stuff

I started Couch to 5K on August 19, so it's been about a month since I did it for the first time. The first week went pretty well. I could tell at the end of the week that I was getting better because the last couple of running intervals weren't as hard. For the second week, I decided to repeat the week one routine, but I skipped the third day of running because I was feeling sore. The third week, I ran on Monday (repeated week 1 for the third time) and it was really hard. My knees were really sore and I wasn't sure if it was a bad kind of sore or muscle soreness, but at any rate the pain was bad enough that I didn't do anything cardio that week except walk about half a mile one day. So I took a break for that week. I did some research and asked friends for advice, and I learned some things about proper form and decided to ditch my new shoes and go back to my old ones. I started up again for a fourth week, repeating the week 1 routine one more time, and that week went a lot better. This past week I finally moved up to the week 2 routine and it went pretty well. My calves are feeling sore, but I'm not worried about that because I can tell it's the good kind of pain like you get from working muscles that aren't used to exercising. I'm going to repeat the week 2 routine again this week. I can tell that my lungs and heart are in a lot better shape already. The main thing is that my leg muscles need to get stronger before I can run for longer intervals.

On Friday after we picked Kevin up from the bus, he dashed off and ran up the hill, wanting to check on our garden (the neglected one that only has dead plants in it). I didn't want to do that because it was hot and Heidi didn't have any shoes (and there wasn't anything to check because all of our plants have died), but he wouldn't listen to me when I told him to come back. The cool thing was that I was able to run after him. Before I started doing Couch to 5K I couldn't really have done that. I got tired too fast to be able to run after him for very long. This was one of the main reasons I started running. I don't know if I'll ever get fast enough to keep up with him, but I wanted to be able to "run and not be weary" so that I can keep up with my kids better (and play with them more!), so that has been a blessing. And even though sometimes I feel like Jello after doing a run, I also love that feeling of accomplishment and exhilaration afterwards. It really helps my self-esteem to know that I am doing something for my health and to feel the power that my body has. I've also been going to a Pilates class and lifting weights at the YMCA when I can. Heidi can do all of the puzzles at Child Watch in the time that I do a workout.

Kevin is enjoying school. In the evenings he will often get a piece of paper and sit and practice writing letters and numbers, which was something he would very rarely do before school started. He's improving a lot.

Some people in our ward have started a playgroup for kids that are Heidi's age. I've been asked by various people if I was putting Heidi in. I haven't really felt a strong need this year to do anything like that. Right now I feel like she needs to be home with me. She really is a sweetheart, and I enjoy having her around. She likes to help me fold washcloths and diapers, read books, and color.

You would think that now that I've graduated and Kevin is in school I would have a lot of extra time, but the reality is that I'm busier than ever, and I'm not sure why. Other than the meals, changing diapers, and feeding the baby, it seems like most days I can only manage to do one more thing. It's hard to keep up. I'm trying to become okay with that and realize that this is not a clean house season in my life.

I haven't been participating in social things as much lately. It's probably largely because Ryan's at work all day now that I'm not in school, so at the end of the day I usually would rather spend the evening with him than go to the girls night or whatever.

This week I got to go do an endowment session at the temple. On Wednesday I was feeling really overwhelmed by my responsibilities and some decisions I needed to make, and I had a very strong prompting that I needed to go to the temple the next day, so I made the call right away and scheduled an appointment for Thursday. It was a really special experience. As I approached the doors I was already in tears because it felt so, so good to be at the temple and I knew I would be in the presence of Heavenly Father there. I gained a lot of insights during the endowment session, and as I was praying in the Celestial room afterwards I got some answers to some questions I had. I also had a strong impression that God and His angels were there in the temple, including my ancestors, and that my family members who have died are helping me with my work as a mother because they want our righteous branch to continue. I probably have not felt the Spirit this strongly in the temple since I received my own endowment six years ago, so it was a really good day.

Kevin and Heidi started soccer yesterday, so hopefully they will enjoy that. Kevin is the tallest on his team, and Heidi is the shortest on her team by a head.

Yesterday was our annual Stake Women's Day. It's kind of like Super Saturday, except there is a much wider variety of classes (not just crafts). In the past I've attended classes about couponing, making ties for boys, managing finances, raising children, food storage, various spiritual topics, and more. This year the classes I chose were about building our children's strengths, making the most of attending the temple, and self defense. The self defense class was really interesting. The two main things I learned were that if you feel like you're in danger, you should head for lights and lots of people--not the bathroom or your car--and that the most important thing you can do to avoid being a victim of violence is to be aware and avoid getting into unsafe situations. We learned a few basic self-defense maneuvers, but I realized that for those to be useful you really would need to practice self-defense enough that those moves are instinctive.

Ann Marie rolled over from back to front on Tuesday. So now she sometimes has the problem where she gets on her tummy, plays for a while, then gets too tired to remember that she knows how to roll back over.

"How to clean up a mess."

Recently in Sunday School we discussed the story of King Hezekiah, found in 2 Chronicles 29, in which he cleaned up and sanctified the temple and encouraged the Israelites to repent and worship God once again. The teacher renamed the lesson "How to Clean Up a Mess," and we discussed the things that Hezekiah and the priests did to sanctify the temple and bring the Israelite people back to the Lord.

The lesson brought to mind a time in my life when I was a spiritual mess, and the many influences in my life that lifted me out of that spiritual mess.

This was when I was in fourth and fifth grade. A lot of factors combined at that time to make me very depressed. Puberty and the hormonal changes involved in puberty were probably the largest contributor. All of a sudden I was very insecure and very moody. My friends from third grade had moved away, and I felt like I didn't have any friends in my fourth grade class. The one friend I did have that year ended up being a very bad influence on me and I decided to stop playing with her, but I was too shy to try to make new friends, so I didn't have anyone to play with. This continued in fifth grade, although in fifth grade I was a library helper, which meant I could spend most recesses in the library. When I couldn't be in the library I would take a book to recess and hide with it in a corner, secretly wishing someone would invite me to play. At home I was very moody and didn't get along with anyone.

The biggest source of stress was that I couldn't seem to be responsible. My school responsibilities had increased significantly, but I kept forgetting to take my homework home, or if I did remember to bring it home I would forget to do it, or I would forget to bring it back to school. The work was all pretty easy for me, but I couldn't keep track of my assignments. My teachers also expected me to take a planner home every night and have my parents sign it, which I kept forgetting to do. My fifth grade teacher would make us stay in at recess and write the word Responsibility one hundred times every time we forgot to have our parents sign our planners. There were a few times when I realized on the way to school on the bus that I had forgotten to get my planner signed, so I started writing Responsibility right then and had it finished by recess. I felt so embarrassed that I couldn't keep track of my schoolwork, and I had what seemed like a lot of conflicts about it with my teachers. By the end of my fifth grade year my teacher was having me show her the contents of my backpack at the end of the day to make sure I was taking home the homework that wasn't done, which was helpful, but the entire class knew I was doing that and I was really ashamed about it.

I was a spiritual mess. My self-esteem was low and I got angry at a lot of people. I was not very close to my Heavenly Father because I couldn't understand why he wouldn't give me any friends and I didn't understand yet that I could trust in Him to help me through my trials. But I got out of the spiritual mess, and here are some of the things that happened to get me out of it:

First, I recognized that there was a problem. There are two specific events that I remember that helped me recognize that I was struggling and that I could fix it. The first was that my mom heard on the radio that a chemical called seratonin in our brains can make us happy, and that by eating certain foods you can increase the seratonin levels in your brain. She told me about it and encouraged me to change my diet to include those foods. That conversation flipped a switch in my brain. It made me realize that I had some control over my own happiness, and that if I wasn't happy there were things I could do to change that. I decided that I was going to start being happy. The second event happened about three weeks into sixth grade. My history teacher was handing back our first homework assignment and asked where mine was. It had been sitting in my locker ever since she first assigned it. As I left that class, I heard what was almost a voice saying, "You see what's happening, don't you? This is what was happening last year and the year before that. Don't let it keep happening. You have to make a change now." Right then I made a commitment that I would always do my homework and turn it in on time. I realized that my homework was my responsibility and that if I was going to do well in school I would have to be more aware of my assignments so that I could remember to bring them home, complete them, and bring them back. (When I got to college I had to change that commitment a bit because there was no possible way to complete every single reading assignment, but the commitment served me well for many years.)

The second thing that happened was that many people acted as mentors to me and became significant spiritual influences in my life. I had some great achievement day leaders who truly cared about me. One was my grandmother. I specifically remember one activity when I lost my temper and hid in the bathroom, and when my grandma found me I said, "What's the point? I'm going to Hell anyway." She responded, "You are not going to Hell, because I will not let you go to Hell." Things got even better when I turned twelve and moved on to Young Women's. This enabled me to make friends with righteous girls who were older than me and who were positive and spiritual influences in my life. Young Women's also gave me the opportunity to learn from many righteous women who were my leaders but also true friends to me, who had faith in my individual worth and divine potential and told me so. Their efforts to help me build my self-esteem had a huge impact on my life.

The third thing was that when I turned twelve I was able to go to the temple to do baptisms and confirmations for the dead. The temple brought peace and an increase of the Spirit into my life. It was a place where I could get answers to my gospel questions and receive a witness that God loved me and would help me.

Things didn't get instantly better. Honestly, I struggled with friendships the entire time I was in middle school and high school. I didn't understand until college that if I wanted to be friends with someone it was perfectly acceptable to sit by them, talk to them, invite them to things, etc. There was one group of girls who I always wanted to be friends with, but I thought I had to be invited. My spiritual growth has definitely been a process, as it is for everyone. But by the time I finished sixth grade I would say I was at least out of the spiritual mess, through the help of people who loved me, the temple, and my own efforts. Once the mess was sufficiently cleaned up I was much more free to grow and develop spiritually. Now I know that no spiritual mess is so bad that it can't be cleaned up through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. That's why He came.

on "taking names to the temple"

Ryan's dad wrote this post on his blog a few days ago, giving some suggestions for goals stakes and wards can set for doing family history other than taking names to the temple. I wanted to add a few thoughts of my own.

Whenever wards decide to emphasize Family History more, it always seems to be about "taking names to the temple." My ancestors are all Mormon pioneers for several generations back, and there have already been many people who have traced the lines back and done a lot of the proxy temple work for them. (I'm not alone in this--Mormon pioneers tend to have a lot of descendants, especially the ones with multiple wives.) If I were to find an ancestor who needs temple work done, the fastest way would probably be to go all the way back to someone whose parents haven't been found, hurry and find their name in a census somewhere with their parents (or someone who sort of seems to be their parents), and submit that to the temple. There are a few different problems with that. The main one is that it's quite possible that mistakes have been made along the way and those people who lived in the 1600s aren't even actually my ancestors. (As an example, according to my family tree on familysearch.org, I apparently have an ancestor named John Crow who lived in Hartford, Connecticut in 1602 who had 21 brothers who were also named John Crow--all sorts of things don't make sense there.) If you do a hack job at family history it's not going to be meaningful and you're going to waste time doing proxy work for non-existent people or people who have already received their ordinances five times.

For me, the approach that makes the most sense is to start with the people who are closest to me (for example, my grammy and her parents) and work my way backward, verifying that everything on Family Search is accurate and adding sources like census records and life histories typed by my great-grandmother, which I have been transcribing. I expect that it's going to take me years to get oriented in my own family tree and figure out what needs to be done before I'm at the point where I can find people who need temple work done.

Personally, I would like to have help from my ward learning how to do good quality research. I want to learn about all the resources that are out there, beyond the US census, that will help me learn about my ancestors. I want to gain skills in recognizing which information is correct. These are skills that would be valuable to everyone, whether they are descendants of Mormon pioneers or the first person in their family to join the church. The scriptures indicate that someday we will have to present this work to the Savior, and when that time comes I think it's important that what we have done is accurate and well-done. A lot of what I've been doing on Family Search lately is looking at people's pages and cleaning things up--foot-long lists of alternate names, notes and sources that are gibberish, and various mistakes that need correcting. And that's a valid contribution to family history too. Our participation in family history isn't going to be measured exclusively by the size of our briefcase full of temple ordinance cards.

I also want to see them emphasize more that these are people, not names. We go to the temple to do ordinances for real people. We should focus not just on doing the ordinances, but also on getting to know the people. They're our family. Don't you think it will be more meaningful when we meet these people someday to be able to say we know them, instead of just saying we took their name to the temple?

Since our fourth anniversary is this Thursday, we had a family home evening lesson about the temple and how our family can be together forever. I told about some of the events that happened that day, and explained that because we were married in the temple, we will be married for all eternity. I also said that means that Kevin and Heidi will be in our family forever. I showed Kevin a picture of the Provo temple where we were married and also one of our wedding pictures. It was a really nice lesson, and I think it touched Kevin.

We are truly blessed to have a temple marriage and to have the ordinances of the gospel in our lives. I am so grateful to have Ryan in my life. He is a very good man. He always forgives me when I lose my temper, he encourages me to push a little harder when I don't even want to get up off the couch, he shares thoughts that increase my understanding and testimony of the gospel, he supports me in the goals that I set for myself, and he is so nice to talk to. He was one of the first guys I had ever met who I could have a meaningful conversation with. We love sharing puns and laughing about them.

Last Thursday we found a babysitter and went to do proxy sealings at the Raleigh temple. It was really nice. There was a man there who had done some of his genealogy and had found the names of several children to be sealed to their parents. We had a feeling that those children were very happy to be sealed to their families. I love my children so much and am so grateful for the reassurance that we are linked to each other forever. Family means so much to me. The family is central to God's plan for us. It's not just a nice side benefit; it's the whole point. God intends for us to be saved with our families.

week in review

(Read this one.)

It's been a nice and busy week! Classes started on Monday for me. I'm taking a history class about the world since 1945 and Earth Systems History, which is a course about the major events (geological and biological) in Earth's history and how we know them. In my history class we are reading seven books this semester, but they look like they're all pretty interesting books. I've already finished the first one, Hiroshima, by John Hershey. It was a really interesting read.

I'm organizing a Relief Society activity where we put together our 72-hour kits. It's taken a bit more work than I expected to plan out the food and figure out how much it would cost and where to get it. There's always the worry that some people won't like the food or they won't like my ideas or whatever else. So I've been reading a lot about it and asking for suggestions. I think sometimes people tend to over-analyze this kind of thing. Yes, it's good to be prepared, but I feel like just having something is a good starting point, even if it's not perfect. It can be kind of overwhelming to see all the ideas and all the things to consider, and for some people that is so daunting that they don't even get to the baby steps because they don't know where to start.

Ryan's brother Jared stayed with us on Tuesday through Thursday. He came to interview for an internship at Duke. We're hoping that he and his family will be moving close by soon! We didn't get to do much since it was a short stay and he mostly had things to do at Duke, but we did have a good time in the evenings and he came with us to have a potluck with our friends the Rasmussens.

On Thursday we got a babysitter and went to the Raleigh temple. It was the first time we've been back since before Heidi was born. It's hard when you have a new baby, and on top of that my temple dress doesn't fit anymore. But really that's no excuse because Heidi's been sleeping through the night for a while and I can borrow a dress from the temple. So I am determined to be better and make it to the temple once a month. I even added the phone number to our phone so I don't have to look it up anymore. Anyway, it was really nice. I felt the Spirit so strongly and gained a lot of insights about the gospel and Jesus Christ. What a blessing it is that I have been able to receive the ordinances of the gospel in the temple, especially the ordinance of being married to Ryan for all eternity. My family is such a wonderful reminder to me of the things that are most important. Knowing that we can be an eternal family helps me to get through times when I get discouraged and gives me greater determination to live righteously.

Heidi is sitting up by herself pretty well now, but I usually stay close by because if she's not concentrating on it she still falls over sometimes. She can get into the sitting position by herself sometimes too. She also surprised us this week by figuring out how to stand up by herself using a crib or chair! So now she keeps using things to stand up but then sometimes she gets stuck or loses her balance and then she's upset. Heidi has always enjoyed having us blow raspberries, and this week she figured out how to blow raspberries herself. It's a very important skill, you know.

Kevin loves this story that has a little bear who bumps his head on the ceiling while riding on his father's shoulders. He calls the story "Ouch." Sometimes he will come ask us to bump his head on the ceiling by saying, "Ouch? Ouch?" He thinks it's really funny.

He also has this thing with holding things. He'll see pictures of things in books and put his hands towards them and say, "Hold her? Hold her?"

Today he and Ryan were playing with mega blocks, and Ryan put the angel from our Little People nativity set on top of a tower. When Kevin saw it he called it a temple! And then he and Ryan built a temple together. I thought that was pretty cool, although I think I probably have to credit his nursery teachers for that one, because although Kevin knows what the temple is, I don't think I've ever pointed out the angel Moroni to him.