Mother's Day Musings

Being a mom is crazy sometimes. So often my kids do things that are completely unexpected and unbelievable. And sometimes they get you into weird predicaments that you're not sure how to handle.

The back of the picture says this was in April 1990. I had just gotten into the flour bin. I'm sure it was a huge mess (flour is a pain to clean up), and based on the date my mom was also pregnant with Melissa at the time. Apparently she took time to laugh about it and take a picture, though.

One of my earliest memories happened when I was maybe three years old. I waited until my mom wasn't looking, then I found a bottle of Head and Shoulders, hid under the piano, and proceeded to squeeze an obscene amount of shampoo onto my head. The carpet still retained the smell and a slightly soapy texture when we moved when I was eighteen. Of course it trickled down into my eyes, and if you've ever gotten Head and Shoulders in your eyes you know that it's an especially evil kind of pain.

So my mom was left in a big predicament because my dad wasn't home and she had Baby Melissa to take care of and I had shampoo all over my face and hair. Fortunately, a neighbor (Jerine Smith) was able to come over to take care of Melissa so Mom could deal with me. She ended up giving me a shower, and I'm sure I cried and struggled a lot, but afterwards I think I bragged that I had had my first shower and I was only three years old.

Moms deal with this kind of stuff all the time. It seems like when one kid dropped a jar and is surrounded by glass shards, another one is having an accident and another one is eating a roll of toilet paper.

It's easy to get caught up in the frustrations. But for us that's not actually what this is all about. We're committed to our children because we have a goal in mind. We're not just cleaning up messes and trying to keep the children alive until they're adults.

In the midst of all the crazy stuff, what we really want is to see our children become people of character. We want them to be kind. We want to be with them in the temple. We want them to be in our eternal family. Deep down we see what's special in them even though they can be so challenging.

It's hard to treasure every moment. Sometimes the weight of everything is just really hard. But I try to treasure the special moments. I'm not great at it, but I'm trying. When Heidi is telling me something important to her and she gets a sparkle in her eyes, I stare into her eyes and try to save a copy of that image in my memory. When Kevin asks questions about the important stuff, I've learned to drop what I'm doing and take advantage of those teaching moments. When Ann Marie wants to help put the dishes in the dishwasher I let her sometimes, even though she does it wrong. It feels like the everyday things like breaking up fights, washing the dishes again, and cleaning up the messes take up so much of the time, but really those good moments--teaching, listening, working together--are the ones that are quietly making the difference.

What next? How about hives?

The doctor gave me three prescriptions to help with my back pain. One was for muscle spasms and the other two were anti-inflammatory/to help with the pain, and of the two anti-inflammatory medicines one of them (meloxicam) has 11 refills, so in theory I could take that one for a year (but if I need for a year then I have a bigger problem than a strained muscle). I talked it over with Ryan and decided that getting all three prescriptions was overkill, so I just got the meloxicam and wasn't planning to refill the prescription.

I don't really feel like the meloxicam helps much. I've been taking it before going to bed at night and I don't really notice any difference. The main things that help are good posture and not staying in any position for two long. I also can't take any other NSAIDs while I'm taking meloxicam, so no ibuprofen or Tylenol.

So anyway, interesting development: I'm getting hives on my arms and shins. Unfortunately, I will probably never know for sure if this is an allergic reaction to the meloxicam because it could also be poison ivy. Earlier this week I was clearing out an area in our yard that had some poison ivy in it. I'm inclined to think it's the medicine because I have a patch of hives on my underarm up near my sleeve line and on my chin (where I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have touched a poison ivy root), and I'm also pretty sure that I couldn't have brushed up against enough poison ivy to make this many hives, but I won't know for sure unless I start getting hives on my torso. (I know, it was stupid to be doing yard work there without wearing long sleeves, but it's hot in Georgia and I took a risk.)

I guess I could keep taking the meloxicam to see if I keep reacting, but that would be kind of a dumb idea, plus I don't see any reason to take it when I'm not seeing much benefit from it. We really need to get established with a family doctor so we can have someone to call about stuff like this.

My back is gradually improving. By the end of the day today I was able to walk around fairly normally. I'm sure it will hurt again tomorrow morning after not moving much during the night, but I'm fairly hopeful that I will heal well.

The doctor told me that I need to be careful about leaning forward to do things. If I can I'm supposed to stand up straight to pick things up instead of bending over. It seemed reasonable at the time, but here are things I "can't" do:

• move clothes from the washer to the dryer
• change a diaper
• pick up Ann Marie
• pick up a clothes basket
• load the dishwasher
• put dishes away in low cupboards and drawers
• pick up toys or toy bins
• take out the trash
• weed the garden
• push a stroller
• use a dust pan (sweeping works)
• vacuum
• shave my legs
• clip my toenails
• drive a car
• lean over to spit out toothpaste
• put pants on

Some of these will probably be doable in a few days if I keep healing at this rate, but I should probably be careful for at least a few weeks so I don't get hurt again.

The kids have been fairly understanding and helpful. They cleaned their rooms today and mostly picked up the mess in the living room. They've been pretty good about picking things up for me so I don't have to bend down.

Just what I need . . .

Last night I did one of my favorite workout videos. (I've been exercising 3-4 times a week pretty consistently since last fall when I started doing workout videos, and it's made a difference.) I did my cool down stretching and sat down to veg on the internet for a minute before getting in the shower. Ryan was in the kitchen and realized that we were out of milk, so he offered to go to the store. Ann Marie had fallen asleep on the couch before dinner, so I said I would get her ready for bed.

While I was changing her diaper I noticed my lower back was a little sore. Ann Marie refused to eat any dinner and insisted she just wanted to go to bed, so I carried her to her room half-asleep.

Then when I bent over to set her down my back suddenly hurt really badly and I ended up dropping her (she was okay and just went to sleep). That was odd. I decided to try and get in the shower, which reminded me the whites were still in the washing machine, so I went to take care of that first. After bending down a few times to get handfuls of clothes, I stood up and the muscles in my lower back had a really painful spasm, and it was clear that I wasn't going to be able to finish, and the shower wasn't happening either. In fact, it was as much as I could do to get some ibuprofen and somehow get myself into bed.

I've given birth without pain medication three times and this pain was worse. I could barely walk, bending at the hips at all was excruciating, and it felt like I had no strength in my muscles. So obviously I was pretty concerned.

Ryan got home and I told him what was going on, but even with his help I couldn't really find a specific spot that felt sore to the touch.

Around 5:00 in the morning I got up to use the bathroom and take more ibuprofen, and standing at the sink trying to get the pill bottle opened I got so dizzy with the pain I thought I was going to pass out. So I called Ryan for help and somehow got myself down on the floor. In a minute I was better again, and with Ryan's help I was able to get some more ibuprofen and get back to bed. I googled my symptoms and was thinking I had probably strained the muscles in my lower back or hips, and I figured we were going to need to go to the doctor in the morning.

I wasn't sure if this was an urgent care situation or an emergency room situation, and I don't want to go to the emergency room when an urgent care will work, but finally we decided we'd try urgent care. Ryan got the kids off to school, and I found a friend to take Ann Marie while he took me to urgent care. I was super disappointed because I had been planning to meet some friends at the park.

The doctor asked a bunch of questions and had me move different ways. At one point she asked me to lift up my legs one at a time and couldn't understand why I couldn't lift them up higher. "Why are you not flexible?" she asked. Well, because I'm not! I do stretches and things, but I've just never been able to touch my toes (I can get pretty close now if I've been exercising). Anyway, she decided it would be a good idea to do an x-ray and make sure I didn't have scoliosis. My spine looked fine in the x-rays, so that was a relief. It looks like I was right and it was a muscle strain. So they gave me some pain/anti-inflammatory/muscle spasm prescriptions and I'm supposed to rest and be careful about lifting (because of course I never have to do things like bend over to pick up my 34-pound child . . .)

I've been getting better over the course of the day. Certain movements still hurt a lot, but I can at least do them now and I can walk around slowly. The pain isn't constant; I just feel it doing certain movements where I need my back muscles (and by the way, you use your lower back muscles a lot, in case you haven't noticed). So hopefully over the next few days the muscles will be feeling better. I'll have to take it easy for a while. The hardest part is when I'm rolling over and when I'm standing up, but at least the muscles are doing what I tell them to again.

I don't like needing help. I like being able to do a lot of things and get stuff done without help, even if I'm having a hard time. It's really inconvenient that I can't do stuff. Ryan's got the kids helping with dinner right now. Hopefully they'll be good and help me out. I guess I'm grateful that they're big enough to be pretty independent and kind of helpful (because lifting and carrying a baby around right now wouldn't really work).

The silver lining in all this is that I found out I've lost five pounds since February. My secret is smaller portion sizes, more vegetables, and exercise, if you're wondering. And I didn't give up ice cream. I'm finally back to what I weighed before I was pregnant with Heidi. But of course I could have found that out by borrowing someone's bathroom scale rather than hurting my back.

Phebe Woodruff

Recently I've been reading the book A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870. Much of the first few chapters in the book are about Phebe Woodruff, wife of Wilford Woodruff.

The Woodruffs didn't experience the Kirtland and Missouri years like most of the rest of the church did. When they came to Kirtland (separately--they met in Kirtland) they were the only members of their families who had accepted the gospel and had left everything because they felt that it was important to join the Saints in Zion. Soon after their marriage, Wilford Woodruff was called to be a missionary in the northeastern United States. Phebe went with him (sort of--sometimes he walked while she went by stage, and he took a few detours to teach in various places). During his mission, Wilford Woodruff was able to baptize several members of his family and they also visited Phebe's family in Maine. During the mission, Phebe gave birth to their first child, Sarah Emma.

By the time they rejoined the Saints, the people had been driven out of Kirtland, Ohio, and Missouri and the majority had moved to Illinois. Wilford and Phebe Woodruff joined them in Illinois, and almost immediately Wilford was ordained a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and sent on a mission to England. He left despite being very ill with malaria, and Phebe also had malaria and didn't recover for a couple of months.

This was a very difficult time for Phebe, and I felt that even though I haven't suffered temporally the way that she did, I could really relate to her because she was in a new place without the support of family. She was extremely sick, she was pregnant again, her living conditions were not good (nobody's were, which is partly why everyone had malaria), she had no family there, and she had no husband to give her the financial and emotional support she needed. Despite this, in her letters she told her husband how much she missed him but always insisted that she wanted him to complete his mission.

As if things couldn't get worse, one afternoon her daughter Sarah Emma suddenly died. Medical care and priesthood blessings were not enough to save her. Phebe was filled with grief, and although there were a few neighbors who gave her some support, she really didn't have the support that she needed. Having been there about a year, she probably hadn't developed many close relationships with other women, and when you're grieving over a child I don't there are many people who can take the place of a husband, mother, or sister. To make things worse, months after she had written to Wilford informing him of their daughter's death, he apparently still hadn't received the news because he sent her a letter cheerfully telling her to give lots of kisses to Sarah Emma. Phebe was left to mourn the loss of her little daughter, take care of her new baby boy, and somehow keep herself and the baby alive despite having barely adequate housing and some livestock. (Some neighbors had been upset that she was asking for help instead of selling her clothes and animals!) And she didn't even have the comfort of knowing that her husband was also grieving with her even though he was an ocean away.

Having lived across the country from our families for most of our marriage I feel that to some extent I can relate to Phebe. In North Carolina I had a few wonderful friends who really helped me out (and I'm not sure Phebe even had that), and I'm sure in time I will develop similar friendships here, but it's such a comfort to have a mom or a sister there when times get hard.

Fortunately, Phebe's family had read in the newspapers about the struggles the Saints were having, and they decided they weren't going to let Phebe live in these conditions, so her brothers came to Illinois and brought her back to Maine, where she stayed until Wilford Woodruff returned from his mission. It must have been such a comfort to her to be with her parents during this difficult time.

I have to say how much I admire her for encouraging her husband to fulfill his mission despite her suffering. He had some incredible experiences in England and was very instrumental in converting many people to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a testament to her faith in the restored gospel that she suffered and grieved without him so that more people could enjoy and learn about the blessings of the gospel as she had. Surely during this time she relied on her faith in Jesus Christ to endure through the challenges and get the comfort that she needed. I look forward to learning more about her role in the Relief Society as I continue to read this book.

Ramblings about School Lunch

So it sounds like Trump is trying to roll back some of the regulations on school lunch guidelines, and at the moment I'm not going to comment on whether that's a good choice or not. I do, however, want to comment about the argument people are making about how because of Michelle Obama kids are getting food that they refuse to eat because they don't like it, and so all that food is just being thrown away. I vividly remember what school lunch was like when I was growing up, and food was thrown away then too. My tray consistently had limp green-ish brown things that might have been beans, gray hamburgers with "ketchup", tater tots that were hollow because they'd been fried in so much fat, hot dogs that tasted odd, and dry-looking sawdust that I was told was taco meat. I learned that if the menu said "pizza" they meant bread with hamburger and cheese on top, but if the menu said "barchedda" or "galaxy pizza" it generally was pizza. In first grade we were given strange brown-ish red blobs (possibly sugarplums) that we didn't dare touch. I threw away an obscene amount of food that I didn't like. I'm ashamed of how much food I threw away. I remember carefully watching Mrs. Mac because I knew if she saw me approaching the trash cans without having eaten my food she would make me go back and eat it. It was better in high school when we had a salad bar every day. That's why my kids take a cold lunch to school every day (aside from the fact that over $2 per meal for my kids' lunch is not in the budget). It's what I should have done myself. So in terms of waste I doubt that the amount of food being thrown away has changed much.

In defense of the lunch ladies, they were being asked to make and serve a meal to 1000 kids within a couple of hours. They're stretched thin and they don't have much of a budget. I feel bad complaining about the food because I know they were probably doing the best they could. Also, their cinnamon rolls, chocolate cake, and dinner rolls (especially those ones they served with spaghetti) were pretty fantastic, and every once in a while they would serve this potato soup with a lot of pepper in it that I loved. And sometimes the cups of peaches were still frozen, and that was the best. The baked potatoes were actually just fine, but I was being picky.

If we're going to have school lunch (and for many children in poverty I think this program is really important) then these are the obstacles we have to face. How do we make school lunch healthy, affordable, palatable, and convenient to serve? And we have to recognize that doing this for your own family is not the same as doing it for an entire school. Making hand breaded chicken nuggets or freshly sauteed green beans is enough work for my family of five; we're not going to get that at school.

And on a slightly related note, recently I read an article talking about how many schools punish or shame students when their parents haven't paid their lunch accounts (as in, they threw the student's food away). My first reaction was shock that they could be so cruel, but on further reflection I have to admit that it happened sometimes at my school too. I remember in my irresponsible fifth grade years I forgot my lunch check or tickets several times, and if I had forgotten two days in a row I felt physically ill worrying about having to fill out another charge form. A few times I even snuck out of the line and went to my younger sister's classroom to borrow a lunch ticket from her. I remember a few times I got lucky because on a day when I didn't have a lunch ticket I was chosen to be a lunch helper and got free lunch. I actually don't remember if Jill the lunch lady ever yelled at me about not having a lunch ticket, but she definitely did yell at some other kids.

Games

Ever noticed how the most creative games seem to also be the messiest? Favorite games in the Tanner house these days:

The bag game: This game involves putting anything and everything in bags. The more random the better: Bowls, crayons, books, legos, headbands, sticks, blankets, stuffed animals, Mom's calculator, dish towels, lotion, other bags with more random stuff inside. You need at least four full bags per person. Abandon the bags somewhere. When Mom or Dad asks you to put them away dump all the stuff out all over the living room and put a couple of the bags on the floor of the closet.

The soft stuff in tight spaces game: Collect every soft or snuggly thing you own. Put all of it into a small thing like a plastic bin (make sure to dump all the toys out first), wagon, clothes basket, or random bowl thing from the dismantled waterfall in the backyard. Squeeze yourself and all of your siblings into the small tight space. Bring books for added fun. Leave everything overnight.

The bag and soft stuff in tight spaces game: Repeat option 2, except add your eight bags of random stuff to the tight space.

Nests, aka Piles: Put every soft or snuggly item in your home into a pile. Pull all the couch cushions off too. Pretend to take naps, act like baby birds, jump around giggling hysterically, and scream piercingly when your sister is sitting on your favorite blankie. Side effect warning: When it's time to clean up you will magically feel very tired and your legs will hurt so bad you can't walk.

Princess at the ball: Pull all the dresses and hangers out of your closet and toss them all over the room. Try one on and run all over the house in it. Leave the rest, including your diaper and the outfit you were wearing before the game commenced. If Mom's not watching, this game is especially fun outside.

Library: Pull out roughly 50 books. Make sure to include several of the fat chapter books that you won't be able to read for at least ten years, and leave the dust jackets on the floor. Doctrines on Salvation and Immanuel Kant are good options. Don't forget Heidi and Beauty. Use the laser on the computer mouse to "check out" the books from the "library." Dance with abandon through the piles of books until they're scattered fairly evenly throughout the house.

Boxes: Get a pile of boxes. Frolic in them freely. Color all over them.

Pots and Pans: Pull out all the pots and pans. Bang on them as loud as you can. Fill them with play food mixed with all the contents of the silverware and utensil draws and pretend to make dinner.

Legos: Set up your factory on your bedroom rug and commence multi-week projects that prevent any possibility of picking up the legos. Bonus: Your mom will be impressed with your tough feet.

Nail polish: Pretend to be coloring a picture for Mom until she's lulled into the delusion that she can trust you with the markers for three seconds. Color all over your fingernails and toenails. (I love Crayola Ultra Washable markers!)

What's been going on

Recently I started reading the book A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870, and as I read the introduction it occurred to me how fortunate we are to have the diaries that the author used to write the book. It's kind of a miracle that Eliza R. Snow's diaries are still in existence. There were women's diaries that narrowly missed the trash can or bonfires, and one diary was found behind a wall. But there also just weren't very many women who kept diaries. For that reason I decided to write this blog post. Memories disappear so fast. I know it's kind of a long-winded/rambling post, but I know I just need to get the memories down while I have them. And I don't know if this will be a relief or an annoyance to my readers, but this is partly a post about me working through trials and challenges that are shaping who I am, so don't expect me to gush about how I'm seriously so blessed or something. (I'm not looking for people to feel sorry for me either.)

I had a rough patch. It's better now, but I guess it could get worse again. The week after Ryan's parents left was rough and I was really sad about the baby and in general felt empty and depressed. Plus the months of being stuck at home with no car finally added up and I realized just how lonely and isolated I was. It got better for a while after that and then I had another even worse week that culminated in me yelling at my kids, probably about the huge mess in the house, throwing duplos at the wall in the playroom while furiously cleaning up (not a moment I'm proud of), and finally breaking down and ugly crying on Ryan's shoulder while asking what was wrong with me. And then a few days later things were better again.

Easter happened and it was great. We repeated our tradition from last year of celebrating Holy Week by using our scripture study to talk about what Jesus was doing each day leading up to the resurrection. I laminated my Holy Week signs from last year so we can reuse them every year. We made construction paper palm leaves and drew pictures some of the days. The signs and the other art work went up on the Holy Week Wall. On "Spirit World Saturday" I had a really great talk with the kids about what's going on in the Spirit World and why we do family history and temple work. We talked about people we know who have died who we know we will see again.

We had a lot of Easter egg hunts. I really dislike Easter egg hunts, but these things saved me this year because they got me out of the house and spending time with good people. Both Kevin and Heidi had class Easter egg hunts, and Ann Marie and I went to Heidi's (we walked to the school). Then a neighbor had an Easter egg hunt/party at her house on Friday, so that was a chance to talk to a lot of friends from church. And then on Saturday we went to another Easter egg hunt/potluck breakfast at Camp Helaman (owned by our stake president--mostly it was our ward attending), and I spent a lot of time talking to a couple of friends who are in the Primary presidency. When we got in the car to go home I told Ryan how great it was to be with people who share their light with me. Then on Sunday we had a beautiful Easter program, and in the choir we sang Christ the Lord is Ris'n Today and a beautiful arrangement of He Sent His Son. And Sunday evening we had another Easter egg hunt/dessert potluck with more friends from the ward. As much as I dislike Easter egg hunts (mainly all the candy and wrappers and the sticky chocolate-coated plastic eggs that are everywhere afterwards), it was a big blessing this year to have so much time to spend with friends from Relief Society. There are not many other places where I can associate with so many people who bring light into my life like that. At the time it was very much what I needed.

I know that to see friends I am probably going to need to be more out-going. It really could be as simple as texting, "Want to come over for ice cream on Sunday?" But even that has been hard.

I've been sewing Days for Girls shields a lot. I'm almost through my stash of cut-out pieces now, so I think there will be a Jo-Ann's trip in my near future, followed by a Downton Abbey/cutting fabric binge if I'm lucky. (And by binge I mean I get to watch a whole episode, which is a rare treat. I discovered the show months ago and I'm just now starting Season 4.)

I hosted Book Club at our house in April. I tried to clean the house up throughout the week, but it became clear pretty quickly that we were just going to have to do a mad tidying up that evening because KIDS. I worked the entire day trying to get things picked up and in the end it was Ryan who saved me because when he got home he made the kids pick up all the toys and books and then vacuumed the living room while I tried to make the kitchen sanitary and got the seven loads of laundry out of the way (there were two more in the washer and dryer). And somehow it magically worked out. We talked about the book A Man Called Ove, which I really enjoyed (although it does have swear words). Several of our members have moved away and our numbers are diminishing, so we're trying to get books planned for the next few months and figure out how to get more people to come. I still really miss my Book Club friends from Chapel Hill, but I'm grateful we have a book club here.

We're still working on our garden with varying amounts of success. The latest problem is that some tiny fly things have laid eggs all over the leaves of many of our plants, including the camellia bush and the vegetables, and some leaves are turning yellow, so I guess I need to go to the extension office and get some advice for how to deal with the bugs before they kill all the plants. I've joined Ryan in the battle against poison ivy. I think we've decided we have to clear away the entire mess of pine straw and vines under the trees on the side of our front yard so we can find the poison ivy vines and pull up the leaves while they're small. Ryan has had a couple of nasty rash things on his arm where he accidentally brushed up against the poison ivy. Half of the candy tuft plants are turning brown and shrimpy while the other half are doing well, so we'll see if they make it. If I can find the receipt, we might be able to take them back to Lowe's. The fire ants are also an ongoing problem, and it seems like whenever I put poison on their hills they just build a new one next to them the next day. My dianthus are thriving and I just love them. I keep deadheading them and they keep making lovely blooms. I also love my geraniums. It's so cool when a cluster of them blooms all at once.

I can't seem to keep clothes on Ann Marie. On the days when she does wear clothes she goes through six outfits, and on the other days I feel like every time I turn around she's taken her clothes off. She also keeps taking off her diaper and putting on underwear, but she always has accidents on the floor and has yet to use the toilet for its intended purpose, so we'll see what happens. Heidi mostly potty trained herself a few weeks before Ann Marie was born, so I'm sort of hoping that since Ann Marie's third birthday is coming up maybe something will click. My attempts to officially potty train my kids have never gone well in the past, so I've been reluctant to try anything other than watching Daniel Tiger's episode about the potty.

Ryan bought a car on Friday! I'm so excited to have more freedom to go places during the day. I've managed okay for quite a while being stuck at home, but lately it's just been really hard to not be able to go get groceries or go to a park during the day without the logistical nightmare of dropping Ryan off at work and picking him up in rush hour traffic with bored kids who've decided to use what I call their "Dora the Explorer" voices. And on Tuesdays and Thursdays when he leaves so early I'm always worried that the kids will miss the bus (they did once, and we ended up walking to school because I'm prideful and didn't want to call a friend for help).

I've still been doing quite a bit of Family History, but it's mostly been correcting the Family Tree and putting isolated family units where they belong in the tree. A lot of temple work has already been done for Danish people who were born before 1880 or so because of extraction projects, so a lot of people are on the Family Search Family Tree as little isolated families (like just the child and their parents) and I just have to add them where they belong and merge the parents. Sometimes finding them involves some interesting acrobatics because they don't always turn up in searches for some reason. I also apparently have many cousins still in Denmark who are interested in doing genealogy, because they've uploaded their trees on MyHeritage.com. Technically you're allowed to do temple work for descendants of a common relative if they were born before 1907, but if I get on My Heritage and it's clear that a person's grandchildren or even children are still alive, I feel uncomfortable reserving those ordinances, so I tend to add them to Family Search and then leave them. It's not like I need to reserve the ordinances anyway because I have more than I can do already. Lately I've been adding information about the descendants of Jacob Andersen, older brother of my great-great-great grandmother Maren Andersdatter. Interestingly, out of all his children, there's only one who might have living descendants (of the rest, two died as babies, one died childless soon after her marriage, one had children but those children didn't have children, and one married at an older age and apparently had no children of his own). And yet Maren Andersdatter could easily have a thousand or more living descendants. I also have to watch the people about whom I've already added substantial information because sometimes people make incorrect changes. A few days ago I realized Jens Peter Pedersen (the first Danish ancestor I ever started working on, btw) and his wife had been incorrectly merged with another couple, so I had to clean that up. It's nice that Family Search will email you about changes. I try not to be annoyed, but if I stopped doing family history I have to wonder if all these people's pages would devolve back into chaos.

I finally made it back to the temple a couple of weeks ago. The only day I can really go is Saturday, but even Saturday is hard because so often we have other things to get done. I did an endowment session and was hoping to get through some of my pile of initiatories as well, but they didn't have space for me, so I left. Unfortunately, I missed an important exit and ended up driving an hour and a half in the wrong direction before realizing it (the freeways all look the same--two lanes, grass in the middle,  trees on both sides), so then I had to turn around and it was a two and a half hour drive back. I was pretty embarrassed and mad about the lost time. Ryan was really nice about it, though, and didn't complain about being home alone with the kids all day.

A while ago I discovered fitnessblender.com. They have over 500 free workout videos. I had been doing Jillian Michaels DVDs since August, which were fine, but I like Fitness Blender a lot better because they don't yell at you and there's such a wide variety of workout styles and difficulty levels in their videos. Plus they have such a positive and uplifting outlook on exercise and nutrition.

A few weeks before the miscarriage I had a strong impression in the temple that I needed to immerse myself in the scriptures. Since then I've been trying to read the Book of Mormon plus a conference talk and/or chapter from the Bible every day (before I was mostly just reading the Book of Mormon). It was interesting that I was prompted to read the scriptures more just before I started having a lot of challenges. It didn't make the problems go away, but I think it was helpful to be closer to the Holy Ghost and thinking more about the gospel at a time when I needed my faith in God's love and the plan of salvation to be strong.