Gulp. Gulp. GULP.

I am really good at procrastination, but at the same time I am way on top of stuff. I have a final paper due. It is the last assignment I need to get done for this Fall semester. I am now going to write my first blog post in quite some time, because it is more entertaining than writing a paper for school. But, I guess I am not that bad of a slacker, because the paper isn't really due until next Thursday...practically a week away. I like to give myself deadlines ahead of time. Stress, but no stress, eh.  ok...

Last night I saw a video of ladies talking and eating lunch as if they were toddlers. Thus, they were spitting out their food and just making a mess, looking ridiculous. One of them starting drinking water and it was so loud, obnoxious, and sounded as if they were having some sort of attack within. This reminded me of a long time ago, in a far off land..Arizona. When I used to drink I gulped a lot. You could hear every time I swallowed and it was apparently obnoxious. I had (still do) a really cool older brother, Z.
I apparently annoyed him with my drinking and he would yell at me to drink quieter, etc. This hurt my feelings, because it was what it was. I remember crying sometimes, because of the intensity of his frustration with me...which made me frustrated with him.  Z is a very patient guy and one day he kept his cool and took me step by step through how to drink quieter. You would have to ask him about how it is done, because he is such a good teacher I now drink like a regular human being...the liquids just sort of flow to the bottom.
This was probably really boring to read, but it makes me miss my brother. He has taught me lots of things and has let me tag along on many adventures. Love you tons Zach!

Furby or Frisbee???

          It was the Christmas of 1998 or 1999 or sometime around those years. Mom asked me to write a wish list to Santa so that he would know different options of what I would like to see under the Christmas tree. Mom always said to remember that you are writing a WISH list and that Santa does not have to get you everything on your list. She said that I could put a star next to the one or two things that I really, really wanted.  I did just that. I remember writing a few things that I need, knowing that Santa wouldn't be able to resist giving me socks for Christmas. One item that I put a star next to was a furisbee....I probably spelled it about like that, but I am not quite positive.
         Christmas morning rolled around and there were beautifully wrapped, magic filled boxes under the tree and making their way throughout the family room. As the morning moved along I was handed a present to open and my mom seemed SO excited. I opened it and it was a deep orange colored Frisbee with blue swirls on the top. I thought that was pretty cool.

         Later that day my mom asked if I wanted to go outside a throw my awesome new Frisbee, so my brothers and I went out and played with it. I had no skills in the department of Frisbee throwing. So, as a few weeks began to pass and I didn't seem like I was all that in love with my Frisbee my mom asked if I was so happy that I had gotten exactly what I wanted from Santa. I told her I was really happy with all that I got and that it was all cool, but that I was really hoping I would have gotten a Furby. One of my best friends had a couple and I thought they were the coolest. 

        Mom was really confused and asked if I had put that on my list and I informed her that I had. She asked if I had put a Frisbee down and I said that I definitely did not, though it was cool. 

        Skip forward about 4 years...possibly 5 and Mom hands me a square box at Christmas and says, "I think Santa found something deep in his present sack..." I was intrigued by this lead up and as I began to open the box I could hear some mechanical type movement. I reached in and pulled out a black and white Furby. It started batting it's eyes and said, "Hi, my name Harvey".  

        

          If that won't give you night mares, I don't know what will..... I am totally joking. Harvey and I became pretty good friends, though he really freaked Ciara out when he would randomly start talking and singing to himself in the closet when we were trying to go to sleep. 

           So, the big question is, where did Mom find this thing when they definitely were not in stores 4 years later (yes, I understand that they made a comeback once, though that generation was much freakier, and yes, Mom got me one of those one's too, but we thankfully returned it)?  I asked her about it and I think at one point she told me MOST of the story. She said she asked every store she could, called, asked for managers, etc. At one point someone in the back of a store said something like, "Ma'am, I think I just might be able to help you out". So, I am pretty sure some girl my exact age right now is asking their mom or dad what ever happened to the Furby they got in 98/99. Well, lets hope it was a girl.

Scottie Pippen

Now, I really don't want anyone to get  the wrong impression of my sister, Ciara. She is awesome, but seriously the best stories are of when things went wrong or there was some kind of fighting going on. Ciara knows how to end a fight once and for all!
So, I have no idea what Ciara and Isak were fighting about, but apparently something had to be done. Isak was probably about 5 years old and he had a Scottie Pippen action figure, I think it was exactly like this one.



Isak took Scottie with him everywhere. Well, Ciara came up with a plan I guess. We had a bathroom wall heater that you could turn on and within seconds it would be glowing red hot. She took Scottie from Isak and turned on the heater. She stuck Scottie's hand right in there and burned/melted it away! I don't remember if it was his free hand or the hand with the basketball. I just remember how horrible it was and how Ciara felt SO bad. Poor Scottie lived on with one hand and still got the love he deserved from Isak. It kind of reminds me of Andy and Woody on Toy Story 2. haha!
So I thought of this story yesterday when I was looking at the heater in my bathroom and I started laughing my head off. I told Ryan about it and then I thought of something. Isn't it interesting that as children we can be so "cruel", breaking and ruining people's favorite things, but once you grow up, if you get angry you can't do that. If you do, the favorite thing is usually pretty valuable like a car or something  and at that point, adults have power to get the law involved. Kids think that their things are as important as an adult's important thing and they are! But we don't see it as such a big deal. So pretty much what I am saying is that adults are just kids in big bodies. When I was little I used to wonder what it would feel like to be 16 or 20, etc. Well, when I hit both of those ages, I still felt like me. I think that it will be like that forever. Even when I am 80 I will still laugh about Scottie Pippen and feel a little bit sad.

My Daddy

This week in school I have been studying the importance of Father involvement in a child's life. I wrote this as a part of a paper for that topic.

          After going through and learning about father involvement and its importance and the lack of father involvement there seems to be in society, I realize even more that I had a seriously super dad. I have been reminiscing about the many things my dad did that I just knew as normal and never gave much thought to, but observing children and families a lot recently I have seen that it was quite a novelty.

            My father figured out implementing the truths in The Family: A Proclamation to the World, as it reads, “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.” I just don’t remember too many other fathers that I knew or have known to take responsibility for certain aspects of care of their children. I remember as a small child having my dad come in and help me with a bath and teaching me that it is important to wash our bodies and it was no shoddy job. He made sure that all of us kids had clean ears. That is one specific thing that stands out to me.

            I knew without a doubt that my dad loved me. He told me, a lot. Both of my parents were wonderful in loving and rearing their five children, but as much as my mom was the “nagger”, my dad always backed her up or was the one encouraging us to do better and be better in everything we were involved in. It was dad who always asked if my homework was done or would find us doing homework with a television on and turn it off and get us back on track. He was the one that I ran to with my report card in hand to show how great I had done in the last term.

            Dad understood another principle that I want to point out from The Family: A Proclamation to the World, “WE WARN that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God.” He understood and understands the great responsibility it is to be a husband and a father and that he is accountable to his Eternal Father.  One amazing thing is when a man can be a father to more than just his own children. There are many examples that I saw while growing up of how my father filled that role for many different children at different times. My dad was a friend, a support, an encourager, and more than I will ever really realize I owe to him. 

Hair Mishap

Christmas time of 2010 was super fun...there was snow! We played in the snow and it was great. It came to be New Year's Eve and I wanted to re-highlight my hair before going to the stake dance that night. Ciara and I decided that we could do this and so we bought a box of bleach/highlighting stuff and went into the bathroom to get my head ready. We put on the "cap" and started pulling hair through the little holes with a pick. We decided that our best option for success would be to use this method.

Looks great, eh? Yeah, one mistake that was often made at home was to leave the door open, laughing and talking loud enough for Mom to get curious. She came in and was telling us that this was a bad idea, because we didn't know what we were doing, as we had never dyed hair before, (at least "substantially", there was one time with hot pink hair dye...that is another story) and that she could help us, because of her expertise of hair dying. She said we needed to get rid of the cap and do foils, because that is how the professionals do it. I have heard that foils are tricky and so I was quite apprehensive, but we were having fun and it is just hair, right?

Just from the look of it, we should have been anticipating some problems I believe, because most the time foils are very neatly folded and flopped to different sides of the head...I had a crazy rats nest on the top of my head with hair knotted up in tin foil from the kitchen...was it heavy duty? haha!?

  Now, I wish I had a picture to show the severity of the rest of the story, but I did not want pictures of such a disaster. We defoiled/unraveled my hair and it looked as though their might be some issues with what areas got highlighted, but Mom assured me that once I dried my freshly washed hair I could see the full effect. Yes, I saw the full effect! Ciara is the funniest when it comes to things like this, because her facial expressions let you know whether you need to be concerned or not. She gets big eyes and starts laughing/breathing deeply. It is pretty disconcerting. So, I had a bunch of round splotches of bleached hair, right around my part. I was trying to stay calm and remember that I am ok with whatever happens to my hair, because it is just hair. I decided I could roll with it by just flipping which side I part my hair on and getting my hair re-highlighted by a professional later. So, we had dyed my hair, but once flipping it, the highlighting was pretty much on one side of my head. Kind of like Cruella de Vil. 

Ciara helped me do my hair so you couldn't see any major Ooops! in my hair and we continued to be crazy and have fun. Apparently Ciara wanted to pick my nose...?

Pretty much I absolutely love my big sister, because she is hilarious just like me...well, I am constantly trying to be funny like her. Me trying too hard is what is actually funny. The rest of the story? I pretty much did a comb over for 7 months, before we decided we should probably fix the big splotches in my hair.  It was a fun New Year's Eve and the only people that knew there was something seriously wrong with my hair were the ones I showed it to at the dance. 

Isak and I were the best of friends...

Oh Me and Isak...Isak and I. Sometimes it seemed like we wanted to destroy each other....but seriously I told him everything and he told me ...ha as much as boys talk....
We had a lot of fun...even when there were mishaps.

Isak was a student of Yavapai College before he went on his mission and I was still in High School. He was helping someone with their garage door that was broken and .....he got an injury.

It was really bad. This is a picture a day or two after the fact. He got to have stitches all over his eye lid and all that jazz. Well, he didn't want to miss a lecture for his biology class and needed to have good notes taken, but his eyes needed to rest and I don't think he was supposed to drive either. So, I got to skip my school, which of course high school doesn't matter all that much especially when you are a super genius like I was (not really ha). I went to the college with Isak and we waltzed right into that classroom and sat and waited for the instructor to enter. Everyone was slappin' Isak on the back, "yo, man, what's with the patch?"

He had fun with the attention as I sat there awkwardly awaiting being in a college course, at the college. I took college classes that were taught at the high school, but this was a new experience. 

Teacher comes in and Isak goes to chat with him and see if it is okay that I am there to take notes for him. The teacher was quite hesitant as it is against policy to let someone in on lecture who is not registered for the class and Isak didn't have a doctor's note...but the professor decided it was okay as Isak was wearing an eye patch and offered to let the professor see the ridiculous mess beneath that brilliant white cloth....apparently that wouldn't be necessary.  

   Do you know what Isak looked like through the entire 2 hour lecture? He leaned back in his nice rolling chair, hands behind his head and workable eye closed as I wrote notes furiously and legibly... ha this is what it looked like....He really enjoyed relaxing his eyes during this time. 

It was quite a scene for me as I can remember sitting there next to him and kids behind would say to him that he was so lucky to have a secretary in class with him and he would just give 'em a little smirk and just say they were jealous. 

so, here is me on my first day of college secretarial work. 

Isak, I love you and I think you are the greatest. I miss hanging out with you, fighting with you in the truck, listening to music and head banging, etc. The list could go on and on. 

Sisters are forever!! (: Some Fun stories!

So I was just reminded of a time when you were honing your nursing skills. We were at Girl's Camp and it was my first year. I was unpacking and grabbed my razor out of my bag, slicing my finger open, it was a gory scene. I went to find you, because you were the only person I wanted to help me. I still remember the cool 'cast' you made for me. You had everything in your homemade first aid kit. Once I thought of this experience I was trying to remember if there were earlier experiences of your skills. I remembered when I let a neighborhood girl put a concoction of weeds and berries onto my scraped knee. When I came home and you saw it and found out who I let do it, you went to work on cleaning it up so I wouldn't get an infection. You are awesome. I won't go into detail about the time mom left you to watch me when I was running a high fever. I am sure you remember that one. wink emoticonFredrika!!!! I love you.

Story for today: haha. Do you remember Tah Wah? I really don't know if that is the proper way to spell it. I feel like you invented the game, but who knows. We did it a lot when you were babysitting and Isak would be crazy. The best spot was right at the bottom of the stairs so that there were three walls available to pin a person to. Hands in the notches of each others shoulders and straight elbows. That game was intense and I seriously think it was a great outlet for sibling disputes. I also just remembered how you used to pin Isak on the ground and sit on him, holding his arms down to make him listen. Got a little more difficult when he started to grow and so did everyone else, you couldn't sit on anyone anymore. Yep. yep. I think that some forms of "fighting" are quite healthy...and entertaining.

So, I was pretty dang sick one summer and I was running a really high fever for a couple of days. Mom went to the store for food and probably stuff for me. You were supposed to watch me and get stuff for me and I think run me a bath. I was in the bathroom upstairs and I was crying and stuff. We decided you needed to check my temperature and I told you to get the thermometer out of Mom's bathroom drawer. You came back and rinsed off the thermometer and started to shake it clear. The way I remember it was that you were walking toward me real creepy like, with your arm extended ready to pop that sucker in my mouth. I screamed and said, "Not that one!" You were startled and said you didn't know what I was talking about and I started crying and telling you that you can't put it in my mouth. I either whacked it out of your hand or you just dropped it when you were so scared of my wrath. I told you, "That is a butt thermometer!!" Apparently you didn't know about those things, but I did. But yet, you are the nurse.

Sister, So...One time You+Me decided that we wanted to go to Tucson for the weekend so we took that cute, little red truck and we were off...with a coooool book in hand. I read the entire thing to you on the way there, through our stay, and back. Hunger Games, yo! But umm, so we got lost in Phoenix through the spaghetti bowl,but then figured out how to keep heading south and somehow cut off time, making it to the Grandparent's Casa in 3 hours flat. .....That story isn't very exciting, but it is something that I like to remember. 
smile emoticon I love you!

Hiking with Little Brother

Spencer, I was just thinking about when I came home to visit you for Thanksgiving and you took me for a 'hike' and we kept going and all of a sudden we were ankle deep in sludge of the lake and you let me hop on your back as you trumped through, splashing mud all over us. That was super fantastic. The rest of our little hike was fun too, because you are so adventurous. Thank you for being my baby brother all the time and carrying me on your back when my new shoes get all yucked. Well, the moral of the story is; you need to stay in tip top shape in Uruguay so in two years you can still carry me through sludge if need be. I miss you a ton already. It is not fair that I have to go longer than everyone else before seeing you. 25 1/2 months. ridiculous. I love you.

What Happened to Me

 This was in response to a writing prompt for my communications class on self-concept. It was a very interesting topic to write about and I think that it is important for us to recognize where we got certain ideas about ourselves.

            I am so grateful for the family that I was raised in, because many and most of my influences were very positive. Besides sibling teasing, I believe all I got until school was positive feedback from my family as to who I am. My dad always told me that I was “the best”. I don’t know what phrases or nicknames stick out to my siblings, but that was who I was and it really helped me to become who I am. It does not define anything specific about me, but it was always in my mind that I am the best. I don’t think that ever gave me a distorted view of myself or made me believe that I was better than anybody. I fully believed and do believe now that anyone and everyone can be the best.

            I have created my own understanding of that title. I am the best Micah. I am the best of myself there is. It relates to the article titled “No One Can Take Your Place”. I have things to offer people at different times in their life that no one else can. The places that I go and the things that I am impressed to do are things that only I can do for myself and for others.

            I believe that I had a very sturdy foundation of positive self-concept, but that in no way means that I was or am immune from experiences with others or social-comparison that is so destructive. I started to have acne at the young age of nine. That age is probably the earliest I can recall of feelings of not good enough or comparing myself to others in a less than positive manner. Early, yes I wanted to wear overalls because my friends did, but all of those comparisons from what I can remember were positive and fun. In third grade my teacher called my mom and told her that she thought I had chicken pox and that I should go home. I knew they weren’t chicken pox. It was acne.

            There are moments that we remember; we engrave into our minds and they define many of our personal thoughts. Around that same age riding the bus home from school one of my friends called me zit face and teased me at any chance about my skin. Thus ever since I have been extremely self-conscious about my face and what I look like. I didn’t start wearing cover up in fourth grade because I thought I was pretty or that it was cool. I did it because I wanted less people to recognize my problem.

            Through the years of my life I have acquired a thick skin on that issue and probably other things that I perceive about myself and maybe I have gained more confidence. In high school as I babysat a lot I had to be more confident in myself as there was not one family that I cared for that did not have a child ask me what that was on my face or what all of my scars were from or why I had an owie on my face.

            As I made a list of my characteristics, I was trying to be as positive as I could. We all know that we are better than what we tell ourselves regularly. I know that I am relatively skinny, that I am quite healthy, smart, etc. We all wish that we could be more or something different than what we are. I have always been very aware of my weight and if I looked skinny enough. I really don’t care about the number on the scale, but if I think that I look thick, then I need to do something about it.

            So, why do I believe these things about myself? I think I am like everyone else. It is hard to know where we are and how well we are doing when we do not get significant praise. I have thought of this before, but I think one of the issues is that when we are young we are praised for everything. We get a lot of self-confidence boosts. We are encouraged to do better and to be better and are told how wonderful we are. This fades as we become older and accomplished. We become who we are and we are known among people. We have lost our “gauge”. I think a lot of what this topic says is that we need to get away from gauging and from getting insight from others, but I think that there is nothing wrong with some of that. Maybe too often we get recognition for our failings instead of our triumphs.

            We need to let go of the ideas that ourselves and others have created for us and just be. Be who you have always wanted to be and do it because it makes you happy. I have found that we are meant to struggle. We should be able to come out of our struggles with something new, with confidence and stamina for more. In one of my ‘quests’ during my teenage years to ‘look thinner’ I found something in myself and about myself that really gave me the ability to understand myself in God’s eyes. I started to hike often and found that this is where I could clear my head of all of my social comparisons and all of the ideas that others had given me about myself and where I could remember who really knows me and remember and learn what and who I am.

I had to write a paper for one of my classes this semester that asked me what I want to learn from The Family: A Proclamation to the World, along with some of my current understanding and feelings from it.

What I Intend to Learn

            As I began to read The Family: A Proclamation to the World again, a word that stuck out to me within the first two paragraphs was destiny. I have always thought in a way that we don’t really believe in destiny in the same way it is explained by the world. I think this is true, because although the Lord’s side will win over Satan’s fight, we still have agency. We are not going to obtain salvation and the celestial kingdom just because the Lord wants us to. As is said in the proclamation, “…family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of his children” (Family).  We cannot achieve our destiny without family. This is something that I really want to learn more about this semester, because I want to be able to share with others this very important concept. People believe that to become our best selves, we cannot have the distraction or set back of family. This is such a worldly perspective.

            I believe all of the principles in this proclamation lead back to our destiny, which is dependent on family. Naturally, a family cannot occur without a father and a mother and so it makes sense that this is where a child belongs; in a home with married mother and father. I like that it is stated that those who followed the Lord’s plan and came to Earth may “…ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life” (Family).

            My understanding and testimony of this proclamation seem to change as I learn and grow. So very recently I have had a new insight into one of the greatest teachings of the Lord. I hope that I may be able to have the strength and courage to do all that I am asked to do and also the things that I want to do. It is really hard to push on when you have been going in the right direction, but things don’t seem to work out. In this class and through my personal study of The Family: A Proclamation to the World, I want to be able to understand more fully God’s love so that I can help others understand it; namely my own family. It is something that I don’t understand now and may not fully comprehend in this life.

            I am very impressed with how perfectly laid out the proclamation is and how it can be used as a complete guide, alongside the scriptures, for how we should live our lives. I want to learn and practice the way that I am supposed to be as a wife and mother; working alongside my family with faith in my heart, pressing on, because I am on the Lord’s side.

            I feel as though I already have a very strong testimony of all of the principles in the proclamation, but what I want to truly gain and what is going to be very beneficial for me is to learn how I can bless others lives through the teachings of this document. This was written to the world, not to the faithful latter day saints, but to all, to know how to return to Heavenly Father. The gospel is the way to return to His fold, where we came from and we know that we all chose His plan originally. My main goal or what I want to learn is how to be an effective disciple of Christ.

            The proclamation warns those who corrupt the ways of family life and that warning won’t mean anything to them unless we, as disciples, share love and tenderness to those who need it. Christ led by example and it did not go unnoticed. I want to know how to be bold and unafraid of being noticed, for being different and for being lovingly firm. To be this and do this I need to be sure that I am doing all that I can to live all of the principles of this proclamation, because you cannot testify of that which you do not truly know.

            I want to gain a stronger devotion to the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ and to the simple, daily acts that I have been taught throughout my life to give me strength against the wiles of the wind. I want to be more devoted to prayer and scripture study. These are some of the most basic and important acts to strengthen testimony and relation with the Lord. The proclamation is to help us with these exact things, so that we will recognize the importance of them in helping those who we love the most.

            As I read and reread this proclamation, it brings me to one of my favorite primary songs that I learned just last year. The chorus sings, “God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be—This is how He shares His love, for the fam’ly is of God” (Neeley). This song teaches so beautifully the principles of the proclamation. Family is where we all want to be.

References

The Family: A Proclamation to the World. (1995). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day         Saints.

Neeley, M. (2008). The Family is of God. The Friend. 38(10). Retrieved from             https://www.lds.org/friend/2008/10/the-family-is-of-god?lang=eng