Let's talk about...

Let's talk about...Resolutions.

There are two types of people in the world: those who make resolutions, and those who do not.

I used to be the first type and January 1st brought all sorts of dreaming about change and improvement.  But lately, I have been morphing into the second.  I actually do have some goals for this new year, yet I have not made any formal resolutions.

Underwood in Salt Lake City, November 17, 2022

I recently went to a Carrie Underwood concert.  I am telling you now, if you have not seen her live, you really need to.  She is amazing.  She also changes her clothes about ten times per concert, which is pretty impressive. Her energy on stage is something else, from playing a drum solo, to flying from the rafters in a fancy winged orb, she delivers a great show.  She also is one of my favorites because she delivers great messages through her music(and in the way she lives her life).

One particular song from Underwood's most recent album has been on my mind of late. The song is entitled "Garden" and speaks about what we must plant in our lives in order to reap good things, especially to reap peace.

These lines speak to my soul:

"Would you plant patience?
Would you keep kindness?
Would there be peace
Ripe on the vine?"

What would you plant in your life to bring you peace?  What things would you keep?  What things would you weed out?  I like the garden analogy as I think about the possibility that comes with a new year.  I am not focusing on specific goals so to speak but I am choosing to rather focus on a specific word to plant.

The song also says:

"And if your words were seeds that were goin' in the ground
And your love was rain farmers prayed about
If your life was sunlight we all needed"
What kinda world would it be?"

"If you reap what you sow
What kind of garden would you grow?
If you reap what you sow
What kind of garden would you grow?"

Words have power.  They are like seeds.  Love and the gardener's care help all seeds,(and words) grow. Living life with light does spread peace to you and to all those around you.  

My resolution is more of a vibe.  It's a word in action.  My word is: Return.

I don't know about you, but my life has derailed in many ways over the past three years. The whole Covid fiasco shook me.  I had my anxiety under control. Actually, I didn't even realize I had anxiety before, but I did, I just had coped with it really well. Since the nightmare that 2020 was, I have had panic attacks that I had never even known what were like before I had one.  I also have moments where I am very antsy; anxiety has crept in. For all of us, our lives changed and we have been yearning for a return to normalcy.

Covid wasn't the only place my life had taken detours.  My faith had simmered. I avoided the social things I had always enjoyed. I became a hermit who only wanted to sit on the couch.

And then, last fall, my mom died, spinning my world even further from where it once had been.  I went into a deep depression.  I didn't feel like doing anything that once brought me joy.  Getting out of bed felt pointless.  Staring at the wall was the only thing I had energy for after working all day. And at work, my brain was mush, and I couldn't focus.  Time was in a warp;  frozen. I truly was in survival mode.  

One day, in the past month, I was in a meeting for my church responsibilities and the word, return, came to mind.  I wanted to return to who I truly was, the Alice pre-Covid.  So, here I am planting my word-seed, watering it with self-love and spreading sunlight to others as I do.

My focus is a return to spirituality, I want to cultivate a daily habit of study and prayer.  My return to doing what I love has already started.  I am reading lots and now writing more.  I have plans for more concerts and hope to get out to some hockey and baseball games this year.  I want to also return to being present in my relationships, both as a wife and mother, but also as a sister, daughter, and friend. I am a people person and I find joy in being social.

No matter if you are a resolution maker or a person who resolves to make no such resolutions, may each and every one of you have a wonderful year.  Nurture your garden and there's no chance you won't have anything but a great year. Happy New Year, my dear friends and family!

Rozzy the Elf.

 It is not too late, I repeat, it is not too late to watch Elf this holiday season.  I am a huge fan of all movies Christmas and Elf is one of my all time favorite quote-able movies. So, if you haven't yet, here is some cute motivation to get onto watching the movie.

Here are three reasons why my dog, Rozz, is like Buddy the Elf:

1. 

Just yesterday on a walk, Rozz was walking across a bridge, and ate some unknown substance.  It wasn't gum, but it was just as funny and repulsive as Buddy and the gum! Rozz and Buddy just can't resist free treats.

2. 

Buddy is like a three year old with crazy bouts of energy.  Rozz too is like a toddler with his crazy puppy zoomies:

3. Oversized but so lovable.

Buddy just didn't fit in at the North Pole among his fellow elves; he was just too big.  Rozz is also oversized but still thinks he fits anywhere:

You don't have to take my advice but how can you say not to this face?

Rozz says: Go watch Buddy, you won't be disappointed! You can choose whether you pull out your Christmas sweater to do so, but Rozz says everything is better in that sweater.  Okay, so maybe Alice put that thought into Rozz's mouth, but sweaters are amazeballs.

Ramblings on Grief...

 Hi.  I promised I would post the poetry that I submitted to a writing contest this past summer so without any further ado: 

Deal with Dementia 

Who will answer the phone today?

Will it be the woman who remembers,

the one who interacts?

Or will it be the woman who doesn’t remember,

the one who talks in circles, repeating the same questions?

So sometimes I avoid calling,

then guilt sets in.

Face to face isn't much easier,

sitting in uncomfortable silence,

worrying about what she is thinking,

or feeling.

Knowing the conversation may frustrate her,

may be hard to follow.

Then the anxiety of the "what ifs" enter my mind.

"What if” this is my future?

"What if " that little struggle to find the right word

is an indicator of future struggles?

“What if" I should be seeking early

interventions now.

What if, what it, what if...

Losing a parent is hard

and I often feel like I'm losing Mom,

over and over.

Pieces of her die

in circular conversations.

A reminder of a long hard process  

without a predictable end point.

Losing a parent is hard.

Losing a parent over and over is taxing.

Still there is no choice but to

deal with dementia.

*The formatting was weird on that. What I would do now to still be dealing with dementia. I miss her like mad. I am very good at trying to ignore grief but something a family member said the other day really has brought it back to the surface the past few days: "The holidays are especially hard." I think that is 100% true compounded with the fact that I don't have routine to distract me for the next two weeks. I am very excited for the rest but will miss distraction.

Here is the next poem I submitted:

Dementia is a Thief

Stealing moments that should be monumental,

birthdays once recollected with precision,

now only recalled with reminders.

Names once salient,

now faded,

replaced by relationship tags:

Your husband,

Your daughter,

Your sister.

Physical death still distant

yet mental death is imminent.

Close connection

ripped away like a shoplifter

and their five finger discounts.

Dementia is a thief. 

*To any of you associated with dementia my heart goes to you. It is not easy. Just try to be okay with just sitting in silence at times and. holding hands. You will be glad you had those sweet moments.

Here is my favorite of the three poems I submitted. There are more poems to be written about grief, but my brain still needs to just be in silent and process the whole entity that grief truly is.

Grief is a Bastard

Alone and abandoned,

you leave it unattended,

packed far down in the darkest

forgotten corners of your brain. 

But like a 3-year-old begging for attention, 

in a crowded department store,

grief tantrums. 

Raging,

punching,

tearing up from

long dried ducts.

Crying alone feels right.

In the dark isolation of a cold room,

under warm covers.

Crying feels like a necessary solo act.

Unlike a musician,

who solos surrounded by a crowd,

and more like a pilot

trying to transatlantic in solitude.

Yet like Amelia,

solo proves fatal,

extending the life of grief,

keeping you alone and abandoned.

Grief truly is a bastard. 

*I have let myself be familiar with grief. I do not try to push it away. Today the tears nearly froze as I was walking the dog and a song that gets me thinking about mom came on. Instead of avoiding it and skipping the tune, I embraced it, tears in all! Luckily, I have a very good support group! My dad was right, "With time it will get better," even though it is taking a long time but there is hope is the baby steps that healing brings.

I think that is all I have for now. I truly do think about what to post or right and am often just paralyzed. I think in many ways that is how grief has felt of late. I have great intentions of writing or reading more that quickly turn to sitting and staring, a pure nothingness replaces those intentions. But again, with time it will get better. So, in the meantime, I just keep dealing with grief too!

Plan the Trip, Little Monster!

SIDENOTE: I never finished this post that I started writing just after going to Los Angeles to see Lady Gaga.  So, it's a perfect bonus read for you! Happy reading.

 I don't know why, or maybe I do but I have been trying to write this post since September 11th.  Part of the delay is that I wanted to write something profound, something more like a serious non-fiction, article like piece.  But the past few months I have not been able to focus.  As I have mentioned before, grief is a very weird thing.  

I read or heard somewhere that planning a trip is actually really good for our brains and that this action actually helps our depression levels and anxiety levels go down.  I have been a bit depressed about my mom and her rapid decline with her memory.  It has felt like I have slowly lost her over and over again.  So, I thought I may just start planning the trip.  

I have become a bigger  Lady Gaga fan as I discovered and grew to love her album "Chromatica."  It actually has gotten me through a lot of the hard stuff with my mom.  You can read all about her album HERE.

When talking about Chromatica Ball, which is the tour for the album, Lady Gaga said "It documents like the many different stages of grief and the manic energy of grief that I feel like I have experienced in my life."

She also talked about the album itself and the ball on a recent Instagram post: "People ask me all the time what Chromatica was about and in Babylon I say "Battle for your life" and when I made Chromatica, I was really battling for my life and for anybody that is in a tough spot, I just want you to know that this show was created in the spirit of that battle to win yourself back. There's no greater prize than you! There's no thing more important that your own heart and your own ability to heal.  We don't heal on our own, I don't think, but I think it's possible to at some point have your own back and having your own back takes a lot of strength and time."

This journey through this album made me really want to see her concert live.  I had watched clips on YouTube when she was on the European leg of tour and I got more and more excited about it.  I started looking at dates and how much tickets were.  I also started to look into how much it would cost to fly to the cities.  Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, and Miami all were on my radar.  The only two of those cities that had weekend dates, were Los Angeles and Miami. School had started and it had to be on the weekend.  Miami would have been fun, and sunny and all the fun Florida things, but it was also more expensive to get there.  So, I started concentrating on LA.  I started to invite friends(mainly because Reub wasn't comfortable with me going solo, although he was okay if I stayed with my nephew and just drove to the concert!) but after a few friends saying they couldn't make it, I got a little worried and did make plans to couch surf at my nephew's in Irvine, CA. I also started looking more and more at single tickets, but didn't purchase any because it was 1. still a bit away and 2. up in the air if anybody would join me.  Luckily, I asked a co-worker, who was very interested in coming and eventually was my travel buddy.  The unfortunate thing was that I did have a bipolar midnight moment the evening before she told me she would come and I bought a single ticket because it was in a place I knew I would have a good view of the show.  But, I found her a ticket in the same section and she was totally cool with it. 

As I boarded the plane to L.A., I was giddy and thinking how truly blessed I was to be going.  I also was just so excited to be going to this concert because I had been dreaming about it.  Dreams really do come true.  

My sister had asked me if I was going and I said, "Of course, 'cause YOLO!"

The concert was amazing.  It was loud, you could feel the sound.  That feeling was accented by random burst of flames coming from the stage, and even up in the upper deck of Dodger Stadium, I could feel the heat.  The art of both Gaga's voice, her stage design, and the little interludes were captivating.

The brutalist architecture a background to shadow not only Gaga's struggles but also my own. The concert was divided into acts similar to a play.  The opening act, or prelude, brought us back to her chase for fame and featured a few of her first big hits, "Bad Romance," "Just Dance," and "Poker Face"

End of Summer Rambling

 Remember that one time I wrote about how I was always shocked by how much time had gone between my blog posts? Well, there is something to say about consistency, right?  I have been "summering" around these parts.

"Summering" typically means, I wake up around 7, get workout clothes on and take the dog for an hour walk, then kids and I go and do some sort of adventure after I shower and eat breakfast, then we come home around lunch and then they immediately jet to their friend's house and then return around 4pm, then we eat dinner and then sleep, rinse and repeat.

Other times we were out of the state visiting with family and eating up the traveling moments.  

And even other times, we are out of routine and just enjoying the summer.

I'm still in denial about going back to work next week.  If I don't think about it, it won't happen, right?

Of course there are moments when I definitely feel ready to be back in routine and to not have to be the referee to my kiddos endless fighting.

I started this post yesterday and really have no clue where I was going with this post. I think it is definitely just a space to be random so here I am, Mrs. Random.

Today we went to a museum.  It is the fifth museum we have visited this summer. It was the BYU Art Museum and it was a nice time. My favorite museum of the summer was The Peteeneet Museum in Payson, Utah.  It had a room filled with dresses. Now, most of you know me and know that I really don't care too much for dresses but it was cool to see dresses lined up from oldest to newest and to see dresses worn by Shirley Temple and Doris Day.  We have also visited the BYU Dinosaur Museum, the BYU Bean Museum and the BYU Museum of Peoples and Cultures.  E is a huge museum fan and he learns all of it and then tells us more about it for months on end.

We had a daily theme including art and crafts, movies, museums, hikes, and splashpads/pools. The schedule was 99% for me and 1% for them.  See, having something to do makes it so we do not just sit around and become bored and there is much less fighting.  The added bonus of getting away from screens was also a big plus.

Wisconsin was glorious.  We had an Air BNB a block away from my parents' house and it was magical to just walk over to visit.  The favorite memory was going over there to fill gallon jugs with filtered water and my mom inviting me over to talk with her while she ate her lunch. That thirty minutes of just me and parent time was magical.  

You all may or may not know this, but my mom has been diagnosed with dementia.  She often asks revolving questions and can be very confused, but in those thirty minutes, we chatted like it was just me and her regular, remembering self. Magical.  It has been very tough to see her disease progress and she actually was moved(with the help of my angel sister) to a memory care facility just days after we left Wisconsin.  That angel sister mentioned how "it will never be the same" as we embraced in the driveway of my parents' condo just before we came back to Utah, and she is right.  The grief of the loss of that part of our family space has hit me hard this summer. Grief is a silly thing, isn't it?  It hits me at times and then other times I conveniently forget the situation. I wrote a poem about it, and it is called "Grief is a Bastard."  I will post it here after the writing contest I entered it into this summer has picked it's winners. I don't think I am supposed to publish it before then. I will keep you posted on if I win or don't get chosen like every other year.

Wisconsin also included a Brewer Game with two fun uncles, Bay Beach adventures, Algoma beach day, fun fish fries with other family, a ten year celebration of Reuben and I being married, and a visit with some high school/softball friends.  Wisconsin always tempts me to come back and live there, but that whole having a steady job that I love and not having to pack keeps me rooted here in Provo.

Summer always goes too fast. Words just can't describe how much I love my summers off and how much they are needed.  Teachers don't have the easiest job and the past few years have only added teacher stress.  I don't feel like I am ready to go back.  In other words, the batteries don't feel recharged enough to face this next year, but as professionals do, I will go back and act like I am recharged.

I will now close this random piece of writing . I hope all fourteen of you that read this when I publish are doing well and that summer is treating you well.