Spring Lineup

Spring semester is upon us. That's why we just got eight inches of snow, I guess.

Anyway, it's going to be hectic around here for the next three months or so.

On Mondays and Wednesdays I have Digital Patterning. I guess I'll be learning to use a computer program to make and scale patterns. Cool. Required. Probably not anything I'm going to buy (the program). But it should be interesting.

Monday afternoons will be Illustration 2. The teacher is pregnant, and due in February. I wonder how this class will go?

Wednesday afternoons I'm taking Millinery! Finally! Already my kids have made requests: Brandon wants a cavalier hat (think Three Musketeers) and Michael wants a bowler hat. :-)



What do you think?
Brandon?



Michael?

Thursday mornings I'll have Fashion Portfolio.  Really, I can't imagine why that is a three-hour class, but OK.

And on Friday afternoons I'll have Outerwear—learning to make coats.  I wonder if this will be more cost-effective than buying coats?  We buy a lot of them in our house.

The hard days will be Mondays and Wednesdays.  Taking public transportation, as I do, means that it's pretty close to an hour-and-a-half each direction.  So for my 9:00 a.m. classes I have to leave home around 7:25 to catch the bus. My afternoon classes on those days start at noon on Monday and 1 p.m. on Wednesday; there is no time to come home between classes, and I won't get back home for the day until 4:30 or 5:30 p.m.  Loooooonnng days! My plan right now is to attempt to do ALL my homework during those between-classes hours. That way I can be home when I'm home.

And, just to make the mix more exciting, Bruce has been accepted into a master's program, and is starting next week. He's going for his MFT (marriage and family therapy) license.  We're pretty excited about this—a chance to move forward, at last! But I'm a little nervous too; we will be trying to run our household with both parents in school.    Thank goodness we have big kids who are capable and immensely helpful!

Bruce's classes are on Tuesday and Friday evenings from 6:00 to 10:00, and a few 8:00 to 5:00 Saturdays. This means I should be home when he's not. I went to his student orientation last Tuesday night and his classes—his whole program—sound teeeedeeeeous. Bleh! Better him than me! Bruce is in a rigorous, strict two-year program (meaning he takes the classes when they tell him to. Period.), so he should finish up about six months after I do. That will be awesome!

And, yes, I have finally made up my mind that I really will finish my program. I've hummed and hawed for so long that I am now three-quarters (or more) of the way to my degree anyway; I might as well do it. Only eleven classes left! I will try not to moan too much when mid-terms come around.

So that's what's coming up for the Norths. Wish us lots of luck!

Family Outing

Last Saturday the Norths decided to have a Family Outing. 

in the van, ready to go

Bruce and I have been thinking that since we've never taken any kind of family vacation away from home together—not even camping—that maybe it was about time we took our family camping this summer.  But we have no camping gear.  Well, almost none; my scouts have sleeping bags and mess kits.  My sister and my mom have both told me what a cool store Cabela's is (although they say you can't afford to do more than look), and I wanted an excuse to break in my new camera. So for our big North Family Outing we decided to go to Cabela's. 

I'd thought we'd leave between 10:00 and noon, but instead we were piling into the van around 2:30.  This is kind of typical.  And we were hungry, so the first thing we did was go to Smiths and buy some sandwich stuff.  Since this was a Family Outing, we took all the kids into the store to help choose lunch stuff—this is not nearly as stressful as it was about five years ago. Then we ate in the van as we drove to the library to drop off some stuff, and then to another Smiths store for more bread and some cookies. (OK, and to go to the bank inside their store, too, which is another story.)  And then we were really on our way.

waiting for cookies in the van

 

on the drive

 First we drove down to Provo to look at an old car.

well, it was a little cooler in person

It's a 1965 Chrysler Newport—a cool-looking car, in its way, but with a NOISY engine, and needing some work.

 

We are not really the "restore an old car" type; it sounds like fun, but it also sounds like more time and $$ than we can invest right now.  But the little girls enjoyed taking it for a drive with their dad.

Then we back-tracked to Cabela's, and it is a pretty cool store.

We got there just about the same time they'd fed the trout in their big aquarium.  We walked into the aquarium place where we heard lots of children hollering and squealing.  There was one poor goldfish left, being chased around by those great big trout; finally one of them ate it and all the kids left. 

Lindsey says, "Mmmmm, trout!"

Well, our kids stayed and looked at the fish for a while.  Let me tell you, catfish are plain, old ugly.  Why would you ever see one of those and want to eat it? There was some other, even uglier kind of fish there too.

looking at ugly catfish

When we finished looking at ugly fish, we went to the Savana and saw a bunch of stuffed animals leaping about.  Taxidermy is kind of weird, don't you think?

Then we headed right on upstairs to look at camping gear. 


chillin' in the camp chairs

Rachel tries out an air mattress inside a tent.

Jessica tries out the air mattress.

Ryan and I try out the table inside the tent.
Right now we are pretty evenly matched—not for long, I bet!

Hmm.  Bruce and I look rather portly.
What does Bruce see up there?

We ended up spending about two hours at Cabela's.  Then we were hungry again (at 8 p.m.) so we drove back to Salt Lake, went to Harmons to buy some dinner, and headed home for a very late meal.

We did not buy any camping gear—just looked. But we are planning on a camping trip this summer. So I guess we'd better get ourselves in gear!

In Today's News . . .

Here is some real Leap-Day silliness:  After four months of the mildest winter in years (very cold, but almost no snow), we got dumped on for a couple hours on Leap Day, and now have about six inches of snow. 

Yesterday was Michael's birthday!  He is twenty years old. Here's to another sixty to eighty! 

Today is my wedding anniversary!  My marriage is twenty-two years old. 

Here's to another forty to sixty years!

Funny Man

Today Bruce told me I should write a book. Hm.
He said I could take some of my best blog posts, write more on the same topics and publish it. Hm.
He said people would want to read it, and I could make some pocket money.
Hm.

Now, I believe that sometimes—on some topics—I am a pretty darn good writer. And I believe that my friends and family are willing enough to read about my trials with laundry and algebra. But I have a hard time believing that anyone else would want to.

Bruce says I have lots of things to say that people would be interested in.
I think the truth is that I have lots to say that he is interested in.
Funny man!

If April Showers Bring May Flowers . . .

. . . What do May showers bring?

I still haven't taken any pictures of my fabulous, "A"-earning projects because I have no place with some good light in which to model them. And you're really missing out because I was going to model the fabulous muslin jeans too! If the rain ever stops, I'll still post the pics.

In the meantime, here's what's been happening around here:
Ryan was nominated for Student Council Treasurer at Entheos, and Brandon was nominated for Historian. Brandon made it through the preliminary election and is waiting the final election tomorrow—next Monday (the 23rd) we'll know who won.

Kaylie and the entire fourth grade have been rehearsing and rehearsing a play about pioneers; they are performing tomorrow night. (If you want to see their play, leave me a comment and I'll tell you when and where.)

Rachel's class has been reading The Tale of Despereaux; yesterday they had "Soup Day" in their classroom. All the kids donated something to put into their pot of soup (they made three crockpots full of different soups). Rachel really liked the "Courage Soup" that she helped to make.

Jessica's class went swimming yesterday.

And Brandon and Lindsey are gearing up for the annual Entheos cancer fundraiser, Pedals for Hope. They are still collecting donations, so if you want to help, leave me a comment. Lindsey will donate her hair for Locks of Love at the assembly tomorrow, and Saturday is the actual bike ride—hopefully the rain will stop before then!

In other news, at the beginning of April Bruce accepted a new job. On April 10 he and Michael drove away to Colorado to work for Vivint, selling home alarm systems. After two weeks in Colorado they moved on to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where they were supposed to spend the rest of the summer (until August 27). For reasons I won't go into here and now, we had no intention of telling our families about this job decision. But after one month of being very vague as to Bruce's whereabouts ("He's at work . . ." "He's working 24-7 these days . . .") I was wondering just how long I could really keep this a secret.

Michael decided the job really wasn't for him after about three weeks, and he came home via AMTRAK. He enjoyed the train ride; he said it was really interesting—especially crossing the Rocky Mountains. The downside of the 36-hour ride was that he couldn't afford any more than just a seat on the train, which meant he had to sleep in his chair. But it taking the train sounds pretty cool—I think we'll have to try it some day (except for the sleeping in the hard chair part).

In early May I was spared trying to come up with creative—yet still true—excuses for Bruce's continued absence. After much thought and prayer, he decided that working for Vivint in Indiana all summer was not what he should be doing. He was willing to stay there and work if it was the right thing to do; but he truly felt that it wasn't. So he came back home, arriving here on May 8. Yay!! I was pretty darn miserable with him gone, and at the prospect of a whole summer of him being gone still ahead of us.

After he got back home he got another job offer so quickly that we are certain this was the right decision. Yay!

As for me, I had an entire week-and-a-half off from school, and now I'm back at it again. This semester's agenda is Math 1010 (algebra), English 2010, Cardio Fitness, Flexibility for Fitness, Zumba, and Corset-Making. And yes, I have to make the corsets for myself (I need a model to fit them to every week). We are each making two corsets, and I really don't know what I'll ever do with them after the class is done. Hang them on the wall as art? That will be a busy class, but fun. Algebra will be a busy class, but I don't know about fun.

Well, that's about all. Soon (I hope) I'll post the pictures of last semester's projects, and I'll post about Pedals for Hope, too! Fun stuff!!

Crazy-Busy!

School is keeping me extremely busy right now. Every week I make a new pattern of some kind—right now we are working on sleeves, so I make two different sleeves and a bodice to put them on—and then I have to cut them out of muslin and sew them all together. Yes, I do something like this every week for this class. I'm working on a jacket for Adv. Sew, my coat for Tailoring, and three more patterns for Pattern by Measurement. The P by M patterns are finally drawn; now I have to cut them from lovely fabrics and make them to fit me (and hope that they really look nice enough to wear).

Plus all my school and all the kids' school entails a lot of running around, and our van has been out of commission for three weeks. Ben and Tami have been far, far more than extremely generous and kind to us, and have let us use their van all this time. (I think a catered dinner with a lovely dessert is in order for them.) Hopefully our van will be out of the shop tonight—or tomorrow morning.

On top of all that, we have BIG family things in the works that are . . . a little stressful. But I'm not ready to divulge more than that right now. It's just that things here are crazy, crazy-busy!

p.s. Send me a poem for my contest! I could use the break. ;-)

Happy Father's Day

OK. So I'm a day late.
But here are some pictures for Father's Day. :-)

Rachel

Michael

Jessica

Ryan

Lindsey

Kaylie

Jason

Brandon

Kiss and Tell

In honor of our 20th wedding anniversary, which was this past week on March 2, I'm going to tell you what Bruce and I did on the first night of our honeymoon trip:

Bruce and I, being kids, decided we would honeymoon in Los Angeles and go to Disneyland together. We borrowed my mom's car—which we thought would survive the trip better than Bruce's '69 Cougar—and drove away. That first night we stopped at the Peppermill in Mesquite, NV (which, by the way, was a new—and almost the only—resort there at the time). So we got a little room, and I went to draw a bath and slip into something a little more comfortable. While I was in the bathroom, Bruce was in the bedroom getting ready for bed. After a minute or so I could tell that he was a little frustrated so I stepped out to see what was wrong. It turns out that he forgot to bring something very important: his contact-lens removing tool.

When Bruce first started wearing contacts, he was given this little suction-cup thing that would pull his lens off of his eyeball. The idea was that he could use it until he learned to blink the lenses out of his eyes, but he just got used to using the suction cup all the time. And now here we were, in Nevada, and he didn't have it. He tried and tried to get his contact lenses out, but to no avail. Pretty soon I was there trying to help. I was poking my fingers around in his eyes, and pulling on his eyelids, and doing what I could to help get the lenses out. No good. We both tried and tried and tried, but couldn't get those lenses out of his eyes. We worked at it for nearly 45 minutes, and we were both getting more daring about how I touched him, but no luck. Finally, during a brief rest, Bruce had a thought: He was used to using suction to get the lenses out of his eyes; what if he got a drinking straw and I sucked the lenses out?

OK. I can totally understand that this is not how he wanted to spend the first night of our honeymoon. (Me either!) But that straw idea convinced me that he'd gone over the edge; that he'd lost his marbles. Still, we were both tired and frustrated and neither of us could think of a better solution. So Bruce went off to the bar and asked the nice bartender for a straw, and then came back with a fat, red drinking straw. He gave it to me and said, "Put one end in your mouth, then center the other end on my contact and then suck." I told him he was crazy, but I figured we'd already tried everything else. What else could I do?

So I've got this red straw in my mouth, and I'm looking down it's length into Bruce's eyeball. And here was Bruce's perspective: He could see my face and the straw in my mouth with one eye, and with the other eye he had a bird's-eye view straight up the straw and into my mouth. I began the procedure with much trepidation; put the straw in place and sucked on it. And . . .

It worked! He says my eyes got wide, and I looked really surprised, and with the straw still in my mouth I squealed, "Ooooo!" and dropped the lens into his waiting hand to be cleaned and put away for the night. And we both laughed and laughed. Then the other eye. Ah, sweet success! Oh, relief! And lots of giggling.

That's how we removed Bruce's contact lenses every night of our honeymoon. When we got back home he practiced—and became very good at—blinking them out of his eyes.

And that is the story of our first honeymoon night—or at least as much as you get to hear about it. ;-)

Candid Camera . . . or is it Thrill-Cam?

Hmmm.

Hmmmm.



Who do you think took these pictures?

Bruce's new blog

Bruce has started a new blog called Seeking Motivated Employer. I have put a link to it in my sidebar. So stop by, say "hello," leave a comment. :-)

Strangers in a Strange Land

We went to church in the Murfreesboro Ward the next day. When we walked in the door we were greeted by the bishop, "You must be the Norths." That was nice. Apparently word had gotten around that a new family from Utah, with two boys, was moving in and we were made to feel very welcome. It was a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, to see that the church was the same there as in Utah--even down to the song that we did sing with the choir that afternoon. (I found out later that a family of teenage girls in the ward were hoping our sons would be a little older. When she saw us, one of them leaned over and told her mom, "See. I told you they'd be babies.")

We had this family picture taken about three weeks
before we made the big move.

When the meeting was over Rob Fortney, a member of the ward, introduced himself to us. He said that as he sat in his pew, and saw Bruce and me holding our two boys and singing with the choir, he felt very strongly that he should invite us to live in his house while we waited for an apartment to open up to us. He also invited us to dinner that night. At church that afternoon, I hadn't realized that Rob did not consult with his wife Kim before inviting us to move into his house. But she told us, "When Rob told me he'd invited you to stay with us, I just thought, 'Emma and Joseph always had other people living in their own home, and cared for them.'" And there was no question of whether or not we could stay; they simply opened their home to us. We lived with them in their little, two-bedroom home for two weeks.

The next day Rob took Bruce to the school to get signed up for his classes, and he took him to a temporary-employment agency to get signed up on their list too. Kim was working, and while everyone was gone I put Jason in his stroller, took Michael, and walked over to a little strip-mall to look around. While we were there some man just walked right up to me and started complaining about the railroad or the train schedules or something like that. It was a little weird. We soon found out that people in the South are just like that. They will walk up to a total stranger and start up a conversation as if they'd known you forever.

And usually they were very kind and friendly. Southern Hospitality.

talking with our neighbor, J.J, at the Tremont apartments

When we got into our apartment we tried getting a new fish. In fact, we tried ten times; Michael came up with names for ten goldfish and they all died one way or another. With one of them we learned that there is so much natural chlorine in Murfreesboro's water that it would kill a fish. But mostly they all jumped out of their bowl--the last of them disappearing under a chair and dying there. (I get up in the morning, check out the fish bowl and holler, "Where is Jabba-the-Hutt?!") After ten fish, we gave up.

We spent nine months in that apartment (long enough to have Lindsey), and then bought a trailer-home when our lease was up. The trailer plus the rental of the lot (in the nicest park in town) cost us the same as our apartment rent did. But we had the bonus of a place for our kids to run around and play. The trailer looked like an old tin-can on the outside, but it was cute and comfortable inside.

Lindsey and me; our tin-can house is in the right-hand corner behind us

People in the south were astonished at "how many" children we had. When I had two little boys and was pregnant again it was excusable, "Ohhh! You've got ta get your gir-el." But when I had two boys and a girl and was pregnant again, I got some pretty strange looks. And when I had four children with me, in the flesh, I got lots of double-takes and, "Surely those are not all your children!" And there was even one little girl in a grocery store who was so amazed, that she counted my kids over and over again and announced to anyone who could hear that "she has four children! Count 'em! One - two - three - four! Four kids!"

We were right, smack in the Bible Belt. Religion was on billboards everywhere, from the church that announced "Over 816 Saved" (and changed their count weekly), to "Smile if you love Jesus" on the Salvation Army marquee, to "God's Love Served Daily" at a diner in town. A common conversation-starter would be to ask, "What's your home-church?"
One day I was at the Wal-Mart cafeteria with Michael and Jason and two nice little old ladies sat at the table next to us. Michael was flirting with them (he was three) and one of them said to him, "Whay-er did you get those beautiful, brown eyes?" She was tickled when Michael said, "Jesus made them." She beamed and said, "Yes, that's right," to him, and to me, "You are teachin' him right." If only she knew I was a Mormon!
A few years later I was at the grocery store with my four children, and I came across this very friendly woman who complimented me on my beautiful family. I ran into her again a little later, and then a third time, when she asked me if I had a home church. I told her I did; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She wasn't familiar with that one, and asked where it was. I told her where the church was, but that still didn't ring any bells. Finally I told her I was a Mormon. And suddenly she didn't know what to say to me. I'm sure I sprouted horns right in front of her face. When I saw her again in another aisle of the store, she didn't know what to say to me. I wonder if she thought I was teachin' them right?

Then there was the delightful southern accent. After a few weeks in Tennessee a member of the Relief Society asked me how I was adjusting. I said I was still getting used to the accent, then I realized that in the south I was the one with the accent! I soon found out that a grocery cart was called a "buggy," while the thing you push your baby around in is a "cart." And you really do refer to a person or a group of people as "Y'all," or even "All y'all." We also got called "Yankees" a few times (but only as a joke).

a rainy day in Tennessee

It rains and rains and rains in Tennessee--which is why it might really be the "greenest state in the land of the free." But it is so hot and so humid there that rain was a real relief. And the rain in Tennessee wasn't freezing cold like it usually is in Utah; you could go out and play in it all day. Well, we Utahns did; I had a little boy come and tattle to me once, that Michael had been playing out in the rain and he was going to catch a "hay -ed" cold. He was a little shocked when I told him that I knew Michael was playing in the rain and it was OK. The warm, humid climate was probably why there were so many bugs there as well. Yuck!

Halloween--one of these pizza guys is not in a costume. Or is he?

Almost as soon as we got to Murfreesboro I started writing and writing and writing letters home. I've never done well away from home, and I so needed contact with my family. I lived for letters from home, but didn't get many. Finally we just learned to live with astronomical phone bills, since I called my sister or my mom two to four times a week. Bruce went to school full-time and then delivered pizzas all hours of the night to earn a living for us. I was so lonely and so scared at first that I called the airlines in tears almost every night for the first few months to see what it would cost to go home. I knew that if I just took off Bruce would follow me back; but I also knew I would never do that, and that we would get through this.

And we did. It got a little easier--thanks to the calls home, the great people in our ward, and the hope of graduation coming up. I know a lot of really difficult and even bad things happened to us while we were there, but mostly I don't remember them.
No.
I do remember them, if I think about them I can even still feel them; but they are not foremost in my mind. I remember, but I don't often think of them.

And now here we are. Back in the mountain desert of Utah, with eight kids (count 'em--eight!) Was it an experience for our good? I think so. When I think of being in Tennessee, I mostly remember our friends there, and the struggle to get through school, and graduation. So much of it was so new and so strange. I can honestly say it was hard; even in looking back the difficulty of it hasn't diminished.
But it was good, too. It's good.

. . . And They Moved to Tennessee

or . . .
Alas, Poor Omar!

So we started on our journey. The first leg of our trip took us into Wyoming. We arrived at a motel on the west side of the state at about 5 or 6 p.m. I would say that it was uneventful--if my bra hadn't disappeared. We thoroughly searched our motel room; under the beds, in the closet, in the dresser and night-stand, in the windowsill, in the shower, behind the toilet . . . Then we went out and searched the car, and under the car, and our path to and from the car. It was just totally gone! Weird. I made the rest of the week-long trip as a liberated woman--which I did not enjoy. I wanted to stop at a mall, or even a K-mart somewhere (we had plenty of opportunities) but those men I was driving with didn't want to take the extra time. Hmph!

We drove across Wyoming, through Nebraska, Iowa, part of Indiana, Illinois, some of Missouri, Kentucky and right smack into the middle of Tennessee. The landscape changed dramatically; instead of being surrounded by mountains we could see the horizon all around us. Suddenly it got humid, and the trees got bigger; we crossed the Mississippi River; and we saw for ourselves that Tennessee might really be the "greenest state in the land of the free." We drove from Monday, August 7th through Friday, August 11th; and with each day and each state that we passed through, our springs wound tighter and tighter. What were we heading into?

Jason, Bruce and Michael pose in a Superman cut-out
at a gas station in Metropolis, IL

Peter wanted to hurry and get us there and settled--although settled into what, I didn't know. So as time went by he pushed us to drive later and later into the night. On Thursday night we passed through the last town around 9:30 pm. I wanted to stop and get the kids--and myself-- to bed, but Peter kept going. Finally, around 11 pm, we were able to let him know that we wanted to stop (this was before cell-phones, too) and he pulled into this little hole-in-the-wall motel in the middle of nowhere. It was a tiny, old place; I was surprised to see a radiator-type heater next to the bed, and horrified to see cockroaches on the walls. But it was stay there, or drive for several more hours to find another place. What in the heck were we doing?!

We got to Murfreesboro, TN late Friday afternoon, arriving on the hottest --record hot-- day of the year. We drove through town to find the university; on the way to MTSU we saw the LDS church.
At last! Something that resembled home. We drove around campus a bit, but were too late to talk to anyone so we went to find a place to stay the night. By the time we got checked into a Motel 6, I was a basket-case. So I sat in the motel room with Peter and the kids, and tried to hold in my agitation, while Bruce went out to the truck to get some of our things. At that point it looked like we might be staying at the Motel 6 indefinitely.

Well Bruce was taking such a loooooong time just to bring some clothes in that I finally went out to see what he was doing. And there he was, standing by the truck and holding our giant pickle jar with Omar floating in it, dead. We had taken him into our motel rooms every night of the trip, but forgot him in the truck on that hot, hot day. We had cooked him to death. Added to the strain of the past week, and the enormity of this move--it was just too much to bear. Bruce and I looked at that fish and bawled our eyes out.

Back in our room, I wanted to call my parents or Melanie for some comfort but they were gone, still vacationing. So I called the Relief Society president, Dorothy Broeringmeyer. She was very nice, and told me to take it easy that night, and invited us to dinner the next day. We went for a dip in the motel's pool, had some dinner and went to bed. The next morning I discovered that there were fleas in my bed; I hardly cared any more.

But Dorothy had arranged for some men in the ward to come Saturday morning and help us unload our stuff from the truck into a storage unit. She was very kind and encouraging at dinner that night, and she invited us to sing with the ward choir the next day. For just one minute I began to feel a tiny, little, wee bit better.

. . . more to come