For posterity: my thoughts on TALENTS

I've been thinking A LOT about the talents I've been given (even in their infancy) and what I want to accomplish with them.  How can they help me serve?  How can they help make our family better?  How can I get greater fulfillment with them?  How can I use them to earn me money?  ;)  Et cetera.

I really have been blessed to have a wide arrange of gifts, and I don't say that boastfully.  I'm certainly anything but overconfident.  But I acknowledge that the Lord has blessed me with abilities and inclinations that I am SUPREMELY grateful for, things that make life easier or more fun.  Some of these gifts are demonstrable, and some aren't.  But we all have gifts and I believe they are meant to be used to help us leave the world better than we found it.  (Which is my whole philosophy of life, and by its standard I am not really LIVING.  Yet.)

Anywho, some of my too-often-neglected gifts, spoken of in my patriarchal blessing, by family members and friends, or just accidentally discovered along the way:

• Music.  This is a neglected gift lately.  I love to play piano, but I get frustrated when I can't sight-read something so I don't really practice and become better.  I also love the flute, but haven't used that gift in AGES.  (Thanks to a ward choir piece, I'm realizing how RUSTY I really am!)  I kind of sing, or at least I can hit the pitch.  I also want to learn the guitar, SO BADLY, but I hate the callouses.  But beautiful music really adds to the spirit in our home and our meetings, and I feel like it's a gift I need to rediscover.



• Art.  This covers a wide range of things, I know.  I'm also including anything crafty and just the general ability to create something beautiful with my own hands and imagination into this category.  I love making beautiful things.  I just LOVE it.  I especially love working with silk flowers, scrapbooking (I've gone digital--see some pages above), and ModPodge lately.  And making crayons.  There are still SO MANY things in the world of arts and crafts I want to experiment with, from glass etching to stained glass, from woodworking/burning to sewing, from sketching to painting.  And cake decorating.  I pretty much want to do it all!
• Learning.  I love to learn, and I've been blessed with the ability to absorb, process, and store information efficiently.  :)  More than that, I have a passion for learning new things.  I hope to be one of those people who is always taking a class, developing a new talent, reading, watching documentaries, and teaching others what I discover.  I think the key to being a good teacher is being a lover of learning.  That passion and enthusiasm really is contagious.  I've seen it!
• Words.  I love words.  I love reading them, I love writing them, combining them in new ways.  I don't talk much with people I don't know, or even people I do unless I'm really tired or anxious about something, but obviously by how much I write I have lots on my mind all the time, and the words have to come out somewhere.  It's usually in a journal or blog entry or when I'm praying aloud that words make sense of my world.  And I am in a get-it-all-out-there, remove-those-inhibitions-and-walls kick right now, so you get long-winded entries that perhaps tell you more about me than you really ever wanted to know.  But you're reading this, so something must be propelling you onward.  :)

I'm not one to spout off personal revelation or sacred things to just anyone very often ever, but I'm impressed to say these two things. 

• My patriarchal blessing didn't really mention any of those above talents, or any other talents I thought I had.  What it did mention were gifts of the spirit that I never really viewed as talents.  Specifically on my mind as I write this all down is that I was blessed with a "reverence and respect for life and other sacred and beautiful things."  This line runs through my mind OFTEN.  I'm still figuring out what it means.  But it's interesting that this is a talent of mine. I hope I can live up to that. 
• Also, I had a really, REALLY AMAZING experience a few years back that I feel impressed to record here.  I was having a really rough time of things...basically my whole life was changing in radical, painful ways and, as a young adult, I wasn't really sure what to do.  I know our Father in Heaven has a plan for us as people, and generally that plan is the same for everyone--come to earth to get a body, be good, suffer, have joy, and progress to be like him, die, return to Him, continue the work, etc....but I also believe that each of us has a SPECIFIC plan and part in all of it.  I believe we came here, now, where we are, with the people around us, for a specific reason, and that knowing that purpose that only we can fulfill in our small circles of life (and then following through) are what bring us REAL happiness.  In all the confusion and frustration of my life at that time, I was praying one night to understand this personally-tailored, specific-to-me plan.  I told Heavenly Father how useless I felt, how lost I was, and then I asked Him in all sincerity of heart, "What did You make me for?"  And the answer came as clearly as if He had spoken the words to my mind, which has never happened before or since to this day: "I made you to love people."  Now, certainly, this is true of all of us in a general way.  Charity is at the crux of salvation, any way you look at it.  I wholeheartedly believe that if we understood and could only follow the commandment to "love one another as I have loved you," this world and all its problems would literally melt away.  But at that moment, especially considering the things on my mind and the answers I was expecting to receive that differed SO GREATLY from this one, I knew the Lord was talking directly to me, Celeste Darland, as His daughter.  It was a profoundly personal and spiritual moment in my life, and I haven't really talked about it with anyone until now.  Mostly because I don't really live up to this charge, especially lately.  But when I look at the gifts I've been given, the feelings of my heart, the truth is I really do love the people I love with all my whole heart.  I believe what makes me a good teacher is that I love and can see potential in each and every one of my students, perhaps especially those who are difficult to love.  I get the most joy out of serving others.  I especially look forward to serving and loving my own children.  I am saddest not when I don't feel loved by others, but when I feel like I don't really love others.  In contrast, my greatest happiness comes from loving others even when they may not show that love in return.  It's a powerful gift, that love.  I need to "neglect not the gift that is in thee" now more than ever, because if there was ever a world in need of greater love, it's this one. 

Random

Obi may be ill.  She has weird wart-like blisters on her face that cropped up about two weeks ago and they just keep coming, busting open and bleeding all over.  We don't have money for a vet.  :(  We are worried.

Did you know fortune cookies actually started in America, presumably based on a Japanese cracker recipe?  Apparently they not only DIDN'T originate in China, but when companies try to sell them in China they don't succeed because people see them as "too American."  People just popularized them for Chinese-American restaurants here around the turn of the century, and especially during WWII they became associated with Chinese-American stuff...probably because of the Japanese internment camps.  Huh.

Did you also know that even though we don't have any children and at this rate may never bear our own biologically, we have our first three daughters named?  My middle name means nothing and has no particular significance, so I wanted my daughters to have meaningful names.  We're going down the maternal line.  First daughter, named after my mother's mother's mother, will be Lillie Pearl.  Lillie was the only other schoolteacher in the family (that I know of) and she loved flowers.  I think we would've gotten along together nicely.  Second daughter, with the middle name after that of my maternal grandmother's, will be Esperanza (we think) Lorraine.  Esperanza after the book Esperanza Rising AND a family friend of Paul's.  We may change our minds about that one, because her initials would be ELF...so we'll see.  :)  And our third daughter, after my mom's nickname, Aerie, and her middle name, Lee, will be Aeryn Lee.  If I didn't want Lillie so badly, Aeryn would be the first, because I think mom will LOVE having another granddaughter named after her (my niece, Caida Lee, got there first. :)  And what if I only have two girls and a bunch of boys?  What will I do?  Lillie Pearl, Espy, and Aerie Berry...I know it's kinda weird, but I feel like I already know and love them and call out their nicknames in my daydreams and I--WE--just can't wait to have them in our life.  One way or another...

Boys, however, are much harder to name.  At least I think so. 

We want to end up in Seattle someday.

I don't like mushrooms.

For posterity: my thoughts on ANIMALS

My house was a zoo growing up, and I'm not just talking about my brother.  :)  My mom LOVES animals, and grew up with dogs and horses, so even on our humble little half-acre we always had LOTS of animals.  All the time.  Like, there was a time when we literally had 4 dogs, a dozen or so cats and kittens, a hedgehog, 3 geckos, 2 rabbits, 2 guinea pigs, 2 degus, and an aquarium of fish, ALL AT ONCE.  I don't even know how many dogs and cats we've had over the years (Mom bred collies for a while, and our cats always had kittens), but the total of animals was just HECKA LOT. 

Because of Mom, I like horses and dogs, too.  But because we had so many pets, the novelty of them has worn off.  I'm not in love with them.  I don't get uber excited about them.  I don't have the knack for caring for non-people living things like my sister does.  I kill plants.  I am sort of apathetic towards animals.  I prefer people.

That may explain the relationship I have with Paul's and my first dog, Obsidian.  We adopted her from a shelter almost a year ago now.  She was a year or so old when we got her, so we missed her adorable puppy years.  When we first had her, I was student teaching, and all she was to me was another little one to train, feed, clean up after, and keep me up at night (she barked ALL THE TIME!).  Now, though, since we spend so much time together, I have a love-hate relationship with her.  I try to love her, she bites or scratches and bruises me or abuses any trust I give her, I get angry, she tries to make it up by being adorable, all is forgiven and we start the cycle anew.  :)  But here are some things that I LOVE about Obi:

1. She loves peanut butter.  I give her the PB jars when we're done with them, after taking the paper and lid off, and let her go at it.  It's better than any chew toy and keeps her happy for literally HOURS.  It's actually really cute to see her hold down the jar and stick her snout all the way into it and breathe and fog up the thing.  Also, her tongue is REALLY long, and I never knew that before.  Other favorite foods of hers: mango, rice, bananas.  And whatever is on our plates for dinner.  As Paul's mom said, "Aw, she's Filipina!"





Obi with a jar of PB.



2. Obsidian (coolest name ever, BTW) knows the words "treat," "cage," "outside," "food," "water," "ball," "dinner's ready," "down," and her nickname, Obi.  She also knows the following tricks so far: sit, lay down (formerly "worship me!"), beg, dance, stay, come here, shake, crawl, kiss, and speak.  Sometimes, when Emilie's here, she remembers "How many is this?" when you hold up two fingers and she barks twice.  It's fun having her learn new tricks, especially when she performs for others.  Which she rarely ever does, so if you see it, consider yourself lucky.  :)



3. Even though she's 50+ pounds, she thinks she's a lap dog.  This is my favorite side of Obi, the curl-up-and-sleep-with-you sweetheart side.  I get that most of the day...'til Paul comes home.  Then playful, destructive, spoiled, back-talking, disobedient Obi comes out and I feel like pulling out all my hair.  But she really could be SO much worse.

 

Sleeping Obi.

So, when we went to go adopt a dog (on January 18), all the dogs were up on their hind legs and barking up a storm.  Not Obi.  She has this thing where she smushes herself up against the cage so you can pet her and looks up at you with these sad eyes even when her head is down (think of that scene in Bolt), and that was our first impression of her.  While I did agree to get this dog mostly for Paul's sake, I wanted her to be a sweetie since I was the one who would likely be taking care of her most of the time.  So she had me at hello.  But I was deceived!  While she certainly can be that sweet puppy I first fell in love with, 9 days out of 10 she's destroying something, jumping up on me and giving me scrapes and bruises, talking back to me (yes, she does that!), and pretending that I'm choking her as I drag her away to the cage.  Obi is part pig (I mean, just look at her!), part cat (she rubs up on our legs like a cat), part goat (she'll eat anything), and I forget what else.  But for all her faults and quirks, she's our first puppy, our first pet, and we think of her as sort of our first child.  (Albeit a very strong and energetic one!)  For that she will always be loved.  :)  We hope she lives long enough for our children to play with when they're young, but if not, I want Obi remembered as the first creature loved and raised by us.

For posterity: my thoughts on COOKING

Not baking, cooking.  'Cause there's TOTALLY a difference.  :)

Valentine's Day pancakes (just a touch of food coloring and some heart-shaped cookie cutters make all the difference!)

I have a love-hate relationship with cooking, and, like so many things, I think it's best demonstrated by a list.

REASONS I LOVE COOKING:

1. I enjoy eating.  :)

2. I get tired of food fast (rarely eating leftovers, I give them to Paul), so I enjoy trying new recipes.  And I'm usually not too bad at it.

3. I have two very appreciative eaters at home...Paul, who likes everything I make, and Obi, who would eat it whether she liked it or not.

4. Sometimes it's fun to try and create something new, or especially colorful, or to copy something we've had at a restaurant. 

5. It's cheaper (usually) than eating out.  And I get a say in what goes into my food.

6. In our house, whoever cooks the meal gets a BIG kiss on the cheek after we eat.  It's my favorite part of every meal.  We are totally doing it even if we have 80 million kids.  :)

7. SOMETIMES, I'm lucky enough to cook WITH Paul.  That's always fun.  We can talk, sing, teach each other things, and then we BOTH get kisses afterwards.  :)

REASONS I HATE COOKING:

1. The clean up!

2. The time some dishes require...if I have to chop or actually WORK for more than a half-hour for a meal (this doesn't include baking/simmering time), then I probably won't even try cooking it.  Not that I have a lot to do right now, but I don't enjoy cooking enough to devote an entire evening to it.  Especially when all that work lasts 15 minutes before it's completely devoured, anyway.

3. I fear and hate failure, especially in the kitchen.  This goes for baking, too.  When I waste food because I burn it, over- or under-cook it, forget an important ingredient, or it just tastes really bad...I'm not the person you want to be around!  Unfortunately, because of my limited skills, this happens more often than I'd care to admit (especially in baking...even classics like fudge or no-bakes!).

4. The cost.  While it's cheaper than eating out, it's not always cheaper than black beans and rice.  So too often, mac-and-cheese supreme wins out over anything truly tasty or healthy because we lack the funds (or the space) for all the ingredients for every dish I want to make.

5.  THE BIG ONE: You have to do it, like, every day!  I wish we were camels and could make our food LAST, or were bears and could hibernate, especially in the winter...or anytime I'm super busy and wish the cooking fairies would come do it for me.  I feel the same way about dishes and laundry.  I tire of the tedium.  We are such inefficient creatures!

IN BALANCE, the pros outweigh the cons, so I do cook most every day (even if it's just storebought pasta) and I don't totally hate it.  But my dishes do pile up.  It's a compromise.  :) 

(For the record: I heart baking...mostly.  Except for those dishes and the calories.  But what can you do?)

For posterity: my thoughts on DEATH

Since this blog is obviously more for posterity than for trying to get a lot of people involved in my life, I thought I'd spend the next few weeks sharing a few of my thoughts about a wide range of things that have been on my mind.  Or maybe not even that, just stuff I want to talk about.  Today is the first installment, and it's a long one, but there's a reason for that.  I've been thinking about death a lot lately. I'm not uber-depressed or terribly morbid (well, maybe a little of the latter ;)...but I've had a few family deaths in the last month and I'm finally ready to share my thoughts.  This is my own personal memorium about Grandma and Uncle Rick, both of whom have passed away recently, and the thoughts that their passing have inspired. 

On October 16, my dad's mom, my grandma Darland-Tucker, passed away.  She'd had a stroke and she was older, so it wasn't a big shock she died...in fact, I mentioned in a previous post how we were able to go to her home in Peru, Indiana, and visit a bit since we were expecting the worst.  What I didn't say was that she was unconscious the whole time we were there.  What I didn't say was that I feel like the world's worst granddaughter because even though she only lived an hour away I haven't seen her for seven or eight years.  She's never met my husband.  I thought about visiting, but never really made time for it.  My extended family and my core family have never really been close; we were raised very inward-looking.  I have a hard time reaching outward.  Everything feels like a hassle, a distraction from my life.  And then our time is up and we're out of chances and I feel intense regret.

Not heartbreak.  But regret.  Because I never really knew my grandma.  Not as an adult. She was a sweet lady.  I have lots of memories when I was younger of going to her house.  She and my step-grandpa would take my sisters and brother and me to Lake Mississinewa in the summers.  We'd also eat a lot of pizza and coney dogs (hey, what are grandparents for?).  She bought Catalina dressing just because she knew I loved it.  She had a stash of cookies we used to "sneak" at night.  Grandma loved to sing and play piano...in fact, if it weren't for her I probably wouldn't know how to play today, because she taught me to love it and then gave my family the piano I learned how to play on when she thought I showed promise.  Grandma mostly loved to TALK.  Ohmyword did she!  Dad tells us stories of when he was younger...like when she picked up the phone during dinner and was gone for over an hour, and when she came back they learned that it was a wrong number...but did you know that they are related to so-and-so!  Grandma was the primo (prima?) family historian.  That was her truest passion.  She wrote down family histories and had a bajillion boxes of photos and catalogued cemeteries and told me stories about people and most of the time I really had no idea who she was talking about.  But she loved to talk, and she loved family, and I wish I had more of her records and more of her memories to draw on. 

It surprised me how sad I was, not knowing this woman, not being able to claim a real relationship other than blood, when she passed away.  I wish, like we all do when that day arrives, that we had more time.

On Friday the 29th, my great-aunt died.  I don't think I ever met her, but she was one of my dad's favorite aunts.  Her son was a race car driver.  That's all I know about her.  So I wasn't too saddened by her loss, but I grieve for my dad and those that knew her well.

On Tuesday, November 2, my dad's brother, Uncle Rick, passed away from esophageal cancer.  Again, he'd been battling poor health for a while now, and he finally had had enough and decided to go off his nutrients/fluids.  He lived a surprisingly long time after that.  But even though his death did come and it wasn't a shock, it is still really sad.  I don't have many memories of ANY of my uncles.  One was in prison for most of my life (though he's made some AMAZING turnarounds and gives me hope for my brother), one was absent and OLD, one was in Utah, and one died a few years ago.  But Uncle Rick was a cool guy.  I remember IDOLIZING my cousins, Danielle and Ricky, when I was younger.  They were athletic and COOL.  They had a sand volleyball court in their backyard.  They played with us!  Uncle Rick had a lot of cool toys.  He furnished his basement.  Mostly, though, I remember that he was a quiet, gentle kind of man that sort of reminded me of my own dad back in the day.  Another generation of silent worker-confidant-my-word-is-my-bond kind of man that you just don't find often anymore.  He loved to fish.  I didn't.  He loved to work with his hands (he was in construction), and I learned at his funeral that he was the kind of worker you couldn't rush, but you still wanted him doing your work because it was QUALITY.  Later in life, he found Jesus and became an associate pastor (or something like that), and spent a lot of his life inspiring others and spreading the word of God's love...perhaps especially when he was diagnosed with cancer.  He was a Vietnam vet.  He liked John Denver.  He was all right.  :)  His funeral was filled with amazing memories by people who knew him.  I wouldn't have been able to say much of anything.

Because of this, my sister and I decided that (a) we're planning our own funerals NOW so that (heaven forbid) should something happen unexpectedly no one will have to worry about that, and (b) we're going to throw funerals for family members BEFORE they die so that we can get to know them.  :)

SO.  My funeral.  I want it to be short and sweet and filled with song.  I want "Each Life that Touches Ours for Good" and "Families Can Be Together Forever" as the opening and closing songs, respectively.  I want "Consider the Lilies" sung by a quartet (or double-quartet).  I want a solo or trio of "Nearer My God to Thee" sung.  Maybe an instrumental piece or something.  I want Lindsey, Paul, and any family member who wishes it to have 5 minutes max each to share a favorite memory or a few thoughts.  Then, I want it to be over.  Buried.  I love the poetry of cremation, but I don't want that for me personally.  Then, I want everyone to come to our home and be with Paul and eat lots of food and play happy music and share stories and laughs and be happy. 

But hopefully, Paul and I have decided, we'll be 80 years old and die in our sleep or a car accident or something TOGETHER so no one has to worry about missing the other and no one mourns the death of anyone so young.  In that case, go to my mom's house ('cause she'll probably STILL be around) and do all the partying there.  And I'll be watching, so you better make it the party of the century!

My thoughts on death: what a miracle.  I really, really do have a testimony that death isn't the end.  It's almost something to look forward to, in a way.  I know that God lives and I believe that moving on, back to His presence, is a wonderful thing and a necessary step in our eternal journey.  "To die would be an awfully big adventure!" But I think life is a great miracle, too.  And we only get one shot at it.  We never know when it'll be over.  We never know what people will remember, think, say...and if I were to die right now, I would have SO MANY REGRETS.  I think of all the time I waste in a thousand different ways and I know that I'm nowhere near ready to die.  And I'd probably only have a handful of people at the funeral.  We inward-looking people don't make friends easily.  And no one will know us well enough to mourn us when we're gone.

Wedding

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Student Teaching Scrapbook

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Sad.

Someone asked me today if I was pregnant. :(

Caida's Soccer Tourney

Sorry, since I don't have any kids of my own, I brag on my niece and my dog.  :)

 

On the 16th, we got to go up to Portage again and see Caida's soccer "tourney." It was just an ordinary game, really, and they tied 1-1. But it was an intense game. Caida got hit right smack in the face with the ball, but was very brave and kept on playing (she especially loved when everyone cheered for her courage and sportsmanship, and I wish I had a picture of her cheering for herself!).

Caida also kicked the ball for the first time ever. Apparently this is quite the improvement from her first game, in which she sat down on the ground and pulled at the grass. But that's normal for 5-year-old sports, it turns out; there was also a butterfly chaser and a line-walker on her team. :) Caida loves running right behind all the other kids who are chasing the ball and just laughing hysterically.  So actually kicking the ball was a rush! This is her cheering for herself after finally kicking the ball:

And, of course, the food and trophy are why Caida really loves playing soccer. Look at that pride!

We also went to Pepe's afterwards.  Caida is posing with Cassie here:

 Then we went back to Cerene and James' place and hung out for a bit...we even got to see a nerf gun war!

It was a lot of fun.  Thanks to Mom for driving us, and thanks to Cerene and James for letting us come cheer Caida on!  Go, Yellow Jackets!  :)

Leaves are falling all around...

Almost two weeks ago now, my friend Laura and I went for a walk at the local botanical gardens to enjoy the all-too-brief autumn weather.  It was perfect for taking pictures, even for amateurs like me!  Here are some of my favorites:

And people wonder why I love autumn the best!?!