It's time again for ourNew Year Writing. It's a tradition, but it's a little different every year. Here is Part 1 for this year, reflecting on last year.
Tomorrow will be Part 2 when we will choose one of the things we wrote here and write about it in length and detail.
You may recall that when the autumn colors come out, so does my November Playlist. (I've pretty much made all of autumn my peaceful, reflective, especially grateful time of year.) I wanted to share this year's additions to this personal playlist.
First is an entire album: David Tolk's Impressions. With pieces titled "Grateful," "October," and "Autumn Sky" you can't go wrong. I consider myself a tough critic, though, of musical selections purporting to represent ideas or, as the title suggests, impressions, as each of us has our own experiences and perspectives. I actually put this music in, closed my eyes, and tried to see if the music conjured images and feelings synonymous with the titles and, for me, they did. I have listened to these songs over and over this fall. I especially love "Old North Bridge" and "Evening on the Seine." And "Nothing Like the Sun" expertly calls to mind beams of light as they flash, flit, filter, and flare on an autumn day.
Here is the album in its entirety:
Now, if you want to experience, truly, a little bit of what Heaven must be; if you want to hear musical perfection; if you want to feel your soul weep and soar at the same time, listen to this. I cannot get enough of Karl Jenkins' Benedictus, performed by 2 Cellos.
The Benedictus, or Song of Zechariah, is a song of thanksgiving and praise in Luke 1:68-79 sung by Zechariah at the birth of John the Baptist. It is called Benedictus because the opening line in Latin is, Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel."
Here is a 2 Cellos performance of Benedictus. Theirs is my favorite.
Gordon B. Hinckley's Way to Be! is a classic, and it fits perfectly as the next phase of morning devotionals that coordinate with our BIO year: "9 Ways to Be Happy and Make Something of Your Life."
I decided to use Hinkley's "9 Be's" inside a mini unit on bees inside our ecology studies. I created a notebook page for each chapter or "be." Feel free to use them with your own devotionals.
It's November. This is the month I've been both pushing to get to, seeing it as a summit, and also the month I've been dreading to come, a little sad about the view from the top once reached. It has been a full and busy fall with lots of plans and goals as well as many unexpected surprises. I've backed way off the blogging in an effort to spend time where it really needed to be spent this autumn. And now November is here. Today we dropped off our newest missionary at the Provo MTC and I'm feeling so many emotions I just can't give words to them all. Let's just say that I left a part of my heart in Provo and I'm really feeling it tonight. Even though this is the best decision my son could possibly have made and I am so proud, pleased and full of hope, faith, and gratitude, it's still a little hard to live with it.
As the calendar days have passed I've been looking forward to listening to my November Playlist. After arriving home from the MTC and feeling the need for some grace in my thoughts, I put on David Tolk's appropriately named album Grace which is my newest November Playlist addition.
The music was soothing and filling and then finally releasing. "I Need Thee Every Hour" broke the dam and I had a good, hard, mournful, grateful, prayerful cry.
Raising children is something of a paradox. You nurture and nourish, teach and train, love and lead, and give your whole soul to helping these children of God realize and reach their potential only to feel a little bit sad when they actually do. Wait. Success brings sadness?
It's just that you love these children so much and you love being a mother so much that you'd gladly hit replay and go through everything over and over again so you could hold on to every happy, hard, sweet, trying, silly, bewildering, wonderful moment with these amazing people you've been blessed to bring into the world and hold hands with.
Thank God for motherhood! The privilege! The challenge! The journey! The joy!
I always have mixed feelings about summer. First of all, I really don't enjoy temperatures anywhere above about 80 degrees, and even then I need a breeze. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have this ingrained idea that summertime should equate to "the lazy days of summer," yet I don't seem to have many of those, and that idea is in direct opposition to Aesop's fable of "The Grasshopper and the Ants," which is also ingrained in my head. This often leaves me feeling raw, as if I'm in the middle of a great tug of war between multiple personalities!
Being a baseball family, summertime is packed with travel, travel, and more travel, and a lot of late nights under the lights of ballfields. While I love the inspiring changeup of seeing the world through a roadtrip and being in different places, and I love watching my kids play ball, the work is stacked up when I get home and all those late nights make it hard to get up and get the outdoor chores done in the cooler morning hours.
I love a rocking and rolling summer thunderstorm and the positively delicious aroma of rain on the wind as it kisses the dry earth. I love the heavy perfume of a patch of petunias and the invigorating smell of a just-mowed lawn or a field of cut hay. I don't like mosquitoes, earwigs, grasshoppers, and fruit flies. It's a mixed bag, for sure.
I wouldn't trade four distinct seasons for anything, though. Each has its blessings and banes. As always, gratitude and attempts at balance go a long way in a happy life.
As August slips away, I like to look back and see where I've been and what I've done so I know the summer didn't just pass me by and leave me wondering "Where did the summer go?" Even acknowledging small delights and happy surprises keeps the scales of joy and contentment tipped in my favor. Here are a few highlights of this year's summer.
A round of family Frisbee golf in a canyon park, with the inevitable retrieving of a stuck Frisbee,
which was followed by the inevitable Insta Care visit for a tetanus shot:
Ma and Pa Swallow, returned to raise another brood on my front porch:
Encountering an entire bush in motion with moths...
...and catching one!
Embracing gravity with friends:
Reflecting on the ways that God keeps his promises:
Seeing sacrifice and perseverance pay off:
Summer night lights:
Shoshone Falls:
Seeing, smelling, touching, tasting red:
Simple joy in a cute pair of festive shoes (and, no, I don't have another pair exactly like this :) )
FINALLY having a close encounter with a muskrat, after nearly a dozen wetland field trips:
Being torn between watching the ball game and watching the osprey who were watching the ball game:
Experiencing triumph in tests and trials, gratitude for miracles and medicine, recognition and respect for the power and reality of the priesthood, and witnessing the wonder of the human body and its ability to heal:
My first (very cool) encounter with a Western Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar:
Apricots! Early spring weather finally cooperated to give us a great summer harvest:
Peachy paradise in crepes and smoothies and in juicy goodness dripping down my chin and wrist:
A sweet-tart plum harvest turned into jelly and fruit leather and more smoothies:
Watching my boy bloom where he's planted:
Celebrating another year of marriage:
Discovering a "new" swimming hole:...
...and meeting the swimming hole's local residents:
Conquering some personal fears and inhibitions and loving it:
Getting one missionary ready to leave:...
...and welcoming one missionary home:
Having the whole family together again:
Some additional highlights include some media that was particularly special this summer.
Here Comes the Boom is not a new movie; it's been around for a few years. We didn't know anything about it, though, until one of my kids saw it on the shelf at the library and checked it out. We. Love. This. Movie. Besides being funny and entertaining, it has some good messages and things to think about, especially in the realm of education and inspiration, as well as the American Dream and citizenship.
The following videos are to songs that meant a lot to me this summer. I'm not necessarily recommending the videos because as I've posted previously, videos often ruin songs for me (though I do like these ones). But they're the easiest and most legal way to share music. So, if you don't want your perception of the music influenced by the videos, play them and listen with your eyes closed.
The first song is "Humble and Kind" sung by Tim McGraw. I don't normally listen to country music, but I love, love, love this song and it has influenced me greatly this summer. I came to listen to it while driving my son to a doctor's appointment. The song came on the radio and not knowing it but realizing it was country, I switched the station. My son said, "Don't! Go back. I like that song." Naturally I wanted to hear it if he was so insistent, just to see what he liked about it. And then my whole world changed, along with how I look at my son.
These next two songs are by Paul Cardall. Interestingly, they are on a CD I have had for years but not listened to. I got the CD for free during some promotion, listened to it once, and at the time decided there was only one decent song on the album. This summer I was cleaning out some things and was about to toss the disc in a giveaway pile when I decided to listen to it one more time to be sure it was junk. What I've come to believe is that I was meant to have this CD but I needed to really hear it for the first time now. I wouldn't have purchased it, then or now, so it was given to me. I think I had a sort of stupor over it when I received it so that when I needed the message in these songs, they'd be "new" to me and therefore have more of an impact.
Well, summer is over. It would be a sad, sad thing if summer ended and there was no autumn to trail it so gloriously. I hope your summer was blessed. If you think it wasn't, or that it was over too soon, make a highlight reel for yourself to count your summer blessings.
