The Ox in the Mire

What a Sunday it was.  Our hurricane blew through Thursday morning while I was in class and everyone else was at home in their jammies, drinking hot chocolate, and counting the trees as they came down.  Friday I drove home to survey the damage:  a bigger mess I have never seen - signs twisted, massive pines laying everywhere, groups of people standing and staring and hardly knowing where to begin.  My family had already cleared away our debris and that of our closest neighbors so on Saturday it was on to the rest of the ward.  Most of the neighborhood was out and we went from door to door cutting up and hauling away tree after tree after tree.  It was like caroling with chainsaws.  After two million squats it was home for homework and bed.  Sunday, we got a text bright and early:  "The ox is still in the mire, church is canceled."  And so it was back to work, in the snow no less, as we wandered our stake boundaries cutting up anything that looked remotely fragile and ready to come down.  It was glorious.  My thighs are still burning and my toes just regaining all their feeling, but I felt more on this Ox Sunday that I had in the whole month of Sundays before that!

1. Dad's glee over his very loud new toy
2. curbside pizza delivery
3. Brother Davies
4. riding in the trailer
5. "Where's Tyler?!?"
6. Dallin Wright
7. piece-meal potluck
8. cringing every time the men walked under trees being felled
9. Gretchen's ear muffs
10. Seymour, he has good taste in donuts
11. pumpkin spice donuts
12. living my religion

Hopelessly

1. answered prayers...thank you Father that my wallet was at Smith's and not in somebody's greedy hands
2. a new haircut
3. nearly there
4. Todd
5. Christmas tree hunting
6. the kitty at Taggart's
7. reconsidering
8. being always right
9. Phil's M&M machine, especially when he puts Skittles in it
10. being compensated in Oreos
11. three weeks
12. teaching Relief Society
13. 24/7
14. killing warts
15. my man sweater
16. the Christmas books
17. Come, Lord Jesus
18. two choir programs
19. a new Bishopric
20. procrastination

Two Sister Missionaries Looking at Me

1. picking out a pumpkin
2. "You do know that I can't whistle, right?"
3. fugitive
4. flour bombs
5. unexpected gifts
6. cold water from the church well
7. "It's just like hanging out with you before, except you never held hands in high school."
8. four-wheeling for the first time ever and not panicking!
9. weed roses
10. my blue hand prints
11. the V
12. hang gliders
13. man points
14. dirt roads in old trucks
15. rice flour banana bread donut holes
16. Runaway Bride
17. the best cookies ever!
18. waking Jill up
19. chocolate milk
20. Lacey in her Mandarin garb
21. shepherd's trailers
22. a retro dress
23. "I'm assuming that Lacey will want to sit by you."
24. the best lesson yet
25. Alex Boye
26. arriving late
27. sing-a-long with Grandpa, new Christmas music edition

Enchanted Places

1. turning the catch basin into Van Gogh
2. chucking rocks
3. picture perfect curls
4. improvising
5. girls who hike and do hard things
6. forget-me-not
7. discovering a talent for Wii wakeboarding
8. too many highs to list at the dinner table
9. belated birthday presents
10. counting miracles
11. a little person falling asleep on my lap
12. pennies on the carport floor
13. my favorite home teacher
14. bearing my testimony
15. answered prayers
16. five minutes with a full voice in the midst of a cold
17. certainty
18. crying half the way home
19. "It will all be worth it."
20. Lucy cheating at Chinese Checkers
21. aimless minutes spent lying on my bed laughing with Mom
22. watching Dad attempt to pray when he is tired
23. stories from my childhood
24. trying to decipher what Gretch says in her sleep
25. broken nails and stained hands
26. being asked for my aesthetic opinion
27. learning just how many people have helped you along the way
28. Barbara's mint brownies
29. Marilyn Lotz, I want to be just like her when I grow up
30. waiting for Friday

Sunday Night

1. football shaped Oreos
2. being the popsicle holder
3. racing barefoot
4. outraged phone messages from under-informed aunts
5. funnel cake
6. Alice
7. being stuck behind trains
8. fourth in my age group
9. Uncles to rival my own
10. pretending to be an accounting major
11. and somebody's wife
12. too many mothers
13. fat blisters that make me proud
14. mariachi music on the ferris wheel
15. honey
16. the banana slide
17. sitting too long on the bar-stools
18. Kenz coming home
19. Uncle Lew...he's my favorite
20. eating Sunday dinner on the grass
21. not having fever hallucinations
22. the day when I am no longer sick
23. not doing my homework
24. waking to an angry cat on my chest
25. and news of a very big check

The Last Hurrah

1. gospel discussions in the Chuckwagon
2. go time on the river
3. the unsinkable Hall sisters
4. runaway shoes
5. Taylor Swift
6. orange sunglasses
7. four year old girls who can bump their hips better than I can
8. cleaning up good
9. a fireside on life
10. folk remedies
11. knowing there's a spot waiting for me
12. the next best thing to flying
13. church provided ice cream sandwiches
14. Karl's fourth phone number
15. recess
16. the smell of fresh wood chips
17. "Well, that was easy!"
18. mosquito bites
19. somebody who comes over no matter how late it is
20. Todd, who probably has no idea how much I know about him

The Old Man is Snoring

1. a rainy work day
2. Pinterest
3. making the chocolate sauce that makes people ask for straws
4. going away, far far away
5. knowing exactly what tomorrow will hold
6. loving it better than anything else
7. Happy Birthday Salem, I miss you
8. blue shoes
9. puzzles printed with famous art
10. making my packing list
11. wearing Mary's dress without her knowledge
12. curling my hair for the fun of it
13. "Kissing Adrien" and the hunger for France that followed
14. hostessing
15. all my Sundays having a prior claim
16. Black Cherry Shasta
17. the Plaizier secret handshake
18. duct taping a wart
19. lying on my parents' bed to read...under the swamp cooler
20. looking forward to the soundest of sleeps, the coldest of water, and the long lovely road there