Serious MomSense

Serious MomSense: The trivialities that lead to a parent's undoing: Published for KSL.con (click HERE for the link) I watched my dad open the box on his dresser, looking for the fingernail clippers I had ...

I love this writer. She is so me. :)

Life . . . Gibson Style

The last few weeks have taken us to work, school, scouts, Franie's house, the voting booth, the vet, the library, the fire station to deliver dinner, a Pinocchio play by the Herriman Arts Council, Red Robin, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Hale Centre Theatre, Church to learn about Radical Forgiveness (which I definitely need to learn), the store (several times), the gym (not enough), and on walks.  That's about it.  :)

Anyone can be excellent. Even me. Even you.

I had the pleasure of watching this video during a recent managers meeting at work.  The person who showed the video was presenting on Excellence.  It was fitting, because we are right in the middle of creating our 2012 Professional Development Plans at work.  I struggle with that because I suffer from a common, but little-understood syndrome called Just a Secretary Complex.  Where can I go?  How can I grow?  What can I do?  I don't have a degree (almost, but not quite), and all I've ever done for money is serve as someone's administrative assistant.  Of course, I've been lots of things, served lots of roles, played lots of parts ~ but never for money, and that's what seems to count in the business world.  They don't give credit for life lessons, just those taught by a professor.  After watching this video and realizing that even if I'm Just a Secretary I can still be excellent, I dove head first into that Plan, coming up with a couple of 'excellent' goals.  Next year, I will learn more about all of the various areas of my company by meeting with administrative assistants from those departments ~ a meeting of the admin minds.  That will also help me grow by teaching them about my department.  I will also be attending a conference in Las Vegas in June and will earn a World Class Assistant certification.  Sounds fancy, huh?  I'm not too concerned about the certificate, but am excited about the topics they'll be teaching, and about going to Vegas and having a few days to myself.  Hopefully these new goals will help keep me challenged in an otherwise mundane role.  But, I certainly can't complain.  I work for the best company ever, and absolutely love working with my team and for my boss.  That's the biggest reward ~ besides the paycheck, of course.

Running In

Have you seen this?

 

Click to Watch the Video

 

This was taken by a college videographer who was taking footage for something completely different, but happened to witness a car-motorcycle collision. What happened next was nothing short of extraordinary. Or, was it?

 

A couple of days before this happened Dave and I had an interesting conversation with a guy about what makes humans different from animals. The consensus was that, when faced with danger, animals run away. Humans run in.

 

Animals think of their dying peers as one less to battle with for food, shelter, or territory; one less to compete with for a mate; one less to keep them from getting to the top of the hierarchy. Why don't humans feel the same way? How come, when we see a drowning man, we jump in the pool instead of saying, 'Well, one down, 6,799,999,999 to go.' How come, when we see a car accident, house fire, burglary-in-progress, or attempted kidnapping, we don't think twice before running in? 

 

Is it because we, as a society, are more advanced? moral? ethical? caring? Hmmm . . . I guess sometimes that's true. I think it's more likely in our genetic makeup that gives us a propensity for putting others ahead of ourselves, for reciprocal altruism. Of course, we are not the only creature to care for its own. Take this example from a BBC article I recently read.

 

"If a (vampire) bat goes more than 48 hours without blood, it will begin to starve. If this happens, other bats will regurgitate blood into its mouth until it is nursed back to health."

 

But, the article sites that non-human altruism is often due only to a selfish survival instinct. The bats keep track of their blood donations so they know who to look to when they need a future favor. Do we do that? Do we do for others to build up our Karma-bank balance? Do we do for others as we hope they will do for us? A skewed Golden Rule of sorts? Certainly. Heroes receive news coverage, pats on the back, respect. However, I would venture to guess that we often don’t know the recipient of our favors personally.

In the case of the video, the one person who did know that the man was under the car was the driver. He didn't help out much. I would imagine that his brain was a little scattered at the moment, so his lack of action is understandable.  But, consider the others.  The man who called 911.  The girl who laid on the ground to see if the man under the car was alive.  The guy in the green shirt who pulled the man out.  The officers who put out the fire.  None of these folks thought for a second about their own safety.  The just ran in.

The news is full of it – well, maybe not the sensationalistic 10:00-headlines kind of news. But, if you look for them, you can find stories of heroes all over the world:

• The cousins who threw rocks and sticks at a would-be kidnapper.
• The guy driving by who saw a hand sticking out of a canal in mid-winter and jumped in to pull the frozen man to safety.
• The blind woman rescued from her burning house by her blind neighbor.
• The 15-year old who grabbed the school bus steering wheel after the driver suffered a heart attack, keeping the bus full of children from running off the road.
• The 10-year-old who jumped into the path of a train to save her 3-week-old cousin, whose stroller had rolled onto the tracks.
• The parents with a house full of adopted special needs kids.
• The family who visited the humane society and came home with a new friend.
• The person who hands an apple to the man with the cardboard sign on the corner.

What can we each do today to be a hero? It doesn’t take life-saving acts of kindness. It just takes open eyes, and an open heart.

 

That's what I want on my epitaph: She ran in. :)

What IS that smell?

As I venture through the various parts of my day, I frequently ask myself, “What IS that smell?” Depending on where I am at the time the question escapes my lips, the answer can vary drastically.

Sometimes, it’s a coworkers lunch and my mouth waters. Other times, it’s a coworkers lunch and my stomach turns.

Sometimes, it’s the Spice-scented tree tucked away in my car’s console. Other times, it’s the exhaust from a passing diesel coming through my car’s vents.

Sometimes, it’s my freshly washed children and I just want to kiss them. Other times, it’s my active and subsequently sweaty children, and I still want to kiss them. :) 

On Saturday morning, I woke up, climbed out of my warm bed, and walked across the freshly vacuumed carpet, realizing simply by the scent that Sarah had used some yummy deodorizer when she did her chores.  I got my dogs out of their room, realizing simply by the scent that they and their beds needed to be washed. I poured a deliciously-smelling mug of freshly brewed coffee and realized simply by the scent that it would not be my only cup that day. I headed toward the front door, realizing simply by the scent that we had all neglected to put our shoes away the night before.  I went out on the front porch and was overwhelmed by yet another, unidentifiable and simply delicious scent. Was it a neighbor’s freshly baked cinnamon rolls? Another neighbor’s newly cut lawn? Fresh soil just laid in the flower beds across the street? Nope. It was this . . .

 

 

 

 

I love my yard.  :)  As I venture through the various parts of my day and am hit by walls of stomach-turning lunch, diesel exhaust, and sweaty children, I will redirect my nose to remember those sweet-smelling flowers, and I will smile.

What were you doing a year ago today?

Sunday, September 19, 2010

As we ran a few errands in town at around 1:00 p.m., we noticed a plume of smoke coming from the mountains behind our neighborhood.  We really didn’t think anything of it because we back up to a military camp, which frequently sets fires and promptly puts them out.  But, by 3:00 when we returned home, it was clearly a much larger blaze than we had witnessed in the past.  

I was driving and noticed two SUV police vehicles behind us as wee got closer to the neighborhood.  They started to pull in our street behind us, and then made a U-turn and blocked the neighborhood from anyone else getting in behind us.  We weren’t sure if they were trying to keep looky-loos out, keeping access clear, or preparing us for something bigger.  It would turn out to be the latter.  

As we drove up the hill toward our house, the entire ridge was engulfed in smoke.  While I started going door to door (or rather, yard to yard since most people were outside watching) letting folks know they had closed our street and I suspected we'd be evacuated soon, Dave and the kids moved our most-precious belongings into priority piles – 1^st Priority, must go in the car; 2^nd Priority, will go in if there’s room; 3^rd Priority, after this is over better organize things so this pile goes away.

What do you take?  Well, obviously everything that breathes goes.  A few days worth of ‘stuff’ to keep those things breathing also goes – medicine, a couple changes of clothes.  We each got a small suitcase.  The kids’ instructions:  Pack 5 outfits & everything you can fit in this suitcase that is important to you.  So, what did they choose?  Sarah got yearbooks, pictures of her friends, a few stuffed animals, her friend’s dress.  Brian packed his pinewood derby car, a basketball trophy, a PlayStation game borrowed from a friend.  Dave grabbed the computer CPU & legal documents.  I took photo albums, my wedding dress, and the kids’ baby blankets.  Everything was stacked up in the garage, just in case.  In between loads, we took turns being ‘the strong one,’ offering comfort to each other in the forms of hugs, Kleenex, and prayers.

About an hour later, a police car drove slowly through the neighborhood, blasting an ominous message from the PA.  “Residents of The Cove, Prepare for evacuation by order of the Fire Marshall.”  Wow.  Really?  Dave was out front talking to a neighbor.  He stopped the officer and asked what exactly that meant.  Get ready, because you may be asked to leave and won’t be given much notice if you are.  The stack of Priority 1’s was moved into the cars.  What fit of the Priority 2’s was shoved in, too.  And, the wait began.

It was a short wait.  About twenty minutes after the warning, a brigade invaded.  Three fire trucks with lights on and sirens sporadically twerping, several police cars, and about 20 uniformed men carrying rolls of caution tape were walking methodically door to door telling residents their worst fears were realized.  We were being evacuated from our homes.  In fact, the fireman who came to our driveway bore an even more foreboding message.  

“Are all of the people out of your house?”

“Yes.”

“Are all of the pets out of your house?”

“Yes.”

“We expect to lose at least 100 homes in this neighborhood.  Do you have everything out of your house that you will need?”

With a sad look at each other, our packed cars containing our whittled-down existence, and our beautiful home, which we built ourselves and moved into just 11 months before, we nodded.  No words would come.

The firemen waited outside while we closed everything up, locking the doors in case a miracle was granted and to protect our hopefully-standing home from potential looters later, piled our two- and four-legged family members into the cars, and drove away.  One last picture was snapped as we pulled out of the drive.  The fireman tied a piece of caution tape to the door to indicate the house was vacant.  

As we headed out of the neighborhood, we saw people leaving by every means:  Trucks, trailers, RVs, cars stuffed to the brim with people and belongings, horse trailers filled with personal effects and with their occupants tied and walking slowly behind.

Our first stop was Brian’s middle school, the Red Cross evacuation shelter.  Never in a million years would we have imagined ourselves needing to go to such a place.   We saw lots of scared neighbors, city officials, volunteers, and news crews.  Finding a spot as far away from the latter as possible, we and our dogs hunkered down for what was proving to be a long and scary night.  That ended quickly when, about 30-minutes into our wait, we were told that the fire was dangerously close to the school and it, too, was being evacuated.  The new shelter was being set up at our local high school, which had barely opened a week before.

Brian and I climbed into the van, Sarah and Dave got into Sarah’s car, and headed in that direction.  When my car arrived at the school, the other was nowhere to be found.  I started to panic after about an hour of not being able to reach either Sarah or Dave by

phone since all of the cell phone circuits were busy.  They finally arrived, explaining that they had snuck down a side road to try and get a better view of the fire, had to stop for gas, and got caught in a huge line of traffic making its way out of town.  That’s what they get for dilly-dallying!

Once we’d all found out way back to each other, we made a plan for the rest of our evening.  It was quite clear that we would not be going home that night, if at all.  After a few quick phone calls, Dave secured some beds for us at his sister’s house, and we headed out.  Our first several hours there were spent watching the news, which they already had turned on.  I don’t think any of us slept for more than a few minutes that night.  

The firemen fought long and hard that night.  Crews were brought in from all over Utah and neighboring states.  We even saw a truck from Lake Tahoe, California, as we were leaving town.  Just like in other disasters, these heroes were heading up the hill while we were heading down it, racing in to save everything we had left behind.  Brave residents drove their backhoes along the mountainside where the fire trucks could not reach in order to carve home-saving fire breaks.  Winds that topped 50 miles per hour and steep terrain that prohibited truck traffic made it a difficult task and sent many first responders running to save themselves from the flames.  We heard later that the last of the neighbors to leave the area were accompanied by herds of deer running out of the forest.  

We both called in to work the next day to excuse ourselves indefinitely, and I notified Sarah’s school.  Of course, Brian’s school was closed and would remain so as long as we were all unable to return to the neighborhood.  We found out that afternoon that winds had shifted, rain showers had cooled hot spots, and it appeared our particular neighborhood would be spared.  It took three full days for fifty-percent of the fire to be contained.  We were finally let back into the neighborhood on Wednesday afternoon.  And the clean up began . . . 

The next several months, until the snow flew, we were faced with daily ash storms as the winds blew in the remains of our mountain.  We cleaned everything in the house multiple times – from walls, to floors, to clothing, to linens, to furniture, to carpet.  Unfortunately, every time the wind blew, we had to do it all over again.  We also had to hear and watch planes flying low over the mountain dropping fire retardant to keep hot spots away.

Once the snow came (and boy did it come!!), we had some relief from the dust.  Until the flood warnings started to – pardon the pun – flood in.  The city provided a free analysis of each property to determine if we would be in danger of mudslides and flooding.  Thankfully, we weren’t.  In fact, following a re-seeding project (which the kids participated in) that added fast-growing non-native grasses to the mountainside, virtually no flooding or mudslides occurred.  We felt very lucky.

Today, we celebrate.  We have each other.  We have a home.  We have a neighborhood.  We have a mountain, albeit bare.  We are thankful for the firemen who risked their lives to save everything we walked away from.  We are honoring them with dinner tomorrow night as a very small and seemingly insignificant token of our thanks.  Thank you United Fire Authority and all of the other first responders who helped fight the Herriman Machine Gun Fire on September 19, 2010.

Healing Field

Monday night, we went into Sandy and visited the Healing Field.  It was surreal.  There were 2,973 American flags, one for each person lost on September 11, 2001.  That number sounds huge, until you see it represented tangibly, and then it becomes unfathomable.  Each flag had a laminated card attached with the name of the person being honored by that flag, his/her location at the time of death, and a short biography about the individual:  The father who had just returned to work after a paternity leave to welcome his new son; The woman on her first day at a new job; The mom who died while waiting for a call from her husband to tell about dropping their three-year-old off for his first day of preschool;  The entire family on their way to visit Grandma.


I expected the visitors to be reverent - similar to the behavior they would show in a cemetery.  It was, after all, a memorial site.  When I saw people laughing, kids playing with the flags and running in and out of the rows, and a general lightheartedness, I found myself growing angry.  Angry at the crowd, angry at the terrorists, angry at this violent world we live in.  About half way through, a thought struck me:  How amazing is it that we can live in a country where we can have such a magnificent memorial without fear for our safety, allow our children to run and play outside on a beautiful evening, laugh with our friends, and be strong enough as a society to overcome and move forward without being crippled by the evils of others.  That shift in my mental paradigm let me go through the rest of the flags, reverent in my own way, and recognizing that my way doesn't have to be everyone else's way.

The day before, on September 11, the kids and I attended church where we talked about Radical Forgiveness - something that Jesus practiced and preached.  We prayed for the perished, the surviving, the grieving, and the guilty.

 

Click this link for a
Panoramic View

A funny thing happened on the way to the lake.

Let me start at the beginning. Thursday morning, we packed up our gear to head to Lake Powell. Dave and Brian rode in the truck, pulling the boat. Sarah and I followed in the Camry after she attended her classes for the day. We would stop and pick up one of her friends from her Europe trip, Tanner, along the way to spend the weekend with us. Dave and Brian pulled out without incident at about 11:00. We left around 1:00, ran a couple of quick errands in town to pick up last minute things, and got on the road officially at 2:00. I had Sarah call Dave to let him know our timing.

He said, “The truck just broke down, so stay in town since we might not be able to go now.”


We pulled into a coffee shop parking lot and hi-jacked their WiFi to look up rental car agencies and see if we could get another truck for the weekend. After about 2 hours on the phone, we found one – for $100 a day!!! UGH! But, it would seat six people – more than we needed – so we could eliminate the gas in the second car to help offset the expense.
Meanwhile, Dave and Brian contacted a customer of his that was relatively close by and had him send a tow truck for them. Wow. That was quite the tow bill for the truck AND boat! Our trip cost nearly doubled and we hadn’t even left!


While he was waiting for the tow truck, he called his sister who has a truck, asking if we could borrow it. She said, “Sure! It’s in the garage and we’re out of town, so just go get it and you can use it for the weekend.” They live near us, so Sarah and I headed over there to do a car swap, planning to leave the Camry there, and take the truck down to meet Dave, Brian, and the boat. Lo and behold, when we arrived at their house, there was nothing in the garage but an empty space. I called Dave back with the news, and he learned from his sister that they had actually taken the truck to the airport when they left town. We could use their 4-Runner, but it was in the shop – about ten miles and 90-minutes away in construction traffic. So . . . Sarah and I went in their house and followed directions to the location of the key, went to the shop to get the 4-Runner, took the Camry back to our house (which, although about 30 miles away was faster than going back through construction traffic to park it at their place for the weekend), transferred all of our belongings, got the GPS and iPod that we had previously forgotten, installed Dave’s new pond filter which hadn’t arrived (much to his dismay) before he left, and finally go on the road to meet Dave and Brian – and the boat – at about 6:00. We got a lot accomplished in that four hour delay!

Once we connected, we drove together to Beaver (about 2 hours south of us) to pick up Tanner, and finished up our drive to Page, Arizona. We were grateful to have our GPS since we’d not been to the south end of the lake in about 20 years, and would be unexpectedly arriving after dark. The GPS estimated that we would arrive at 11:45. Well, that time came and went, right about when we passed a mileage indicator that said we had another 88 miles to go. What?? Oh yeah, Arizona doesn’t recognize Daylight Savings, so we lost an hour. We finally pulled in around 1:00 a.m.

Our room was great, with 2 big beds plus a roll-away for Tanner, a large patio, and a gorgeous view of the lake (which we discovered the next morning). We all slept like babies, and spent the next three days wakeboarding, fishing, cliff diving, swimming, tubing, running up and down a sand hill, and getting way too much sun. Monday morning, we enjoyed the restaurant’s breakfast buffet before getting back on the road home. The return seemed much faster, partially because we gained the hour back, but mostly because the car didn’t break down! We made quick work of getting unpacked, cleaning and vacuuming the inside of the borrowed 4-Runner, running it through the car wash and filling the tank, & returning it to Dave’s sister, and then had our ‘last splurge’ at Chili’s for a late night dinner.

Now, it’s back to reality! We’re both at work, Brian’s at school, and Sarah’s home working on her online classes.

Since each is worth 1,000 words, I’ll let these tell the story of the trip itself.