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Graduation Day = Mother's Day

5/29/2016

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​Traditionally Mother’s Day is a difficult day for me.    Almost always I feel much more resentment, frustration, disappointment, and discouragement on Mother’s Day than I feel anything else.    Most Mother’s Days I spend most of the day battling ugly emotions.    Blah.
 
I know I am not alone in these feelings.   My sister and my bonus sister have similar experiences….  Mother’s Day raises hopes that, on this one Sunday, things will be different—help with the meal, dishes done without nagging (or done at all), maybe a thoughtful gift or two—and too often it is not.    It’s the expectation that hurts....   Making the Sunday meal by myself while the family sleeps is something I just do on all the other Sundays but, on Mother’s Day, it hurts.
 
Mother’s Day 2016 was typical for me….until I realized that Mother’s Day is a celebration of motherhood, not of me.     And I am so grateful to be a mother.    WHAAAA-WHOOOO!   There is nothing in this life, NOTHING, that brings me more joy than being a mother.   Motherhood is, without exception, the most heart –filling, soul-expanding, life-enriching thing I have ever experienced.   When I redirected the day’s focus from myself (it’s not all about me….) to motherhood, the day’s feelings changed as well.   Rejoicing replaced resentment.     What a blessing it is to be a mother!!

And, at this time, I feel so blessed to be Tanah’s mother.
 
Our Miss Tanah graduated.    She graduated from Seminary and she graduated from Roy High School.  
 
In the testimony she was invited to bear at Sunday’s  Seminary Graduation she said “Sometimes I wasn’t sure what the crap I was doing in Seminary”   [I love her genuine candor] and then went on to testify of Seminary’s value.   “I teach the Sunbeams now,” she told us, “and I am so grateful for the gospel foundation I got in Seminary.”    I was so proud, so pleased, so blessed to be her mother.
 
White tassel on her cap (high honor roll) and no shoes on her feet (low happy toes), our Tanah walked in the Roy High commencement ceremony Wednesday.   She sang in the choir and she smiled in the camera and she swelled the cavities of my heart.    She is so beautiful, so talented, so gracious, so kind, so fun, and so, SO precious.   
 
I am so proud, so pleased, and so blessed to be her mother.    Graduation Day was, in a very literal way, a Mother’s Day for me…..a very happy Mother’s Day.    
 
[Ope, I’ve made it all about me after all…..]

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A Few Good Men.....

5/22/2016

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A few good men…..
 
I’d been up since 2 a.m.   
 
Awakened by the need to use the bathroom and hounded by concerns about the Church Women United meeting I was hosting in our church building later that morning, I laid awake in bed for 30 minutes before accepting the fact that sleep was not going to return and joining my computer in the office.    I finished preparations for the meeting, corrected all the assignments my Electronic High School students had submitted, responded to all the emails in my inbox, and found myself with just enough time to take a mind-cleansing, body-awakening bike ride before it would be time to head over to the church building and begin setting up for the meeting.
 
I was 45 minutes into my planned 60 minute ride when my tire went suddenly and completely flat.  To prevent such a scenario, I’d equipped my bike with thick (and heavy and slow) thorn-resistant tubes and filled the tubes with Stan’s (“The #1 Rated Tire Sealant on the Market. Just two ounces of Stan's in a converted standard tire or tubeless tire can repair punctures up to 1/4" almost instantly to keep you rolling.)   Nonetheless, I had a flat, I was a long way from home, I had no phone with me, and there was a group of women arriving at the church in less than an hour to help me set up for the Church Women United “World Day of Prayer” celebration.
 
No need to panic yet….  Phones are findable, Lance was accessible, and it was very possible I would still be home within the hour time frame I’d given myself for the bike ride.   This was do-able.    A gracious stranger loaned me his phone, a gracious (and groggy) Lance answered the call and it looked like all would be well.
 
Being the type of person who does not graciously stand still (Can you say “impatient”?), I began walking my bike home, planning on meeting Lance en route….which would have been fine had I accurately described the route I would be taking or had I a cell phone with me so that I could have made course description corrections.    I had neither. 
 
I walked, towing my bike, for what seemed like hours.    Precious time was ticking away.   I knew Lance was somewhere, stressed because he could find me and stressed because he knew I was stressed.   And I was stressed.    It was becoming increasingly clear that, though I had been up since 2 a.m., I was going to be late to the 10:00 a.m. meeting that I was in charge of.
 
My head swirling in a cloud of panic, I did not notice the car that was pulling up beside me until it stopped almost in my path.    From the car exited a good man…..who happened to also be my brother-in-law (Lance’s brother), Chris.
 
Chris, who is an avid biker, saw someone (me) walking her bike,  knew from experience that people usually do not walk bikes for pleasure, and pulled over to offer his help.    Only after stopping did he realize he’s stopped to assist someone in his family.
 
Long story short:   Chris called Lance, Lance found me, I rushed home, showered quickly, and “made it to the church on time”.
 
 
Fast forward a month or so……
A weekend wind storm knocked out power through much of Ogden and forced several local schools, including mine, to cancel classes.     The unexpected free day was a precious gift and I decided to celebrate by going on a long bike ride.     
 
I’d replaced the puncture-resistant tubes, filled them with Stan’s again, and once more set out for a bike adventure.  This time I had a two hour time frame and a plan to bike the Ogden River Parkway to the mouth of Ogden Canyon and back.    I started at 1:00 in the afternoon and would be home at 3:00, in time to greet Miles when he came home from school.
 
The ride along the Parkway was stunning—winter brown turning to spring green, wild winds turned to gentle breezes, pleasant sunshine not yet turned to oppressive heat—until about 45 minutes into the ride when, once again, my tire went instantly and unmistakably flat.   Though I had a cell phone this time there was no one at home to rescue me and, once again, walking my bike become the only viable option.
 
Fortunately I was about a mile away from 2nd Track Sports, the shop from which I had purchased both the bike and the tubes, so I began my trek.     Even more fortunately, about a half mile or so into my bike-pulling stroll, Perry Huffaker, Ogden’s Public Ways and Park’s Manager—a man who I see only once a year at the Arbor Day celebration that had occurred the Friday before—was driving a truck on the same road.  He stopped and offered me a ride to the bike shop.   In fact he said, “I’ll accompany you inside to make sure they treat you right.”   And he did.
 
He walked my bike into the store, said “This young lady (!!?!?!) bought these tubes here that are supposed to be puncture -proof and she has a flat and you need to take care of her and get her back on the road.”  After assuring himself I was being properly taken care of, he gave me his cell phone number “just in case” and left.
 
Andy, the 2nd Track Sports bike mechanic, was on it.    Andy is a great guy and would have been whole heartedly “on it” without Perry admonition.    Turns out the problem was a hole (rather large) in the tire through which the tube herniated, which caused the rupture.    He “ghetto” patched the tire but was not confident his patch would hold.   They did not have a tire in stock to replace my holey one.
 
Young, hip, handsome Andy, offered to leave work early (“I was going to leave early anyway to go to the chiropractor”) and drop me off at home  (“My neck has stopped hurting anyway so I don’t really need to see the chiropractor”); an  offer I graciously accepted and he even more graciously fulfilled.
 
Recently I’ve been blessed with a few good men (lots of them actually) in my life….
 
…now if I could be blessed with a few good tires! (I only need two!)


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The Witch Was In....and the Queen Is Out!

5/15/2016

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​The Witch was in ……
 
Last weekend Tanah starred as The Witch in Roy High’s production of “Into the Woods”.     She was beautiful and wicked and powerful and poignant.     “Ask a wolf mother” she said bitingly in response to Little Red’s shrugged comment that killing did not matter because her victims were “just wolves”.    
 
“Princes wait there in the world its true, princes yes but wolves and humans too” she warned her daughter and then, in a tormented lament, she sang, “Careful the things you say.  Children will listen”
 
Her portrayal matched the power of her lines.   Convincingly wicked, she was also heart-wrenchingly human.    A mother’s love, even in a witch’s body, is intensely real.
 
But that was last week…..
 
This week Tanah graced the stage accompanied by a beast and a boy.

Nominated for Senior Cotillion Royalty, she dressed in a Belle dress for the Friday assembly and was escorted on stage by The Beast (Lance) and Gaston (Miles).     Her escorts were a hit as was her videoed response to the “What was your most embarrassing moment?” question.
 
[Her response:  My friends and I were in the bathroom talking about what a great guy Justin was and trying to figure out how old we would have to be to marry him.    Then we found out that his wife was using in a bathroom stall at the time and heard out entire conversation.]
 
Tanah told me the Cotillion Queen would be announced at the dance (in a ballroom on Weber State University’s campus) at 10:30 p.m. Saturday night.   “They probably will not let you in and I probably won’t win,” she told me.
 
I arrived at 9:53 p.m., was invited promptly into the ballroom, walked five steps into the crowd and heard “Our Senior Cotillion Queen is Tanah Hislop!”
 
…..and the Queen is out!!!

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I Often Go Walking.....

5/8/2016

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 I often go walking in meadows of clover,
And I gather armfuls of blossoms of blue.
I gather the blossoms the whole meadow over;
Dear mother, all flowers remind me of you.
 
O mother, I give you my love with each flower
To give forth sweet fragrance a whole lifetime through.
For if I love blossoms and meadows and walking,
I learn how to love them, dear mother, from you.
 
Words: Phyllis Luch, 1937-1995. (c) 1969 IRI
Music: Jeanne P. Lawler, b. 1924. (c) 1969 IRI
 
 
I do often go walking—though not as often as I would like and not always through meadows of clover—but as often as I go walking (more often actually….), I am blessed by my angel mother who did indeed teach me to love blossoms and meadows and walking.   She also taught me to love the magnificent Being who created them.     Thank you dear God, for sending me to her.

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Trees please....

5/1/2016

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"I wish there were more work to do..."

We walked nearly three miles, planted 30 large trees, hauled 40+ wheel barrow loads of mulch, picked rock, battled roots, and swept sidewalks and I only heard one complaint.  One: "I wish there were more work for us to do."

Ogden City is officially designated as a Tree City, USA.  To earn Tree City, USA designation Ogden must spend $2/capita on trees annually and it must host an annual Arbor Day Celebration.   We, the OPA students, are their celebration.   Each year our 8th graders plant their trees.  We also constitute the audience for their ceremony, a 15 minute introduction of VIP's and the reading of the Mayor's Arbor Day Proclamation.  

I walked 50+ Ogden Preparatory Academy 8th graders to Lester Park (24th and Jefferson) Friday where we planted trees in celebration of Arbor Day.    By 11:00 a.m. we were done with everything the city thought would take us all day to accomplish.   The kids took and early lunch while we tried to figure out what to do next......    Having planted all the trees we set to work beautifying the site.  Students picked rocks from the flower beds, created protective "doughnut" rings around the newly planted trees, cleared the area of trash, and spread mulch under shrubs and over soil.    By 1:00 even I could not figure out anything else for them to do.   The task was accomplished.   And that's when the complaining began.   "I wish there were more work for us to do...."

Dang kids!!!   

​Disclaimer:  All persons pictured have provided permission or parental permission.

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    Author

    Teresa Hislop
    thislop@msn.com

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