FEELING LAZY AND INADEQUATE

I don't read or follow any well known blogs. Nothing about baking, mothering, photographing, championing, or acting entices me. I like to read blogs about people I know - or even people I am merely acquainted with - and the stuff they are doing. For someone like me who loves to spy on people, it is amazing I can only think of two people I truly blog-spy. The rest of the blogs I read are people close to me. Today I made my first venture onto one of those people-I-don't-know-that-everybody-talks-about-their-blog blogs: Pioneer Woman. I will never do it again because she made me feel as my blog title depicts, lazy and inadequate. On top of that she made me postpone planning my lesson on Ancient India to read through her history of perfecting the cinnamon roll. This took 2 hours of my life today and I didn't come away feeling good. So what if I can't bake 34,397 different kinds of pies and photograph the great outdoors for a magazine all while raising 4 home schooled children! What I can do is keep up my mediocre blog that maybe 7 people read. It sure would be nice of my peeps out there to blog more than once a month/year/blue moon. I could use the distraction to keep me away from going back to Pioneer Woman for her Pumpkin Cream Pie recipe.

PARENTS AND STUDENTS THINK THE DARNDEST THINGS

This is an excerpt from an actual email I got from a parent:

"...he said that he and other students were docked points based on their opinion of BYU and being UTE fans. I told him just not to wear his UTE shirts to class anymore. But teachers should be aware specific colleges or religious prefrences has no place in the classroom and grades should not be influenced by this..."

Wow.

p.s. I didn't even know he was a Ute fan

DIAMOND STORY

The first time I remember hearing the story about my grandmother's wedding ring, I was 7 years old. I have probably heard the story told by her or my grandfather dozens of times since then. The last time I heard my grammy tell it was on the eve of her 60th wedding anniversary. I sat next to her that entire day as she told me story after story about her courtship with my grandpa, their engagement, the diamond, their honeymoon, etc. I would give anything to be back with her on that day. Here is the brief story of that ring.

My grandparents had a unique courtship - one for another blog post. Most of their relationship was spent writing letters between Grammy at home and Grandpa at his residency. Grandpa is a true child of the Great Depression so he saved and saved for a ring to send to his Sweet Elen. The way grandpa saved enough money was to eat baby food from his hospital in Cleveland. By not having to buy food he was able to buy this ring. Such humility and devotion! He mailed the ring to Grammy in Utah and she received it on Christmas day. That was the proposal, he wasn't even there in person. I love this story more and more every time I think about it.

If I was ever around my grammy she probably wasn't wearing her wedding ring because I was (notice in the picture of us I have her ring on). She let me wear it all the time and I loved it. It stood as such a symbol to me of the constant love, devotion, and kindness of my amazing grandparents. It was more than just a diamond to me, it was the hope I had for myself to be like my grammy and to have the relationship she and grandpa had.

After grammy died, her ring was removed. I don't know where it is now but I think about it everyday. I think about what it represented but I also think about her without it. It surprised me how sad I was to imagine her without that diamond. I know she didn't want to be buried in it because of it's significance to our family but there is that part of me that wished it was still with her.

I am grateful I had the moments I did with my grandparents to hear this story. Not only did I hear about it from them but they exemplified this story through their actions to each other. I sure miss having the opportunity to see that ring and I REALLY miss my grammy.