In My Heart On Thursday

"One of our sons was spending a few days incarcerated in a local facility to 'pay his debt to society.'  As I looked at his sorrowful countenance behind that glass wall, my heart nearly broken, I only wished I had held and rocked that baby boy.  I couldn't, as hard as I tried, think of a specific time when I had held him on my lap and kissed his head, face, and ears and held him close to my heart.

I had washed that boy, scolded him for misdeeds, sent him to school, even taken pictures of him, but I couldn't remember putting my lips next to his ear and whispering tender, loving, happy words that might have echoed in his memory when he needed them.  When my arms couldn't get to him through that terrible glass barrier, I wanted to remember how it felt to hold him and I wanted him to remember how it felt to be held and loved by his mother.

So, if I could go back, I would hold and rock and sing and whisper love to my child every single day."

                                                                      -Excerpt from Delta, Utah, Ensign Magazine, July 1996

My $100 Dream

I am a thrift store shopper.  And if not a thrift store shopper, then definitely a clearance rack shopper. In Iowa my secondhand store of choice was Goodwill, preferably the Euclid store (or West Des Moines, but it had to be a special treat to make it all the way out there).  In Alaska the goods were at Value Village.  Quality was lacking at Value Village, but when you're thousands of miles from the next thrift store, you take what you can find.  Here in Utah, mecca for used-clothes hounds is Deseret Industries (DI).

Deseret Industries operates along the same lines as Goodwill, I think, offering employment and training services, affordable items for purchase, and a place for the community to donate their time and no-longer-needed belongings.  I support everything DI stands for, but what is the real reason I'm telling you all this?  I have a secret dream...

I want $100 and an entire day alone to DI-hop.  Within 45 minutes driving distance I have access to 10 fabulous stores.  By far my favorites are the Sugarhouse and the American Fork stores.  Sugarhouse always has unique items and American Fork has some tall, presumably wealthy people donating brand new stuff sized perfectly for me.  Whenever this dream shopping spree takes place, I'll start farthest north in downtown Salt Lake City.  That way, if I run out of time or money, I can skip the Provo store and know nothing is there waiting for me.  In the middle of BYU married-housing, that store gets the dregs people have been passing down for generations and should have sent to the trash rather than a merchandising establishment.

Why Deseret Industries you're thinking.  Why not dream and save up for a trip to the mall, or even bigger, to New York City?  Well, first, reality is that holding 100 free dollars in my hand is a pipe dream.  When that great party day arrives, I need to get the most bang for my buck.  I can walk out of the mall with 2-3 things or out of DI with 12-15 things.  Beyond the limitation of money, though, I see cute things peeking out at me every single time I go to DI.  Usually I'm there shopping for my kids or trying to find that hidden gem out in the yard (for my local readers, do you know about the yard?  I was sick to my stomach when I realized I'd been missing out for years and years).  If I do look through the racks for me, a skirt or shirt is guaranteed to fall in love with me, and once in love I have to take it home.  I'll hide it in the laundry basket until it's cleaned and then slip it in my closet pretending it's been there all along.  My husband laughs at me.  He's pretty sure my $3.00 discovery is not going to drain the coffers.

I'm sure a few of you are appalled by now.  It may not seem I have very classy or lofty goals. If that's what you're looking for, hop over to my SIL's blog Timeless.  Emulating and learning from Aubrey Hepburn, her shopping and fashion knowledge is in a world all her own.  As for me, I've got $20 in the bank.  One day that will grow and you'll find me grinning like a kid in a candy store.  You can find me buried in the racks of everyone else's hand-me-downs.

Photo credit: www.waymarking.com

In My Heart On Thursday

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
                                                                            -Gil Bailie, as quoted in Wild At Heart by John Eldredge

Wandering Still? What It Means To Me

My Past
Small town Iowa girls don't often take far trips from home.  From birth to age 17 the longest trip I had taken was a three-hour road trip to my uncle's house in Weeping Water, Nebraska.  Then my mom blew everything out of the water.  Attempting to get me away from an abusive high-school boyfriend, she loaded me on a plane and sent me 8 flight hours away to the European continent.

Now, don't go thinking this was normal for my family.  We grew up on hand-me-down clothes and Hamburger Helper with twice the noodles and half the meat.  Fate just happened to intervene that year and I became the first student  hosted by our local Lions Club in a Youth Camp and Exchange Program. Traveling to Brussels with 25 Iowa teenagers and then embarking on a 6-week solo adventure with host families in the Netherlands was the most frightening enterprise imaginable.

I came home at the end of that summer an altogether different girl (yes, I did get rid of the loser of a boyfriend soon after).  Wanderlust has been a part of me ever since.  It prompted me to study Hospitality Management and released me from the Midwest to see the world.  Working seasonal hotel jobs, I lived on Cape Cod in Massachusetts and all over the state of Alaska.  Because they were seasonal jobs, and in the tourism industry, I was also afforded months of open-ended travel.  My mid-twenties found me gallivanting around the globe and culminated in a 4-month backpacking/cruising trip that hopped from the Caribbean to western Mexico, from southeast Asia to Australia and New Zealand.  Those are the days that spoiled me!

My Present
I'm married to a native Utahn and that has been my dwelling for the past 7 years.  Within 9 months of moving here I had experienced more of what this diverse state has to offer than a friend who'd been going to school here more than 3 years.  As a married couple, and now as a family with two young boys, we've made it a priority to continue getting out to see what there is to see.

People often give us long sideways glances after hearing of the next trip we're planning or reading about our latest exploits on our family blog, It's What We Do.  What they usually fail to understand is that while they're spending their free money on clothes, eating out, and movies, we're bundling ours together and escaping the humdrum of our every day lives.  The ultimate example of these glances, and our own sacrifices, was a 6-week trip to Europe in celebration of my husband's college graduation and our son's 1st birthday.  More than anything, it proved to me that I was still me and the doors of the world hadn't closed when I said, "I do."

My Future
A day does not go by without me gazing out my window wondering where else there is to be.  Traveling is now inherently in me.  I used to passionately proclaim that, "You don't have to settle down until your kids are in school!"  I want my family to share the world with me.  Some argue that toddlers and infants are too little to even know, that world travel is wasted until they're old enough to read the places they are going.  I don't agree.  My 3-year-old son Beck is a map-lover!  He will stop every 10 steps, lay down his map, and recalculate which way we should be heading.  I want him and his baby brother Peyton to start out right from the beginning with a love and appreciation for exploring.

Peyton will turn 1 in March and I want more than anything to be somewhere exotic on his birthday.  Not to be snobby, but for him to look back in 20 years and know that that is who we were.  Beck starts school in less than 2 years.  I want more than anything not to put him on the bus for his first day of kindergarten with the regret that we never got him out of here.

Ben and I are working on a goal.  By January 1, 2012, we are going to be out of here.  Maybe we won't be continent-hopping like I'd once dreamed, but we will be packed and jet-setting to somewhere more exotic than Lindon, Utah.  And, then, who knows...kids can do complete K-12 programs online now...the world doesn't have to settle in on me!

This Is The Way To Start the New Year!

I was a good girl yesterday and refrained from turning on my computer.  That's a huge thing for me.  What a treat, then, to log on this morning and see that Shah at Words In Sync has given me my first Stylish Blogger Award!

To accept the award I have to, first, tell you 7 things about myself and then, second, pass the award along to 15(ish) blogs I've fallen in love with recently.  Here goes:

1. I don't have favorite anythings.  Not colors, books, movies.  If I've ever told you what my favorite something is, I made it up right there on the spot.

2.  Same for fantasies.

3.  I loved Thai food before it was trendy and now love cooking it at home.

4.  I've ridden bareback on an elephant's head.  Feeling elephant ears curl around your legs is unnerving.

5.  Working seasonal hospitality jobs ruined me for the SAHM life.  There's not a day I don't want to be on my way to a new exotic destination.

6. I've cross-stitched Christmas stockings for 6 of my nieces and nephews, am working on 3 this year, and my own kids' stockings came from the dollar store.

7. For my birthday I filled my kitchen window with houseplants and through some birthday miracle I haven't killed them yet!

And now, I'm excited to pass The Stylish Blogger Award onto:

Timeless  http://timelessexclusive.blogspot.com/


Becoming LDS  http://becominglds.blogspot.com/

Lunch Box Lowdown  http://lunchboxlowdown.blogspot.com/

Old School-Self Reliance 101  http://www.mynewoldschool.com/

Pedaling Fast & Trying To Keep Up  http://pedalingfast.blogspot.com/

Roots of Simplicity  http://roots-of-simplicity.blogspot.com/

Shannon Makes Stuff  http://shannonmakesstuff.blogspot.com/

Skitt A Skatt  http://skittaskattfurniture.blogspot.com/

Suerte Mom  http://www.suertemom.com/

To Europe With Kids  http://www.toeuropewithkids.com/

Writing The Waves of Motherhood  http://writingthewavesmama.blogspot.com/

Blackpurl's Knitpickings   http://blackpurlsknitpickings.blogspot.com/

Secrets of Mom  http://secretsofmom.blogspot.com/

Go check them out!