All Thumbs

Two Thumbs Down- For those whom celebrated Pioneer Day by enjoying what had to be a mighty impressive display of fireworks in the church parking lot and leaving the mess behind.

Two Thumbs Up- For the youth who stepped up with rakes and brooms in hand and spent a good portion of a summers afternoon, on hot asphalt, sweeping up a mess they did not make.

 Two Thumbs WAY Up- For those who were in such a hurry to help that they showed up without shoes! They swept that blistering asphalt until they couldn't stand it and then borrowed shoes that were sizes too small from a younger brother and mom so that they could finish the job.

Two Thumbs Way Up & Bless the heart- Of this little one who wanted to help and hurried so fast that this is the way she showed up to help...

Now that is dedication.

How I Stack Up

Can I tell you that going camping generates a lot of laundry? And can I also tell you that so does being gone the week before at Girls Camp? Especially when you come home to find the one load of laundry that had been started still sitting in the washer...two days later?
Yeah....

We've been inundated with dirty laundry here at the Parke home.

More so than usual.

The other day I decided to hit it hard and plow through as much as I could. In between loads I was running children back and forth between various lessons, so the loads came out of the dryer into a giant mound just outside the laundry room door waiting to be folded and put away later.

After about 3 loads, the mound was starting to look like a small mountain and it got me thinking. So I asked Richard if he thought I could  get the mound to be as high as I am tall...a whopping  5 foot 3 1/2 inches, let's just round that up to a massive height of 5'4".

Richard laughed and told me the stack would topple before it would reach that height.

The challenge was issued.

I was up to the challenge.....

....or should I say that about 3 or 4 loads later the challenge was up to me?

It's the little accomplishments in life that make me happy.

 I know they will be a wrinkled mess, but I like to think of it more like my family will just be showing off the wrinkles of my success.

If they don't like the wrinkles of my success, they can learn to iron.

And, no. That is not the end of my laundry quandary. There is still plenty more where that came from.

Seriously, who needs a service project?

Speaking Of...

Speaking of being trust-a-ful....let me show you a face that is not.

This is what happens to a face, along with her new white t-shirt and my bed sheets, when a non trust-a-ful 3 year old who is supposed to be going to sleep gets a hold of a red permanent marker.

Did I mention the ink was permanent?
And on my sheets?
And her new shirt?
(Insert scream of insanity here.)

It's a good thing she's cute and my only girl, so I've decided to forgive her.

I've also decided to never let her do my make-up.

Constructively Destructive

He came home with it. That creative little glint in his eye that told me he had plans. I'm always interested to see what forms from that glint. The other day while I was busy with scouts he disappeared into the garage and built a protective covering for his tortoise's newly inherited outdoor habitat using hammers, saws, wire cutters, and a staple gun- all by himself. I was most impressed.

He busily got to work with clay, toothpicks, paint, fishing twine and cardboard and upon entering the kitchen to find a bunch of little clay balls of varying sizes, I discovered the making of a universe right in my very own kitchen. Now on any other day having the solar system formed on my kitchen island would have been thrilling, but as I had been fighting a headache since early afternoon thrilling was a little too much to handle.

By evening the ache in my head would not relent. Despite 2 doses of meds and resting in a dark room it continued to build until nausea became my newest worry. So just when each planet was getting its very own personalized paint job I lost my dinner, decided to throw in the towel, and just go to bed...leaving my 4 munchkins in the hands of a boy who was lost in the creation of the heavens- literally.

I woke up a 5 a.m. feeling grateful I hadn't decapitated myself the night before like I had been tempted to and got up to see where the other 2 who hadn't ended up in bed with me had landed. As I opened my bedroom door I realized my house was lit up like a Christmas tree. As I walked around turning off lights I found that every light was on in my house except three. Not to mention the 2 televisions blaring in deafening decibels. Wow, I bet the power company loves us.

I had been given a glimpse of the completed solar system through squinty eyes in the dark of my bedroom the night before, so yeah, I had no idea what it really looked like. So I headed downstairs to the kitchen to get a better look at the finished product. This is what greeted me...

Suddenly, I felt my headache returning and I turned around, went up the stairs, and back to bed.

Just this once, the universe was going to have to wait for me.

Repentance

Last Sunday evening, which also happened to be garbage night, my Visiting Teacher made a surprise visit to our house. You know that is just when someone will show up to see me- when all 10 of the garbage cans in our house are sitting in the front room teeming with smelly week old garbage waiting to be taken out.

Lovely.

But I don't care because she brought me this....

She said it was repentance for not visiting me last month. I told her that I really like her type of repentance.

Who wants a chocolate cake from me?

The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.

Just not in that order. 

To tell this story I need to mix things up a little and start with The Bad.

After hitting Sacrament Meeting two Sundays ago we headed back to Tony Grove, located about 25 miles up Logan Canyon, to move camp. We needed to move everything from the campsite where we had Youth Conference down the road to the campsites we would be sharing with many members of Richard's family.

We loaded up the back of Richard's truck with various camping paraphernalia, Richard turned the key in the ignition starting the engine, and headed off down the road. In the back of my mind it registered that his truck didn't sound quite right, but we were in a hurry to get stuff moved before checkout time-- mostly to avoid paying for another day on a site we weren't really using and to get to that relaxing part of camping (ha, ha) after setup is complete. After he was gone I didn't think anymore about it, until he came back for another load and that bad noise was still there. I mentioned that his truck sounded like there was a hamster running on its wheel under the hood. Richard hung his head and said, "I know. I was hoping you wouldn't notice."

Why would he hope I wouldn't notice? Well, in his words, "I knew you would worry."
Yep, worrying. It's something I do VERY well. Which brings us to The Ugly.

On Saturday, after returning home from camping, Richard tried to start his truck to go to the local nursery to find it wouldn't turn over. He tried again on Monday morning with no luck- the hamster had quit running- and the truck was towed to the shop. After a bunch of automotive terms which included serpentine belt and compressor he told me the real damage-- it was going to be $700-$800 to fix the problem. That is one ugly number and the reason why I start to worry when it sounds like a pet store has been opened under the hood of one of our vehicles.

Where is The Good in this story? From all appearances it may not seem to be there, but it is. The Good is that the truck didn't come to a halt until we made the 2 hour drive home and it was backed  up to be unloaded in our driveway. The Good is that the truck happened to be parked in the perfect position to be towed away for the deal of a lifetime fee of $60 compared to the hundreds it would have cost to have it towed back to Provo from Logan Canyon. The Good comes in having a savings account to pay for necessary repairs. The Good comes from a repair shop that had it fixed and up and running faster than fast. And finally, The Good comes in the form of a completed family vacation and successful Youth Conference all without being stranded with loads of camping gear and no way to get it home.

Yes, there is definitely good in my story. There always is; once I get through the bad and the ugly I realize different facets of it every day.

How I Know They Are Glad to be Home...

Yesterday, I found myself mostly tethered to the bottom half of my house. I was busy getting caught up on laundry, paying bills, banking, returning e-mails, downloading pictures, reading blogs, and Facebook- you know doing the important stuff that has to be done after you've been away. The kids played relatively quietly upstairs. I rarely saw them except for the occasional request for a drink or meal. PJs weren't exchanged for clothes until friends showed up late in the day and when a friend suggested they play at his house my son declined, wanting to stay home. I couldn't blame him; it was nice to just stay where we were.

Later I went upstairs and found what had been keeping  my little munchkins so busily employed. I knew that all of the Legos were being played with as I found two fully clothed children in the bathtub the night before (and a third who I would bet good money on was in the tub until he heard me coming in) testing the seaworthiness of their creations. But yesterday their creativity stretched from ships to forts and bases which were all promptly bombed and blown to smithereens in a myriad of different, yet ultimately cool ways.

Or so I hear.

Operation Destruction, in turn littered Emma's and the playroom with toys, stuffys, action figures, Legos, and books galore.

To describe it in a word- disaster.

Today, we made Mickey Mouse sugar cookies for the neighbors who helped out with the cat, turtle, and the pile of mail I forgot to suspend delivery of.

We also played with play dough.

Then we painted.

Basically, we just moved from one mess to another.

In other words, things at the Parke home are back to normal.

It's good to be back.

I think.

BTW- I don't always take picture of messes around my house. But my new camera finally came, after we left for Disneyland I might add, and he and I are taking some time and of course pictures in order to get to know one another.