Just off the Top of My Head . . .

I'll be starting this post with a trip though time! 

Get ready for:

"A Brief History of My Hair"

This is me: Baby with a fauxhawk.

This appears to be from my Cindy Brady period.

Well, you see, it was the 70s, and ... 

Ladies and Gentlemen, we're going to be entering the 1980s here, you're going to want to buckle up . . .

 (I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I thought I could be Farrah. Or maybe one of the other Charlie's Angels.)

There's really no excuse for this mullet. Sorry.

Welcome to the 90s! You'll need a blow dryer, a round brush, and a lot of hairspray . . . 


This picture was taken the day before I started chemotherapy.

This picture was taken about a month after I started chemotherapy.

I'll let this picture speak for itself.        

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    

Because I have had little or no hair for much of the past decade, I have a lot of hats. I mean, really, a whole lot of hats. Most of them were given to me by really great people. A few of them I have bought for myself.

And because I am not an especially neat and organized person (yes, yes, gasps of surprise), I have had hats all over the house. I rarely could find the one I wanted, and when I did it was dusty. Or crinkled. Or had visible food stains.

So I decided to do something about it. I bought a cheap piece of "wood" (Medium Density Fiberboard) from the hardware store, but when I saw the price of knobs, I backed off. The project was officially on the back burner.

But just a few days later – thrift store to the rescue! I got a big bin of knobs – brand new, super cheap – and split it with my friend Arrin.

 The knobs were nice, but I decided to paint them to match my bathroom better. One 97-cent can of satin black spray paint later, and I was on the job.



My son Adam drilled the holes (under supervision) and the whole thing turned out great.

It holds 19 hats and they are easy to get to.

Now, what should I do with the other 67 hats?

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them

I was sitting in a chair in the children’s section of our small local library. It was very quiet there, even by library standards. There didn’t seem to be any other visitors, and I didn’t plan to stay there long – I was just waiting for the mechanic whose shop was next door to finish inspecting my daughter’s car. I had randomly chosen a book from a nearby shelf and was looking through it without much interest.

I looked up when I heard voices. A women had entered the library with a baby in her arms and two young children at her feet. They were heading toward the children’s section where I sat. The woman began looking through the shelves, with the baby still in her arms and a toddler sitting on the floor beside her.

But the oldest of the children, six years old, was more interested in me. While adults usually try to take to surreptitious peeks at my contorted face and bald head, children are more obvious about their curiosity. This little girl was no exception. She stared at me for a minute, then began to skip and dance in a circle around my chair. When she finished a round and came back to my face, she stopped and stared again for a while, then returned to her joyful dance. After the fourth loop, I decided to start a conversation.

“I’m funny-looking, aren’t I?”

She nodded solemnly.

“Are you wondering why I look different?”

Another nod.

I explained to her that a few years earlier I had learned that something was growing inside my head; something that wasn’t supposed to be there. When the doctor took it out, it made the right side of my face paralyzed, so I couldn’t make it move. I demonstrated my paralysis by making the funny faces that always result from my attempts to move both sides of my face, The little girl gave me an understanding nod and went back to dancing around my chair.

After a few rounds, she stopped in front of me and said, “It’s okay. Some people are different. My Mom is different than my Dad.”

A another round of dancing and she was back to talk to me. “Anyway,” she said, “What you look like on the outside doesn’t matter. It’s what you are on the inside that counts.”

Before she could return to her dancing, her mother called her and said it was time to leave. She moved toward her mother and the door, but soon turned around and ran back to me. “Will I see you again?” she asked. Her voice was hopeful.

“I think you will,” I said. “I hope you will.”

With my niece Mia

We come into the world with no ideas about judgment. If I walked in to the Sunbeams class and asked the 3- and 4-year-old children, “How many of you can draw? How many of you can sing? How many of you can dance?” I’d see hands waving eagerly, and hear sweet little voices saying “Oh, I can! I can!” I could ask “How many of you are smart? How many of you are beautiful? How many of you know that Heavenly Father loves you?” and I’d hear eager voices saying “Me, Me, Me!”

But suppose I asked the same questions to the adults in Relief Society, or in Priesthood meeting. I think I’d get a very different response.

With my son Adam

The world is too much with us, the poets say. And I believe it’s often true. The world tells us, as we begin to grow up, that we aren’t thin enough, not good-looking enough, aren’t talented enough – just not good enough.

The world tells us that money and power are all-important, that it’s foolish and naive to believe in a God we can’t see. The world tries to drag us down. But the Savior lived and died to lift us up.

That is why Christ told us to become as a little child. He wants us to shake off the lies of the world and believe the truth. He wants us to be generous-hearted, not puffed up with pride or depressive thoughts. He asks us to accept His great offering, and return to the purity we were born with.

We all know what we should do. But sometimes we forget. Maybe, every once in a while, we should stop and let a little child lead us.

 . . . and a little child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6)

Asleep in the Car

We were getting ready to leave for a little family day-trip when the phone rang. I answered it and found it was our bishop, calling to give us some bad news – my neighbor Alice had been in a car accident. She was only slightly injured, but her husband had been killed.

I said, “No, no.” I said it quite politely, yet firmly. It wasn't, I think, so much a denial as a rejection of the news: “No, no, thank you, I don’t want that. I don’t want it, and I won’t take it –” as if by refusing the news, I could make it not true.

I dropped the phone and began to cry. Alice had been there for me during the worst of my cancer treatment, and we had become close friends. It was horrible for me to think about how devastating this was for her. 

And then I had to load up my kids and our things, get in the van, and head south, trying to provide my kids with a fun weekend, just as Alice and her husband had done 18 hours earlier.

How do we ever do it? I wondered. How do we drive our cars, and go on hikes, and eat the food, and drink the water, knowing that anything we do can kill us? How can stand to live and love and have children and husbands and friends when everything can change in an instant and it hurts so much to care?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

That afternoon we stopped in Salt Lake to go to the Joseph Smith exhibit at the Church History Museum. The two youngest children had fallen asleep in the van on the way, and did not want to be awakened to go to a museum. We eventually got one of them to come with us willingly, but the other was too tired to behave rationally. We had to drag her out of the van screaming and crying. We tried to talk to her, but she wasn't listening. She kept running back to the car. We knew we couldn't leave her there, but she wouldn't cooperate so I picked her up and carried her down the street. She fought and cried so I had to put her down, but I took her hand and pulled her along. She kept screaming, “Let me go!  I don’t want to go!” the whole way as we walked from where we had parked to the museum. I felt terribly mean, but I didn't know what else to do.

When we got there I took her into the restroom and tried to calm her down. She continued to yell. I finally managed to ask her why she didn't want to come to the museum and she screamed, “Because I've been here before, and I don’t want to go again!” I told her that we had never been there, but she insisted that she had.

I had heard there was a fun children’s area upstairs, so we all headed that way. I was holding her by the wrist and pulling her the whole way up the escalators. When we got there, the other kids got excited at all the things there were to do and see, and they scattered around playing. My reluctant daughter continued to cry and struggle for a minute, but at last she began to look around and see what her siblings were doing. Suddenly she wanted to play, too. She ran off, smiling happily. As it turned out, she loved the museum and was very happy there.

As I was putting her to bed that night, I asked her about the way she had acted. She said she was fighting me because she didn't know where we were going and what it would be like. She said she didn't know there would be so many good things there.

“You understand, don’t you, why I had to drag you there?” I asked. “You know I couldn't leave you at the car. It seemed like I was being mean, but to leave you standing by the car on the street in a big city would be really awful. So making you go was the nice thing to do.”

“Or the other nice thing would be if we just didn't go at all,” she suggested.

“But then you wouldn't have had all the fun you had there,” I said.

“But I wouldn't know about it,” she answered.

Eventually, she agreed that making her go to the museum was the best choice.  She recognized that her misery was relatively short-lived, and said she was glad we had dragged her there.

That night I wrote in my journal: 

All day, I've been asking myself how the Lord could require this thing of Alice. But thinking about the incident at the museum, I might have my answer. I didn't want cancer, either, and although I didn't kick and scream (much), I did a fair amount of whining. But I really didn't know about the good things that I would discover. Maybe I would have been content to “stay in the car asleep,” not knowing what I had missed. There are times when sleeping in the car is nice: is just what we need. But to get to the end of the trip and feel that we hadn't done anything at all would be very sad. It takes faith to realize that God is waking us up to go somewhere that is the kindest choice, even if we are tired, or it seems awful, or we are sure we've already been there.

Best wishes to you all as you step out of the car.

Staggering

Once in a while, something happens that makes us realize that many of the things we think are important really don’t matter very much.

This has been true for me this week, since I learned on Monday that my good friend Arrin has lost her oldest son Ben to a tragic death.

This is a staggering loss.



Whether or not you know Arrin, I invite you to do a few things:

• Include the Brunson family in your prayers;
• Count your blessings;
• Give all your children – no matter how old they are – a big hug, and tell them how much you love them.

. . .  mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in . . .  (Book of Mormon | Mosiah 18:9)

Serving As He Did

This happened sixteen years ago. I'm glad I wrote it down after it happened, because it taught me an important lesson that I don't want to forget.

I was the Primary music leader for our ward, and I had been asked to lead the children in a song for a Stake Primary activity. I needed to be a little early for the activity, which started at nine a.m., and as usual, we were running late. I was ready, but I’d had a hard time getting my children up and dressed and I was getting frustrated. I finally got Hannah and Danny ready while five-year-old Sam put some clothes on, and I thought we were about ready to go. “Grab your shoes and come on, Sam,” I yelled as I headed out the door. I looked back to see him standing there with his sandals in his hand, looking hesitant. “Come on,” I repeated. “What’s the problem?”

Sam looked down, then back at me. “My feet are real dirty,” he said.

“What? Sam, I don’t have time for this. We’re supposed to be there.”  I came back to house where he stood in the doorway and looked at his feet. They were indeed very dirty. The night before, as a Family Home Evening activity, we had gone for a little hike in the canyon. Sam had been wearing sandals on the dusty path, and since he fell asleep in the car on the way home, we had put him right in bed without cleaning him up. “All right, fine,” I said, grabbing his hand and dragging him to the bathroom.  “Sit up here and put your feet in the sink.”

I was exasperated with Sam and annoyed with the whole situation. I just wanted to get his feet reasonably clean and get out of there. I turned on the water and grabbed his foot.

As soon as I touched his foot, something happened. My annoyance vanished, and I was filled with overwhelming love for this child. I felt honored to be performing this service for him. I remembered how the Savior had done this same thing, humbly and with gratitude.

I was no longer in a great hurry, but the task didn’t take long. I dried his feet gently, gave him a hug and walked with him to the car. We got to the activity to find that they were running a bit behind and hadn’t started yet. Everything went well, and I was especially filled with joy as I watched the children, including Sam, sing the song.

Sometimes, when I am frustrated with my children and the challenge of keeping up with their demands, I remember that day, and the lesson I learned. When we serve as the Savior served, with love, our service is no longer a burden, but a joy.

So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them (John 13:12–17).

Spring Break Ice Cream

My five youngest kids have had spring break this week, and my husband has taken most of the week off. We haven’t done anything extraordinary, but it’s been nice to have a little more relaxed time together.

Yesterday, we drove a couple of  hours south to visit our two oldest children, Sam and Hannah, who are students at Brigham Young University. It was a bright spring day and we enjoyed the visit.

At the Provo City Library

We brought the ingredients to make dinner in Hannah’s apartment and topped it off with homemade ice cream, which was beautiful and very yummy. Here’s how I made it (I did this the night before):

I stemmed about a pound of strawberries and cut them in half. It filled a two cup measure plus a little.

I put the strawberries in the food processor and poured ½ cup sugar over them. I let them sit like that while I heated 1 cup milk, ½ cup sugar, and ¼ teaspoon of salt in a pan on the stove.

I separated two eggs and put the whites in a small container in the refrigerator for some other use.* I put the yolks in a small bowl and stirred them a little, then added a bit of the hot milk mixture into the egg yolks and stirred again, then put in a little more of the milk mixture, stirred more, added more, stirred it up, and then put it all in the pan. (This ‘tempering the eggs’ step is important – if you put the egg yolks directly into the hot milk, it will cook the eggs and you will have “Scrambled Egg Ice Cream" for dessert.)

I cooked and stirred the milk and egg mixture until it became quite thick, and then let it cool. While it was cooling I pureed the strawberries that were sitting in the food processor until they were quite smooth, and then I poured in a cup of cream and pureed some more. (We like our strawberry ice cream smooth; if you like chunks of frozen strawberries you can do less pureeing.)


I started to put the pureed mixture in the pan, but then I thought, “You know what would be good in this? Some cream cheese. I wonder if we have any.”  So I searched the  refrigerator and found some and put a little (maybe 2-3 ounces) in the food processor with what was left in there, and then poured it all, plus another cup of cream and a teaspoon of vanilla, into the poor overworked pan. Almost done! I stirred it up and poured it into jars to take to Provo. After dinner, we put it in the ice cream maker, and ended up with about a quart and a half of really good stuff.

The break will be over on Monday, and we'll go back to the routine of normal life. Is it possible that the lovely day we had will change our lives? Perhaps we'll be a little happier than before. Perhaps we'll weigh a bit more than we did. And I suppose my cholesterol count will be a little higher.

Oh! I do love spring . . .



*Based on previous experience, I expect to forget they are there, and they will sit until they rot and I will throw them away.