Disagree Without Being Disagreeable

Our family is dealing with something that is harder than I ever thought it would be. It is never easy to talk about religion much less to disagree about religion. I find myself not understanding why my loved ones are leaving the church. But I do want to know what they are feeling. As a mother and aunt I want to agree with them. But I can't.  It is a journey I don't want to take. And it hurts so much. I know it is not something they have done lightly. I can't imagine what it must feel like to leave something that has been such a part of who they are. Does if feel like part of them has been ripped out and reformed or is it a relief that they don't have to worry about the pieces that no longer fit? I don't know. But I do know it does not change the way I feel about them. I still love them dearly and our family should always come before religious disagreement. 

Because my loved ones have been exploring new beliefs, they naturally want to share them with the family. That is what we have always done. Unfortunately their new beliefs are not always in harmony with what I and other family members believe. As these new ideas are posted on Facebook there have been misunderstandings and hurt feelings.  I have wept, felt physically ill and wondered if my heart would break.  

When something or someone I love is attacked, I have found I take the comments very personally, even though they have not been directed at me. The mama bear in me come out. What I have failed to realize is my biases and viewpoints color everything I hear and read. What I see as an attack, others might see as simply sharing information. I need to learn not to take things so personally. And  perhaps if we all used Golden Rule and thought of others reactions to andy ideas we share we might avoid offending others. 

I have spent the past few days wondering what we as a family can do to heal hurt feelings caused by misunderstanding and unthinking words. I wish there was a way we could talk about these issues without someone feeling like their beliefs are being attacked or discounted. We need to learn how to disagree without being disagreeable, as Grandma Lingard with her southern wisdom, used to put it. 

Our great, wonderful, and fabulous family is too important to let words come between us.

Family Generations

We just back from a weekend in Moab for Eva's blessing. It was a fun sisters weekend with Shelley, Ann, Jayne and Dave, Kerri and McKenna, John and I in a condo a few miles from Clay and Leslie's place. Cade, Tailor, and Liam were also around most of the time, they were staying with her folks a few miles away.  I felt a little sorry for John and Dave in a house full of women. They never complain. 

We spent Saturday morning working on Clay and Leslie's new town home. It was a chilly snowy morning. It turns out I am truly John's wife, because I knew how to use the power tools. Jayne stayed home to watch Eva so that's me in the picture with Dave and Leslie photo bombing us. 

  I love how this picture captures our family working together to build a home.

That afternoon we went on a little hike to the Moab Rim Trail above the Colorado River so the kids could work off a little energy although John didn't need to, he did a trail run with Leslie on the slick rock practice trail that morning.

John and I are still in our work clothes, and I hadn't really warmed up from that morning, but it was good to walk up the slick rock over the river. Sam wanted to throw rocks into the river not realizing it was a long drop down. He scared us to death when he got too close to the cliff. The mommy fear never goes away. 

It was nice to sit together as a family in sacrament meeting for the blessing.  I watched Jayne with her grandchildren, especially as she held sleepy baby Eva, and Kerri with baby Liam and ached for my own grandchildren. They are so far away. Sometimes it was all I could do not to reach for the babies and Owen and Sam as their mothers and grandmothers were cuddling them. I wanted to be them.  I held Eva after sacrament meeting for a few moments before we left and cute Leslie took one last picture saying, "Good, I'm glad I got a picture of you and Eva."  And I was grateful for family. For our unconditional love, for our togetherness, and for our generations. 

Wrong

This is why I shouldn't piece with a headache. It has taken me two days to get two blocks done. I wanted to get them done before we left for Moah for Clay and Leslie's baby Eva's blessing, but didn't fell like working on them. So Friday, in between cleaning house getting reading for Jayne's visit I was determined to get them done. I cut pieces the wrong size, pieced the wrong side of the white fabric to the blue fabric and kept losing pieces. After much unpicking I finally thought I was finished. As I was ironing them I discovered I used the wrong green in the last row. Argh.  Because I was sewing two blocks at once I did it on the other block too. After a choice word or two, I sighed and put everything away for another day. To put things in perspective on a good day I made four blocks in a couple of hours. 

Pies

I had a headache last Sunday, Wednesday, Friday and today (Sunday). I am seeing a pattern. Very frustrating. 

To make me feel like I was doing something productive instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself I started on the quilt blocks for my Carpenter's Block quilt in moment of well being.  I decided to go with a three color quilt instead of a two color quilt using blues, greens and white. Once I realized that the permiter blocks were not the same block, but mirror image blocks, I had to draft the blocks twice. They aren't too hard to make, but I have to pay close attention to the order I piece each strip. 

We had Shelley's birthday pizza and pie night at our house last night. We made six pizzas: 2 pesto, asparagras, mushroom and chicken, 2 barbecue chicken, bacon and cilantro, a ham and pineapple and pepperoni and olive. I found a new pizza dough recipe based on the overnight No Knead Bread that I really like, plus it can be made the day before which takes a lot of stress out of making pizza for 20 people. I used 20 cups of flour for the six pizzas.  A slightly blurry picture with Anikka,  but it shows the yumminess. I think Kerri, Ann and I are finally figuring out homemaid pizzas.

We also had 8 pies, it was better than Thanksgiving.   I made a Lemon Curd Tart with a new recipe that was the best lemon pie I have ever made. It actually set up and looked beautiful.  Melanie made cherry sour cream, Shelley's favorite, of course Ann made chocolate and Tailor made apple.  

Mom started the pies for birthdays because, as I remember it she didn't like to make layer cakes. To be honest I can't tell if this is Jayne or me, but we both had the same skinny bow legged legs. 

I didn't do much better with my layer cake for Chris' birthday. 

So I started making trifles, a combination of pie and cake. This one was for Monica's birthday.

Nephi is Dope

I dragged myself out of be this morning to go to church. I had to teach the 17/18 years old. I had a headache Friday that was probably made worse on Saturday by the Chinese food we had with Brett, Kerri, Shelley, Ann and mom for Valentines Day. 

I tried reading the lesson Saturday night with a pounding head but nothing inspired me. Sometimes the "Come Follow Me" lessons for the youth just don't have enough oomph to them. Who wants to hear a couple of scriptures about agency and learning the gospel and and then a GA talk about the same? I know I would be bored. I looked at the next lesson about the doctrine of Christ. I gave it last year and remember what a good lesson it was. My iPad scriptures were all ready marked ready to give the lesson. But I couldn't make any sense out of that lesson either. 

So I took my headache to bed, praying that something would come to me in the middle of the night. Right before I went to sleep I remember thinking Nephi chose to listen to his father and then asked Heavenly Father if Lehi's visions were true. 

I barely had time to get ready for church after I got up. I still felt crummy, but decided to try and go and teach. As I was sitting in sacrament meeting, I opened my iPad looking for inspiration for the lesson. It opened to the lesson on the doctrine of Christ. I remembered my thought about Nephi the night before and turned back to the lesson on using our agency to study the gospel. There was one reference to Nephi. It came to me that Nephi always chose to listen then ask for further clarification from Heavenly Father: Lehi's dream to leave Jerusalem, getting the plates, Lehi's dream of the tree of life, the broken bow, building the boat. Lamen and Lemuel did not. They even saw an angel and felt the power of God shock them and they still didn't try and figure things out. 

So that's how I taught the lesson, using Nephi as an example.  Emphasizing that just hearing or reading something isn't enough, we have to chose to act on what we learn.  It turned out really well. The kids responded and were engaged. I even learned a new teen word:  "dope", as in "Nephi was dope". Not "a dope," but cool, or neat. Apparently it comes from dopamine, a hormone your brain sends out as a reward, like a runner's high.

I am always amazed at way lessons come together. This lesson shouldn't have worked. I wasn't prepared, I felt terrible, but I taught anyway. (I will go, I will do. . .) And I asked for help and I got it. It doesn't always work that way, but today it did. 

And I still had a headache when I got home.  I guess I can't have everything. 

John and I went on a walk at the Syracuse Nature Trail after church to see if we could get the dopamine to get rid of my headache.  We both got new Tilley hats. We got a coupon for 20% of the manufacture's price at the Out Door Retail show last month.  Still have a headache but the hats are dope!

No Knead Bread for Dealing with Anxiety and Children

I taught a Relief Society class this week on No Knead Bread at our house. We had close to forty sisters there.  The RS president scheduled a "Children and "Anxiety" lecture without telling the Enrichment counselor but we, the counselor and committee already had the bread class scheduled. I knew from experience that the sisters don't come is there a just a lecture. (Last time we had a lecture we only had eighteen or so sisters there). We get taught on Sundays and need to visit and interact during the week. And usually the sisters who need to hear the lecture don't come. But the RS Presidency felt like it was a needed topic and we had a sister in the ward who is a family counselor who they wanted to involve. So I suggested we do both. Draw the sisters in with the bread class and then let them hear  the information offered while they were there. We had the family counselor and a school counselor talk about ways to manage anxiety in children and teens and it was surprisingly informative and well done: applicable to parents, grandparents and teachers. I was pleased so many were there to hear it.

I made 7 loaves of bread for the class. A plain loaf cooked in an enamel coated Dutch oven, a cheese loaf cooked in my Bread Dome and a sourdough loaf cooked in our cast iron Dutch oven. I wanted to show that you didn't have to have specialized equipment to make the bread. I made four loaves for demonstration purposes. One to smell coming in the house, one to show how it was mixed, one to show what the risen dough looked like and how to shape it, and one to demonstrate how to make a filled loaf like cheese or cinnamon raisin. The sisters ate every slice I put out plus some yummy Valentine treats. It was a good evening and will probably be the last class I teach before being released. I have served for 5 years on the committee and it is time. 

Best Valentine's Day Present Ever!

John made this bed frame for us for Valentine's Day. It is so fabulous I smile every time I walk into our room. 

I hope to make this to go on it:

Although it looks quite modern this quilt was actually made in the 1860s and is called Carpenter's Square. It will be a fitting quilt for a hand crafted bed. I ordered the fabric today in blues and greens so I am finically and publicly committed to making it. John made the bed in six weeks, I wonder if I can finish the quilt in the same amount if time. . .