Living my Religion

The WORK and the Glory

We spent a good proportion of May involoved with the filming of The Work and the Glory. Sophia has a short stint in the second film. She plays the three-year-old Rachel. I was such a good stage mom! We are looking forward to the film coming out in theatres. You will have to look for one in your area. With the first film it only played in a limited amount of theatres nationwide. The film is available now on DVD. I recommend it and the books by Gerald Lund.

Because Sophia was considered a “principal” actor when we were on set; they rolled out the carpets for us, as is tradition in the “acting” world. No wonder why they all have such big egos…the industry puts the actors on this awful pedestal. Although, I must say that most of the actors that we came into contact with were very down to earth and nice, especially to Sophia.

Well, as you can see, Sophia had her own trailer. Isn’t she so special? When we got home from our first day on set, Sophia and I relayed all of the details to LG and Abigail and Bella. We especially made a big deal about her trailer. Abigail got a little jealous of the attention that Sophia was getting. I called the casting director and asked if Abigail could come on as an extra one day. Cookie was really helpful towards my sibling rivalry situation and booked us in for a day.

So, a few days later, Abigail and drove up the road 30 miles to The Museum of Appalachia where they were filming The Work and the Glory II. As we drove up and saw all of the trailers (wardrobe, hair, make-up) Abigail turned to me and said in all seriousness, “Where is my trailer”? She was in for a rude awakening as we stood in the “cattle call” lines all day with the rest of the thirty or so extras. Many crew members got a few laughs as I sarcastically inquired where Abigail’s trailer was.

Abigail and I played as “extras” in a few horrendous scenes. Abigail absolutley detested the whole day and told me that she did not like acting at all. I couldn’t blame her. I hated dragging her around to play “pretend” all day. It was 80+ degrees outside and we were filming a winter scene where we had to run up and down a hill multiple times. We had to wear Pioneer petticoats, bonnets, dresses, tights, uncomfortable “issued” shoes, PLUS, winter coats and shawls. We were running after a horse, and the last time we had to ditch the poop that he had deposited just minutes before, ruining the 14th take. By the end of the 15 takes I was saying, “Where is my trailer”? Oh, the things we do for our children.

At the end of the day, Shay, the assistant casting director invited us for another day of filming; I couldn’t even seem to find any tact.(surprise, surprise!) When Shay said, “Could you come back on Tuesday?” I answered with a very loud, “NOOOOoooooo.” followed by a much too soft, “thank you!”

The Potluck

Learn one VITAL sign in ASL: Eat food!

As opposed to Eat poo (“U-no-poo” was one of my favorite parts of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling)Wouldn’t I love to be like J.K. Rowling someday!

Well, this entry is dedicated to one vital facet of Mormon life…..the potluck dinner. I must say that before moving to Tennessee, I really liked potlucks. But, too many bad experiences in my congregation here have quite turned me off. At our Christmas party last year, we ran out of food…..a Christmas party with not enough food???????
And sometimes after church on Sundays we have what is called a “linger longer” where all people bring food items of their choice and after our 3 hours of meetings we dine together. Or, we are supposed to dine together.

Last year I made a vow to never attend a linger longer again. On this particular Sunday, I left disgusted with potluck dinners. I had taken 3 dozen homemade rolls and two very yummy and large salads. When it came time to eat I found myself at the back of a very long line. I gathered 3 empty plates for my children and was astounded when all that was left of the spread was some yucky mac-n-cheese- and a 3 quarter empty rice-cooker with cold hard rice. My kids were starving and the people ahead of us had been VERY RUDE and gotten themselves very large servings and sometimes even TWO plates. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I told LG that I would never attend a linger longer again.

Yesterday, after church, LeGrand came home and said, “Alice, you aren’t going to like this, but….” I had no idea what he was going to say….only the worst was going through my mind…..(IDEAS: the Bishop wants us to donate a $1,000, I have been called on a mission to Zimbabwe, I want a divorce)

I braced myself, and inquired. He said,”I think that we should go to the Linger Longer next week.” I lovingly questioned him and he put forth some powerful arguements and I agreed that I would go, but that I would stash enough lunch for the kids in the diaper bag, just in case.

As LG walked back to our bedroom to change out of his suit, I hollered, “LG, you aren’t going to like this, but, I think we should have another baby.” (No, I am not announcing anything)

LG, turned quick on his heels, met me in the kitchen, made eye contact and said, “O.k. Alice, we don’t have to go to the linger longer.” Isn’t he funny?

P.S. I think he talked me out of Baby #4 for now.

London Bridge

Our prayers to the victims of terrorism in the wonderful city of London. Here is a poem I wrote after 9/11. It showcases my feelings toward terrorism.

Choose to Live

I will choose the faith, not the threatening fear.
Observe the children at play and not their danger.
I will hear the laughter, not see the tear.
The love of a friend, not the threat of a stranger.

Life is not lived if we choose to retreat.
If all we see is wrong then we have failed our test.
Let us not all give up, stay home, be beat.
Choose to live and give and take from life the best.

Now, if that hasn’t done enough to inspire you, here is a quick funny story.

About a month ago, we went over to the home of some friends, who had also invited a woman over who is a new member of our church. She is a single mom to a 6 year old son. At one point all of the children were engaged in the timeless game of “London Bridge”. As I assisted the 6 year old boy and my 6 year old daughter, I made a terrible Freudian slip…..”Take the key and knock her up.” I swear I need to staple my lips together!!!

For you die hard fans….Yes, I am going to still try and get on here once in while. Sorry, I got really burned out….keep watching…I could surprise you.

Tippery

The Hungry Leprachaun

Abigail is obsessed with things from Ireland. Her Kindergarten teacher has turned her into a leprachaun lover by telling her story after story about her trip to Ireland. Last year, all that Abigail wanted from Santa was a leprachacun. Poor Santa had to shop on e-bay to find one, only for LG to say that Abigail was going to be disappointed that it wasn’t a real living leprachaun. (Santa isn’t that good) The obsession is so strong that I was teasing Abigail’s teacher today that I would come and hunt her down if Abigail ever decides to convert to Catholicism, just so that she can be more like the Irish.

About a month back, when the kids and I were at the school library on Terrific Thursday, I pulled a book from the shelf that I knew Abigail would love, The Hungry Leprachaun. (It is out of print so there is no need to link to it) Abigail humored her father a few days later by repeating the story word for word.

Well, this week is National Reading Week. On Wednesday the children at Abigail’s school were allowed to wear a costume that depicted their favorite storybook character. I tried to convince Abigail to dress up with something we had in the dress up box. Laura Ingalls, Professor McGonagall, even Pippi Longstocking would not do the trick. She only wanted to be Tippery, the hungry leprachaun.

On Tuesday night, we made a trip to Wal-Mart to buy the leprachaun hat. Abigail thought that Tippery wore green pants and a purple shirt. I figured that we could dig up a purple shirt somewhere.

On the way home, there was some confusion as to what Tippery did wear exactly. I, being the overzealous perfectionist that I am decided to stop in at the school. I ran up the library hoping that Mrs. McGee could help. The library was locked.

I then became desperate and did the unmentionable, I made sure no one was looking and I snuck into Abigail’s classroom to take a look at the book. To my relief, I made it in and back out to the car with no one catching me.

The rest of the evening I was stuck coming up with The Hungry Leprachaun costume. I tell you, mothers do a little of everything. On Tuesday night, you would have thought that I was the seamstress. I found some leftover material and elastic and sewed the elf looking hat. I dug through drawers for the purple pants, purple socks and green shirt and spent the rest of the night nicking and tucking.

As I dropped Abigail off at school the next morning, she looked just like a leprachaun. When the Safety Kid told me that she looked cute, Abigail turned her head back at me with a satisfied look. I can’t quite place what it looked like but it was a mix between her dad’s goofy smirk and a leprachaun’s smile.

Indeed, I am a good mom. Even if she converts to Catholicism I will still love her just the same.

Feeding Time

Oh no….the bottle is propped!

A short while back, a friend and I were at Chik-fil-A for an evening out. Once in a while, when our law student hubbies are too busy to eat at home, we will go enjoy ourselves while the kids play. Chick-fil-a is where the responsible moms eat. The food is relatively healthy and the playland is safe, but most of all, it is CLEAN.

My friend and I were delightfully surprised when three other women from our church walked in. These women consisted of a single 19 year old, a pregnant 22 year old, and a 25 year old new mother. The new mother had the baby with her. We all delightfully exchanged hellos and chatted about the weather and other trivial girl things (like where the best places are to shop).

I was obviouslly the most experienced mother in the bunch. After I gathered up my three little monkies, I overheard a disturbing conversation. It went something like this:

“Do you know that girl that just had the baby?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe her…her baby was only three weeks old and she had her bottle propped.”

For those of you that don’t know what bottle propping is, see the picture above. The picture shows my FIRST child, Abigail, at 9 months old, enjoying her bottle, even when it was propped.

Now, you may not see the humor in this story, but I found the judgemental comment hilarious. The reason: the woman that “propped” her child, was not a FIRST time mom. The infant that had the bottle propped was her second child. All of these other women in my company: first time moms. They had no idea how many times I have propped a kid with a bottle. (Trust me, it gets more common with the more children that you have)

So, I butted my way into the conversation with,”Don’t talk to me about that, I am a firm believer in propping.” I swear you would have paid money to see the shock in their faces. One chimed up,”Oh, but not when they are so little.” I said, “I don’t know about that. Why does it matter, they are getting fed?”

The responses: “They can choke.” “All the magazines say.” “It is my bonding time.” “They need to look you in the face, it helps their development.”

At this point, I zipped my lips. (I know, it’s a rare occasion.) What I wanted to say is this,”My FIRST child was propped all of the time, and I will bet money on the fact that she will be SMARTER than any of your children. She never choked. We still bonded. And, the people who write the magazines DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN. If they had children, than they would know that you can’t write a magazine telling other people how to parent. Every single child I have ever met has different preferences. Two of my kids were happier to be propped. Come and talk to me when you get a few more kids.”

And by the way, I had a bottle until I was seven, and according to the magazines, I would be a woman with screwed up teeth and a speech impedement. Well, my only speech impedement is I usually don’t know when to keep my mouth shut. And trust me when I say, I never had braces and my teeth are just fine. Maybe if I still had a bottle I would be more succesful with keeping my mouth shut!

The Datsuns

Sheila with Adam

May Sheila Rest In Peace. This is the last known picture of one of our beloved Datsun 210’s. Yes, you heard me correct….ONE of our Datsun 210’s. Our family had the fortune of owning two of them, at the same time. Because Adam, Shannon, and I were all in high school and driving at the same time, my parents honored us with both cars. Between the three of us, we still had to share, but hey, we took what we could get. Sharing two cars was definitely better than just having one.

I totally agree with my parents’ decision of giving us pieces-of-junk to drive. (Not that they drove anything nicer) As you can tell from the picture above, these cars took a good beating. (I don’t know why any parent would give their amateur driving child a new car.) For the life of me, I cannot recall how we even knew the difference between the two cars; they were like identical twins. They were the same make and model, the same exterior color, the same interior color, and the same piece of junk. In the beginning, I guess the only way we knew the difference was by the liscence plate. However, after breaking the cars in, it must have been much easier to tell the difference. I personally crashed one of the cars. After my fender bender, we always knew the difference. No one wanted to drive the Datsun without the grill.

The Datsun that I crashed never got her grill back. The only reason that I know that I didn’t crash Sheila is from the picture above (notice Sheila still has her front grill). The Datsun I crashed was never forunate to have a name, like Shiela. Adam named Sheila years after we were in high school. He bought her from my parents for $2. Sheila was a great car. I can remember taking her on a trip from Provo, Utah to Carlsbad, California and back (aproximately 1200 miles round trip). Sheila had no heater, and the weather was below zero in Utah. We almost froze to death, all cuddled up under quilts. We were like Mormon pioneers. We were so happy when we reached Happy Valley (Las Vegas) where it finally started to warm up.

Another side note about Sheila is that she had no defrosting component. So, not only did we freeze to death when driving in her, we also, had a special way of clearing the windows for driving vision. Adam kept a towel and a credit card in the front seat of the car at all times. He would stop every ten miles or so and perform the ritual of scraping the left side of the window down and then wiping it thoroughly. On this one particular long trip, it became the shotgun passenger’s responsibility. This way we wouldn’t have to stop. It becasme a real talent to scrape the window without obstructing the driver’s vision.

The other Datsun with no name, never took any long distance trips that I can think of. Although, I am sure that the car was involved with many other fun times: Like the time we stole 12 pairs of shoes from the bowling alley, only to have my dad find them in the back of the car the next day. We had to drive back to the bowling alley after church and give them back with an apology.

The most memorable time that I spent with the Datsun-with-no-name was when I was a Senior in High School. I had this boyfriend, Matt Jewell. He was a freshman, and I sure did take a lot of slack for dating him, but I was very immature for my age and he was so FINE! One night, Matt and I were driving down the coast. Of course, I was driving, since he was only 15. (Hey, I was barely 17)

So, we’ve already established that the Datsun was a piece of junk. It had a tail light out and the registration wasn’t up to date. The one other fun thing about the car is that it had wires hanging down from the steering wheel. Someone had broken the key off in the ignition and my dad solved the problem by showing us each how to start the car by hotwiring it. Well, it was all fun and games to us and our friends. But, on this particular night, when I was trying to impress my goodlooking boyfriend, my car was not a reason to be proud. When the policeman pulled me over for a fix-it ticket and a registration warning, I could have died on the spot. The worst part of all was when he asked me about the wires. I must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights while trying to explain to him that we really did own the car.

I don’t know what happened to the Datsun-with-no-name, but it assuredly sat out in front of our house in a non-working state for at least a year. Sheila finally met her demise when Adam left her on the side of the road. She just gave up her will to live and my brother was too poor to do anything about it. Eventually, the city compounded her. She was probably so relieved to sit in a junkyard. Hey, a junkyard is Disneyland to a car that spent the last leg of its life being driven by us. And, at least Sheila could go out in glory instead of collecting dust in our yard like her identical twin with no name.

The Rolling Thunder

This skyline means trouble

There is a hymn that I really enjoy, How Great Thou Art. I am truly grateful that I can now say that I know what is being talked about in this hymn when it states, “I hear the rolling thunder”.

Being a western girl, I never knew what I was missing out on. The best storm that I ever heard before moving to Tennessee was at the beginning of Garth Brook’s The Thunder Rolls track.

When I first moved to Tennessee, we had a brief stay at LG’s deceased grandmother’s empty home. She had died the year previous and it became a very nice stopover for us while we looked for a home to buy. Grandma’s house was two doors down from my in-laws and this too was nice for me since LG was living 90 miles away while attending law school.

The house was a three bedroom rambler and comfortable. It always felt a little empty until LeGrand came home on the weekends. One night, I startled him out of his sleep. I guess I was totally disoriented when I shook him and said, “LeGrand, LeGrand, someone is upstairs. What is that noise? Do you hear it? You have to go and check on it.” Remember Grandma’s house was a rambler: it didn’t have an upstairs.

LG rolled over and said, “Alice, there isn’t anyone upstairs, go back to sleep, it is just the thunder.”

My Dad

“Here I come to save the day!”

This story will be a shining example of how my siblings and I viewed my dad when we were kids. He was and still is Superman.

My dad worked construction until I was about nine at which point he changed his career path to building maintenance. One of our favorite things to do when we were young was to go with dad on Saturdays while he “checked out” different construction sites.

Our house used to be the most east in Carlsbad. Behind us were miles and miles of dirt hills. Those hills are now ALL developed and you can drive the actual paved roads into Vista instead of taking the long way around on the H-78, like we did.

One Saturday, my dad decided to take my sister, Shannon, (18 months older than me) and I out four-wheeling in those hills. He wanted to go beyond the construction sites that we had been exploring. This adventure was much more fun than it should have been considering we were in the family station wagon. Well, Carlsbad had gotten some rare moisture previously and the hills were somewhat muddy.

Lo and behold, we got stuck! My dad decided to play out Superman. He told my sister and I to “stay put”, and he “would be back to get us out of the mud”. Great plan in theory, but Shannon and I were terrified. We were in the hills with nothing in sight. We knew that these hills were full of mice, rattlesnakes, and the coyotes that always ate our cats.

At one point, I voiced my fear to my “wiser” sister. She reminded me that we had just learned a song in Primary about faith and believing that God would answer prayers. (I recently taught this same song, Faith, to the children at church. When I relayed this story from my childhood to them, I realized just how absolutely absurd it sounded.)

Well, my sister and I decided to sing this song. We thought that if we could sing it loud enough, God would hear that we had faith and somehow He would save us from the Coyotes. It seemed like a lifetime. We decided that we should pray too. We did. We prayed. We sang. We prayed. We sang.

All of the sudden we spot something moving over the horizon. It was over this same muddy hill that my dad had disappeared over minutes if not hours before. As this thing edged its way over the hill, we saw that it was a TRACTOR. It was coming straight towards us in all it’s glory. (It was just like the one in the picture above.) As we looked closer, we saw that my dad was driving. He had found it at some construction site, hot wired it, and drove it back through the mud to SAVE THE DAY. (Hopefully enough time has passed that no one can press charges)

My dad easily pushed the wagon out of the mud, using the front scooper, while Shannon and I watched in pure amazement. Not only was our dad really Superman, but just like our primary teachers had told us, “God had heard our prayers.” He had answered our pleas with one REALLY COOL ending.

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.

Tennessee Judiciary

Courhouse for the 6th Circuit of the Eastern District of TN

Alright, here’s another funny story.

My friend had knee surgery on Monday and because her husband was unable to go with her, I offered to accompany her. She gladly accepted my offer, so I got my mother-in-law (she is such a saint) to take the kids.

When we got to the same-day-surgery unit, I instantly realized that these people were all thinking that we were a “couple”. I had just had my haircut short, we both had wedding rings on…etc.etc. When I went in with her and she had to get her gown on, it became a little too much for me to keep quiet about. I just HAD to tell the nurse that, “I AM HER FRIEND, her husband couldn’t be here today.”

When the orthopedic surgeon came out and called for my friend’s family to come and get the scoop….I stood up. He had a VERY surprised look on his face. My friend is very wholesome and innocent and I could see the look of utter astonishment in his eyes. My husband got a chuckle as I told him the first words that I said to the surgeon (we’re going back to my obsessive need to explain myself). I said, “I am just a FRIEND of hers; her husband had to work today.” The surgeon looked somewhat relieved, but also dissapointed…go figure?

Well, I went and sat back down in the lobby, waiting for my friend to come out of her anesthesia (they said they would call me). I decided that after two hours it was time to strike up a conversation with the man sitting closest to me. He looked in his 70’s or 80’s. I asked him who he was waiting for. He said, “My wife is having surgery on her breast today.” (I guess when you get to a certain age, you don’t blush saying the word breast to a woman who is a total stranger.) He went on to relay that him and his wife were in the their 60’s and then he proceeded with their whole medical history. His wife had a tumor in her breast and he had lung cancer in 1996, but came out just fine. (I was astonished when he went for a smoke break a little while later)

Well, as he was talking on and on about his family’s medical history, I thought to myself, “Oh no, I am going to be stuck hearing all about this for the next hour.” I then caught a glimpse of his baseball cap…it said, “Tennessee Judiciary”. Then, I thought, score, I may have just made my husband a contact with a judge or somebody important. I then proceeded to tell him that my husband was in Law School and I made reference to his hat. He said, “I worked for the TN Supreme Court for 29 years.(or some high figure like 29)”

I said, “Oh yeah, what did you do?” He said, “I was in the maintanence department.” Well, there went my contact, unless LG wants to clean the floors of the courthouse for the rest of his life….I don’t think that would pay off the student loans, though.

Well, I didn’t want to make the man feel bad, and so I said,”That is what my dad does for a living. He is in maintenance.” [My dad is a contractor and can do or fix anything, but he maitains all of the LDS church buildings in Southern Utah]. He smiled as if to say, “Well, I am glad that you understand.”, but he didn’t say another word until I probed him for more private family information. It is amazing what you can learn about a person in one hour. He turned out to be a really nice guy; the best guy I know in the Tennessee Judiciary.