Heissatopia

Highlights of our time in PTC

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 01:46:18 +0000

Making a list of what we've loved about living here was much easier than coming up with a list of things we were happy to say goodbye to. On the other hand, writing about all the things we've enjoyed and will miss has made me feel a lot more melancholy than writing about all the things we were ready to say good riddance to. I'm not sure items on this list will warrant as much rationalization to make you understand why they made the list (as opposed to the "lows" list), but we also know that I get...chatty...so I will probably tell too much about things anyway. Once again, they are offered in no particular order:

Beach trips. It's lovely to live within a close enough proximity to the beach that we can go every now and again. We wish it were closer (in North Carolina, for example, we could do day trips), but it was at least closer than when we lived in Utah. The kids tried listing every beach that we made it to—they loved every beach trip. Phoebe is still convinced that Grandpa and Darla own the beach house in Panama City and talks about going back at least once a week. We have yet to take a beach trip this summer (but we're about to go live on the coast, so I think we'll survive until then).
Road trips. Our mega trip around the US was certainly one for the books! We hit so many national parks! We otherwise didn't take as many road trips as we thought, but the kids loved going on extra road trips (like when he took Rachel and Miriam to DC, and when he and Darla took Benjamin and Zoë to DC). We went to Tennessee a few times...I can't remember what else.
Mini-adventures. We tried our best to explore new places around the city, going to museums, visiting different hiking trails.
Back deck sleepovers. Our kids loved setting up hammocks and/or the little pop up tent we have to sleep out in the backyard (typically on the back deck) with neighbourhood friends.
Our cul-de-sac. I don't even know how to say goodbye to this cul-de-sac. Our neighbours are the absolute best. Having our kids grow up alongside these kids has been an absolute privilege.
Grandpa moving here. It was so much fun having him right around the corner and to have him join us on family adventures (and our mega road trip and beach trips). The kids loved getting to spend more time with him.
Meeting Darla. If Grandpa hadn't moved here we probably wouldn't have ever met Darla. We are lucky to have her in our lives!
Meeting Phoebe. We are also lucky to have Phoebe! She's our only child who has only ever known this place, but she's quite adventurous and is ready to explore the world (as long as she gets to sit by Mommy on the plane).
Church friends. Having a small (and struggling) ward was, at times, difficult. But it also made for some pretty close friendships for our kids. From fire nights and game nights to prom and...making a raft out of milk jugs...these kids had some good times!
Learning to drive. Both Rachel and Miriam learned how to drive here (even with all the terrible traffic) and thus aren't intimidated by traffic in other places. Rachel even drove from the SLC airport to Provo after dropping Grandpa and Darla off this past week!
Master's degree. I've always wanted to go to graduate school! And I did it! And I loved it (even though it was hard at times)! So I went back for more (it's still hard at times).
Rosie moving to Tennessee. We have loved having Rosie be so close! We're almost in the same time zone! We've gone up there a few times, she's come down here a few times. It's been so wonderful to get to see Phoebe interact with little cousins her age (even if they're technically first-cousins-once-removed).
The pool. We love pool season! Will it feel as special once we live in the land of eternal pool season? I don't know. But my kids lived for pool season—they were always counting down to May 1 like it was Christmas morning.
Swim team. This is another thing that I'm not sure how to say goodby to, but kind of already have. We've loved being on the Jones Bridge/River Station Rapid Baraccudas swim team. It's a mouthful! We've made so many wonderful friends on that team. And being on a team helped the kids grow in so many ways.
Luna. We got to watch Luna grow up from a tiny puppy into the big, goofy dog that she is. She's helped my children who were afraid of dogs or otherwise might have been afraid of dogs less afraid of dogs (except, perhaps for Miriam). They feel like she is their dog (she's not). She feels like Benjamin is her boy (he might very well be). Those two are going to miss each other for sure! (The kids also didn't mind the $5 payment they'd get for walking her in the middle of the day while Luna's people were at work—they're going to miss that, too).
Trees. I love being surrounded by all these big, green trees. They're so beautiful and their shade is so wonderful. Moving to the desert is going to be a bit of a shock to our eyes.
Homeschooling. I had long been tempted to try it but wasn't ever sure if I'd be able to handle it. But we're doing pretty okay with it. We liked not having to deal with busses or school schedules or bullies and things like that. We loved getting to learn about what we were interested in (rather than following a prescribed curriculum) and trying new things!
Rainstorms. There's nothing quite like stomping in puddles, getting soaked by a downpour, or huddling up to watch a wild electrical storm. The smell of rain is divine. We...are going to miss rain, I think. The kids would probably also add snow here (that didn't make our list, and it rarely snowed here, but when it did it was a lot of fun).
The Big Slow Down. While the COVID days did have many drawbacks, we actually enjoyed getting to slow down and stay home more. We really felt like we really learned to enjoy each other.
Co-op. The kids really enjoyed making friends and learning new things from people other than me—things that I couldn't teach them if I tried because you really can only teach what you know, and it's so good for them to learn from other people's experiences and points of view. I'm sad we didn't get to go this past year, but for my sanity we had to cut something out of our schedule (I tried to squeeze in a little too much this past year and it was a lot so I was glad I didn't have to remember to go to co-op...and prepare lessons for co-op...too).

There are other things we've loved about living here as well, I'm sure. We're really going to miss night games in the cul-de-sac, having our trampoline full to bursting with neighbourhood kids, block parties, temple trips, and so many other wonderful things. It's hard to believe that we're actually saying goodbye to a place that is very much become home.

These are a few of our LEAST favourite things

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 05:26:30 +0000

We are in the single digits before we close this chapter and open the next, and that...kind of gives us the butterflies, honestly. We still have quite a lot to do. And the time we have left here feels both oppressively long (can we just be there already?!) and far too short (and ever shorter—how can we say goodbye?).

Our house is getting echoier and echoier and I feel pressed to make every day be The Best Day Ever (although today we mostly stayed home because Phoebe was up all night complaining of a sore tummy and trying to make herself throw up...she did have a low-grade fever...and all the kids have had their run with this summer cold that is going around...so I'm sure she didn't feel fabulous, but it would have been nice if she had tried more sleeping and less gagging. She seems fine now though).

Before Miriam left, we sat down to make a list of our favourite things and least favourite things about living here. Today I'll present the lows, which I'm not sure that I can necessarily rank in importance...so here they are in no particular order:

The traffic. You've probably heard things about Atlanta's traffic—bad things. All of it is true. The traffic here is pretty terrible. And I recently read an article that Atlanta no longer has a "rush hour" traffic pattern to speak of because it's all terrible, all the time now. Which is not super fun.
Flooding. Specifically the "in our basement" variety. Our basement flooded twice and both times were no bueno (no brainer?).
General house woes. Keeping up a house is hard work. Enough said.
Flat tires. To add to the complaints about traffic, we have never lived anywhere with so much junk on the roads. We averaged one flat tire a year here, constantly running over nails and whatever else is on the roads. That doesn't seem uncommon here...but it feels uncommon compared to other places that we've lived.
THIS HILL. We live on a hill and it can be a doozy to walk up. When we first started going for walks we joked about how fit we were going to be. But after walking up that hill daily for approximately 2555 days (that's 7 years), we feel no closer to conquering that hill than the first day we climbed it. Every time we start feeling the burn we'll curse, "THIS HILL!!" It's fine. We've walked it approximately 2555 times and it never killed us, but it's just not always the first thing we want to have to do when we walk out the front door (and yet it is the first thing we have to do).
COVID days. This, I think, is pretty self-explanatory. While there were aspects of this time period that we enjoyed, it's fairly universally acknowledged that this time was straight up not a great time.
Ward boundaries. They split our amazing ward mere weeks after we moved in and then peeled us off the stake and plopped us into a new one a few months later. So we were in three different units the first six months we lived here. It was rough and, honestly, our ward never quite recovered. It was on the struggle bus the entire time, just limping along. But now that we're moving (and taking about half the primary kids and half the youth with us) leadership is once again seriously considering adjusting the boundaries (at least, that is what we heard from a member of our stake presidency).
General malaise. Due to the ward being split apart and moved, we never really got welcomed into our ward (and were specifically told that everyone is new so they couldn't spend energy welcoming us in particular, when we mentioned to leadership that we just felt a little lost in the shuffle and that it might be nice if they explained to, like, the primary kids that our family had just moved in because all the kids seemed to know each other from school or previous wards, but our kids didn't know anyone...but...that never happened. Like our records didn't even get read in before the ward was split and rearranged...). And then COVID happened and church went remote about six months after we moved here (literally the week after we were put into the new stake). So we just felt new and unsettled and unfamiliar and isolated for...honestly?...two or three years. It was a rough go of things, and honestly it still really doesn't feel like we have lived here for seven years because we don't know the city very well or anything.
Bugs. There are just a lot of them here. We are always setting out sticky traps or bait traps for something or other. Ants. Cockroaches. Whatever. There's always an infestation of something going on. We try to keep a clean house (it's an ongoing battle) but I remember asking a dear friend in North Carolina (Lindsay Alder!) how she keeps ants out of her house because I was so beaten down by an ongoing ant problem in our then-house. She just looked at me and said serenely, "Oh, we don't!" You can treat an infestation (folks—the ants recently found an entry into a bag of brown sugar in our pantry and...let me tell you...they moved right on in...until we moved them out to the garbage can and set up bait traps for the rest of them) but they will keep on coming in. There is no way to have an entirely bug-free house (especially in the hot, muggy south). And then there's joro season...which we will thankfully miss this year.
Critters. These are bigger than bugs: The lizards in the basement. The possums in the garage. The squirrels in the attic. The constant worry about copperheads. The deer that eat everything in the garden. We are always scanning the road for deer—they're always popping up everywhere! The fawns are sweet, but they are a nuisance.

I think those are our top complaints about living here. I'm sure there are others, but really our list of complaints was pretty short (we only had seven things when we made the list together—I added things like bugs and stuff for the sake of coming up with a nice even number).

Our list of favourite things is much longer (at least twice as long), so stay tuned!

Benjamin's very churchy weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 14:55:45 +0000

Benjamin was asked to give a talk on July 12—the Sunday we were busy at county—so I asked if there was another week he could possibly speak. We only have 10 youth speakers (on a good year) and 52 weeks in a year, so it's pretty easy to find an open week...but although I was told they'd try to rearrange things, we never heard back. He wasn't on the schedule the following week (which was good because we ended up going to Sam's homecoming instead of attending our own ward) and then we just didn't hear and didn't hear and didn't hear about anything this week, so we figured Benjamin was off the hook (since next week is fast and testimony meeting, which has no assigned speakers).

But then the ward bulletin was sent out on Friday and, lo, Benjamin was on the intended program.

So he got to work writing and came up with a decent draft. I read that draft and discussed it with him, noting areas he needed to explain things better, craft some segues between ideas, and more clearly develop the theme running through his talk. He was miffed, but sat down to write a second draft, which was much better than the first. I read that draft and discussed it with him, noting areas where he needed to back up huge claims (such as "the phrase 'fear not' can be found in every book of scripture"—do you know that? Or are you just saying it? You're just saying it...okay...perhaps do a little more research before saying it) and tell enough of a story that people can understand what's going on and glean the message from it, but without reading the whole thing verbatim. He was quite upset about this feedback but agreed to give his talk another round of edits.

You can imagine how he felt when I sent him back for a third round of edits. Pretty darn frustrated, that's what! Let's not even talk about the fourth...

But, guess what! In the end he had a piece that he was really quite pleased with and could deliver with confidence. And he felt good about the research and learning he did.

In the middle of all this talk writing, Benjamin went on a youth temple trip Saturday morning.

And then after church on Sunday he got his patriarchal blessing.

So it was a very busy, churchy weekend for him!

Getting his patriarchal blessing was very special, and so very sad and sweet. Patriarch Kotter's wife passed away this past October, which meant that she wasn't there. And he kept apologizing to us for it.

"I'm sorry my wife isn't here to welcome you into our home."

"I'm sorry my wife isn't here to visit with you while I talk with Benjamin."

"I'm sorry my wife couldn't be here to give you a hug goodbye."

And the whole time I was like, "No! We're sorry!"

His wife was so kind every time we saw her. It's clear he misses her a lot! But he did a fine job of welcoming us into his home, himself, and gave Benjamin a wonderful blessing.

Here's Benjamin's talk, in case you're interested (he was assigned 2 Kings 6):

Hello my name is Benjamin Heiss. I have 5 siblings and my oldest sister is going on a mission to Hanoi Vietnam in September, and my dad got a job in Doha, Qatar, so my family will be moving there in about 10 days. I enjoy playing video games, reading, and going outside. I love looking up at the trees and feeling the peace and quiet of the forest. We won’t have any forests in Qatar, but I think I’ll still be able to find solitude in the wilderness there. Moses went up on Mount Sinai to pray to the Lord…and that was in the desert…so while the desert will be very different from the beautiful green trees of Georgia, I know that I’ll find God in Doha as well.
When Joseph Smith went into the woods to pray, Satan went about to discourage him and to stop him from praying. He made Joseph feel alone and unworthy. In Joseph Smith History it says that at the very moment when he was ready to sink into despair and abandon himself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world—it was THEN that God came down from heaven and chased Satan away. He appeared in a pillar of light and spoke to Joseph, calling him by name, which is important because sometimes it might feel impossible that God could know what we’re going through, but He does. He knows each individual's struggle and he’s always ready to help.
Joseph Smith isn’t the only prophet to have seen heavenly help. In 2 Kings 6 the Israelites are besieged by the armies of Syria and the people are afraid that they will be destroyed because their army is not strong enough to beat the Syrians. But Elisha the prophet instructed his servants to “fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” He asked the Lord to let his servant see the heavenly help that was available to them, and the servant’s eyes were opened and he saw chariots of fire surrounding the city. Ultimately, Elisha called on the Lord to help the Israelites outsmart the Syrians and everything was fine.
I liked the reminder to fear not, to trust God. The mention of “fear not” in 2 Kings 6 reminded me of last year's youth theme which was D&C 6:36— “look unto me in every thought; Doubt not, Fear not.” I like this scripture because it says that when we look unto God we will have no need to fear. This year’s youth theme takes it a step further. In Moses 6:34 the Lord says “Behold my Spirit is upon you, wherefore all thy words will I justify; and the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course; and thou shalt abide in me, and I in you; therefore walk with me.” In this scripture the Lord promises that our trials will seem a lot more manageable if we go through them with His help, following his footsteps, and walking with him (which takes a little more effort than looking to him).
One of the scriptures that my family is memorizing this year is Psalm 23 and in verse 4 it states, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me…my cup runneth over, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” The “valley of the shadow of death" is a metaphorical term that means that somebody is in deep despair or they are in their darkest hour and even when we are in these seemingly dark places, we need fear no evil because the Lord is with us. It can be difficult not to feel afraid when life is hard, but it’s important to remember to look to the Lord, walk with him, and fear not.
The phrase “fear not” can be found in every book of scripture [*except we forgot to check the Pearl of Great Price, which is usually lumped in with either the D&C by proximity or Old Testament manual when we study it].
For example, in Luke 12:32 it says “fear not little flock for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” I liked this scripture because it says that it is God's wish for us to return to live with him. This wording is repeated a couple of times in the Doctrine and Covenants. For example, D&C 6:34 says, “Fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.” Why? Because “they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”
We become part of the Lord’s little flock and are counted among his number when we are baptized. Alma 7:15 says, “Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.” That is one of the first steps on the covenant path as we walk with the Lord, but baptism only marks a decision to walk with him. Following him day after day—through blessings and trials, enduring to the end—is what is hard.
Elder Holland once shared a story about when he had to move across the country to attend college. At this time he was a young father with 2 children. After only 34 miles of driving the car broke down and he had to walk 3 miles to the nearest town to get help. A kind man drove him back to his car, towed it to town, and fixed it up. The family set out again but the car broke down a second time in the very same spot. And young Elder Holland again had to walk back to town to get help, where the very same man helped him tow his vehicle again. Eventually their journey was successful, but having their car break down several times felt very overwhelming for Elder Holland. Later Elder Holland visited this place where he broke down and wished he could have said to his younger self as he was going through that trial, “Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it—30 years of it now, and still counting. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”
God will help you whether you're in your darkest hour, like Joseph Smith, or if you're just going through life, like Elder Holland. He will help you make the right decisions so that you can live with him again.
Jesus Christ died so that we could live with him again, he also died to atone for our sins. When he was in the Garden of Gethsemane he was in the ultimate valley of the shadow of death. He felt all our pains and paid the price of all of our sins. He felt all of that and more. He was up on the cross and even God left him at that time so that he could feel so alone, but even whilst that he looked at the soldiers and Pharisees that had accused him of so much and he asked God to forgive them. Jesus taught that we should love our enemy AND that we should be like him. We need to have no fear. We need to walk with God and feel His power and we will not be alone.
I testify that Joseph Smith did see God and Jesus Christ in that grove of trees, just as Elisha saw heavenly help surrounding the city, but even if we can't see heavenly help it is there for us, too. I testify that Jesus suffered all of our pains in the garden of gethsemane so that whatever trial we are going through we will not be alone and that as we walk with him we will have no need to fear. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

There was a little churl...

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 15:44:09 +0000

I'm kidding! I'm kidding! But it is kind of surprising how curly Benjamin's luscious locks get when they get lengthy. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't believe in combing his hair so it eventually ends up getting chopped. Lucky for all of us, it'll grow back.

I saw this picture of Benjamin and thought again of the poem about the girl with the curl and my brain immediately inserted the word "churl" for "girl" (but churl is a little too negative of a word, don't you think?):

There was a little churl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of his forehead.

And when he was good,

He was very good indeed,

But when he was bad he was horrid.

So I tried it out with lad. Not sure I'm satisfied with it yet.

There was a little lad,

Who was never very bad,

Whose hair had grown wavy and wild.

His mom cut it short,

Cut it very short indeed,

While the child just impishly smiled.

His smile is particularly impish here (I'm not sure why he decided to smile that way).

And because of the way my brain works I then jumped to mashing together twit and twist. But twit isn't very kind either, so I defaulted to scientist...but I suppose any -ist word could work here (though a lot of -ist words are negative as well...plagiarist...racist...narcissist...maybe my brain is just negative today because I'm sure there are more positive -ists out there).

There was a scientist,

Who had a little twist,

Right on the top of his noodle.

He thought up ideas

Thought up several indeed,

And counted them oodles by oodles.

I am no Longfellow...

Killing time in an empty house: rain walks, nature wreaths, and craft dates

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 05:08:37 +0000

We have been blessed with a very wet summer, filled with plenty of thunderstorms. It's sometimes made our walks a little difficult to take, but it's been lovely to literally soak in all the rain while we can.

I took Alexander and Phoebe for a walk last week after a storm and they enjoyed exploring their wet world. Here's Alexander pointing to a little herd of deer wandering through our neighbourhood (they've eaten everything in my garden that we would have liked to eat—such a nuisance).

Here's Phoebe seeing how close she can get before spooking them:

Those deer are everywhere so we're almost always approaching a deer on any given walk. We recently saw one grouping with three adult females—and five fawns between them! Those fawns are cute, but...like I said...a nuisance. There are just so many deer around here!

Our neighbour (who just bought our RAV-4) has a son who was driving over to do some laundry at their house when a deer tried to jump over his car...and missed, crushing the roof and breaking the windshield.

So this neighbour was like, "Can I...talk to you about your van?"

That was kind of nice timing for us, but...like I said...these deer are such a nuisance.

Anyway, here are the kids hanging out under a dripping crepe myrtle tree:

They soon invented a game called "Turn On the Shower," which is played by having one person stand under a tree and the other person pull a branch down and quickly release it, causing a secondary little rain shower.

They arrived home soaking wet even though it wasn't even raining on our walk.

(We went for another walk today while it was steadily raining, but while there was a lull in thunderstorms...and came home rather drenched even with our umbrellas).

I don't know how to say goodbye to the rain.

On yet another walk, we found a cicada shed. Phoebe thought they were perhaps from dead cicadas, so we talked about exoskeletons and the long and mysterious lifecycle of a cicada larva. And then a little ways down the road we found an actual dead cicada, so we could talk about how it bursts out of the larval exoskeleton and then its new exoskeleton hardens and its wings dry and it can live out its loud and obnoxious life for a few months in the summer before laying eggs and dying.

It's the circle of life.

We spent the rest of our walk collecting little treasures from around the neighbourhood and when we got home we arranged them into a wreath, which is a thing that we do from time to time to time to time.

Phoebe loved going on a "nature walk" and told me several times.

I don't know why but collecting these little details of the world, all the colours, all the (still) life tends to generate quite a bit of awe and appreciation for our little corner (wherever that corner may be). I think—perhaps—it just makes us notice things. I think—perhaps—there is magic in noticing.

*****

Our house is rapidly emptying of anything and everything. We recently had everyone pick out seven outfits and have been packing everything else that we're taking into our large suitcases (because I simply can't do all of that packing in one day). This is leaving us with an impressively little amount of available stuff.

Thank goodness for the library!

We also have a rather eclectic collection of art supplies that we've largely elected will be left behind. Oh, I'm sure we'll take some of it with us (there's a few pairs of left-handed scissors floating around, for example), but a lot of it will just be thrown out or given away. So the kids are doing their best to burn through it all while they still can.

Here's Phoebe in a superhero mask she made (inspired by our new friends, who will be in Doha with us in August but are home in the states right now—the kids have been having weekly crafting "dates" with them over Zoom, where we each gather around our own tables with whatever craft supplies we have on hand and the kids make stuff and chat and play make-believe...it's been amazing).

And here are the kids making a spaceship for Phoebe (once again inspired by one of our new little friends, who was also making a spaceship):

You can't see the computer, but it's there on the table, out of the shot.

And here's the finished product—it even has a baby seat!

Miriam's last day (last week) and giving away the last of our food storage

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 04:40:03 +0000

Miriam had Andie and McKenna over on Thursday night (July 16) to play a few games and say goodbye. Tonight the kids are having a sleepover down there because that room is 100% empty (except for all the stuff the kids just dragged into it, I guess). After this picture was taken I made Andie and McKenna fill a box of food to take home to their families.

Phoebe still believes she knows how to make a peace sign with her fingers (she does not, but that's okay).

My sweet neighbour Janelle came by and took everything else from our leftover food supply. She is so good at asking the right questions and coming up with the perfect solution.

"I'm happy to take your extra things," she said and then burst into questions. "What's the deal here? Do you want me to come and take a few things that we'll use and leave the rest for you? Do you want me to take it all and redistribute as I see fit? Do you want me to come today? Do you want me to come closer to when you're leaving?"

I was like, "You are an angel...and I want everything gone...as soon as possible."

"Let me get my wagon," she said.

She sent me a picture of their dinner that night (made from things she'd taken from our house) and said that she was so excited for some things (like vinegar) to use in her science classroom and that she'll be donating some other things and that she'd be happy to take anything else that I just can't even deal with anymore (she's also very active on our Buy Nothing Group and I know she'll just post whatever she doesn't want).

And I am just so, so grateful for people like Janelle!

There was a little girl

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 04:24:44 +0000

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow apparently composed this poem while walking his infant daughter up and down and around and around in the middle of the night. So it is appropriate that Miss Phoebe had this curl spring up right in the middle of her forehead the other day.

She is so much better about bedtime than she used to be...but I do remember those horrid days of pacing the floor with her every night (and just the other night she had Andrew up most of the night because she just couldn't sleep and was so very sad about it).

How are we old enough to have been friends with people for this many years?

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 04:18:44 +0000

Between the county swim meet and attending Sam Lewis's mission homecoming/report, we've missed the last two Sundays at our ward, so I'm sure we'll surprise some people by showing up again!

Sam's talk was wonderful, but I was really rather touched by the woman who spoke after him (who I believe was their stake Relief Society president). She talked about how God knows us so well and shared a story about how after her divorce she was sleeping on a blow-up mattress in her apartment and somehow her bishop found out about that and decided that wouldn't do. She should have a proper bed—and he would use church funds to purchase it for her (from Deseret Industries, or DI).

DI is like a secondhand shop run by the church, but they also do a lot of work with the homeless community in Utah, run employment education and trainings (my dad went through their trainings back when Rachel was little), and even build furniture to sell.

The bishop had selected a bed for her and all she had to do was go with her home teacher (now ministering brother) to pick it up, but when they arrived to pick it up they discovered there had been a miscommunication and the selected bed was unavailable.

Now, you should know that when she learned she was going to be getting a bed, she prayed to thank Heavenly Father...but to concede to him that she had promised herself that getting a bed was going to be some kind of milestone of getting back on her feet. She had never had a bed with a headboard and footboard before (I mean...I'm typing this sitting in a bed with neither a headboard or footboard, so I'm not judging her for that...but I'm also not rating my success on that either) and she just...kind of had promised herself that her first big purchase—a bed for herself—would have a frame with a headboard and a footboard.

Since the opportunity to purchase her own bed was being taken away (and she was grateful for that), she wondered if maybe it could just have a headboard and a footboard. But, if not, she asked that her heart would be magnified to accept the blessing any way it came.

So they show up at the DI, and...the bed the bishop ordered is not available. In fact, the only bed frame available is one with a headboard and a footboard. It was a little more expensive and since tithing money was going to be used to pay for this bed the supervisor had to run it by the bishop, who insisted that this sister was going to go home with a bed that very same day (and so approved the extra cost).

She got her bed with her headboard and footboard.

And it wasn't even that important—she could have made do with a used mattress on the floor. But it was such an important little miracle for her as she pieced her life back together.

She sent seven kids on missions! Her daughter was in China when her call came (I assume teaching for ILP, honestly, given the timeline of events—that's the same program I went with to teach English in Russia), so she had to read the call out loud to her over a long distance phone call. She went to Georgia...the country. And they were all like, "Neat. Where's that?!"

Anyway, it was a wonderful talk.

And it was so fun to get to visit with the Lewises that we got to visit with afterward. It's been years since we've really been with those children, but watching Jess and Meg sit on the couch and chat felt remarkably similar to watching Jess and Meg sit on the couch and chat 17 years ago.

Interestingly, we've been in four of the Lewis's homes and they've been in three of ours.

We were at their house all the time when we both lived in Cairo—for dinners and tutoring and babysitting.
They visited our apartment a couple of times in Cairo.
They visited our home in Orem—their older girls came over a few times to entertain Rachel and Miriam while I was at the hospital with baby Benjamin.
We visited their home in Orem (while Kevan was deployed).
We visited their home in Tallahassee when we went on a trip to Orlando when we lived in North Carolina.
We had them over for dinner here (though they brought us dinner, so that hardly even counts as having them over).
We went to Sam's homecoming in Roswell.

They're a military family, so they get around. We are not a military family but, uh, we get around anyway.

The kids had so much fun playing with the toys Sara has stashed away for when grandkids visit. And there were actually a few of her grandkids there and it was so lovely...and kind of weird...to get to meet them because Kevan and Sara have always been this window of what my life will be like in 10 years.

They're about ten years older than us. We met them when Rachel was 1 and we moved to Egypt, where they had five kids all older than her (Sam is a year older). And then like ten years down the road I suddenly had five kids of my own (six now, obviously) and I was watching the Lewis kids graduate and go on missions and college and things. And now they're getting married and having babies of their own!

The next ten years are going to be wild, I can tell.

Thoughts two days out from swim team and two weeks out from moving

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 04:53:11 +0000

My brother recently sent a video of "bedtime" at his house, which was really of his 4-year-old and 2-year-old running in circles around him and jumping on the bed while declaring that they were not going to go to sleep.

I don't know why he thought they'd go to bed.

It's late July in Southern Alberta. The sun even doesn't think about setting until around 9:45 PM so those children had no indication from the universe that it should be bedtime (and why should they trust their father about a thing like that?). Soon enough (like in December) the universe will be telling them it's bedtime by 4:00 in the afternoon...perhaps he'll have an easier time then.

On the other hand, I'll bet he didn't take them to the pool for four hours in the middle of the day (like I did today). That somehow doesn't guarantee my kids will be worn out at the end of the day, but it sometimes works to shorten bedtime shenanigans.

I didn't tell him anything, though.

I just "laughed" at his video—the kids are cute even if they're driving him crazy.

My mom, though, simply told him that parenting is...hard...

And that is absolutely true.

*****

We lasted two days without swim team to keep us busy before I threw in the towel and told the kids to get started on their math curriculum. Very technically we are still "on break," since I don't have the wherewithal to start homeschooling full time right now, but the kids needed something to do besides wrestle each other and since they couldn't come up with anything I instituted Math Hour.

Their curriculums are of the the "all-in-one", "open-and-go" variety so I don't have to think through lesson planning, really. I just have to supervise and help them work through things when they get stuck.

Alexander and I had a wonderful conversation about faces, edges, and vertices over breakfast this morning.

And that was just so much better than me hollering at the kids to knock it off before someone needs stitches (because sometimes their wildness leads to stitches, as Zoë can attest).

Anyway, when I first called a family meeting to tell the kids we were starting up "Math Hour," I explained to them a phenomenon of infant development, which is that fussy babies are often simply craving a Big New Skill. They want to use their brain. They want to master something. They want more from life.

I understand that sometimes babies can fuss for other reasons (like, Rosie's Dean was just fussy because he had an ear infection and she hadn't realized). Most of my kids had colic, which was really GERD (sometimes diagnosed, sometimes not), and they were very often miserable and would scream long into the night and it was...in a word...dreadful. But also they would get even fussier right before rolling over or crawling or pulling to stand. It was like their brain could not turn off until they figured out how to do the thing (so sleep wasn't even an option).

I like how The WonderWeeks explained this phenomenon:

The first phase of every baby leap is known as the “fussy” phase. This phase is clearly dominated by the “3 C’s”: crying, clinginess and crankiness. There is a reason for the fussy phase – babies don’t cry out of the blue. They are upset. Their brains undergo a sudden and drastic change, thus also changing the way they perceive the world around them. These 3 C’s are the calling card for each leap.

.......

Because your baby is crying and clingy [or, you know, chasing each other around the house wielding scissors (this, uh, actually happened)] during the fussy phase, as a parent you will often automatically pay more attention to your baby: you want to know what’s going on [and you probably also want them to put the scissors down]. As a result, you will notice more quickly that your baby suddenly knows more and is able to do a lot more than you expect. Your baby will suddenly attempt to do things you’d never seen it do before. Your baby has made a leap in it’s development! This is the phase that parents anticipate most eagerly: the skills phase. This phase starts around the end of the fussy phase or just after its peak. At this stage, your baby has overcome the shock of the “new world” that is opening up to it. Your baby is now starting to discover the new world.

Now, I'll warrant that the fussy/skills cycle likely plays out differently in childhood (or adolescence or adulthood—for example, I would say the crankiness comes from craving something new rather than having suddenly undergone a "drastic change"), but I would argue that it is still present. So I told my kids that the reason they can think of nothing else to do besides run around the house like hooligans (hurting each other and driving everyone crazy) is because they are craving something—a challenge.

And since they seemed incapable of thinking of a way to channel that desire for challenge or creativity or skill cultivation into anything productive (i.e. not endlessly wrestling...I mean, a little wrestling is fine but it was seriously getting out of hand), I would provide an outlet for them, and that outlet was going to be math, and they were very, very welcome.

And, honestly, things have been much better around here since then...so the theory holds!

Frustrated people often just need a little extra attention from someone else, whether it's cheering them on to roll over or a discussion about what qualifies as a face, edge, or vertex.

Kids might want to hold your hand (for now) while they're balancing on the curb (or, as Phoebe calls it "the curve") but all too soon they'll be off on their own adventures, texting and calling in spurts depending on whether they're in a fussy stage or a skills stage. They just need to know that you're still there while they're off conquering the world.

*****

We leave for Qatar in fourteen days. It's exciting and scary.

I already warned Andrew that although I'm looking forward to this adventure, I will probably complain about some things and he's just going to have to deal with that because...we are moving to Qatar...and that sounds like the kind of thing that's likely to throw me into a "fussy" phase.

And the kids might get fussy.

And even he might get fussy.

But we'll all just...work together...to do this thing we've never done, trying to balance comfort with growth.

Baby steps....

Double the Phoebes

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 21:15:27 +0000

Phoebe met another little girl at the pool today.

"Hello!" she said. "Do you want to play with me?"

"Sure!" said the little girl.

"Okay!" said Phoebe. "What's your name?"

"Phoebe," said the little girl.

"No, that's my name," Phoebe said, shaking her head. "What's yours?"

"My name is Phoebe," the little girl giggled. "Is your...is your name Phoebe, too?"

"Yes! My name is also Phoebe!" Phoebe said in astonishment.

"Hang on!" the little girl said. "I've gotta go tell my mom something!"

The other Phoebe ran over to her mom and told her that she'd just met a Phoebe. Both girls were delighted and played very nicely until the rest of the other Phoebe's cousins showed up to play.

To be fair, the other Phoebe is a few years older (a big ol' 6) and it was kind of her to play with 4-year-old Phoebe for as long as she did before going off to play with the bigger kids she already knew.

This other Phoebe's mom told me that when she was expecting her Phoebe they had an Eastern Phoebe nesting just outside their window so they heard "Phoebe! Phoebe! Phoebebebe!" so much that they just couldn't get it out of their head!

It's not very often we run across another Phoebe!!

Phew!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 14:20:43 +0000

I had my consult with the surgeon this morning and he feels confident this is not a hernia and I am not in need of surgery immanently. I'm also free to resume regular activity. So that's all good news.

He thinks it is simply a lipoma (that is causing discomfort because it is attached to my chest cavity...like perhaps was inside my chest cavity...and then slipped out...I dunno...because it wasn't there before and now it is there). Whatever the case, I probably will have it removed eventually because it is uncomfortable to, like, lie on my stomach, for example.

Plus, he can't guarantee it's benign so suggests eventual biopsy and the way they would biopsy a growth like this is to...remove it.

But I don't have to squeeze in a surgery in the next 15 days...so that's good, good news.

In other news, we left this morning before any of the kids woke up. They all knew the plan this morning (that Benjamin and Zoë would be collectively in charge), but I left them a reminder note on the table, just in case:

We got a series of phone calls from Zoë while I was in my appointment, so Andrew called the kids back as soon as we got out. Turns out it was all Phoebe. The big kids weren't even awake, but Alexander and Phoebe had gotten up and were checking in on us.

By the time we got home they were happily eating waffles (from the freezer) and Benjamin and Zoë were still sleeping.

Phoebe made this little note for us and left it on the table beside my note:

It says:

Phebe—Dad—Mom [Phoebe—Dad—Mom]

I MS YO [I miss you]

To Mom A Dad [to Mom and Dad]

And it has a bunch of hearts drawn on it because she loves drawing hearts.

Overall, I'm feeling much better about things, especially getting all our suitcases through the airport. I'm glad it's not a hernia, though I'm not entirely happy to have any weird lump at all. And it means that my stitch in my sides from exercising was just a stitch in my sides from exercising after all...I guess...so I just have to, like, breathe better or something.

Phoebe's Slide Face

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 22:50:40 +0000

Our neighbours threw the most awesome block party today (in our honour) and the main attraction was an inflatable waterslide. Phoebe was thrilled about this, telling Grandpa on a video call yesterday that she was super glad about it because the last time we went to a waterpark the kids weren't even allowed to use the waterslide, which wasn't very fair (and also wasn't very true because only children under 4 ft tall weren't allowed to use it...all other children were). She loved the waterslide...

But her face had me harkening back to her early days when any change in elevation made her cringe:

Her face was just so funny to watch! Other kids were sliding down with big grins on their faces, but Phoebe looked absolutely tortured almost the entire time. She went down the slide over and over again, though, and had an absolute blast!

Here's yet another throwback of her slide face:

Here she is covering up her face as she goes down:

And here she is smiling on the slide (a rare occurrence):

All Along...It was Hamnet

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 04:14:43 +0000

Approximately six weeks ago, Andrew ever so lightly smashed his toe (his words, not mine) and has been in abject agony ever since (my observation, not his). Last week it was so very sore and swollen and he decided to clip his toenail to see if that would release any pressure. He was unprepared when pus started streaming out from under his nail after he disturbed it.

It felt glorious...but it was also rather concerning and finally convinced Andrew to go to the doctor—urgent care, of course, it being the weekend.

The doctor prescribed a course of antibiotics and suggested that the toenail might spontaneously fall off in the future. They also asked Andrew to come back in and have a physical exam during normal business hours (since Andrew hadn't had one since before his mission...in the year 2003).

So Andrew went back for a physical. And that doctor looked at his toe and said that the nail probably wouldn't fall off, but recommended that he see a podiatrist anyway.

Andrew put off that for a few days, but eventually did call to make an appointment because his toe was still dreadfully swollen and throbbing.

He went in to the podiatrist yesterday and the podiatrist was like, "That's never going to heal. Let's rip that sucker off!"

And that's precisely what they did.

Andrew was not thrilled. His toe still hurts. But it also now feels like it might one day get better.

Meanwhile...

I recently finished reading Hamnet.

I watched Hamnet earlier this semester with Miriam (after Andrew watched it on the plane when he went to Qatar for his interview) and we both sat on the couch sobbing through a good 50% of the movie. It was so beautiful, so tragic, simply heart-rending. So then I read the book and it was just as beautiful, such a poignant description of grief...and life...and...anyway...

I don't mean to foretell anything dreadful by sharing this quote, it's just what came to mind as I've been thinking about the past few days:

"She is a fool, a blind idiot, the worst kind of simpleton. All along, she thought she needed to protect Judith, when it was Hamnet who was destined to be taken."

All along...it was Hamnet...

In this situation, I am Hamnet. Andrew is Judith.

And, boy, I did not see this coming!

I have been working hard the past few months, doing a lot of lifting and moving of furniture and boxes. That's what one does when one is moving. But I'm not particularly weak and I practice good lifting posture. I have an excellent squat.

Guys, I even make sure to tell a recently postpartum woman to please bring a helper and not try to lift a 70 lb. freezer into the back of her SUV by herself. I'm like the spokesperson of good lifting technique.

That's not to say that I couldn't have made a mistake and strained too much. But...we haven't even been lifting much recently...because most of our stuff is long gone.

Still, I've been spending a lot of time checking in on Andrew's toe, boiling water for his epsom salt baths, hounding him to call the doctor and make an appointment.

I was surprised, then, to find a strange new thing on my abdomen yesterday—a bump...a bulge...a bubo...

Too much Hamnet for me (I'm positive this isn't bubonic)!

I pointed it out to Andrew—literally, I was like, "Not to, like, upstage you or anything, but, uh...what do you think this thing on my stomach is?!"

After much pondering and research, I determined that I...have a hernia!

I was a little flummoxed trying to figure it out because it is in such an unusual place (just under my ribcage, on my left side) and it doesn't really hurt...and in fact feels better than it has felt in a long time! But that was the only thing it could really be!

Did I cry when I realized this? Yes.

Hernias can only be repaired surgically and I was determined to live my life without surgery (thank you very much).

Did I have weird nightmares of it expanding out of my side like a balloon and getting really taut and shiny and translucent before popping? Yes.

Andrew got up to take Miriam to the airport at 5:30 this morning and although I didn't come down to say goodbye to her (again...I had done that around 1:00 in the morning after we finished repacking her suitcases...and I was currently snuggling a sleeping Phoebe), I was still awake. And I was awake at 7:00 when he dropped her off. And I was awake when her flight left.

But then I fell asleep and slept until noon!

And it felt really good to have slept at all, even though I had all those strange nightmares.

But then I called the doctor and made an appointment, which Andrew so kindly drove me to because it was raining furiously when it was time to leave.

And the doctor was like, "A hernia? Here? Strange. Can you cough for me?"

So I coughed.

And he was like, "Huh. Let's try that test with you lying down. Cough again. Huh. So that is a hernia. It's responding precisely how a hernia would. I'm just going to feel around to try to find the break in the muscle here because..this is such a strange location...I don't know..."

We worked up a treatment plan...which is that he would call his friend (who is a hernia specialist/surgeon) and tell him that he absolutely must squeeze me in next week because we are on a Timeline.

That's about as far as the plan goes.

And I began thinking about my left side, which, honestly, has felt pinchy for quite a while.

Like...for a few years now...

So I have a theory that this hernia developed when I was pregnant with Phoebe.

She was, as you might recall (I certainly do), transverse until quite late in the pregnancy. That means she was lying in my womb sideways instead of upside down (as she should have been). This put a ton of pressure on my sides rather than the front of my abdomen (and she was required to have a follow-up appointment for her hips because of the increased pressure it put on her body).

As I have begun protectively holding this little hernial protrusion, the position felt all too familiar to me. I believe that is where I would frequently rub to try to get her to back off from while she was rapidly growing perpendicular to gravity.

And—interestingly—that is the same spot that typically hurts when I've gone running (or done any other vigorous exercise) the last few years. I honestly thought I was just prone to getting, like, side stitches (running cramps) there. But...I guess not...

I mean, that might also be true...but I think it's possible that in the last four years some of those "side stitch" pains may have actually been hernia pains.

I don't really know.

The doctor asked if I'd ever had diastasis recti with any of my pregnancies and...I haven't.

I just checked again for fun and—not to brag or anything...because I literally have a hernia, okay? And that's a little embarrassing for me, so I'm definitely not here to brag—my abs are tight (like unto a dish).

You couldn't jam a finger between my abs if you tried, let alone two fingers!

But then off to the side of my ribs my intestines are just, like, literally popping out of my body.

So...that's neat.

I don't really want surgery (remember how I was going to go through my entire life without ever having one? That was the goal...that was the plan), but I also don't like having this bulge on my side. And if the surgery eliminates the constant pinchy feeling that I've had for...however long I've been ignoring it, thinking it would eventually go away...then perhaps that's an added bonus.

The downside is that we are moving so we (1) are on a strict timeline and (2) have a lot of work to do and suddenly Andrew is injured and limping and I am injured and am forbidden from lifting anything heavier than a gallon of milk. And two of our nearly/grown kids are not here to help!

Rachel is at BYU and then will leave for her mission. Miriam flew out to Utah this morning to attend two back-to-back organ workshop/camps and will fly to Qatar by herself from there.

*****

Weirdly, Zoë asked me just this morning (okay, this noon when I had just gotten up and she was just barely getting ~~breakfast~~ brunch) how much a gallon of milk weighs.

I told her that I honestly had no idea how much it weighed in pounds, but that I did know that milk and water weigh approximately the same amount and that 1 mL of water is equivalent to 1 gram in weight and that a gallon of milk is approximately 3.75 litres. So, that's 3750 mL, which is conveniently precisely 3750 grams.

"And what is that in pounds?!" she wanted to know.

(Do you know how excited I am to move back to a place that deals in metric? Very. Also, is it obvious that we are without any sort of ask-a-computer device in our house when we are so very used to an ask-a-computer device being in our house. "Alexa...how much does a gallon of milk weigh?")

"Oh, I can never remember the conversion. It's slightly more than two pounds in every kilo."

"Kilos?! I thought we were working in grams!"

"We are—by the kilo! Kilograms!"

"Ugh. How many grams in a kilogram?!"

"That's easy!" I said. "1000!"

"So a jug of milk is like...3.75 kilos," she ventured.

"Yes."

"So that's like...7.5 pounds?"

"Sounds about right..." I said.

Our calculation was off, but the principles behind it were correct.

First of all, water and milk do weigh approximately the same amount. The density of water is 1 gram per milliliter, while the density of milk is about 1.04 grams per milliliter. So milk is only slightly heavier than water (but we didn't add that weight into our calculation)

Also, there are 3.785411784 liters in a US Gallon, so slightly more than my remembered-conversion of 3.75. And there are 2.20462 pounds in a kilo, so slightly more than the rounded-down 2 that Zoë used to make her final calculation.

All told, it seems a gallon of milk weighs approximately 8.6 lb (3.9kg) in the US (and in the UK or Canada, where they prefer to use an Imperial gallon, a gallon of milk weighs around 10.3 lb (4.67kgs)).

So basically I can lift 10 lb. max.

Poor Phoebe had a little meltdown at bedtime when I informed her I would not be carrying her up the stairs to put on her pyjamas.

Excuse me?!

Why should she be required to climb the stairs using her own two legs when she has a perfectly good mother right there?

Because Mother is broken, remember?

Andrew's going to have ever so much fun at the airport with all of our luggage (while I will be unable to lift a finger).

By my calculations we'll have upwards of 24 suitcases with us...

Adventures in Buying Nothing

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 17:08:00 +0000

I have given away so much stuff on the Buy Nothing Group (and though other avenues). Here's a compilation of the strangest (to me) interactions and exchanges...

The piano:

We listed our electric piano, weighted keys, mounted to a stand. It's a full-sized, hefty thing. I included pictures and measurements in the post.

Ultimately I decided to gift it to the sister-in-law of a friend of mine, whose daughter would like to start taking piano lessons. I don't know this sister-in-law, but a friend of a friend sounded like a good, reliable bet.

This gal shows up in a tiny car, just as Andrew and I are moving the piano outside for her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "That's, like, a piano! Do you think we can fit it in my car?"

"Uhhh...probably not," I said.

It's a piano.

"Yeah. I should have driven the SUV over."

It's a piano.

"An SUV would probably work better, yeah."

It's a piano.

So then she shows up in the SUV and is like, "Do you think I need to put my seats down?"

Turns out she did!

(It's a piano!)

But didn't know how to remove her children's car seats or put down her seats, so Andrew did that. And we loaded it into the back for her and...I don't know how she got it into her house.

The freezer:

I posted our 7.0 cubic foot freezer—with all measurements and specifications included. I even posted the model number with a link to the manufacturer's website where one could find even more information about it.

I chose a woman who said she needed it because they "recently had twins and half a toddler" and she would love the extra space for bulk items and breast milk and things like that and I thought, "Yeah—this woman could clearly use an extra freezer and a nap."

Half a toddler, indeed.

So then she messaged me and posed the following query: "I am a few months postpartum. Do you think I can lift this freezer into the back of an SUV by myself? Or should I bring help?"

And I just...I mean...she gets points for realizing right away that she would need a bigger vehicle...but, uh...

It's a ~~piano~~ freezer.

I wrote back to her and said, "The freezer is only 70 pounds, but it is big. I can scoot it around my garage floor, no problem, but I definitely would need someone else to help me lift it (and I didn't just have twins). I suggest bringing someone to help lift."

"Okay," she said. "That's good information. I'll bring someone to help me."

(She wanted to pick up at a time when we wouldn't be home (see: County! County! County!), otherwise we could have helped her.)

The tools:

Today we cleared out a bunch of stuff from our garage. I spread it out on the driveway. I took a picture. I wrote up a post listing the items available...

three tarps
saws
saw horses
ladder
rake

I can't remember what else I put on there, but my post was immediately removed due to "commonly used words." I immediately realized my error (saw, tarps, etc).

So I rewrote it to be more descriptive. Still removed.

So I rewrote it to be less descriptive. Still removed.

So I posted it with only the words "garage" and "jetsam." Somehow still removed.

I finally got it to post with the following text:

I’m starting to feel rather frustrated because my posts keep getting removed (algorithm, not admin, due to objects I’m evidently not allowed to describe)

Coleman stove
Extra swings with metal chain
BBQ cover
Tools

Please plan to pick up today

Andrew had to leave to run a few errands before I had succeed in posting, so I just got a message from him asking whether or not I had managed to "get the dangerous things posted."

"Yes!" I said.

"Are people interested in you?" he wanted to know.

Then quickly wrote, "STUFF! NOT YOU! I'M INTERESTED IN YOU!"

But, yes, people have been interested in our stuff. One guy asked for a few things he recognized and said he was going to come over to check out what else was available. He ended up taking a whole boxful of stuff—very helpful!

And I have someone else on their way to do the same!

The saws and tarps are gone. If the police come to question me, I have names.

The food:

Being as active as I am in the Buy Nothing community, which has an ethos of plenty and abundance and generosity, I am often taken aback by the opposite ethos of scarcity, bootstraps, and complete and utter independence.

I'm sure that sentence will offend someone, but it's not meant to.

I understand the principle of self-reliance, but I also think that we are given families and communities for a reason (the reason being that we need each other).

For example, when someone offers up an entire pallet of toilet paper (in the middle of a toilet paper shortage, no less!) that would last our family for several years and no one else is claiming it, I take it. I am more than happy to go a few years without buying toilet paper (we literally finished off this bounty of toilet paper last year).

Do I think it strange that no one else wanted the toilet paper? Yes.

Was it the world's best toilet paper? No. (But given its purpose...who really cares?)

Could it have been donated to a food pantry? Probably, but we looked into it and...sometimes those places are pickier than you might think. Like, we eat expired canned foods all the time at our house...but those can't be donated...which makes sense (and doesn't). You can't donate anything in a glass container...which makes sense (and doesn't). And for some reason the food bank information we could find at the time (deep, dark COVID days) insisted that hygiene products (including TP) be completely sealed in plastic (which makes sense and doesn't). And these weren't wrapped in plastic—they were in cardboard boxes.

So, anywho...we had five years of free toilet paper. Score!

And now I have been trying to find someone who will go "shopping" in my food storage and this is trickier than I had imagined it would be.

We have done a decent job of eating through our food storage the past few months but it has become clear that we are not going to eat two Costco-sized jars of strawberry jam before we move. We are not going to eat through seven jars of pickles. We are not going to use all those bottles of apple cider vinegar or mustard. We are not going to use an entire litre of soy sauce. And so forth.

We have so many cans of Great Northern beans...

I have been reaching out to families in my ward to see if they would like some of my food storage (since we are moving and cannot possibly use it) and I have not had very much luck.

The general response has been along the lines of "We don't take charity."

My flabbers have been completely gasted!

It's not charity, friends.

It's a jar of jam. It's a bag of popcorn kernels.

It's nothing. It's sharing. It's saving me a headache, helping me out, emptying my house.

Might it save you a few dollars? Sure, but it's no remark on your ability to fend for yourself or otherwise provide for your family.

So interesting...

County! County! County!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:10:26 +0000

Swimming is an interesting sport because we spent approximately 15 hours at the pool over the past two days (5 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday) to watch our three children swim a collective grand total of approximately 5 minutes.

It was certainly a marathon...for the spectators!

Fortunately, they do allow swimmers to leave after their last event and they always schedule relays first (at regular meets they are last) which meant we got to leave "early" after Zoë's relays. Still, it was a lot of hours at the pool!

I took this top picture because it shows our coach (Amy) as a child swimming for Gwinnett county and now as an adult coaching for Gwinnett county. There are 5 coaches featured on this slide for the same reason (and there seemed to be multiple slides of this nature). Such a thing is unfathomable for me (I currently live 2221.66 miles, as the ~~crow~~ oryx flies, from where I first joined a swim team) but is apparently the reality for many people. The Census Bureau claims that in the United States "nearly six in 10 young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up, and eight in 10 live within 100 miles," while this Pew study claims approximately 40% of people remain in the community within which they grew up.

Anyway, Andrew and I were both surprised by how many coaches in the Gwinnett county swim league were also young swimmers in the league.

Here's Benjamin (green cap, two arms up in the air) ready to swim on his relay team:

And here he is up on the block (lane 5):

He was so excited to break the 30 second barrier this season, but only did it once officially. His other times hovered right around the 30 second zone. So his goal was to swim a sub-30 leg of the freestyle relay and...he did! He even beat his previous record, which is awesome!

Here's the sign showing his time as 29.76 (it looks like his teammate had left the block prior to him touching the wall in this picture, but rest assured that he had already touched the wall at this point—you can tell because his time had already registered, so he must be either springing back away from the wall or something...anyway...it was all fine and legal):

He was a little bummed that he didn't take more time off (beating his PR by mere milliseconds), but I think it's fantastic that he managed to break 30 seconds again because that shows that he's getting close to always and easily breaking 30 seconds.

He also got a personal record for his 100 IM—dropping three seconds from his previous record. It was a good day for him!

It was also a good day for Phoebe, who discovered the vendor booths were handing out free lollipops:

Technically people were supposed to do things to get the lollipops (five pushups, answer a trivia question, spin a wheel, whatever) but, as it turns out, if you're four years old with puppy dog eyes people will just hand you candy.

She had so many lollipops.

When Benjamin was finished swimming we headed home, packed up some lunches for the next day, and went to bed. We had to be up bright and early to make it to the pool by 7:00 for Alexander's call time.

The older kids are allowed to filter down to the pool as they arrive. The younger kids have to all meet out front and enter the pool with a coach, which makes sense. The older kids have enough life skills to not get entirely lost (or to not panic when they do). For example, while I was filling up Phoebe's water bottle at the drinking fountain, I heard a little, "Ms. Nancy! Ms. Nancy!" behind me.

That's often the way adults are addressed in the south—Mr. or Ms. followed by their first name.

It was strange for me at first, but I'm fairly used to it now (having lived in the south for 12 years).

I turned around and there was Susanna.

"Do you know where swimmers are supposed to go? I went ahead of my mom because the security line for viewers is so long and now I just...don't know what to do."

"I know that swimmers need to go through those doors at the very end of the hallway, but I do not know where they need to go after that," I told her. "But if you just go through those doors and pick a kid in a swim suit to follow you should eventually make it down to the deck."

"Okay!" she said. "I'll do that!"

And I saw that she did make her way to the deck, so whatever journey she went on to get there was successful. But I think a seven-year-old would probably have just sat down in a corner to cry...so it's best they are led around by a trusted adult.

Here's our little train of 8-and-under swimmers walking from our team area to the practice pool (they trained their way through the entire building):

I thought all those little green-capped kids huddled around coach Jeremy were so cute:

And here's Alexander getting hauled out of the pool by coach Jeremy:

The platform is at least a foot (if not more) above the water so it can be difficult for the littlest of our swimmers to get out on their own.

Here's some of our early morning crew (Josephine, in purple, swims for another team, but she's in our ward and wanted to sit with us):

Here's Phoebe playing with some play dough (in a hoodie because the air conditioning was out of this world cold—those poor swimmers hopping out of the cold competition pool and having to sit in this cold air!):

When we left the house (before the sun was even up), Andrew said, "You know we could take the easy route and grab an iPad..." but I declined.

It's good for kids to entertain themselves other ways, I think. So it's really my fault we spent the next 10 hours entertaining Phoebe with crayons, paper, play dough, wikki stix, hidden objects pages, Wooly Willy, an LED drawing board...and a million other things.

All of which we had to bring through security.

I was like, "I am so sorry about all of this..."

And the security guard, glancing down at the row of tow-head kids following me like little ducklings, was like, "You have a lot of kids... You're going to need it..."

We also had a sticker-by-number book and a couple of other things for older kids. And all of our food. And Kindles. And...it was a lot.

And it all had to be in clear plastic bags.

But we made it through the day—without screens! Unless you count Kindles as screens...but those are just books...so they hardly count.

Warm ups are excruciating. We had to get Alexander to the pool at 7:00...but the meet didn't start until 9:15...after Zoë sang the national anthem! (And then she had to be on deck at 1:00, but her meet didn't begin until 3:30...after a set of brothers played the national anthem on their saxophone and French horn).

This year Zoë was much more confident than last year (and, she'll tell you, it helps that she wasn't getting over a cold this year). She held the microphone close to her mouth and sang nice and loud.

And the announcer said her name correctly (last year he introduced her as "Jenny") and she got a free t-shirt for her trouble (singing in front of 2000+ people is apparently worth a free t-shirt).

She did great! And she talked about how it's like 15 minutes of fame—everyone was telling her well done on her way back to her seat, but then she sits down and starts watching and it's like she melts back into the crowd, an ordinary citizen.

And then at the very end of the meet, little Levi Morgan was exiting the stands and he waved up at her and yelled, "Zoë! Zoë! Zoë!"

When he got her attention he yelled, "Good job singing!" before he followed his family out (lucky ducks—we had to stay for the afternoon).

"Never mind!" Zoë said. "My fame is still going! That's like three hours of fame!"

Anyway, Alexander didn't make it onto our relay teams, but he did qualify to compete in breast stroke. That meant we had to sit through relays, backstroke, freestyle, and IMs before watching him swim for a whole 30 seconds.

Here's Phoebe doing strange things with her sandwich:

And here she is eating a candy cane that I packed to limit the number of times she asked to go out and nab a lollipop from the tables because...I was a little embarrassed about the number of trips she took to get lollipops once she discovered them. We bought them for Christmas and then lost them so didn't give them to the kids and then found them when we were clearing things out of the kitchen. So it's Christmas in July for us—falalalala:

She would ask to go potty or get a drink from the drinking fountain...so someone would take her out (she had a lot of people she could ask to take her on outings and she certainly spread out her luck).

9 out of 10 times it was all a ruse to walk past the lollipop table!

Ah, finally! Here's Alexander on the starting block (number 4):

He was so happy to have dropped a second from his previous record...I hardly have the heart to tell him that he was DQ'd for some reason. Poor guy (you'll get 'em next time).

But look how he's pushed himself up onto the pool ledge all by himself (that takes some serious strength—some of the other swimmers ended up being helped out).

We didn't want to go through security again, so we stayed in our seats between the meets (actually, we moved up to get better seats) and sent people out to the car to eat some of the food I'd left in a cooler there before coming back in empty handed (to make security easier). That meant that whoever was still sitting down was in charge of saving all our seats.

At one point, Andrew was out at the car with Zoë and Phoebe needed to go to the bathroom (or to get a lollipop...) so I left Miriam in charge of the seats. When I came back, though, there was a whole family beside her.

"Miriam!" I chided quietly. "What did you do?"

"I don't know!" she whispered back. "I panicked, okay?!"

Luckily, that family decided to move so we got our seats back.

So when I decided to go to the restroom myself (Phoebe had been in a wild mood when I took her out to use the potty so I didn't feel like I could ask her to wait patiently while I used the restroom...without her getting into some sort of trouble), I warned Miriam to actually look after our seats this time.

"You got it!" she said, sprawling out over several seats.

Here's Alexander with his friend Isaac:

They are the same age.

Isaac is, perhaps unsurprisingly, faster. Taller swimmers often have an advantage in the pool.

Anyway, after we made all our rounds of lunch, it was Zoë's turn to swim. Benjamin wanted desperately to be down on the deck, and coach Jeremy said that if he could sneak down with some swimmers and wasn't turned away by security he'd welcome the help on setting up the relays.

Operation "sneak onto the pool deck" was a success and Benjamin had a blast shadowing Jeremy.

One reason Benjamin is sad about our move is that he would have been a strong contender to be an assistant coach of sorts next year—a paid position. And he was so looking forward to it!

But, alas...it's not going to happen.

Yesterday he enjoyed pretending what it would have been like.

(I actually can't keep all the coach names straight. There are the "futures" coaches, and there are junior coaches, and assistant coaches, and coach coaches...and I'm not sure what level Benjamin is at now...I just know that next year he would have been able to be paid to help with the younger levels and he was really excited about that potential.)

Here he is helping a swimmer with their swim cap after pointing to their head and mouthing the words, "I'm helping!!" to me:

He was carrying around a heat sheet and helping line up kids and basically having the time of his life.

Here's Zoë on the block (lane 1) waiting for her teammate to come in so she can swim her leg of the 200 yard freestyle relay (what the kids like to call the "freelay"):

And here she is diving in:

And here she is getting ready for the medley relay (she's standing directly behind block 9):

I would have organized the relay a bit differently if it had been me making the decisions. Grace is an excellent swimmer and she qualified in individual breast stroke and individual fly. Zoë didn't qualify for either, but came close in breast stroke. But they put Grace in the relay for breast stroke (since she's faster than Zoë, who is the second-fastest breast stroker on the team) and put Zoë in the relay for fly (since she's the second fastest flyer, next to Grace). But, see, the thing is that Grace is much better at fly than Zoë is and only moderately better at breast stroke than Zoë...so it would have made more sense to put Grace down for fly and Zoë down for breast stroke.

But that's okay.

Zoë survived her fly leg (though she will tell you that she was completely drowning, that's hyperbole—she did just fine). Here she is not drowning in lane nine:

And here's Grace hauling her out of the pool:

She was so tired from pushing so hard that she just flopped onto the deck after being hauled out of the pool. This is Zoë's first year in the 11-12 age group, so it's her first year swimming two laps for races instead of one. That's a pretty big transition to make (a 100% increase)! We're proud of her for swimming hard.

Here are our three swimmers after the meet:

The car ride home was the quietest car ride we've ever been on. No one said a word the entire way. Phoebe and Zoë fell asleep. I think Miriam may have fallen asleep as well. Benjamin just read. Who knows what Alexander was getting up to...but whatever it was it was quiet!

And that's a wrap on the 2026 summer swim season!

Here are our intrepid county swimmers on a walk after dinner and a rainstorm:

They were all excited for no early morning practice this morning, though I'm sure we'll be back at the pool before too long!

Last night before we went to bed, completely exhausted, Andrew said (jokingly), "I blame you for all this!"

"Me?" I said. "How so?"

"You're the one who was a swimmer. You're the one was like, 'We should put the kids into swimming! They'll enjoy it!' And then it turns out they're good at it and we end up spending 15 hours at the pool in one weekend and...yeah...it's seeming like it's all your fault."

"Sucks to be awesome," I said.

You should know that (1) kids these days like to say "Sucks to suck," which is not my favourite phrase, and which my children get in trouble for saying because I think taunting someone who is losing at something, for example, is poor sportsmanship. That's why I said "Sucks to be awesome," and (2) the kids are awesome and it's super cool to have made it to county at all (they pull the top 50 swimmers for each event out of thousands), but rest assured that we were never in danger of winning, like, first place—Benjamin came in 43rd for his IM and Alexander DQ'd in breast stroke; our relay teams were no where close to winning any sort of ribbon. So...we still have plenty of humility left in us.

Though we do have teammates who did win first place over all in their events, which is cool!

It can be nice to come in first place, but it's not really that important. I'm more happy that the kids are enjoying themselves, making friends, and learning good skills (i.e. dedication, water survival, how to keep fit, sportsmanship, etc.).

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's...an antelope!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 04:48:49 +0000

Today was another day when we didn't have to set any alarms! There was no early morning swim practice because the oldest age group had their county competition today. Benjamin has his tomorrow afternoon. Zoë and Alex have theirs on Sunday.

In addition to some small things like laundry and dishes and I meeting with my academic advisor and whatever else, I also finished cleaning out the chest freezer in the garage and listed it on the Buy Nothing Group. And I sent out the Hancock Hummer. And I finished writing (and submitted) my application essay for the Certificate in Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies. And we went to the lawyer's office to sign a POA (power of attorney) for welling our house.

And I still have a million things on my list of things to do!

I also took a nap because we are trying to manage our stress levels. I'm doing okay so far. I can tell because I haven't even developed a twitch in my eye yet. Andrew, however, was silently thinking he was going blind for the past two weeks (but didn't want to talk about it because talking about it would make it real...so he went to the doctor while I had all the kids at the waterpark and the doctor suggested he go to the eye doctor...so he went to the eye doctor yesterday and they did all sorts of tests and determined that he has beautiful 20/20 vision, but might need reading glasses, and also that he's probably pretty stressed out so use eye drops and try to sleep more).

Here he is with his wacky eyes coming off of whatever dilation medication they used on him (apparently more solution went into one eye than the other so they de-dilated at different rates, which was pretty freaky looking):

Grandpa and Darla recently were told where their apartment will be in Abu Dhabi. Grandpa sent and email to us about how long it would take to drive from their apartment to Doha (6 hours and 40 minutes) versus flying there (1 hour and 5 minutes) and concluded that any visits would be by plane.

Miriam wanted to know how far away it was, so Andrew measured on the map and it was about 180 miles away.

"As the crow flies, or..." he said, sounding rather proud of himself. "As the oryx flies."

"Oryxes...don't...fly..." Miriam said, unimpressed.

"Sure they do!" Andrew argued. "They're the logo for Qatar Airways! They're painted on all the planes, with their long pointy horns and...wait a minute..."

"He's going to get there..." I said to Miriam.

"Oryxes...aren't birds...are they?"

"Bingo."

"What are they?"

"They are...kind of like an antelope...I think. Four legs, hooves, horns...most definitely mammals, have never been observed to fly."

*****

Later that same day (and it's important to me that you understand this was the very same day) we were helping Phoebe put on some sunscreen and she thought she might roll up her swimsuit sleeves to put some sunscreen on her arms as well.

"Just wherever you have bare skin is fine," Andrew instructed.

"I don't have bear skin," Phoebe replied. "I am not a bear."

"Rooooar," I said, curving my hands into scary bear paws/claws.

"Just...wherever you have naked skin," Andrew said. "Can't make an animal joke out of that!"

"Meh, meh, me-e-e-eh!" I said. "I'm a baby goat and I don't want to do that! Me-e-e-e-eh!"

"I see your nay-kid and raise you nude," Andrew said. "Can't make an animal joke out of that!"

"Well, I could, but it would be a stretch..." I said.

"I was thinking of a gnu," Andrew said.

"Me, too!" I gasped. "But...how...?"

"Like, if a gnu was flying through the sky and it pooped on you. Haha—you just got gnu'd!"

"Umm...okay... So gnus...aren't birds."

"What?! What are they?"

"You're not going to believe this."

"Why? What are they?!"

"They're actually...ummm...antelopes..." I said as gently as I could.

"No way!" Andrew wailed. "Twice in one day?!"

"Yeah. You know Nelly Gnu from Llama Llama? She's like, a big ol' wildebeest, so..."

"Not a bird?"

"Not a bird, no. But I was trying to figure out a gnu joke, so...good on ya!"

"What was I thinking of though? Isn't there a bird that sounds like gnu?"

"Maybe an emu?" I suggested. "But...they don't really fly...so..."

"Huh...the joke still wouldn't work," Andrew said, a little deflated.

"Not really. But, I mean, this whole situation is pretty funny..."

So that's how Andrew mistook antelopes for birds twice in one day.

Also, you should know that one morning this week while he was sitting at at a poolside table waiting for swimming practice to be over, a bird flew overhead and, uh, gnu'd him all over his shirt and arm. He wasn't very happy about it and so I think perhaps he simply has had birds on the brain.

But we will continue to work on his antelope recognition skills, just in case...

Childhood games

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 21:33:45 +0000

We had some friends sleep over last night and they've been playing here all day. We started at the pool, where I ended up playing with Phoebe (the poor youngest child). She wanted to play "family," as she ordinarily does, and that's fine. I'm very familiar with the game "family."

We have one little baby doll (Baby Dora for the past 12 or 13 years, but suddenly Baby Anastasia, which is much fancier, don't you agree?) that we use in the pool. And then we set out the sinky rings to use as dishes and cook up a good meal, pulling ingredients magically from the water. Sinky sticks are for stirring. Reusable balloons are eggs.

We just...bake a lot of stuff...take care of the baby...and take many trips out to sea...or have sunset picnics...

Phoebe will narrate the whole thing, which is usually fine. But today there was another family with young children at the pool playing close by and I began to feel self-conscious about how awkward Phoebe's speech patterns become when she plays this game.

"'Mother, will you hold my head while I attempt a back float?' I ask," she'll say.

Or, "I say, 'This recipe needs three eggs, not four.'"

Or, "What time will the sun set?' I ask. 'We should set up the picnic,' I say."

But she includes that little "I say" or "I ask" in every sentence she utters...because she's not really saying that or asking that. Her character is saying. She's just the narrator.

I can tell it sounds strange to hear a small child speak like that because we definitely got a few weird looks. But that's okay because it's her go-to game at the pool and it keeps her entertained for literal hours.

I boldly stated that I'm very familiar with the game. I am.

But that does not mean I'm very good at it. I do quite well if I play along with precisely what Phoebe dictates...but then all of a sudden she'll say, "Now it's your turn to say something!"

"What?" I'll ask, taken aback by the mere prospect about being allowed to creatively contribute to our quasi-collaborative play.

"You say something about the game! It's your turn!"

"Okay," I'll say. "Let's go to the park."

"No!" Phoebe will say. "There is no park at this picnic! We can't do that! Why don't you say, 'Let's open the picnic basket.'?"

"Okay."

"Say it!"

"Let's...open the picnic basket."

"Great idea!"

So...she can get a bit bossy.

But, anyway, that's not really what this post is about. I actually sat down to write about a childhood rhyme. It begins like this:

First, the worst.

And then it keeps going for a while.

Our little friend sang it to Phoebe when they were about to start a game because this little friend wanted to go first (and, like Phoebe, can get a little bossy about things).

"Because—remember, Phoebe—it's first the worst...second the best!"

Weird, I thought.

"Third is the one with the hairy chest..."

What?! I thought.

"Fourth the one with the treasure chest..."

She's still going?!

"Fifth the one..."

What is even happening?!

"...with the wedding dress! So It's actually better to be second. I wouldn't want to be third though. Zoë, that's you."

Ahem. As I said—a little bossy at times.

But that's okay. And not really the point of this post either.

The point is...do you know this rhyme?

It is well documented on The Internets (see, for example, here and here and even here*) but I have never heard it this way before (and by that, I mean that I have never heard any of the variations on any of those forums).

I always sang, "First the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game!"

Admittedly, I do have some memories of chanting about a nerd with a golden bird (for third, of course), but the default rhyme was always, "First the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game!"

When I search for that, AI immediately tells me that I must be thinking of the classic playground taunt that goes "First the worst, second the best, third the one with the hairy chest!"

But that's just one more bit of evidence that AI gets things wrong all the time because I am not thinking about that rhyme at all. I want to learn about "First the worst, second the same..."

Aside from Google's lousy, lazy AI Overview (tell me how you really feel), Google tells me that there are no results found for "first the worst, second the same."

No results?!

Is this some sort of Mandela Effect?

Because Andrew says he also remembers a "best of all the game" being in there.

Wait, wait, wait! When I search for that ("best of all the game") AI Overview tells me that "first the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game!" is also classic playground rhyme (though it is not as excited about this rhyme as it is about the hairy chest one). It offers me these few examples of the rhyme in the wild:

An random instagram post.

A tribute to Michael Bryson's grandmother (sorry for your loss, Dr. Bryson).

The actual results also yield this wiki page to New England rhymes and a little perusal script of Carol Lynn Pearson's My Turn on Earth, which uses the "best of all the game" rhyme verbatim to my memory.

And if Carol Lynn Pearson remembers that rhyme then it must be true!

(And I imagine it is thus probably the version most common in the Jell-O belt, but honestly can't say for certain because I didn't experience childhood in the United States...in or out of the Jell-O belt...so I just don't know what kids actually say).

But I do know that I said the "first the worst, second the same" version...along with many others.

So why when I search for it is The Internet so intent on not remembering "first the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game"? Because when I search for that entire phrase I'm told that I must be thinking of "first the worst, second the best..." and I'm not!

And there are results for that phrase because I found them...weird.

* This "Mama Lisa's World" post actually has a couple people in the comments rooting for the "best of all the game" version, so I know I'm not alone there!

Waterpark with swim team friends

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 05:31:30 +0000

One of my swim team mom friends started a group chat with about a dozen swim team families, suggesting that we meet up at a water park this afternoon. So that's what we did!

When we took this picture we had about 25 kids (though some more came later). You might think it would be difficult to gather 25 kids from several different families together for a picture, but this waterpark enforced "adult swim" for the last 15 minutes of each hour.

Adult swim is not my favourite concept, but I do admit that it has a few perks. It forces the kids out of the water so they check in with their parents. You can reapply sunscreen, make sure kids go to the bathroom, take a group picture...and so on.

We really took advantage of the first adult swim that was called.

"Come on, moms!" one of my friends called. "We've got the pool all to ourselves. That's right—all of us. Miriam grab Phoebe. Who will take Baby Red?"

She marched us all over to the water slide and demanded we head up the stairs. It was really quite fun! We all went several times.

And then the kids suggested a jumping contest off the high dive.

It was also fun to just float around in the pool, taunting the children that we were swimming and they weren't!

This was supposed to be a silly picture, but the kids weren't getting very silly...so Zoë went to the front to really step up the silliness. But still very few joined her in being silly.

Our sweet friend Abinet packed a cooler with enough freezies for everyone. Here they all are crowding around for a snack:

My friend Des (baby Red's mom) talked about how much she loves the waterpark because once they arrive she really doesn't have to do anything the whole day (except now take care of the baby). Her older boys can all swim (her next youngest is Alexander's age) so she just lets them go and doesn't worry about a thing.

And I've gotta say...

It's been a minute since I've been to a waterpark with all the kids and it was nice to just let them loose. I did have to keep within arm's reach of Phoebe, but that's just one kid so it felt easy. In the past when we'd go to the Springville Rec Center, I feel like I had two or three (or four) weak swimmers and it always felt a little overwhelming.

But suddenly I have a whole brood of confident swimmers and can just turn them loose in a waterpark and relax (almost).

It was rather nice!

Phoebe thought it was relaxing as well...

She had had a bit of a rough morning. I had wanted to temper her expectations about the waterpark because I knew she would see the big yellow slide and want to go down it (she has changed a lot since she was a baby and couldn't tolerate slides at all). Unfortunately, you have to be 48" (4 feet) tall to ride the slide. Phoebe is not quite that tall yet.

I explained all of this to her and she started weeping.

We looked up pictures of the waterpark to show her the other attractions, everything that she could do.

Nothing held a candle to that big yellow slide in her eyes. So I let her grieve the loss of possibility (for what I felt was an adequate amount of time to grieve...how long can one cry about a slide, truly?) and then told her that it was time to get ready to go and she had two options. She could either stop crying and come along with us and have a ton of fun doing everything but the yellow slide...or she could stay at home and cry about the yellow slide all day while the rest of us went out and had fun.

*****

Andrew told her the story about Josie putting grass in a milkshake (an incident from the summer of 2008). I don't know if I actually ever wrote about it...because I was afraid she'd find it embarrassing, but I think the statute of limitation has passed and she no longer has anything to be embarrassed about because kids get to be kids, people have difficult days, and that's normal.

We all grow and change and should be offered grace regarding our (mis)handling of life's difficult moments because nary a one of us has any idea what we're doing here. We're just figuring stuff out one day at a time.

So this is not a reflection of Josie now and it isn't even an accurate reflection of typical Josie then...it's a story about a bad moment. But it is illustrative. And has kind of become family lore (sorry, Josie).

On that caveat...

When we drove down to California for a family vacation with Andrew's parents and siblings shortly before moving to Egypt, we took Josie with us. She went to hang out at my Auntie Arlene's house and I did all the Heiss stuff.

I think it was on the way home from this trip that we stopped at In-N-Out and for some reason Josie was really mad about this. She had wanted to stop somewhere else, but Reid overruled her (because she was in the minority anyway) and announced we were all going to In-N-Out.

He planned to buy a meal for everyone, including Josie.

She would not order anything.

She stormed out of the restaurant and plopped into a little grassy area to stew. I followed her and sat with her in uncomfortable silence. Soon everyone else came out, carrying all the food and chatting happily.

There were burgers and fries and milkshakes for everyone!

"And I got a milkshake for you, too, Josie," Reid said jovially, handing her a milkshake. "Just in case."

He figured that since it wasn't a meal she would be fine with it. She had been going through this "I'm a vegetarian!" phase that Reid (and everyone else on the trip) found rather confusing because she was chowing down on beef jerky in the car...but adamantly refusing all other meat.

But a milkshake is a milkshake, right?

It's not like he offered her a burger or anything.

"I said I didn't want In-N-Out!" she raged.

"If you don't want it, I'll have it!" James (Gillespie—he came on the trip, too!) offered.

In response, Josie ripped up a few handfuls of grass, tore the lid off the milkshake, stuffed the grass deep into the ice cream with her bare hand, and held it out to James with vengeance burning in her eyes.

"Here!" she growled, her entire being shaking with rage.

It was...quite comical...actually...because it was all such an overreaction to the entire situation.

So Josie didn't get a milkshake.

James didn't get a (second) milkshake.

And everyone was like, "Whoa. Calm down."

I think Karen eventually took her over to Subway to get something different (just so we could check "hangry" off our list of possibilities for the outburst...and because Karen was very kind).

*****

"And that's the story of Auntie Josie and the milkshake," Andrew said. "So you see, crying and crying about something can ruin the whole experience for everyone. It's better to just enjoy the milkshake, even if it's not quite what you wanted. See what I'm saying?"

"I think so," Phoebe said.

Lucky for her there was a little red waterslide in the wading pool, which she got went on over and over again!

When we got home, Andrew asked her, "How was the waterpark? Did you enjoy your milkshake?"

"First," Phoebe said. "There were no milkshakes, although we did get freezies. Second, I didn't even cry about anything. Third, there was a little waterslide in the baby pool. So..."

"Good day?"

"Yeah. Can you help me pull off my bathing suit? It's size 3T and it's getting a little tight. And can you tell me about Auntie Josie and the milkshake again?"

See—family lore.

Sparklers, take 2

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 05:44:33 +0000

When Phoebe saw the pictures of the kids playing with sparklers on the 4th, she was like, "Wait a minute—when did that happen?"

So we had to tell her that it happened...after she had gone to bed. She immediately began to have some serious regrets about bedtime, so Andrew promised that we'd pick up some sparklers at the store on Monday and do them again for FHE.

This sounded like a good plan to her.

Could she remember what they were called?

Absolutely not.

Sprinklers? Spracklers? Spritzes? Sprinkles?

Twinklers? Twizzlerss? Twirlies? Twinkles?

If she was talking about something yesterday, it was highly likely that she was talking about sparklers.

Or trying to...

Unfortunately for her, there were no fireworks left in the grocery stores on Monday morning—zip, zero, zilch!

Every last firework display had been replaced with back-to-school displays. Yuck!

So I sent out a plea on the good ol' Buy Nothing Group to see if anyone had any sparklers left for my poor youngest child who had slept through the late-night fun the big kids had in the cul-de-sac.

It took a couple of minutes but soon I had offers pouring in.

"I have a few boxes!"

"I have so many left over! TAKE MINE!"

"You should have just asked me! The big kids didn't burn through my entire stash on the 4th!" (this last one was from our neighbour who had supplied the sparklers in the first place).

We ended up with plenty of sparklers—enough for Phoebe and all the cul-de-sac kids to enjoy another evening of pyromaniacal mayhem!

Here she is anxiously waiting for her first sparkler to...spark:

She did it! She's sparkling!

Here's Daddy lighting off a whole fistful at once:

And here are pictures of the kids, in general...mostly Zoë, Alex, and Phoebe because Miriam was hosting a game night in the basement and Benjamin soon left us to go up to Reed's house to set off leftover smoke bombs (some stray neighbourhood kids are in the background, I'm sure, but I tried to leave them out of these pictures).

The kids had a lot of fun and although the evening sky was filled with the cacophonic screechings of crickets and cicadas, it felt a little empty without the bangs and sizzles from distant fireworks. It was fun to get out with the neighbours for another summer evening (especially as we're being haunted by back-to-school specters). We're sure going to miss this beautiful cul-de-sac and the wonderful people who make up our community!

Just look at those cars—that teenagers drove to my house to hang out with my teenager! Just look at those towering trees and think of their glorious shade! Just look at those kiddos (some mine, some not) running around with 2000°F sticks in their hands (that's a...safe...and...good...idea...right?)! Just look how the sky foretells of the approaching cooler evening air!

We are so lucky to have landed here.

4th of July

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 20:46:04 +0000

Seven years ago, our first ward activity was the 4th of July breakfast, just the day after we closed on our house here! It's fitting, I suppose, that our last ward activity here was also the 4th of July breakfast.

This year was much smoother for us than some years have been. Last year we noped out of there because Alexander had a raging ear infection and it was so hot and humid and the pancakes weren't ready and no one had told us there would be swimming so we were just sitting there sick and sweltering. The year before that they started at 8 AM instead of 9 AM and we collectively decided that no one wanted to get out of bed at 7:00 on a Saturday (swim season already has us up early most mornings). We've skipped out on several other years as well...

This holiday can be a tough one for me.

Popping on a nauseatingly patriotic playlist ('Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue' played several times yesterday...gross) and proclaiming superiority just isn't my jam. But it is so often what happens at these celebrations and it makes me feel uncomfortable.

To say something like: "We are the strongest and most powerful country on earth. And by the grace of God, the United States of America is the most successful, most accomplished, most exceptional nation ever to exist in human history... For a quarter of a millennium, liberty, justice, equality, self-government, and unmatched prosperity have flourished here as they have never flourished anywhere before" smacks of hubris at best.

I prefer remarks like this: "as we celebrate this special day this year, we have much to be proud of and much to be thankful for. We are a prosperous and optimistic country. We are a kind and generous society. And we are a compassionate friend and a reliable ally. This is our [country]! A country that is confident on the world stage. A country where people live in freedom. A country where hard work and entrepreneurship mean more than where you come from or the people you know. These are all reasons to be grateful..."

The use of superlative exceptionalism just irks me because I think there are so many wonderful places to be in the world. I don't think that God values one country above another (he is, after all, no respecter of persons). When we create narratives that He does, that's us doing that (and I think it is prideful).

But I think it's beautiful to love and appreciate the place you live, and to want to contribute positively to the society and community you're a part of. I think it's important to remember the sacrifices of those who came before, who helped make your life as full of ease as it is today—and for me that includes not only those who signed important documents or held the biggest guns, but also those who left behind what they knew and made a new life in an new land, and those whose land and labour was exploited to enrich others. An individual success is a complicated thing to measure...

So, anyway, it's a difficult holiday for me because I simply can't handle all the use of superlative.

Must we always be superlative? Can we never just be lative?

Superlative comes from the Latin superlatus, meaning "exaggerated" (used as past participle of superferre "carry over or beyond"). Super means "beyond" and lat- comes from tollere, which means "to take away" (related to "extol").

I don't think we need to exaggerate the goodness of this nation.

It really is so good.

It's so good that using superlatives is unbecoming of it.

Something I often tell my children is that a truly smart or attractive or funny or powerful person doesn't have to tell you that they are smart/attractive/funny/powerful/kind/tall/talented/whatever. You will simply know this about them by witnessing it. If they have to tell you about it...it probably isn't actually all that true...otherwise you'd already know.

So blustering on and on about being the most free and the most prosperous and the most blessed nation is just...hot air.

I would say it's meaningless, but it's not. I think it borders on...irresponsible...even dangerous...rhetoric.

I simply don't appreciate it.

And because so much of what people say at this time of year is...superlative...in nature...it's a difficult holiday for me.

Can you tell we just had our 4th of July testimony meeting?

By howdy! That's a tricky Sunday for me.

But! I am grateful for the opportunity our family has found in this land. It's a good place to live (among many other wonderful places to live).

And I'm glad we went to the pancake breakfast yesterday.

Here's Miriam with the Hailey and Kaitlyn, who are headed to their grandparents' house for a couple of weeks and won't see Miriam before she leaves (they left for their grandparents' just after the breakfast yesterday):

And here's Phoebe enjoying the pool:

And here she is zoning out during "rainbow time" after coming home:

In the afternoon we had a cul-de-sac water balloon fight...

Here are my kids getting all ready for the event (plus Andie, who came over to hang out):

And here we are getting down to business:

I'm so glad that among all the families that live on our street, we are one of them. We're not the best family on the block, but we are a good one. And we're surrounded by other families who are most excellent. And that is pretty awesome!

Because sometimes all the kids are at our house bouncing on the trampoline and eating our snacks. Or sometimes we are the ones planning the Halloween party and making fun Halloween treats.

And sometimes the neighbours buy hundreds of water balloons and sparklers and set out cookies for the 4th of July and all I have to do is show up and join in on the fun. And that's pretty cool.

Being the best family on the block would be exhausting—we'd always have to be defending our title and trying to one-up everyone else.

But being a good family on a block of other good families is...awesome.

I don't want my family to be better than any one of these families because as much as I love my own family, I love these other families as well. I want them all to be good and happy and prosperous (even if and when their lifestyle and values don't align 100% with mine) and...that is just how I happen to think I about nation states as well.

After cleaning up zillions of pieces of burst water balloons we went on a walk to see what firework displays we could find. Fireworks are a public good that are "non-excludable (impossible to prevent people from using it) and non-rivalrous (one individual's use does not reduce availability to others)."

We aren't big on buying fireworks, but we do go around to see what we can see (because it in no way diminishes the joy of the person who is setting them off).

Here's Phoebe ready to go for the walk:

We didn't see much but we certainly heard a lot. We stopped at one driveway near Grandpa's old house where a family was setting off a few things (in all honesty, they seemed to like the extra audience). And then on our way home we stumbled into Reed (and Ben) who were setting off some rather big fireworks (under the supervision of Reed's mom).

Phoebe didn't love the big explosions and asked to go home to bed...which meant that she missed out on sparklers. She was rather annoyed when she saw me going through pictures (but Andrew said that we could perhaps go buy some sparklers to do tomorrow for FHE since she missed out). In Phoebe's defense, it was quite late (10:15) by the time we started sparklers.

I love Alexander's face here:

These kids took their sparkler posing quite seriously!

The evening was rounded off with a tremendous thunderstorm. We were sure we were going to lose power, but aside from a few flickers we managed to keep the lights on (allowing the dishwasher and washing machine to finish their cycles, the AC to keep running, etc).

Phoebe slept through the scariest parts of the storm but woke up when it was still thundering...and then had a rough night. She does not love thunderstorms (and there are thunderstorms on the forecast every day for the next week or so—gotta love a good southern summer).

Miriam's last Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 19:24:00 +0000

Today was Miriam's last week at our ward. Technically she still has one more Sunday left in Georgia, but we aren't going to our ward next week. So this was it for her.

Typically she reserves bells for the Christmas season, but she went heavy on the bells for prelude and postlude today. I didn't even fully register the significance of her playing God Be With You Till We Meet Again until I stopped recording (I was recording because I like when she uses the bells) and walked over to where my friend Christine was crying.

Her daughter Andie is pretty close to Miriam. And there aren't a lot of other young women (or young men) to fill in the gap that Miriam (and Benjamin) will leave in the youth program. Rachel aged out, but even that was pretty rough on our one priest (who will be leaving on a mission next month).

Goodbyes are rough.

Speaking of goodbyes, I was released last Sunday so I...didn't have to prepare singing time this week and I felt a little empty-handed walking into the church building without all my primary props. It was a little sad, but moving forward is good.

The driveway of the church is lined with crepe myrtle trees, which are blooming right now.

We took a few pictures outside the building to commemorate our last Sunday (or Miriam's last Sunday, at any rate).

I'm not sure I fully captured the blossoms (hard to do without crossing the driveway, which was full of traffic).

Benjamin also wanted to take a picture with the big oak tree out front.

Phoebe was very particular about her outfit this morning. She drew a picture of what she wanted to wear—her blue flower dress, with blue socks, and pink shoes; her hair in braids with some pink flower clips.

I was honestly hoping she'd ask to wear her hair down—because she usually does on Sundays and it was already in braids...that she'd slept in so they were a bit too fuzzy for going to church. But she wanted them in braids, so she asked me to redo her braids and make them tidier.

She was quite pleased to see her vision come to life!

Tomorrow is our one-month mark. Time is moving both fast and slow...

Funemployed...in Greenland [Qatar]

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 04:14:50 +0000

We had been operating under the assumption that I could continue working remotely from Qatar, but unfortunately we recently learned that that will not be a possibility. Since I am moving for personal and not professional reasons (unlike Andrew, who is moving for professional reasons), UGA can't allow me to continue to work, which means that I lose my stipend and scholarship.

Which is all...fine.

It simply...changes...my path toward graduation a little. I'll still continue my studies, just...differently...than before.

We're still working out precisely what changes this will entail. But it'll be fine.

It is a little sad for me because I've liked my job, but it will also be nice to slow down a bit and focus more on being a mom and (Andrew says this part is important) having fun.

To get a scholarship/stipend at UGA you have to work part-time (13 to 20 hours a week, depending on the contract) and you also have to take 12 credit hours (that's four classes; three classes is considered full time). Last semester, in particular, felt a little rough for me, so I think it will be nice to let that go...and then I can be more present during our homeschooling. The past couple of years I've really had to assign the kids their tasks and work on my own tasks instead of joining in on tasks with them (and honestly the latter can be much more fun—and sometimes effective—for all of us).

So that will be nice.

But Andrew also insists that I become like the fancy housewives from, like, a Jane Austen novel and just...frolic about the town...and have mid-afternoon teas...and whatever.

He insists that it's funemployment rather than unemployment.

And, sure, I think it will be nice to have free time to just...do stuff. But it will also be a bit of an adjustment and I think it's perhaps okay to have felt a little...lost...the past few days that I've been processing this. It'll just be one more layer of adjustment that I wasn't expecting to have to make.

(Finding a job in Qatar is possible, but complicated...so I'm not holding my breath there).

All that is to say that Alexander and Phoebe and I made no-bake cookies today.

Their older siblings were all out with various friends making holiday revelry.

I don't know about you, but Benjamin and Miriam were at the Duluth laser/drone/whatever show celebrating America's...150th...birthday...which is kind of hilarious (and 100 years too late). As Miriam said when she texted me this picture, "Someone messed up..."

(Edit to add: Nope. It's also Duluth's 150th anniversary. Duluth was apparently established in 1876, although Wikipedia continually uses the date 1871 as the date when "Howell's Crossing" was renamed to Duluth...with the settlement history reaching farther back than that (1821 for white settlers, it seems). But I guess that's what the 150 was for...so less funny. Okay, I found it—1876 was the year Duluth was chartered...which I suppose can be the date they celebrate if they'd like it to be.)

Zoë was out having a late night at a friend's house.

The rest of us were just home.

And I thought making cookies with the kids would be...fun.

(I don't often think that so I must have been in a very ambitious mood—funemployment will do that to you)

Plus we have a lot of oatmeal to potentially use up (and not a lot of other baking staples) so no-bake cookies seemed to be the way to go.

Unfortunately, I am terribly out of practice when it comes to baking. And cooking.

Rachel completely took over the baking in like 2020, which is around the same time Andrew took over most of the cooking.

I've just been...getting through grad school (and having a baby in the middle of all that) and things like that...and they were happy to take over all the kitchen duties (and excelled in areas where I was mediocre) and so I just haven't been in there much.

Oh, I've been in there (recall the "bog-standard" cookies of Christmas 2025)...just not much.

But if we're going to be funemployed then baking holiday cookies with the kids seems like a good place to start, right?

Guys...I dunno...

I messed up the syrup part somehow and my cookies simply wouldn't stick together, so I mostly ended up with loose (and exceedingly sweet) granola blobs...which the kids were still more than happy to douse in sprinkles (we have a lot of those to use up as well).

"These are just not working out," I sighed as I tried to force my crumbles into a cookie shape.

Phoebe sang out her encouragement in what I can only describe as a high-pitched operatic whisper, "When we make cookies we just say..."

Here she paused to somehow shift into an even higher register than before, "It will still taste good! It will still taste good! It will stiiiiiiiiiill taste good!"

I'd like to thank Daniel Tiger for the role that show played in raising this child the past few years (when sometimes her task was to sit and watch an episode of Daniel Tiger while Mommy got a few quiet minutes to write or whatever) because she can come up with an encouraging song for any situation (and if that's not a life skill, I don't know what is).

Fortunately, whatever mistake I made with the cookies did not affect their taste, only their form, so they really did still taste good.

And we really did have fun making them together, so it seems funemployment is off to a good start.

Stripey kids

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 18:08:02 +0000

I came across this memory of a very stripey outfit that Rachel put together for Zoë on July 3, 2017:

I noted on Facebook: "Rachel dressed Zoë this morning. She wanted everything to, uh, match. So, rainbow-striped shirt (18 months), rainbow-striped pants (9 months), rainbow-striped hair bow, and striped socks."

That made me think of these pictures of Phoebe from June 10, 2022 when an older sibling (I believe it was Zoë this time) put together another "matching" outfit of all stripes!

Oh, what do you do in the summertime?

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 05:23:34 +0000

It was hot today.

Our swimmers were hosed down with cold water while they swam because the pool was a little too warm to work out in. It was hot yesterday morning—hot enough that we got hot just playing around and had to go home to cool down.

We didn't plan on extra pool time today because...it was just too hot.

But our little neighbour knocked on the door asking if they could have phase two of the water fight they started last night.

"Only this time can we use your hose?" he requested. "Because my dad is working. I can bring all my water balloons! I just need a grown up to fill the tub with water!"

So that's just what we did because...it was hot!

We brought out one of our empty bins as well. I haven't decided on the fate of this bin yet (it doesn't have a lid) but it made an excellent little pool today.

Here's Phoebe dancing around in the arc of water from the hose (I had to keep making water rainbows for the kids to run under while I filled the bins with water).

And there's our little friend spraying Phoebe with water while I also am spraying her with water:

The kids used shooters and refillable balloons to soak each other (when they weren't taking turns submerging themselves in the bins).

It was a wonderful way to cool off in the middle of the afternoon.

Phoebe fit into the bins the best, but Alexander wasn't afraid to get in either.

Eventually I got too hot to sit outside and realized that Andrew's window (where he was working) looks directly out at the hose/tubs of water. So he took over watching the kids until they decided that even playing in cold water in the shade was too hot of an activity. The kids help little J lug all his things back to his house and then came inside.

Mostly the kids just want to play video games when they're inside lately.

And mostly we've just...let them...because the past few weeks have been...a lot.

We've just been so busy with packing and working and swim team that, like, a little brain rot didn't seem like too much of an issue. Besides, our schedule is going to have a major overhaul in the next few weeks so it's not like this is going to be a permanent schedule.

That said, Phoebe has also been enjoying painting the last little while. The paints are no longer hidden in the cupboard—they're out in the open. And Phoebe knows that whatever she doesn't use up is just going to be thrown (or given) away before we leave, so she's been doing her best to waste not (she's already used up an entire tray of paints). Plus, the packers left behind a huge stack of packing paper (I told them about it and they said they didn't want it so it was ours), so she has a lot of paper to work with as well.

Here she is painting a diving board the other day:

And here she is today (yes, we need to take down our birthday sign) painting away once again:

I sat and painted with her, following some tutorials from Watercolors by Bree, which was really quite fun (her Instagram seems to have more videos than her YouTube channel). I'm far from professional...and I'm not sure that this toddler tray of jumbo tempera cakes is precisely the best medium, but...it the tutorials helped me feel like I could at least paint something (when usually I feel like I can't paint anything).

Sounding things out

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 01:23:58 +0000

Apparently Phoebe's doll Anastasia turns one in just five days (we're on a countdown until the party—it's going to be huge, I'm told...there's fireworks and everything).

She made this invitation for me, which has all the information I need to execute the perfect party (and Phoebe is very proud that she's finally figured out how to draw hearts—that took a lot of practice on her part...and a lot of crumpled paper and frustrated scribbles).

If you read carefully, you can see that the top kinda says "Happy birthday!"

To be fair, reading left to right it says ADFBEPH, which looks like absolute nonsense.

However, reading right to left it says HPEBFDA, which looks a lot like "Happy Birthday" if you're sounding things out (and happen to pronounce birth like "birf," as Phoebe does).

Pretty awesome spelling, if you ask me!

She also told me that she's so proud of Anastasia because she's done a lot of growing this year and is getting so strong that "she can even pull the trigger of a gun." That was...a shocking thing to hear about a baby doll from a child who has never been around guns.

And while we're talking about sounding things out, I will have you know that Zoë wrote "Girls just wanna have FUN" in the cul-de-sac, using a variety of fancy fonts. It was quite a beautiful piece of sidewalk art. The FUN part was in block letters about 18 inches tall (so no small feat) and I...honestly haven't thought much about it after the first day she drew it.

But it's been slowly washing away.

Today a swim team mom stopped by to pick up some of our camping chairs and while we were loading things into her minivan her young son said, "Mom, what does F-U mean?"

And I just about died of embarrassment.

I was like, "Wow. So originally that said FUN!"

But apparently the N ran away somewhere leaving the F and U behind to welcome everyone to our house!