Memorial Day

Today is a day to remember those who have given their lives to serve our country and keep us safe and free. It's a day to reflect on what freedom means, and who had to sacrifice their lives in order to keep it that way. It's about the hundreds and thousands of men and women who valiantly defended our country so that we can be free. I am forever in debt and gratitude to them all, and their families, for doing such an honorable and wonderful thing.

I come from a family that is heavily involved in the military. One brother is in the Navy, one is in the Marine Corps, one is in the Air Force, and another is preparing to go into the Army. My dad was in the Navy and I have a brother-in-law that is in the Marine Corps as well. It does mean more to me that so many members of my family are in the military, but I would still feel an immense feeling of gratitude for the military if none of my family were involved. I hope that none of my family members will have to make the ultimate sacrifice while they are serving. We have been so lucky and so blessed so far.

My sister sent me some pictures of her husband who is currently serving an 18-month tour in Iraq. Yes, you read that right. 18 months. I know her and her sons miss him terribly, but I also know that they understand the importance of what he is doing. The pictures below are some of the things he has gone through. Don't worry, they aren't gross or horrible or anything like that. I wouldn't post those types of pictures. These are from a dust storm that arose and for a fire that her husband was responsible for. Take a look.

An aircraft taking off.

I'm told that this was a fire he started. I don't know the premise behind it, but it's impressive any way you look at it.

Here's the dust storm just starting. You can see it rolling in from the right side.

Here are some of the people after the dust storm passed.

And here he is after it as well. It seems to have been quite the storm.

I believe in our country. I believe in our freedom. And I am so grateful for those who have given their lives to protect our freedom. I hope that we can all be so each day, but especially today.

Huh. That's Interesting

I was about to water my plants this morning on my balcony when my neighbor downstairs came outside and lit up what I thought was a cigarette. However when I peered down through the cracks on my balcony I realized that it wasn't a cigarette but a bong. Huh. That's interesting. I guess I'll just have to water them later. Totally random.

Well, I Did It

I quit facebook. I can hear the shocks and awes from my previous 143 friends now. Some of them may think I no longer wish to be friends with them. Others may think I've gone temporarily insane. But whatever reasons they think are not the true reasons why I did it. Here are the real reasons.

Their privacy settings are out of control. You can change it one day and the next you are automatically enrolled in something new and you have to go back in and change it. I got tired of changing everything every time I logged in. Plus, there are well documented situations of privacy concerns for facebook, and you can read about one of them here.

I also did not like the idea of people I'm not particularly fond of requesting to add me as a friend. I don't like you. Why on earth would I add you as a friend? What's more is that they keep sending the request causing a new wave of frustration/guilt every time I click "ignore", and yes, I do click the "ignore" button. People I haven't seen since high school, ones who were complete jerks to me, would send me friend requests along with quick messages that said something to the effect of "Crystal!? Is that you? Oh, man! It's SSSSOOOOO good to see you again! Will you add me as a friend so we can catch up?" I want to write back and say "No. No I won't." but that would require me to add them as a friend, send the message, then promptly go back in and delete them from my list of friends, which is more harsh than just clicking "ignore". And it didn't stop there. It expanded into friends of friends that would request me to add them as a friend just because they know one of my friends. And if you dig even deeper, you soon realize that person only knows my friend because they are friends with another person who is friends with another person who is friends with my friends. It's a never-ending cycle of MADNESS!! I kept my list of friends down to a mere 143, and I still didn't know everyone on my list all that well. I knew people who had over 500 friends on there and I'm confident it was a race between two of my friends to see who could get the most amount of friends in a period of time. It's. Not. Worth. It.

I also couldn't handle the status updates with all the misspellings, poor grammar, and excessive use of punctuation. I found myself correcting people all the time, and that doesn't make for good comments, really. Not only that, but if you click "like" on someones status, you get notifications of every single person who also likes or comments on that status and sometimes it's just out of control. You may tell me to go in and change my notification settings. Yeah, that's right up there with the second paragraph above. I had to keep changing it over and over and over and over...

The games. I could make a post all by itself about the games on facebook, most of which I simply adore. If Farmville was out on the market and available for me to install on my computer I would totally buy it. It's a really fun game. But it consumes a lot of time that could be spent doing something better and more productive. I've neglected some of my own computer games just to play that one, so I think it's time I revisited them. There are a couple of other games that I would more than likely purchase if they were computer games, but again my time would best be spent doing something else. I haven't played any of the games on facebook in well over a month, though.

All in all, I think the world will continue turning, and life will go on as expected even though I don't post a status update about my latest blog entry, or that I need to clean my kitchen. My friends who I already associate with on a daily basis know how to get in touch with me, and I them. Truth be told, I don't think anyone will even notice that I am no longer on there, so really, everybody wins. I am very guarded with my private life and try to keep it separate from work or school. Some things I share, but I get to choose what that is, not some web site that tells me what I can and can't share all the time. It's better this way.

Chris is home!

Yesterday my family and I went to go and pick my brother Chris up from the airport. It was really great to see him. He was coming home from his mission in Portland Oregon and it had been two years since we last saw him. Here is a video I put together of the happy event.

Being an Adult

"It's my turn to decide what being an adult means." - John McFerrin

Yesterday, while James and I were out and about, I saw an old boss of mine who I worked for a few years ago. Normally this would have been a grand reunion as I have gotten along extremely well with my previous employers. However, this person and situation did not end so nicely so I did not want to even smile at her from a distance. Doesn't that sound horrible? Yeah, a very badly burned bridge at a company that was truly horrible with a boss that genuinely sucked and used people as stepping stools. Fortunately I was in my car waiting for James to come out of the store when I spotted her. Unfortunately she had parked right next to me and stopped right in front of my car and looked my way. I quickly turned my head, hoping she didn't see me and tried to think of anything I could do that would make it look like I was too busy to speak to. You might be thinking that if it was such a bad thing working for her, why would she even stop to talk? Well, she is the type of person to stop and say hi and brag about her life and how great she is. Wow. I really do sound like a jerk, but I promise there is a point to all this. Thankfully she didn't stop to talk, or smile, or wave. Truth be told, I don't think she even saw me, and if she did I honestly don't think she recognized me.

My whole point in sharing this information with all of you is my reaction to what could have been. For some reason my mind became consumed with different scenarios if she had noticed me and stopped to say hello. I couldn't help but think about what I would say to her. At first my thoughts turned to anger and I wanted to say something to the effect of "Yeah, after that job I found out I had cancer, thank you very much." Then I wanted to peel rubber as I pulled out of the parking lot and zoomed away. My thoughts also turned to a more haughty nature as I imagined her asking me how I've been and me replying with "Oh, I'm a corporate trainer at a fortune 500 company that I love and adore. I don't know how I ever worked anywhere else!" Then I would have put on my biggest smile, told her I had a million things to do and pretend to try and schedule lunch sometime just so I could shove a fake job in her face and make it sound like I was a much better person than when I worked for her.

About an hour later I came to my senses and thanked the good Lord above that she didn't talk to me. What is surprising to me, though, is how I reacted to the situation. I have never, ever, wanted to do something like that with anyone before, so this really threw me for a loop. I was super surprised that I would have that kind of a reaction, and it made me realize how much that company, the job, and that boss truly affected me. What's worse is that I begged God for that job. I pleaded and prayed and begged and bartered just to get in there and finally I got it after a very long time. I thought it was going to be something that I would love and be able to thrive at. Not so. Being an adult in this situation means that I had to understand that all those imagined scenarios I went through were not appropriate, nor were they something I would do at all. Had she seen me and smiled, I would have smiled back. Had she waved, I more than likely would have waved back. And had she come up to talk to me I would have been polite, but refrained from providing any real details about my life at this time. I am sure I would have said something like "Oh, I am doing fine, thanks for asking. How are things with you? Are you still working at Company XYZ?" and turned the attention back to her because that's the polite and right thing to do, and that's what my parents taught me. That's what being an adult meant to me yesterday.

A Tribute to my Mother - Day Seven

What is all comes down to is this:

No matter where I am, or what I do, I know my mother loves me.
No matter how far I go, or how close I stay, I know my mother loves me.
No matter how good things are, or how bad things get, I know my mother loves me.
No matter what time it is, day or night, I know my mother loves me.

And that makes all the difference.

Happy Mother's Day mom! I love you!

A Tribute to my Mother - Day Six

My mother loves the holidays. I remember every holiday my mom had some form of decorations for it, and I loved, loved, LOVED pulling them all out each year and spending the day decorating. Of course, we would have to straighten up the house first, but then we would put on some music and take our time pulling out the decorations, squealing with delight as we exclaimed "Oh! I love that one!" or "Remember this from last year? I totally forgot it!" It was so fun! My mom had enough decorations for practically every month of the year.

For January there were snowflakes and winter scenes. February were hearts and pink, white, and red crepe paper and Valentine stuff everywhere. Each Valentine's Day she would buy us each a small box of conversation hearts and leave one on the cabinet, or our beds or someplace we would see it. It was so sweet. March she had decorations for St. Patrick's Day so our house was decked out in green, black, and gold with leprechauns, pots of gold, and watching the movie Darby O'Gill and the Little People (still one of my favorites to this day). April brought Easter and bunnies, chicks, eggs, and pastel colors galore. Our Easter baskets always had a solid chocolate bunny, marshmallow peeps and one Cadbury egg. Everything else could come and go but those three things were standard. For May she had flowers and flags and stars and stripes for Memorial day. June was always a graduation month, and we always had at least one person graduating then so we would have little hats and tassels and diplomas, but not too many. July she had flags upon flags upon flags. She had "Uncle Sam" figures and stars and stripes and fireworks and all sorts of 4th of July decorations. August and September were the start of school so she would have chalkboards, apples, school buses, and school books up.

Now, October happens to be one of my mom's favorite months. First, because she was born in October, and second because of Halloween. My mom loves Halloween. I love getting her birthday presents during that time because I know if I can find something really cool or really cute and Halloween related that she would love it. Our house was always decorated for Halloween. I mean, always. She had so many great decorations, and some were really old. I remember these moons, black cats, and witches that looked like they were decorations from the 50's or 60's and she would put them up every year on our doors or somewhere on the walls. My grandma (her mom) also sent her some of the coolest Halloween decorations I have ever seen. She sent a set of all these different Halloween monsters (mummy, vampire bat, Frankenstein, etc.) that were only about 5 or 6 inches high, made from ceramic, and had cool glowing red eyes. There was a button in the back that you could turn on which would make their eyes glow and an eerie sound would play as well. They were awesome. Decorating for Halloween was just as fun as decorating for Christmas.

November brought Thanksgiving and my mom had plenty of decorations for that too. Pilgrims, Indians, cornucopia's, turkey's, and lots and lots of fall leaves. I think my mom's favorite season is fall. Near the end of every summer (even to this day) my mom will point out trees that are starting to turn colors and say "Look! Fall is coming! That tree is changing color, and that tree is changing color, and that tree is changing color." I always look but at first I'm not able to see any color change and I always think she's just anxious for summer to be over, and who can blame her? But then, sure enough, the following day I would see a few trees that had changed color and I would laugh. Ah, mom. You're just a hoot sometimes.

December is Christmas, and if my mom had a ton of decorations for Halloween and Thanksgiving, you can bet she had her fair share of Christmas decorations as well. I absolutely love Christmas, and have many fond memories of some of our Christmas traditions. My mom would have us help her decorate the house with all the Christmas goodness, and then we would bake and bake and bake. I loved it!

Helping my mom decorate the house for all the holidays growing up, really made them all so much more special to me, and now as an adult I decorate my house as well. I don't decorate for all of the holidays, perhaps one day maybe. But for now I stick to the three main holidays near the end of the year. For those of you who have seen my house during Halloween, it is all thanks to my mom. She instilled that tradition in me, and made it such an enjoyable experience that I would be doing her a disservice not to decorate my house now. I love inviting her over during those times so she can see it because I know she will appreciate it just as much, if not more, than me. Mom, thanks for helping me to look forward to such wonderful celebrations each month and passing on your love of decorating. I love you.

A Tribute to my Mother - Day Five

When I was younger my mom taught me the value of honest hard work. We never got an allowance; it just wasn't something that we got, nor did I expect it really. When we got home from school we had chores to do, and we did them. And if we didn't do them right the first time we would have to keep doing it until it was right. Some of the work I thought was a little excessive, like pulling all the dishes out of a cupboard and organizing it, but I can appreciate the value of honest hard work even if it isn't monetary. I remember once I was at church in a class where the lesson was about how to help children learn the importance of working hard. The ladies were all discussing motivating techniques on how to get their children to help out more around the house, and many of them were discussing allowances and paying their kids to do what I thought were simple chores, like taking out the trash, cleaning their room, cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming...etc. For a while I just listened to these women express their ideas and questions until I just couldn't really take it anymore. I raised my hand and began to share with the ladies about how my mother taught me how to work, how to work hard, and how not to expect any kind of monetary payment from it. I told them about all the different chores I had as a kid and how I was grateful for a mother who taught me how to clean and cook, and how I was able to help others in that way. The room was quiet after I was done; I think they were all thinking about how they could do that in their own home. I know everyone is different, and some of you might not agree with me on this whole subject, but honestly I think the hard work my mother taught me how to do has greatly improved my own life. Is my kitchen clean right now? Well, no, but I at least know how to do it and don't expect to get paid for it. I'm grateful my mom taught me the value of hard work.

A Tribute to my Mother - Day Four

My mom doesn't cheat, even when it may be tempting to help out her children. There have been times when it would have been very beneficial for me to get an answer from her, but she never gave in. She always made me try and figure things out the right way, but I knew that I could always go to her for help. I love that about my mom.

A Tribute to my Mother - Day Three

This one may sound kind of silly, but I love my mom for her potato salad. :) My mom makes some really good potato salad and I love eating it when it is freshly made. For a long, long while I used to eat it just the way she made it, but then I found out that whole cooked eggs give me migraines, so I didn't think I could ever have her potato salad again. However, she surprised me by making a special bowl of potato salad for me without any eggs in it. And it tasted wonderful. :) It was such a nice little thing that made me so happy. My mom's potato salad was like comfort food to me. I remember once on my mission I was having a really hard week, and was missing home a lot. So, I decided to bring a little piece of home to my mission and made a small batch of potato salad. It wasn't exactly like my mom's, but it was enough. I wrote in my journal that day and said "I miss my family today. I am sitting here eating potato salad and thinking about my mom." I love my mom's potato salad. :)

A Tribute to my Mother - Day Two

Growing up, our grandparents lived too far away for us to visit them, and being from a large family, this included the set of grandparents that lived just over in Utah (we lived in California at the time) because it was too expensive for us to travel to visit them very often. Still, I remember a few times when both sets of grandparents came out for some visits, and it was wonderful then. But sometimes, you just miss having a grandma or a grandpa near by.

Enter my mother. She is a person who can see some needs and bring people together. My mom would always seem to find a few old women who needed extra help, or care, or visits, or whatever, and she would unofficially adopt them. I can't tell you how many grandma's we had in our house, but there are two that I just adored to the ends of the earth.

First, there was Grandma Ballew, her first name was Violet. We used to go and visit her quite regularly and she would always have these huge bags of Circus Peanuts. Now, that wasn't actual peanuts, but fluffy, sticky, marshmallow-type light orange candy in the shape of peanuts. All of the kids would go crazy for those things, except me. I ate one to be polite because I really didn't like the flavor or the texture of them. I loved going to visit her because she was this tiny little thing that was so polite and happy and wonderful. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I came to see just how much I cared for her, and truly understood why my mother would adopt her as her own. I remember going over to babysit her while her older daughter (who was in her 40's or 50's) would leave on long trips. Grandma Ballew didn't like being alone, and she was getting older. She would forget where she was and it really scared her. One night, I was sleeping over and I heard a loud crash in the middle of the night. I raced around to see what had happened, and there stood Grandma Ballew in the hallway, horror on her face and tears streaming down her cheeks as she stared at a shattered glass vase on the floor. She looked at me and said, "Oh, Crystal! She is going to be so mad at me! I broke it. It was an accident, but she is going to be so mad!!" It darn near broke my own heart. I told her not to worry, made sure she wasn't cut, then carefully helped her back to bed. I made sure she went back to sleep before I went back to the hallway and cleaned up the broken glass. I couldn't fall back asleep after that. The next morning when he daughter came back into town I told her that I accidentally broke her vase and told her I would be more than willing to pay for it. She said not to even bother because it was really no big deal. But I couldn't help but wonder how she would have reacted had she known Grandma broke it. It seemed she was more of a burden on her. I am so thankful to my mother for bringing Grandma Ballew into our lives.

Another woman was Peggy. Man! I can just see here now with her little handbag, and her straw hat and scarf. Walking to the bus stop to run some errands. I can hear her laugh and see her face as clear as day. She lived next door to us and she was over at our house for everything, which we loved. She was just funny and big and wonderful and I thought she was great. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind, but was afraid of hurting someones feelings, and her friends meant the world to her...along with her cats and her wildflowers in the front yard that she wouldn't let anyone touch. Ah, she was great. My mom made her a hat one with this bright metallic pink ribbon along the hat right above the rim. It was so loud and boisterous that I didn't think Peggy would even wear it, but she did. She pretty much wore that hat out, and you could see her coming too. She would get so excited over the littlest things, too. We would run over to her house and invite her over for a bar-b-Que and her little mouth would gap open, a look of surprise on her face, and say something like "What a wonderful idea! That's so exciting!! I'll be over in just a bit." and sometimes she would be there hours before the actual event started, but she was part of our family and so we enjoyed having her around. I remember one time, in high school, that I was in a musical. My parents and Peggy came, and they brought me two of the biggest bouquets of flowers. I remember my friend Cindy running into the choir room (we used it as a backstage since it was right next to the stage in the drama room) carrying the flowers and calling out "Crystal!! You got flowers!!!" We were both so excited! And everyone was jealous that I had them. I'm so grateful to my mom for bringing Peggy into our lives as well. She was such a joy!

My mom is great about helping other people, and she never thinks twice about it. It is because of her that I have met some truly wonderful people who have changed my life for the good. Without her, I never would have had the opportunity to learn from them, to have them in my lives, or to love them. I love my mom for doing that.

A Tribute to my Mother - Day One

Mother's day is on Sunday, and so I wanted to pay a small tribute to my mother each day for the next week, ending on Mother's day. This is day one.

When I was a kid I used to play around a lot and would usually get into trouble. As punishment, I was almost always grounded to cleaning the kitchen. I am from a family of eleven kids, so cleaning the kitchen at our house was pretty much the equivalent of cleaning up after Thanksgiving dinner. Every. Single. Night. I was grounded to the kitchen A LOT (so much so that I can't stand cleaning the kitchen now) and so became quite familiar with the objects that my mom decorated the kitchen with. There were two plaques hanging on the wall that I memorized...and not because I had to or even wanted to. I'm telling you! I was ground to the kitchen a lot!! I would read those plaques every time I wiped the counter, or dried the dishes, or washed the dishes (no dishwasher for us back then), or put the food away, or swept the floor. OK. I think you get the idea.

One of the plaques I thought was nice, but the other one I always had a hard time with. The first plaque had a little poem on it that said "I can paint and when I do the moments problems are forgotten. And the joy of a single flower blooms before me." Next to the poem was a little hand painted picture of a daisy. That was sweet, I thought. The next plaque always gave me the hardest time and I often felt like it was mocking me. This is what it said:

Mother

To one who bears the sweetest name

And adds a luster to the same

Who shares my joys, who cheers when sad

The greatest friend I've ever had

Long life to her for there's no other

Who could take the place of my dear mother.

Since my mom was the one to ground me to the kitchen, I always thought she hung that plaque in there to taunt me. There was that little plaque, mocking me and trying to make me think that my mother was so sweet when she was the one who grounded me to the kitchen in the first place. Even when we moved to a new house (which was quite frequently) she still hung that plaque up in the kitchen.

As a kid I wanted to break the plaque in half and throw it away. However, as an adult I can look at it now and see that it really does hold true. "Mother" does have the sweetest name. It's the name I think of when I'm not feeling well, or when I'm alone and scared. It's a name that comes to mind when I hear a talk in church, read an article, or hear a song that I know she would like. It's a name I bring to mind when I've been gone from her for a long time and I want to just be around her again.

She has shared pretty much all my joys from my life. She was there after prom asking me how everything went and wanting to know all the details. She was there when I received my mission call and went to the temple. She was there when I told her I was going to spend the summer in New York. She was there when James and I started dating, when we got engaged, and when we got married. She has been there for the big things, and the little things that have brought me joy in my life.

She has also cheered me when I was sad. She cheered me up when I was having issues with a co-worker. She cheered me up when I lost my job a few years ago. She gave me her shoulder to cry on when my struggles with my health turned out to be too much. She brought me soup and Gatorade after surgery, then watched movies with me in my cold, dark apartment. She cheered me up when I was stressed, tired, and feeling like the world was coming to an end.

Yes, I do wish long life to her because I like having her around. I know we butt heads a lot because we are a lot alike, and I know that sometimes we need breaks from each other, but I do love my mother. There are so many things she has taught me, and so many things we have gone through that just wouldn't be the same had I gone through them with someone else. I love you, mom.