I dropped a computer on my head

How is that for a title? Sadly, it's true. It's kind of a crazy story. . .

The last two weeks have been really busy (which seems to be what I say every time, and it is always true). But I had finally settled on a paint color for the family room and kitchen.  I really wanted to get the painting done before next Monday, when Bailey will arrive home for Thanksgiving, because then we will be in party-with-Bailey-mode and our house will be re-decorated for Christmas!  Earlier this week I looked at my schedule and figured that I could squeeze in a couple of hours a day to paint. It was delightful, as painting is definitely my happy place. So on Tuesday I put on a 4 hour PBS documentary on LBJ and blissfully painted and nerded out to history. It's so relaxing!

I'm really good about beginning painting rojects with meticulous care, taping off and covering every exposed surface with paper or dropcloths.  The first day I finished the kitchen. The next day I started the family room, but soon realized that the prep for that room was taking forever.  There was so much to tape off and fix before the actual painting could happen. In case you are wondering, I do NOT find the prep work for painting relaxing! My prep work on this day was adequate, but a little less meticulous.

By the time I was actually able to put paint to the wall I only had about an hour before picking up Joseph from school.  Sadly, I had to put away my painting tools for the day because about an hour later the sister missionaries came over for dinner  (I made a new recipe for dinner and it turned out super spicy and one of the sisters is a wimp about spicy food and was totally freaked out by my spicy butternut squash curry!)  Immediately after the missionaries left, I headed to the church to help at a Book of Mormon mystery dinner Aubrey was in charge of for the Priests and Laurels from two wards.

So, yesterday I got up and raced through my long list of things to-do, hoping to carve out some more painting time. I had just donned my painting clothes and opened the lid of the paint when a friend called to say she was locked out of her car and needed my rescue services.  When I got back I painted for a bit until it was time to get Joseph. And then I painted on in the waning light, stopping now and then to help get everybody food and off to their activities. At this point my prep work was LOUSY and, I am embarrassed to admit, I wasn't even moving the drop cloths when I moved to a new section of the wall. I'm afraid I always do that. I start projects with careful preparation and by the end I am moving quickly and cutting corners. Sigh.

To reach the top of the wall I had been standing on an old kitchen stool, which isn't the most stable base on a carpeted floor, but I have good balance and don't mind a little danger.  I was painting above the TV, which is on a high mantel above the fireplace. I reached up to cut in along the ceiling and couldn't quite reach as far left as I needed to paint, so I leeeeaaaaned to the left . . . . . and lost my footing on the unsteady stool. I reached out with my right foot for the flimsy and pathetic slipper-type chair next to the fireplace, but it just knocked over backward, bringing me down too. My paint tray dropped onto the floor, spilling some paint on the carpet. Even worse, though, somehow I snagged the computer which sits next to our TV on the mantel and brought it down with me.  It hit me in the back of the head and then ricocheted over to gouge the wall by the fireplace.

All this because I was in such a rush to finish painting and didn't 1) prep the floor properly (which would have avoided spilling on the carpet) 2) get a decent ladder to stand on, or 3) take the extra second it would have taken to get off the stool and move it to the left rather than leaning precariously to the side and creating a messy and painful mess.

So, I spent last night googling concussion, wondering what kind of damage I have done to my brain.  Luckily, I felt fine after falling and hopped up to clean up the mess and then finish the painting. But today my head hurts. There is definitely a sore place in the back of my skull, as heads are not supposed to come in contact with falling computers!

Beginning of November Thoughts

I haven't taken time to record many of my own thoughts in the last few months because any time I have to look at the blog I have tried to add in a post about something I missed from the last 9 months. Which was everything!

After I got over grieving that there wasn't a blog-to-book option that I like, I have buckled down and found a way that will hopefully work for us. Every time I post I then copy the text and upload the pictures to a Book Wright program. It takes longer than I would like to format the pages, but hopefully by doing it in small chunks I will actually have a blog book/family history scrapbook to print out sometime next year.

We just finished the rainiest October in Vancouver and Portland history. And that's saying something! It did rain a lot and very steadily for most of the month. We never really made it to a pumpkin patch (along with just about everyone else I know) because the rain never let up. Plus, our Saturdays are crazier than crazy, so it never happened in the traditional way. More on that later.  I feel really bad for people I know who have just moved here and who are pretty blown away by the amount of rain. I remember feeling exactly that way when we moved here 10 YEARS AGO (how can it be that long??) and we experienced the rainiest November in history!  The last few days that rain lifted and the sun and crisp fall air are just magnificent. I always enjoy and appreciate the sun even more after days of rain. There is a powerful and very true analogy about life in that statement!

What keeps us busy on Saturday? Soccer games for Joseph (usually in the rain), theater practice all day for Aubrey (who is the main female lead in Elf the Musical, to be performed the week after Thanksgiving), and assorted church responsibilities. I only attended my own ward a few times in the last 3 months, as just about every week was a Primary Program or a Ward Conference in a different ward in the stake. I really miss just sitting in classes and learning in my own ward.

I am experiencing travel envy right now. My parents are in Europe for a trip with friends. 3 years ago we traveled to Switzerland, Austria, and Germany with them. It was such a magical trip and I dream about it all the time. I am chomping at the bit to travel somewhere fun again, especially after seeing all of Bailey's pictures from her European study abroad last Spring. Life hasn't allowed for extended trips for the last few years, and we are projecting that it won't be for about another 18 months that a trip will be feasible sans kids. I have always loved traveling. I love seeing new places, people, historical sights, beautiful vistas and interesting buildings . . . really everything about it. So in the meantime I will dream. Plus, I am pulling down pictures in my house and putting up "aspirational art," which is art that depicts places in Europe I want to see!

Things have been humming along really well in the Porter home lately. After some adjustment pains at the beginning of school, everyone is feeling happy and engaged in school and activities. I have been able to look outside of my own home to help some people around me. I have also dived into several home improvement projects. I re-stained the orangey oak wood of our long vanity in the master bath and the cupboards above the toilets in two of our bathrooms. And I have painted about 30 swatches of paint on the walls of the kitchen and family room before deciding on a color. I am waiting for paint to go on sale and some busy things to conclude before starting that project. Dan has been embroiled in big issues at work. But that's what he always does so well. Dan is also really enjoying teaching his Mission Prep class each week. It has been as gratifying as teaching Seminary without the early morning rising and every school day schedule!

We are looking forward to Bailey coming home for Thanksgiving and Bailey, Brandon, and Angela coming home for Christmas! We have a little getaway planned with the entire family over Christmas break.

Happy Friday!

May visit from Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa Springer visited for a few days in May to see the kids participate in some fun activities.  

Some fun moments: Joseph and Grandpa playing basketball outside

I took Mom and Dad to visit the Rhododendron Garden in Portland. I've always wanted to go there, and it was beautiful!

  

 

Grandma and Grandpa attended one of Joseph's basketball games

and Aubrey's first performance as Fiona in Shrek, Jr.

And after the peformance we walked to a Pieology Metro fundraiser for lunch.

 The next day was Mother's Day, and we brought Grandma  Springer breakfast in bed

 And we took a picture before church

Then Grandma and Grandpa flew home!

The stretching and humbling of Tiffany

A little over a year ago (July 2015) I received a new church calling completely out of the blue. Stake Primary President. Which means that I am helping/supporting the presidencies of the nine primaries in our stake. This new challenge completely perplexed me at first. I have served in a zillion presidencies, including Primary, but have never been Primary President. And I have never served in the Stake and I have NEVER desired to serve in the Stake. And, I had been feeling really good about the ministering service I was able to give on a ward level with the adult women, and then more recently the youngest age of teenagers. Apparently I was too comfortable, because I got dumped right into the fire.

There were some particular challenges with my situation which are too long to detail here. I received little information about what I needed to do, so it was very much a learn-on-the-job education. Or, more accurately, learn-when-people-are-yelling-at-me experience. It was pretty raw for awhile, as I didn't even know what I didn't know, but eventually I mastered what I needed to know and the lines of communication in all directions cleared up.

It was a really strange experience to call counselors from the stake, because they were women I barely knew. I tried to follow the Spirit's lead, and my criteria for counselors was not that they were experts at Primary, but that they would be humble and teachable and led by the Spirit. I love the women I work with.

My first big assignment came a few months after being called, when I was asked to speak at the Stake Priesthood Leadership meeting. My topic was "what priesthood men can do to better facilitate gospel teaching in the home." That's a meaty and interesting topic, but I was beyond terrified to speak in such a setting. With Dan's incredible help and support, I did it.

Six months later I was asked to do something even scarier - speak in Stake Conference. This is something I have feared ALL of my life. Once again, it was terrifying and once again I spent an agonizing month preparing for it, but it worked out and I didn't faint on the stand.

Other notable scary and big hurdles I've crossed in the last year . . . .

• Stake Primary Leadership meeting. We invited all the teachers, nursery workers, music leaders, and presidencies in the stake. I was involved in so many aspects of this, from teaching one of the classes, giving opening remarks, thinking through and preparing all the logistics of the night, to making most of the cookies we had as treats. It was exhausting and, ultimately, really fun and meaningful. The feedback we received was that it was practical, uplifting, and helpful. So that felt good.
• Pinewood Derby. Yuck. Not a fan. Never have been. Now I am in charge of it on a stake level. Triple yuck.
• Stake 11-year-old Scout Day Camp.  Our stake hosted 4 more stakes of rowdy 11 year old boys (Joseph was one of them). It was exhausting but great.
• Stake Activity Day Camp. This was so big. And so amazing. We felt like the 8-11 year old girls received something truly valuable, discovering the heroic qualities in themselves by studying heroes in the scriptures and in history. There were so many great things that happened that week, through the music, dance, classes, time machine travels (we had the coolest time machine which produced "heroes" several times a day), etc.  My counselor and her committee who planned this camp are amazing. I taught a class and helped run the camp.
• Sharing times for Ward Conferences. In January we prepared sharing times to give in each of the wards. I was in charge of senior sharing time. My lessons and activities turned out great in the first two wards we visited (my ward and another ward where I know most of the  kids), so I got a little cocky. The next few wards went OK, but not bad enough that I felt the need to re-evaluate my lesson. Finally, we came to a ward which was 180 kids and in which we knew no one. It was an utter train wreck, and I realized that I needed to humble myself and learn some better classroom management skills, and also tweak my lesson. I learned some great tips from my counselor (a teacher), re-worked my lesson, and lived to survive another ward.  

It is still a challenge for me to be on the stake level. I feel disconnected from my ward. Many weeks I am not able to to attend my own block of meetings. I feel like I do a lot more administering than ministering (which I love to do). But, I've tried to find ways to minister in this position. I try to connect with the ward presidents/presidencies so that they know that I am their advocate and support. I try to listen to them and be responsive to their needs. I feel good about having overcome and accomplished some things this year which were really monumental and difficult for me. I am remembering that I like leadership, and realizing that I can make leadership into something that feels meaningful and not remote. And I can't bring myself to think about what challenge the calling has in store for me next.  Deep breath. One step at a time!

Hanging with Bailey for one week!

We had a fun, whirlwind week with Bailey before she left to Europe for a study abroad. We made the most of the time, and fit in as many fun things as possible (while still doing all the requisite shopping and packing for her trip.)  Here are a few highlights:

Dan was given tickets to one of the Blazers playoff games, in which they won in a really exciting game. We had a blast!

 Bailey volunteered to watch our favorite special needs friend (and his newborn brother) so their parents could go out to dinner.

 Bailey and I went to lunch almost every day.  Freshiis, food carts, Alberta Street (including Salt 'n Straw - Dan joined us for that one)

We celebrated Bailey's birthday early, since she would be in Iceland on her actual birthday. She enjoyed breakfast in bed, a dinner of grilled chicken, fresh fruits and veggies, and a Chuck's Produce cake.

 Joseph and his friend Matt hosted a fancy dinner for the family one night in the Porter Lounge.

And then, I drove Bailey to the airport and she took off for 6 wonderful weeks abroad!

Brandon and Angela graduated!

At the same time that Aubrey was preparing to attend LDS Prom, I was in Utah visiting with my awesome college kids and partying with Brandon and Angela, who graduated that weekend in April. Brandon graduated in Film and Angela graduated in Microbiology.

We spent some time walking around the campus and taking pictures next to places which were important to Brandon and Angela during their years at BYU. Angela spent a lot of time at the Life Sciences building and especially in the lab where she did fascinating research.

Brandon worked at BYUTV, editing Studio C, Story Trek, and other projects.

 Most of Brandon's classes for his major were in the HFAC.

We took pictures in cool places around the beautiful (but windy) campus.

Bailey re-created this picture from when Brandon graduated from high school (5 more years until her graduation)

This time, 3 more years until she graduates from college!

 We took dorky pictures by the Studio C characters in the BYUTV studio.

Later that night I treated the kids to dinner at their favorite restaurant, Bombay House. Delicious!

Other fun events while in Utah:

Too much good food, including lots of Swig cookies and Dirty Dr. Pepper.  Oh, and Cafe Rio. And Bowl of Heaven.

Bailey and I moved all of her stuff (and it was a lot) out of Heritage Halls and into Grandma and Grandpa's basement in Draper. Wow - it was a lot of work! Thank goodness Cousin Nate was around to help.

Nate hung out with Bailey and her roommates all year, and they got to be great friends!

 We worked hard loading every inch of the rental van and it was HOT, so we drove ourselves directly to Sonic to get an icy drink!

 That night Angela prepared a truly amazing meal for me, Bailey, and her parents. She is a fantastic cook!

The next day Bailey and I drove to Heber to see Grandma and Grandpa for a day. Brynlie came with us. We played a rousing game of Bananagrams and had a great time talking!

And that was the end of the whirlwind trip - we said goodbye to Brandon and Angela and Bailey and I flew back to Vancouver to get her ready to leave to Europe in one week!