. . . 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

So They Loaded Up the Truck . . .

In August of 1995 Bruce and I did one of the craziest, scariest, bravest things of our married life.

Bruce had just graduated with his Associates degree in communications and video-production in June of 1994. He got a part-time job with KSL TV, in master-control. We moved from his grandma's house to live in my parents' house while they finished out their mission in Portugal. Jason was born in January of 1995. My parents came home in May of that year. We were doing OK, but the job didn't look like it was going anywhere and we were living with my parents. Not that there's anything wrong with my parents--they are great! But you just don't want to live with your parents when you are married and have kids; it's time to be on your own.

Bruce, particularly, was feeling stuck and he'd been thinking of going back to school and getting his Bachelor's degree in audio-engineering. And he wanted to go to one of the best schools in the nation for this--one that had all the latest equipment, etc; he wanted to go to Middle Tennessee State University. On July 24, 1995--Pioneer Day here in Utah-land--I was in my mom's kitchen washing dishes when Bruce came up behind me, gave me a little nibble on the neck and said he needed to talk to me. He wanted to go off to school now. So we talked about it a little, prayed about it, and decided to go for it.

Bruce immediately called MTSU admissions and got the paperwork rolling (July 24 isn't a holiday in Tennessee). When he went in to work he gave his two-weeks' notice. Throughout the next week we called student housing and got our names on the list there, but it looked like we wouldn't be able to get in for fall semester; so we started looking up apartments in Murfreesboro, TN (this was before the internet), and got our names on some apartment waiting-lists too. We found the names of the bishop and Relief Society president of the Murfreesboro Ward and called them to let them know we were coming. And we started packing up our things; we'd be leaving in two weeks, on August 7.

Grandma Johnson took my boys and their cousins on a "farewell trip" to Hogle Zoo a few days before we left Utah.

I spent those two weeks organizing all our things, and weeping, wailing, and gnashing my teeth. I was terrified! But we were going to go through with it.

August 6 was a sleepless night. Jason, who was eight months old, must have felt that something was up because he kept me awake all night. In the morning we said goodbye to our family and got ready to go. Mom was pretty worried about us going across the country by ourselves. She and my dad were going on a vacation trip with Melanie's family the same week that we would be driving away. Actually, we had intended to leave the previous Saturday--the 5th--but Mom said she'd feel better if we all left on the same day. Well, what's a couple of days? She also asked Peter, my oldest brother, to drive out with us. The last thing we did on the 7th was dump our goldfish, Omar, into a giant pickle jar and take him out to the car.

This picture was taken just before we left. I had spent most of the night in tears with a fussy baby. We all felt about as good as we look here.

We prayed together, gave hugs and kisses, and we were off. We had no job lined up, no place to live when we got there, no friends or family in Tennessee, and didn't even know yet if Bruce had been accepted to MTSU. But we jumped into a moving-truck and drove away. Now I was really terrified!

to be continued . . .

3,000 Words, Plus Eight

When making jam, it helps to be flexible.

Michael

Well, I started to talk about Michael a long time ago and never got past his birth story. And since then he's asked me a few times if I was ever going to finish writing about him.

Probably not. Your first child is everything new; makes you realize that you're not as smart as you thought you were; makes you wonder if you really know how to do anything at all. It will never be finished.

I used to get so upset when people said my baby was bald. Hmmm.

Michael is very smart. He was using ten-word sentences before he was two years old, and he had (has) an amazing memory. One time when he was about 20-months old we were driving along the freeway and he started telling us about a billboard that had been on that same freeway, but had been changed about six months earlier. He's still too smart for his own good (certainly too smart for my own good) and if he puts his smarts to good use he will go far.

Two of my favorite little-Michael stories:

For Michael's first Christmas I took him shopping with me. We looked at toys and I showed him a popper--you know, those little push-toys with the balls inside that pop around like popcorn when you push the toy across the floor. He loved it! Every time we went to look at toys at the store he would grab one and push it back and forth. So one day Bruce and I took him to the mall with us so we could finish up our Christmas shopping; Michael could just barely walk if we were holding his hands. As we walked past the toy store we saw a whole rack of those poppers just outside the entrance. Michael had been walking with Bruce, and they headed to the poppers. Michael grabbed one, dropped to all fours and crawled away down the center of the mall as fast as he could, pushing the popper in front of him--to the delight of the last-minute-Christmas-shopping crowd. He loved those poppers!

Check out the look on that baby's face!

When Michael was about two-an-a-half Bruce was getting ready to graduate from Salt Lake Community College. One day we went with Bruce to the school because he had some paperwork he needed to get done (and we were going to go shopping or visiting or something afterward). Well by the time Bruce was close to finishing up, Michael was getting a little bored. So I told him, "Daddy's almost done--let's go beat him up the stairs!" So Michael ran over to Bruce, started kicking and hitting him, and then ran up the stairs. I was a little shocked, until I realized that Michael had just "beat up Daddy" and then beat him up the stairs as well.

Michael with "soccer-man" on graduation day

Michael was our only baby for three years, and I think younger siblings were kind of a shock to him. Suddenly the attention was split two ways; three; four . . . But he's far outgrown the shock, and his little brothers and sisters like him a lot. Within this past month Michael has taken three of his siblings out to the movies. And Jessica will go to him for help in my absence (even when Bruce is home.)

Michael makes a plaster relief picture of Anubis preparing to remove the brains from a dead pharaoh

Michael is a great help to me; he keeps an eye on the kids and the house while I run errands, and sometimes he even cleans up around home--voluntarily, without me asking first! How's that for a teenage boy? He's a deep-thinker, and can argue any point until I almost could agree with him. He'd make a great lawyer. But what he loves is creating, and it's fun to see his artwork and hear the ideas he comes up with.

Yes, my baby Michael is a great guy!

The Verdict Is In . . .

. . . and it doesn't bode well for the pets.

Oh, I definitely don't like having a dog in my house. It's not because Tucker is a bad dog. Actually, he is a very good dog--for a dog. The problem is that he does dog things. Don't misunderstand me; I'm not one of those weirdos who hate dogs because they think a dog should behave like a human--or a cat, or a goldfish. No, that's not it.

I hate that he chases my poor cat around. I figure Abbi is much smaller, she's older and she was here first; she should have a little peace in her own house. But the chasing is partially Abbi's fault because she runs away. When she holds her ground and hisses at him, Tucker is the one who wimps out and runs away.

I hate that his nose is constantly sweeping my table and counters. Bruce says he's just checking things out, and I know that too. But it's not cute.

I hate that his hair is all over my world. No matter how often we sweep, vacuum or mop, there is black dog hair everywhere--even in the bathroom sink! I find it especially offensive on my table and counter-tops. For example, this morning I had just barely cleaned off my counter. Then Tucker came to say "hi" while I was preparing myself a bowl of cereal. When I picked up my clean spoon from my clean counter and dipped it into my cereal, a dog hair appeared floating in my milk. Gross!!

In all fairness, Abbi sheds a lot too. But Abbi is one-fifth Tucker's size (at most), and I've never seen her hair on my dinner table.

I really hate his drooly, slimy chops all over me. Tucker's slobber is the consistency of snot, and I just don't want it all over me. Since he seems determined to be my very best friend, it's hard to avoid his slime. I don't need a best friend, I already have one; and I don't need another child either. Especially a big, hairy, drooly one.

But I understand that dogs do these things; no, none of this dog-stuff is Tucker's fault and it doesn't make him a bad dog. He's a dog. He behaves like a dog. And he's actually a pretty nice one at that.

I just don't want a dog living inside my house!

This is why I resisted getting one for such a long time. Bruce says dogs are social and need to be with people all the time. I say they are big, dirty, smelly animals and belong outside. But in a moment of weakness I gave in to my family; and since the yard is not fenced in, the dog's been in the house. Boy, that had better change soon, or I will be "barking mad!"

Abbi and I don't always agree; but in this case I think we do.

In the meantime, I've been pretty much told to put-up and shut-up. Dumb dog.

A New Thought

This morning as I read my scriptures I read this again:

Mormon 9:21 Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.

I've read this many times before. But a new thought came to mind as I read it this morning. I have always seen this to mean that if you had no doubt in Christ, then you would be granted what you ask. But it says, "doubting nothing." So my thought was that maybe it really means doubting nothing (maybe I'm kind of slow) . Obviously having no doubt in Christ; but also having no doubt in the strength of your own faith; having no doubt that you are a child of God and have a right to ask Him for things; having no doubt in the thing you're asking for itself--that it's OK to ask for that thing.

Does that sound like it might be right?

It's a new thought this morning; I need to think about it some more. But what do you think?