Unknown Brush with Future Fame

The other night Steve mentioned reading that Glenn Beck graduated from Sehome High School (Bellingham, WA). We speculated on how old we thought Mr. Beck was and if it was possible that I had gone to school with him, and I insisted that there was no way he went to my school because I would have remembered his name. The next morning I received an email from my mom that Glenn graduated in 1982 from Sehome. Okay, now I am bugged and have to get to the bottom of this--I trudged downstairs, pulled out the box that contained my yearbooks and pulled out my 1982 Windjammer (I was a Freshman that year), turned to the B's in the Senior Class section and lo and behold: Glenn Beck. Okay, I remember that face! He was in the Concert Choir and the Jazz Choir with Mr. Mattson (my most favorite class and my most favorite teacher at Sehome), and he worked with Dr. Beath in the theater department (another favorite teacher, plus I was good friend with his son, Joel). Who knew? (I actually thought the famous radio personality from our school would have been Allan "Al" Fee...)

FHE--We are on a "roll"

Family Home Eveing is something that Steve and I have tried to hold consistently, but it seems that more often than not, it ends up being me giving a last minute dissertation from something I read from the Book of Mormon earlier in the day. Over the years we have tried the "assigning" of the lesson to the kids and taken turns with who picks/makes the treat, who does the song, the prayer, the scripture, the lesson, etc. We've had times in our lives where the Family Night was going to soccer games (that was when the team was scheduled to play, can you believe it? And we live in Bountiful where "they"--the powers that be who schedule these games--should KNOW better!) If we are on a week long vacation and we get home late Sunday night or on a Monday, and I try to gather them for FHE, my kids tell me, "We just got done having a Family Home WEEK!" Although we do a lot as a family--vacations and just hanging out--I do feel that I need to make sure that we have a scheduled time to sit down together as a family and actually have a gospel discussion. Or at least an officially recognized "Family Home Evening." This month I have noticed that we have fallen into a pattern with our FHE's--the first week we helped Ashley with a Faith experience from her Young Women Personal Progress, the second week we took a pie to the Kelsch Family and thanked Deanna for all the wonderful things she has done for us over the years, and this week we played Yahtzee. So, we have had a Spiritual, Service and Fun FHE so far this month. Now for next week...

P.S. The update on Deanna is excellent. She has had surgery and the Dr.'s feel that they were able to get all the cancer, so they will not have to do radiation!

"I have better things to do"

I've been reading a book called "Still Alice" about a woman facing the early onset of Alzheimer's. Here is a story about a woman who is a wife, mother, great academic and Harvard professor. Much of her life, up to this point, has been about research, lectures, conferences, etc. Yes, she took time out to have and raise children, but described her time playing with her small babies and toddlers as mind numbingly boring. Now that her children are grown, two of the three are also accomplished academics, one being a lawyer and the other doctor. Her third child, who has the greatest intellectual promise of all, however, wants to be an actress. This is cause for great tension and dissatisfaction in her relationship with this daughter. With the acceptance of her early onset of Alzheimer's, Alice discovers that the things she wants most is to live to "hold Anna's (her daughter) baby and know it was her grandchild. She wanted to see Lydia act in something she would be proud of. She wanted to see Tom fall in love. She wanted one more sabbatical year with John. She wanted to read every book she could before she could no longer read. She laughed at what she'd just revealed to herself. Nowhere on that list was anything about linguistics, teaching or Harvard." Later, at a lecture where she just sat in the audience, Alice waited for the requisite 20 minutes for a no show professor (was it supposed to be her?) before she stood up to take her leave. As she does this, she says to the class, "I don't know about you guys, but I have better things to do." pg.121

I thought about this a lot as I have watched my good friend, Deanna, go through the process and regimen of fighting breast cancer. From the moment she received the diagnosis, she has had a very practical approach: I've still got to be a mom, I've still got to do what I have to do. Despite the toll that chemo has taken on her, she is still sewing up a storm and selling her aprons and bibs at the Farmer's market. She still helps Kylie with her homework and plays with her grand daughter, Reagan. She is talking Elisabeth, her oldest daughter, through the steps of sewing the most gorgeous dresses for Reagan. She is a great mom to Josh and Danielle and their spouses. She is the best and most supportive wife to Mike. I have watched her walk through this refiner's fire and she is beautiful and shining and glorious. Would I be that generous of spirit? Would I be that up beat and positive? I sure hope so. I hope that I would know what was important, and take care of those things over the silly things I tend to spend time worrying about. I hope that, even now with a healthy body, I can learn the important lesson that seems to come when we know our time is limited: to get on to the better things!

It's FUN to be a girl!

"I also bought a jar of facecream, a lovely scented hand lotion, a new lipstick and an eyelash curler--which makes my eyes cross whenever I use it." --letter from Juliet to Sidney, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society