been a little much for our 7 year old PC to handle. This is the reason I haven’t been on much. I still am and will be working out kinks in my system.

I came across this picture, and I just LOVE it. Look at how Happy the new daddy looks. This was Sophia when she was two days old. Sophia is LG’s spitting image now, but we never would have guessed it when she was so little. I love my husband, and seeing him as a GREAT father makes me love him even more. He is so tender with our girls and me, his wife, too. I am so FORTUNATE.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are days that I want to strangle the guy. After all, he is a guy and we all know that us women and men have our differences. Take for instance, last night. We were sitting at the kitchen table for hours talking about our plans for the future; mostly, about whether or not it will be worth it for him to do the joint JDMBA. (Another year of this poverty seems like pure torture to us and our kids)While we “discussing” LG kept playing with the girls’ new plastic paperclip toys. It was so distracting, and I kept asking him to put them down while we talked. He would put them down, but somehow he would have them back in his hands ten minutes later.

Right, at the pinnacle of our conversation, the paperclip chain violently split in two and one half went flying through the air and down the heating vent. The other half were laying as guilty as could be in his hand and simultaneously, we both looked down at them. He then instantaneously tossed the leftover paperclips to the other side of the room like a red-handed robber. NORMALLY, a little thing like this would set me off. Little scenarios like this are caused by “the man gene” (all guys have it). They just HAVE to play and fidget. But, lucky for LG, I am medicated now and so I was able to just chuckle about “the man gene” just forcing my husband into playing with those darn paperclips, until like always, some kind of destruction occured.

Her name is Pixy

What happens when you don’t buy your kids a dog

This morning, as we were running out to go and help the knee-surgery friend again, Sophia pulled a rock out of her “special” drawer. I think it is a 3-yr-old thing to like rocks because every time we go out to play, she comes back in with a pocket of them. (I can faintly remember Abigail doing the same thing at this age) Well, all of the rocks are special to her and I usually can get them either back outside or in the garbage without her noticing. So, I was slightly surprised when she pulled out this rock, which is brown, has the face size of 2 quarters, and the thickness of her little finger.

I am trying to rush both Phia and Bella out the door, and to my even bigger surprise, Sophia says,”Mom, I am going to take my pet rock, O.k.?” I said, “Sure, of course you can bring your pet rock” (hmm….i didn’t know she had one, but, whatever, she probably learned about pet rocks on Sesame Street, and off we went. Well, I was very entertained the whole morning as we ran arround town; I learned more and more about this pet rock. As we were getting out of the van, Sophia says,”Mom, I can’t forget my pet rock, Pixy.” I said, “Pixy, what is that?” “That is my rock’s name, Mom”,was her reply. I said,”Did you name her?” She said, “Yes” I said,”Where did you get her name?” “I just made it up”,was the response from my all-knowing 3-year-old.

Well, she took the rock out to let it rock in the rocker at the dr’s office. She held it in her lap, talked to it, showed it off to my friend’s kid and her sister, Bella. We later went to pick up Abigail from school and we all ran to Wal-Mart to pick up some stuff for my friend. While I was trying desperately to reign my kids in and find the specific baby food on my freind’s list, Abigail and Sophia decided to fight over the rock. I reminded them to be nice and to stay by the grocery cart, and I also confiscated the rock. Sophia cried, but I told her that the rock needed a nap, and she could play with Pixy when she got home. This sufficed.

So, we get home, and the rock comes out. It is nice out today and the girls wanted to play outside. The next thing I know, Sophia is wailing. I mean absolutely freaking out, as if someone had died. I run over to where they were digging to see what the problem was. I ran as if someone had cut a finger off. Abigail quickly explained that Sophia had buried her Pet Rock and she now couldn’t find it. I didn’t want to not validate Phia’s feelings by laughing hysterically at the sight of he “rock” back where it came from in the first place. To her, this rock was buried alive.

So, I sat there for fifteen minutes, with that darn shovel, reassuring my sweet, sweet, sweet, tender-hearted daughter, that I would find Pixy and all would be well, while digging frantically. I kept coming up with different little rocks and I knew they weren’t Pixy because they weren’t even the same color or size, but after about five minutes, I was worried that I would never find her, and I thought that I could trick Phia into believing that one of the other rocks was her beloved pet. She never fell for it. I offered a prayer of thanks when I finally found her real Pixy. By this time Sophia had wandered to the other side of the yard. You would have thought I was three to hear the excited tone to my voice as I yelled over,”Sophia, I found her, I found her….Here’s Pixy.” As my 3-yr-old ran over to retrieve her most prized posession, I couldn’t help but think,”Supermom to save the day” and I handed it over with a very wide smile that said,”I love your pet-rock too.”

Appreciate your package!

United Postal Service: I couldn’t hack it.

When I was eighteen, a friend of mine dragged me along with her to apply for work at the UPS warehouse 20 minutes from my house. My friend’s mom had convinced her that UPS was the greatest place to work because it had the greatest benefits. My friend didn’t want to go alone and because I needed a job and thought it would be cool to work with my friend, I went along with her to apply.

We got the job and were so excited. I have no idea why we were excited, but my best guess is because we felt all grown up with a real job. I think that I mostly ACTED excited for the sake of my friend who was trying to please her mom. We were to work every morning from four until eight or nine (if we didn’t work fast enough). We thought that this work schedule was IDEAL because we could get work overwith and spend our days on the beach….we we were wrong. We also thought that our work would provide a FREE work-out, which was true.

This was not an ideal work schedule for two girls between their freshman and sophomore years of college. We couldn’t stay out late or then we wouldn’t be able to get up. And, it was summer time when the possibilities of things to do at night in Southern California are endless. We were also WAY too tired after work to do anything but go back to bed.

So, I just want to fill you in on what UPS workers do so that you can appreciate your package when it comes to your door. First, I would drive down the freeway half asleep in the dark; it was a good thing that there were no other cars on the road, so that when I swerved across three lanes it didn’t really matter. Then, we would line up and be assigned a partner and a truck. It was then our JOB to UNLOAD the whole trailer bed of the parked semi. No, not in our four hour shift, but in ONE hour. Two people to one truck.

You open the door and you literally look at a wall of cardboard. All different kinds and sizes. You start hauling them down the conveyer belt, sweating within the first ten minutes. You get so EXCITED when it is a small package, but when you lift it, to your utter dissapointment, you need both hands because it is filled with either all gold or steel. Then, you gear up for the HUGE box and you wonder who in the world would have a refrigerator delivered via UPS, and to the MOST wonderful delight, it is as light as a feather.

The worse kind of packages that I ran into were the ones that were marked…LIVE ANIMALS. They had little holes in the side of the box that were lined with little metal screens. One time I finally got the gumption to look inside…..to my relief, it was just a bunch of crickets. I probably would have quit on the spot if it was mice. (I have this thing about mice)

So, I work and work my butt off. One thing that I do give my parents credit for is teaching their children to be HARD workers. I would be so happy to maybe have a ten minute break, when my nameless friend would come running over begging me to help her catch up…she weighed less than 100 lbs. and was really out of shape. Of course, I was the nice friend and went and helped her too.

I was relieved when my friend quit after her second day. I would no longer have to help her. What I didn’t realize is that she wouldn’t be in the car to keep me awake on the drive. Once she was gone, it took the pressure off of me to keep the job, and after a good 8 days, I jumped off of the UPS ship, also.

But, now, I really appreciate my packages whenever they are delivered.

Kids say the d a r n d e s t things

Watermelon

Following up on my last entry. Kids are so FUNNY! They cannot resist at stating the obvious. When you are driving down the road you will hear, “Mom, there is a cow.” “Dad, you are driving too fast.”

At the grocery store, “There are Fruit Loops, there is Cocoa Puffs, those are Cheerios.” You get the drift.

One day, I got out one of the girls’ piggy banks and as I was getting it down off the shelf, the lid slipped off and change spilled all over the kitchen floor. It was no surprise to hear,”Mom, you spilled all the money.” I laughed and said,”Oh really, I know, Sometimes I am so clumsy, Should we pick it up?”

A little while later, in the same day, I got a watermelon out of the fridge. No joke, this is what I hear coming out of a little voice behind me, “Mom, you are fat, just like that watermelon.” Well, gee, thanks. No, “oh really”, was going to work for this offense. We have taught our girls to only refer to things as fat, not people. I think that she thought this was OK, because she was talking about the watermelon.

I tried not to crack up as I gave her the very brief reminder that it isn’t nice to call people fat. I resisted from saying what I was really thinking,”Hey, you little snot….would you like me to crack this watermelon over your head, so that you can feel what it is like to get pregnant and fat and give birth to a child that will just call you fat one day.” Of course I wouldn’t say that, all I could think of was, “Aren’t you clever with your use of words; you are only three and you just used a really good analogy.” What in the world? You know I must be a mother.