Your Birthdate: August 22
You tend to be understated and under appreciated.You have a hidden force to do amazing things, doing them your own way.People may see you as strange and shy, but they know little.Your unconventional ways have more power than they (and even you) know.
Your strength: Standing up for what you know is true
Your weakness: You tend to be picky and rigid
Your power color: Silver
Your power symbol: Square
Your power month: April

ugh. i couldn't sleep last night. it is such an annoyance. lying there knowing that you have to be up in a couple hours and not able to shut your mind off. i got up and sent off some emails about some of the thoughts that were plaguing me in hopes that it would help, but of course it didn't. so i'm sitting here in the aftermath of mother's day in a sluggish stupor. i don't feel like getting something to eat--i just don't want to bother even washing some grapes off. my house looks as if a stampede went through it. brent and mic did do some dishes yesterday but he just isn't that efficient at loading the dishwasher and he only washed one dish by hand and someone put the dirty icecream scoop on it. the table is still extended. and exactly why was it extended in the first place? for no good reason--only 3 people ate at it. there are half eaten plates on the table, glasses in the living room, no counter space in the kitchen, a bunch of crap in the laundry room (because that is how brent cleans up) and a really stinky diaper in the garbage. mother's day was...hectic. the girls were really excited but when that happens they just seem to get into more trouble. they were fighting and crying and throwing temper tantrums about ridiculous things like who gets to use the bathroom first. we were halfway through the day before they were finally able to give me their gifts. here are some of the things mic said about me in her brochure she made at school: "my mom loves to go to grandmas, she likes to go on runs. my mom is great at jogging and cooking also singing. i'd like to give my mom a hug, a great house, the new harry potter book, some chocolate bars and lillies. a future event for my mom and i will be to go out for dinner, watch a movie and go out for ice cream." haha. well at least she doesn't think i like to sew anymore. that part was very sweet. so was natalie saying over and over throughout the day Hap-py mother's day!! sarah and kyle and anne came over for dinner. adriel was uncharacteristically fussy and anne kept saying mic was a chubby baby and that jane was much skinnier and that mic had such chubby cheeks and for some reason that really pushed my buttons. and sarah would agree and say that mic was small that's all and that she wasn't skinny and for some reason it really bugged me and anne kept saying it. and then she would try to make me feel better by saying that she was still cute even though she was chubby and started saying that she considered adriel to be slim and mic was like him. and i think i might have offended sarah because i said there was no comparison and between the two but its not like i think one is better than the other. and the whole conversation was just ridiculous because i know the way mic was and her size and weight is really completely irrelevant but i couldn't stop it because for some reason. all this time nat was climbing around me and jumping and not listening and kyle was playing kenneth cope. after dinner i told brent that it was tradition to go to pipers on mothers day. neither kyle nor he wanted to go...as if it was up to them...but i persisted and told brent that if we didn't go that i was going to go up to my room and stay there by myself because i am highly sensitive and couldn't take it anymore. so we went and for once the mother's won one on mother's day. we took a few pics and then the girls insisted we play tag. kyle ran while holding adriel over his shoulder and gave us a good laugh. for some reason i always have so much fun playing tag with the girls. they are so cute chanting na-na-na-na-bu-bu and then running away with a delighted shriek. we stayed there long enough for the girls to get some of their pent up energy out and my nerves to relax. then we came home and watched the survivor finale. and then i couldn't sleep...

the big day

april 16th was the big day. big not just because bethany and amy had a birthday--or christian too for that matter--it was a big day for brent. it was the day of his presentation. now brent has done lots of presentations before and he always does them well (so well that i wish he could do them instead of taking a test or writing a paper) but this one was different. this was his presentation of his practicum. his sponsor was there, the chair of the geography department was there, potential employers were there, and the vp of mal-u was there. in fact the vp came only to brent's presentation. i went to cheer him on and to see what everyone else's presentation was like.
one of the other people did a practicum for the centre for continuing studies (cccs) department of mal for marketing purposes. he showed a map that showed students living in the north end of nanaimo that have paid more than $3000 for tuition in ccs. as i watched i thought, 'i bet one of those students he has marked is brent.' then as he continued and talked about marketing it got me thinking about how brent found out about this program in the first place. i had first heard about it in an email from the college. the email came at a time when we were at a crossroads in our lives. it was in my junk mail which i hardly ever check, but just happened to...i told brent about it and that has been his focus ever since. reflecting back to that time i remembered how difficult life was. we were broke and needed to find a new direction for brent. he was looking at taking a trade, but i felt it was a waste of his degree for him to become a carpenter. anyways, this is my rambling way of saying that i feel like we were shown a way out. and on this day i recognized it and felt gratitude and joy.
i was so proud of brent. he had really done a good job. his sponsor was thrilled. i watched as others--his gis instructors, geography instructors, and fellow students told him how good his map was. of course he did a really good job on his presentation. afterwards he got an email from his sponsor and we found out that he was the one who invited the vp there. (his sponsor was a history instructor at the college. brent mapped out nanaimo in 1891. not just the streets and stuff, but who lived where and how much was the land valued at and anything else that was available on the census and tax records.) the college had granted some funding for this project (the college actually paid brent--a small dent in comparison to the amounts we have paid them) and so the vp came to see what the money was used for. apparently he said it was money well spent. his sponsor is so happy with the work brent did that he wants to contract him out to do more. he said there is only one other city in canada that has historical gis maps. you can see some of his online map here. http://tree.mala.bc.ca/Website/MyNanaimo_Brent/viewer.htm it was such a victorious day for us.

spring break

spring break came up on me suddenly this year--yet when i was faced with the prospect of a free and open schedule with no driving to ballet or field trips, i realized i was quite ready for a break. a whole week with nothing i had to do. so much freedom lay before me. a week full of possibilities. now sitting at the other end of the week it feels as if the break was just as busy if not busier than any other week. i guess it is just that stage of my life. the busy stage. which, i think, is the longest stage. as much as i despair of it, i'd much rather be busy than have nothing to do. but i do wish i had more time to get everything done. i've been busy but my housework is not done, i haven't read to the girls all week, the flowers are sitting outside waiting to be planted, the laundry and ironing is piling up, i need to go grocery shopping, i haven't done the girls hair since last sunday, and i'm not going to say anything else about what needs to be done. what did i do?it all started with sunday. (weeks have a way of doing that, you know) i got home from church and only had time for a hurried lunch before i was out the door again for a meeting. in typical meeting fashion we didn't end quickly and so brent had to pick me up for caleb's baptism from deb's house. he had called and deb said for him to bring me something sexy to wear and i said no not sexy but apparently he only heard the no part and brought me nothing to wear. he was rather grumpy about it too. i was supposed to lead the music (all caleb's organizing--poor guy didn't know that we aren't all so musically talented) and i was not going to get up there in front of everyone wearing jeans and running shoes so i went to sarah's. sarah met me at the door wearing track pants. i asked if she had a skirt and shoes i could borrow. unlike some sisters we know, sarah was perfectly willing to share her clothes with a sister in need. she lent me her sexy swishy brown skirt. i inquired as to why they weren't dressed up and it turns out they thought the baptism started 2 hours later. i'm not sure why she thought i was so desperate to borrow a skirt for something that wasn't about to begin. so i guess it was a good thing that brent grumpily didn't bring my clothes because sarah and kyle would have missed the whole thing. the attendance at the baptism was fairly scant. so scant in fact that there was no one to play the piano. layne was supposed to and he didn't come. esther didn't come. evan didn't come. i looked around desperately for someone who could play. dad meantime kept saying i could play. i said i had never even tried to play the primary songs. dough said they'd sing whatever i knew how to play. i told them that was "how great thou art" and that was it. at one time i knew quite a few hymns and could even sight read relatively well but one can't go for years without even touching a piano and keep up that skill. i was not going to give in and play now in front of a bunch of people. how could this happen? so many people in the family play better than me and yet there i found myself sitting on the piano bench with my hands shaking crazily and playing "how great thou art." so the baptism was nice in its only little way. it definitely had an air of disorganization to it. on the program i was listed as a clarke. i've been married for almost 10 years and people still call me sister clarke. it seemed that the baptism just wasn't that important to some people because they didn't show up even though they had a part in the program. evan and esther were supposed to sing but they were sick. so it was good that sarah and kyle found out the real time because kyle was supposed to give a talk. he gave a pretty good one too. (not bad for someone who is on the high council if you know what i mean) he translated a story from a japanese storybook. i love going to baptisms. i always feel the spirit. it didn't disappoint.after the baptism brent wanted me to invite sarah and kyle over for dinner. i didn't want to. i don't like having people over when the house is in complete disarray. i had been helping mom in all my spare time and my house really showed it. and i hate it when brent makes me do something that he can do himself. YOU invite them over if you want to have them over. he had some lame excuse as to why he couldn't so i reluctantly did. so reluctant was i that sarah and kyle didn't realize that the invitation included dinner. i called them later and sarah was in the middle of cooking up perogies. they gave up their dinner of perogies to eat some of brent's cooking. i kept completely out of the kitchen and left all the cooking and cleaning to brent this time. and he did even do the dishes. well what he could fit into the dishwasher--and since our dishwasher is the size of a large microwave and he is not nearly as expert as i am at packing as much as possible into it, there was a lot of stuff not washed. brent made caramel popcorn for dessert. we asked s&k to bring the popcorn because we didn't have enough. kyle must of really wanted some because he made a second trip back home to get it when he forgot. i mean, i told him to go back and get it in quite a bossy and presumptuous fashion but i never expected him to listen to me.brent cooked pork chops, sweet potato, corn and instant potatoes from our food storage--the potato pearls that we bought from the bishop's storehouse and then dry pack canned. he says this is what food storage is for. i could never get myself to open those cans unless we had no other food. (we are different that way. i save and he spends) catherine and patrick came over and we played the iron rod (i think that's what it is called.) it is the lds version of cranium. it was fun, but carried on a little long. in the end brent and kyle cheated to finish the game. i don't know what we were thinking pairing those two together. sarah and pat were very unlucky in their rolling and catherine and i were unlucky in our questions always being allplays. when we got an easy question catherine always asked if we could have another question. obviously her and my approach to games is completely different. anyways, it was a fun night and a good start to spring break

i'll try again

so yes i know it has been a long time. and i do feel like throwing in the towel with the whole blogging thing. you see it seems like it takes me a long time to write an entry--and i don't mean in between entries. but the real thing is probably that i don't journal in a personal journal and so my feelings here can spill out uncontrolled and may be too brutally honest. and really i don't feel like this is the place. yet there are things i wish i could say about my hurt feelings, the sense of betrayal and rejection but i know it to be too hot button of an issue. i don't think i've ever been one of those kind of people that does good at not dealing with issues. i mean i can go on and pretend like things are normal to avoid uncomfortable confrontations, but i don't like to. it is uncomfortable to not deal with it either. i guess what i'm saying is that it feels a little dishonest to come on here and to talk about the fluff of my life but not the things that are truly troubling me. probably if i was up to date in my real journal i wouldn't have a problem. but maybe if i wrote more i would overcome it. so i shall try to get into it again.

thoughts on the new year...

i want to move on from that depressing last entry but don't have a lot of time so...i thought i'd just copy what i wrote for the relief society newsletter.

I wanted to write about the new year and getting a fresh start. I felt inspired by what Sister Schortinghuis said in her testimony on Sunday. I can’t give a direct quote, but I like how she said that we don’t need to wait for a new year to start anew but that each day can be a fresh start. Sister Schortinghuis’s remarks got me thinking about how we live in a world full of cycles from days to weeks to seasons to years and how each one gives us an opportunity to move forward and be better than we were in the last cycle. Really that is the way it should be in the gospel. We are to open and close each day with a prayer. Just as sacrament meeting would not feel right without starting with a prayer, our day should not start without an opening prayer. I’ve never thought of my morning prayer being an opening prayer for the day before but let’s go with that idea for a moment. We pray when we first get up and consecrate the day to the Lord. This action helps us to “stay the course” throughout the day and then in the evening we close the day, review how we did, repent, and resolve to do better the next day. Starting all over is a gift to us through the atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ. It is because of Him we can start everyday with a clean slate.

i can feel the depression moving in. it is seeping in the cracks of my quieter times. it is trying to press in on me and prevent all my activity. but i'm busy. i hardly have time to notice it. the quiet times hardly ever happen but the depression is there lurking; waiting to come out. i want to give in and wallow. i want to ponder on how unfair life can be. i want to do nothing. i want to feel sorry for myself but whenever i think "why me?" or "poor me" i always think of people that have it way worse than me. i wish i could shut off that reasoning sometimes because it makes me think that i shouldn't feel so sad. and i have all these things i need to do--things that i want to do like put up our christmas tree and finish christmas preparations. but right now, or whenever i have the time i don't want to. and i feel detached from my feelings. like i'm standing there watching these emotions come up and i wonder why they are here and how to make them go away. and i feel alone--not because there aren't people that care, but because i'm the one that this has happened to and has to go through it and though i know they care it just doesn't lift the lonliness of my grief. i guess i shouldn't really be surprised. i've been here before and it was the same thing then. i'm sorry for writing such a downer of a post. i just need to give some expression to my feelings. don't worry about me; i'll be ok.

mclintock

last night was my quiet friday night at home night. problem was, i didn't have anything to do. so i ended up watching mclintock on tv. it was a john wayne movie co-starring maureen o'hara (the mom in parent trap). she was feisty and mad at her husband and had just returned to meet her daughter who was returning from school. john wayne claimed he didn't know why she was so mad at him and acted mostly indifferent to her--except when he got drunk one night. that night he came home singing about how he loved her. the daughter was pretty and the boys fought for her attention. she was a little feisty like her mother--especially to the boy that you know she is going to end up with. at one point her turns her over his lap and spanks her with her father looking on. the movie culminates with john wayne chasing his wife through the town with everyone in the town following and laughing. his wife (named katie or katherine) was in the middle of getting changed when the chase starts and as the chase continues she keeps losing more and more of her underclothing. (the movie is set in the pre-car era and so she had a lot of underclothes on) she is more and more humiliated and everybody just follows and laughs. when he finally catches her he turns her over his knee and spanks her. and somehow that makes everything good!? i can't believe that in the 60s that was acceptable. i know that the movie is loosely based on the taming of the shrew, but come on!

aaahhhh leverage

the girls are up cleaning their room. nat is even helping and into it. mic is not complaining that nat isn't helping. in fact behind me right now nat is saying that she wants to clean up and urging mic to help her. every few minutes or so they come down and say they are ready for me to "check" their room and see if it is good enough. each time i go up and find one of their hiding spots where they stuff things that they don't want to put away. they have a lot of them. then they have to clean that stuff up. the annoying thing is that i keep finding some of the same toys. don't they get it? they can't hide it from me. oh that i could always have this leverage. what is the currency i have to motivate my daughters? presents. nat had her birthday party today. she's not allowed to get any out of the packaging until their room is clean to my satisfaction. and i'm feeling pretty picky. i have to use it while i've got it. maybe i can draw the process out by only allowing one present a day. hehhehheh.
i am so tired. i wish i could just relax and not have to worry about the next big thing i have to do. but the next big thing is teach relief society this sunday. there'll be no relaxing for me just yet. although i may just procrastinate a little tonight. this week has been something major every 2 days. i'm ready to be done.

the morning after...

so i taught my lesson. the bishop told me 30 minutes and then he ended up wanting me to use 15 minutes. as a result, he only got 10 minutes. that guy forgets sometimes what he asks of you. when it came down to it, i wasn't nearly as freaked out as i thought i would be. it was like teaching any other class. or at least that is how i treated it. maybe i was a little too simplistic or came across condescending...i don't know. i'm used to teaching the youth. i do have more experience then them, but not the adults. but i found that if i thought of it that way i just couldn't do it, so i stopped thinking of everyone as my superiors, and more as my equals. i did get a little heckling and dad was bothered that his answer didn't have a strip. he even came up after class to argue with me about it. and i got a lot of other people to come up and share their personal experiences. what can i say...i delegate whenever i can. and not just because it is what you are supposed to do, but because i'm a chicken and i'd rather get some people to help me. the bishop made me lead the music. why? WHY does he insist on doing that to me? just at the last minute he announces that i'm leading the music! i'm not like his wife! not all women in the church can lead music ok? the last time i had to do that was on my mission. it has been over 10 years since i have led the music. besides that, i was already teaching the lesson. it doesn't have to be a 1-man show. so actually, my legs starting shaking when i was doing it. i was more nervous leading the music than teaching the lesson. it didn't help that the piano player didn't always keep time with me--then i'd have to slow down to be in time with him. and what exactly is my purpose of being up there if that is the way it happens? in the end i received a lot of positive comments on the lesson, but it was hard for me to believe. what is wrong with me? i just couldn't help thinking they were just being nice because they knew how scared i was. maybe because one person commented on how fluent i was. i'm glad it is done, but now i have another lesson to prepare for next week. and a birthday party. and halloween. i feel a little stressed. we haven't even carved our pumpkin yet. we were supposed to do it today for fhe, but now the girls are going to a party and they don't have time. ah well i better get to work.

today was my baby's first cross country meet. i was surprised actually, that she signed up for it, but she did. i asked her if she was going to join cross country, but she didn't give a very enthusiastic reply so i thought that was that. she started wanting to run with me this summer and grandpa bought her special running shoes. then this fall, i started all over (i have been walk/running carefully trying to not get shinsplints again) and mic usually comes with me. she didn't realize until yesterday though that it was a race and then she didn't want to do it. because she wouldn't win. sounds like someone else i know. but i told her winning wasn't important and that we would be proud of her for just doing her best. i didn't really know how she'd do because, like a typical kid, she doesn't like to push herself. i've seen her run at school runs and she does a lot of walking. when i got there dad had gotten mad in the race too. i wasn't too happy about that because i don't like them competing against each other and mad always seems to be better than mic. and i knew how mic was worried about not winning and stuff. i personally think that kids who are 8 shouldn't compete against kids that are 9. they are still young enough that it makes a big difference. in the end mic actually finished before mad, but still i don't think it was nice for mad to have that comparison either. mic got 13th place and ran the whole 1.5kms without stopping. i was very proud of her. a lot of the girls that finished before her were from her school and they were in grade 4, so i think she was one of the top 8 yr olds in the race. and it appears that my worries about mic and mad competing against each other were unfounded. they were both very pleased and each congratulated the other.

i brought mad home with me to play with the girls. i forgot that i was supposed to go help with the missionary luncheon. i forgot that i am going visiting teaching after school. hopefully diana doesn't mind if there is one more kid. i am forgetting a lot of stuff like that this week. i made an appointment on tuesday and forgot that i was supposed to help out at the library at that time. i'm feeling flaky. i don't like being a flake.

wow--2 days in a row...i don't know what has gotten into me. either i'm back in the flow, or i'm procrastinating figuring out the lesson i have to teach on sunday. i really don't want to teach it. i've always disliked the combined 5th sunday meetings and now i find myself having to do one. and my topic is so broad: emotional and spiritual strength. you can go anywhere with that. unless you are me--then you go no where.

tomato knife

once upon a time there was a girl that had nothing but crappy knives. the knife she used the most had a broken handle and so in essence did not even really have a handle. one christmas the girl's husband asked her what she wanted for christmas. the girl was fed up with such useless kitchen tools and so she told her husband she wanted a knife--one that cut tomatoes and cheese. (of course she also asked for clothes, but her husband refuses to buy her clothes). the girl's husband was surprised that that was all she wanted (besides clothes) and so he determined to spend almost his whole alloted budget on a knife for his wife. in fact he bought her 2 knives. a cheese knife and a tomato knife. now, chances are you have heard of a cheese knife but have never heard of a tomato knife. but yes such a thing does indeed exist. the girl was very surprised christmas morning when she got the 2 knives. even though she had asked for a knife that cut tomatoes she never thought he would take her so literally and she was thinking more along the lines of "stocking stuffers" not "main present." but as time went by the girl grew to love her tomato knife. it became her most used knife. she used it for cutting all produce and it cut so beautifully that she forgot her previous hardship of terrible cutting utensils. she took good care of her knife and never used it for anything except produce (there was one time actually that she let her sister-in-law use it to cut pepperoni or something like that but if the truth be told it was a little hard for her allow). the girl took it anywhere she would be cutting tomatoes--barbecues, picnics, camping trips but it always came back to her house safely with the rest of the stuff. there was one time that the cheese knife didn't come back from the canada day picnic in parksville and the girl felt very sad and mourned for her knife. she comforted herself by telling herself that at least she still had her tomato knife and that was the one she used all the time. the cheese knife was just for cheese. a week or so later the girl went to a barbecue with her brother and his family. she was surprised to see her sister-in-law cutting with the girl's cheese knife and quickly took it back. (her sister-in-law had just assumed that they had fabulous 50 dollar knives at the office.) the girl was happy to once again have both her special knives back and hoped that her cheese knife wasn't ruined by her sister-in-law cutting everything and anything with the knife. the girl lived on in happy slicing bliss until one day she couldn't find her tomato knife anywhere. she searched everywhere and couldn't find it. finally she gave up and started cutting with a different knife. it was useless. she couldn't make dinner with such a useless tool and so she searched again. this time she found it in the kitchen drawer. (not where it belonged) and to her dismay it was BROKEN!!! sob. how did it get broken? her mother had babysat the night before and did the dishes. could she have broken it? no....last time she babysat she had broken the girl's glass measuring cup, but she had been upfront about it and had promised to buy her a new one (a promise by the way that has yet to be kept and that was a useful kitchen tool to) but the girl couldn't think of any other answer, so she called her mother. sure enough, the girl's mother had broken it. she was closing the drawer and all of a sudden she heard a snap and when she looked in the drawer there was the broken knife. the mother didn't want to believe that she had done it and so she buried it under other stuff and hoped her daughter wouldn't notice. when the girl asked her mother about it her mother admitted that she had broken it and said that she had lots of knives and her daughter could pick any one she wanted. trouble is, the girl didn't want any of her mother's knives. she wanted her special tomato knife. her mother didn't have any of those. the girl's knife was such a nice knife that it had a warranty and so her husband took it to get a new one. the place he had bought it from had changed ownership and didn't deal with that brand anymore. so...now the girl hates cooking. everytime she cuts vegetables and has to saw back and forth her heart cries out for her tomato knife. working in the kitchen will never be the same again. moral of the story? i think it is to not let your mother do your dishes.

the thing that never happens to laura and often to me, has happened again

i'm sick. i'm not sure if it is an age thing, or a not having a cold for a long time thing, or just this is a real bad cold thing but i don't remember feeling this sick with a cold. and cold fx did NOTHING! i'm beginning to wonder at its efficacy. the day i came down with it i went to bed eary (and by early i mean 10:30 or so--i'm somewhat of an insomniac)but i had a terrible sleep. i woke up around 1:30 and felt like it should be morning--probably because i don't just wake up like that--and my teeth were aching. i thought maybe i was clenching them and so i tried to make an effort to relax my jaw. that was when i realized that i had to have been sleeping with my mouth open or i wouldn't be able to breathe. the night passed tortuously slow and i never partook of the respite that sleep usually is when one has a cold. brent offered to take the van and take the kids to school for me, but seeing as i would have to pick them up at separate times, taking the van didn't seem like much of a help. when i came downstairs he had a cup of licorice tea steeping for me. to add to everything, yesterday was "the get the work done day" at school. book fair, book orders, picture day, and open house. nat got mustard all over her shirt and had to change, mic filled out my cheques for me, and i did hair. i'm pretty sure nat will have a very unnatural smile in hers--but it'll still be cute because it is nat. the girls were both pretty excited to show us around the school. this time we only made it to the classrooms. no music room or computer lab. ms. derbyshire showed us all the pics she had of ave and zach. she told me the story again of how zach gave up being helper to another boy who didn't want to leave the classroom when it was time to go somewhere. nat introduced us and i rudely refused the proffered hand. i felt rude, but i was clutching a used tissue in my hand. would you want to shake hands with someone who was holding that? i did it to both teachers. it's lovely meeting people when you have a red nose. mic's teacher raved about her being a model student. he says she is happy to be there and to do the work and works quietly and independently and is a real pleasure to have in the class. later that night brent told me that he thinks mic will be like him and nat like trina...?!!! no they won't! and i just don't know how he thinks he has always been a good little boy. he just wasn't. and nat is fairly well-behaved too. she is just full of energy all the time and a little fiesty. we have plenty of those genes in the clarke side. it just isn't fair to compare her to mic who is also 3 and 1/2 years older than her. it bugged because i don't think they will be like anyone else.
by the way...a weird thing happened the other day. our hometeachers were over and nat was having a hard time sitting still (that's not the weird part) and so sis. patterson invited her to sit on her lap. nat did her shy face and went to sit on her. nat had her hair pulled back into two little "knobbies" and was wearing a white shirt with a little red and blue flower on it. as i looked at her i suddenly saw this picture of myself with short hair wearing a similar shirt. i'm sitting on a little chair. i think grandpa took it. i've never really thought nat looked like me, but i saw something that night--it was almost eery.
it is friday night and i am bored. brent is working and has the van. i tried to watch a movie, but i've watched all my movies recently. then i remembered the movies brent burned for me. i got out maid in manhattan and settled down at the computer to watch it....wouldn't work. we don't have the codec anymore. not wanting to give up too easily, i thought i'd try the laptop...not here. so i do the only thing left for me to do. i call brent. while i'm complaining to brent and he can't do anything about it i hear deb in the background saying to call matt. so she and brent put together a plan for matt to bring me a greek salad with a chick flick i don't own. my husband is good to me.

"Choose to accept--truly accept--that you are a child of God, that He loves you and that He has the power to help you"

it is a beautiful sunny monday morning and i still feel the glow from my day of spiritual feasting. not that i did anything special. in fact i spent most of the day at the church in meetings. i was there from 10 until 5:30. brent was very irate on the way home and to emphasize his feelings he drove like an idiot--fast acceleration that caused us to fishtail around corners. i sat there in silence knowing he was wrong but not wanting to fight about it. i prayed to know the best way to respond to his temper. and somehow i was able to dispel it and keep my cool. he was able to let go and we had a nice evening.
i reread elder hale's conference talk today. it is such a good talk. (i wish i could be even an little bit as eloquent and wise when i have to give a talk as the general authorities are) as i starting reading it i noticed that it was all marked up, so i asked brent if he had done it. nope--it was me and as i read it again i remembered why. such a good inspiring talk. the point i am focussing on today is the one i used for my title. it is such a fundamental belief. it seems to me that in the church we all know in theory that we are children of God, but maybe we don't necessarily accept it. if we did we would never question our self-worth. when i worked in young women's it seemed that every one of the girls struggled with this. i think it is satan's great tool against women--to lower their self esteem. small children don't have low self esteem. they are confident that they are loved and wonderful and beautiful and good at what they do. they don't question it and they don't feel ashamed for thinking that way. i wish it didn't change. if i could only pass one thing on to my daughters it would be this--that they are beloved daughters of God. and that He has the power to help us. so today i am trying to remember in all that i do, God has the power to help me. that means i can do anything.

9/11

9/11 brings a whole different set of memories and loss for me. when i woke up in the morning of september 11th, 2000, i sensed right away that something wasn't right. my baby did not move and my life changed forever. the next year (september 11th, 2001) people all over suffered loss and the country grieved, but i was already grieving. in some ways though, it was a milestone for me. in 2001, when i woke up, my baby was still moving. in some strange way i felt lighter because she had survived that day--like this time round really would be different. corey died on the 11th but he was born on the 12th. so every year we go out for dinner and get flowers to remember him by. his birth was the first time my house was filled with the powerful smell of lilies and so the flowers we get every year must have lilies in the bouquet. i love them, and the smell no longer brings me back to that time. i miss him. i wish i didn't have to have such a difficult time having babies. this year particularly my luck feels a little run out in that department. that is how it is explained: just bad luck--a fluke--no reason why this should ever happen again. but there was never any apparent reason for it to happen in the first place, so i don't really find the sentiment comforting. yet in spite of all this, i feel at peace with the way things have turned out. i love my family. i love my little girl that came after corey. i love the relationship that she and mic have and i wouldn't have it any other way. every now and then the ache comes back though. i wish i could see him. i wish i knew what he looked like. i wish he were here today.

i feel full of frustration and sadness. potluck was just ruined and i don't feel like going anymore. when i try to say how i feel nobody understands and just puts everything back on me. no one stands up for me or what i'm trying to say. brent is just some incapable bitter idiot according to what they say. no real attempt at looking at it other than to say brent is insufficient. i hate the clarke superiority complex. like asking them to talk about something besides hockey was causing them to lose some of the easiness of being as a family or that it meant "walking on eggshells" for brent. evan can be a jerk and nobody cares. when we're together as a family they shouldn't have to try to make someone else feel welcome--it is too much effort. even though i said something several times to change the subject they just couldn't because it wouldn't be natural. that was really the justification?!! i just feel frustrated because i got emotional and i just couldn't defend myself or my family and it ended up being that brent is a special case and we shouldn't expect such high things of him. and what happened today was wrong! at first it might have been thoughtlessness, but once i brought it to their attention it was indifference and complete self asorption. the schofields are stubborn and bitter and determined to see everything in a bad light. well the clarkes are arrogant and self-centered and only care about numbers and not people. it is not exactly easy being around everyone and their babies. and i am tired about the baby comments to me. no one seems to understands that my pregnancy ended in trauma--so much blood and feeling weak so quickly and so out of control with what happened to my body. getting pregnant again is a scary thing for me. losing corey was terrible--i went to a place so black, so bereft of joy. i don't want to grieve anymore. sorry this is so negative. i just needed to vent.

billy bones part ii

orienting the compass



mic finds a hidden clue






papa explains the compass





going down the final trail--almost there!






triumphant pirates




look at all the goods!

do you have a message for billy bones?

i don't know if anyone still checks my blog, but i feel it is time for an update. so bear with me because i am going to backtrack and write about some events that happened earlier this summer.
back before school was out the girls got a special invitation in the mail. they were invited to have a grandparents day with their schofield grandparents. mic was really excited and couldn't wait. as do most trips, this one began with a heart pounding ride to the ferry. it doesn't seem to matter how early i leave, i'm always worried about missing the ferry. (i wouldn't be surprised if frequent ferry users have higher blood pressure) anyways we got there in plenty of time but there were a lot of cars in front of us. the loading process as agonizing for us. at last the last car in the previous row could be seen...and then they stopped it. we were four cars back in the next row. i thought that was it. especially when they loaded a big semi. then i heard nat say a little prayer. it was so cute and completely on her own. no one had said anything about saying a prayer. so i said a little prayer that her act of faith would be rewarded. finally they let the car go and then the next one and the next one and then us! we were the last car on--such a different feeling than when you are the first car to not go on.
on the ferry i found an electrical outlet and set the girls up watching a movie on the laptop. i occupied myself doing their hair. it took almost the whole ferry ride. their hair was really snarly--it's what happens when i only do their hair once a week and they do lots of swimming. i realized when i got on the ferry that i didn't have laura's work number with me so i had to hope that brent would get home from work before she left work. luckily that too worked out. we eventually met up on highway 10 and started the long traffic-congested drive to aldergrove. i had also left my directions at home and brent didn't want to bother reading it all to me so it took even longer than it had to. who knew that the fraser highway turns into a one way shopping street in downtown langley?
the schofields were really excited to see the girls. they had a treasure hunt all planned out for them. before they started the hunt ron explained to them what an "orb" was and "site" he was so funny. he spelled it out for them and had them repeat the word. hehe. the girls had to go to some neighbours and ask them if they had a message for billy bones (something that he made brent do before) they started off quite shy but they warmed up to it. ron also taught them how to orient a compass and they had to use it as well. he was so excited he couldn't stop himself from giving away the answers. at the end they found a beautiful treasure box--quite large too. it was full of things for the girls. they got some clothes, new beach towels, and lots of candy.
in this happy state of affairs laura and i managed to extricate ourselves. we decided to to go somewhere that had yam fries. consequently we all got some. karey and elicia came too. (i think maybe they wouldn't have come if brent was there which is too bad because he can be a fun guy to do things with) it was fun to be out with the girls.
the next day laura and i got threaded. i was a little apprehensive about the pain factor and also not liking what she did. as it turned out she was about to start on me without saying a word, but laura jumped in and spoke for me. (i think laura has always done that kind of thing for me) it didn't hurt at first but as she continued it got more painful and i began to wonder if i had any eyebrow left at all. but to my amazement, there was still plenty of dark eyebrow left and not even that much of a change--no one even noticed when i came home.
from there we went to mec for laura to get a backpack just like karey's. i have never known someone to be so particular about their gym bag! nothing was just right and we were about to leave when laura saw it: karey's backpack.
then we went to robson for some fun shopping. we were on the lookout for a bag for me. i've been ready to give up the "diaper bag" for some time now and laura was the person to help me find the right one. it was a hard decision when it came down to it but i settled finally on a cool green bag from aldo.
also while out with laura, we went to a place for her to use her gift certificate on makeup. i admitted to laura that i hadn't worn eyeshadow since i was a teenager and wouldn't even know how to put it on so she got one of the makeup people to put some very natural looking eyeshadow on me. i couldn't really tell the difference but it looked like fun in the store. all the girls were wearing extreme makeup that you probably couldn't get away with anywhere else.
anyways, i felt very girly after my day with laura--like i'd had a little mini makeover or something.

i know it has been awhile. i've even had some good things to write about, but it is just a classic case of waiting too long and then losing my momentum. i am sitting here waiting for deborah to come over. it is very late. and instead of writing about the fun great things that have happened this summer i feel heavy. (is that a strange thing to say? it isn't in japanese so now i think it must be...but it describes how i am feeling) it just feels like everybody has so much pain and suffering. i guess that is what happens when i go to see the bishop. i go there with my head full of my own challenges and think to myself that somebody with fewer problems should be doing this. and then i hear about a bunch of other much more serious problems. it doesn't lighten my heart...it just makes me wonder if there is ever an end. i know there are reprieves--moments when everything feels just right and i look at my precious little family and see how richly i have been blessed. i just wish those moments would last a little longer. brent will be leaving tomorrow morning to go work in port alberni. the only way we can see to make this worthwhile is for him to stay up there until the week is over. so he is going to be sleeping in the van and showering at the lake. (i noticed last year that there are showers there). he left today but it turned out that they just needed him to fill out paper work and so i talked him into coming back home. that old familiar feeling of emptiness combined with lonliness didn't take long to settle down on me after he left today. but i am more worried about him. it is a demoralizng thing to be away from your family and even more so to do when you are living out of your van--especially when you are eating peanut butter sandwiches and yucky superstore cheerios with powdered milk. you feel you are doing hard things and life just feels that much harder. while i was writing this deborah arrived with a carload of snacks and treats for brent. she has to be one of the most giving peple i know. and she is so intuitive with her generousity. and funny as it may seem, my heart feels lighter already. (it's amazing what food can do for me) i had fun repacking brent's stuff. brent will be gone tomorrow so who knows...maybe i'll write about the more fun things in my summer.

i started to write about our canada day on sunday but i was distracted by a very long phone call from andrea. due to the said phone call i was not able to go on a run. it is a new rule i have. i have to have a good sleep in order to go on a run. i'm trying a new approach--love and take care of my body instead of forcing it to perform. that is something i have done for a long time. i pushed myself no matter how tired i was to do things and it was starting to take its toll. i was starting to get the amy-red-eye-syndrome. so now i must have a good nights sleep if i want to exercise. so far it seems to be working. i'm marathon training so i have to run so i have to get a good sleep. it helps that it is summer time and i don't have to get up so early to go on a run and if i don't get up on time mic and nat just come with me on my run-- and since it is a good deal harder to push nat and run i have a little motivation to get to bed on time.
anyways, back to parksville. on saturday brent woke up early and went to work (which was not exactly according to plan. he was supposed to wait for me do my run. i woke up early to go and he was already gone so mic and nat had to come with me) he figured he would be done in just a couple hours, but karen kept giving him more things to do so he never got home until 2 and he was supposed to start at romans at 4. he made me call deb to see if she really needed him to work (i love how he always makes me make the awkward calls--especially when it comes to money) deb said she would call if it got really busy. then our time was spent talking about what to do. these talks always seem so unproductive! brent just wanted to stay home and do nothing until it was time to go to parksville to watch the fireworks in case deb called him. i had cabin fever and was ready to go do something because that had been the plan all day. brent had taken the car to work in the morning (not part of the original plan either) and we were just waiting for him (who was "almost done" every time we called.) finally i hit the key thing to motivate brent to get moving--food. i found something that he was excited about bbqing and the ball started rolling. as it turned out we didn't get to parksville any earlier than originally planned but at least we were doing something together.
we found a good spot close to the beach to watch the fireworks. brent amused himself watching a group of young adults sitting nearby. one was really drunk and carrying an almost empty bottle of some form of liquor. after seeing him punch a guy that was driving by three times in the face for no apparent reason, brent got up and left. i knew exactly where he was going and felt a little uncomfortable because i thought it would be so obvious. not long after brent left four police officers descended down on us on their bikes. i was sitting with my back to this group but i could hear lots of what was said. the girls all played innocent--"i'm not drinking, i'm the driver. i didn't know you weren't allowed unopened alcohol here." i don't know how they thought that would convince them--what is the point of bringing it to the beach if you are going to keep it closed the whole time. the police made them dump everything out and then they left. brent didn't return until it was almost done and they didn't seem to notice so i guess it wasn't that obvious. it was much quieter after they left.
sarah and kyle and amy came and we sat and ate junk food. there was a group of people there playing wooden xylophones (don't know the real name) that just added to the fuinki. sarah, amy and i went to have a look. one guy really got into it. he was sitting on a office chair and bouncing around like crazy. i love parksville beach at sunset. the tide was coming in. the water was smooth. the sky was pink and relected off of the water. beautiful. the fireworks were not bad--although the low shooting ones seem to go on and on forever. kyle had funny names for some of the kinds of fireworks--something like cracklies. the girls lay on their backs on the blanket to watch--their faces filled with the wonder of it all. it was a beautiful moment that just filled my heart with gratitude and love for my little family.