The One About a Keyboard

This old blog has been a little quiet this month.  Do you want to know the truth?  Well, I've been working on Amy's baby book and sometimes I just get one track minded on projects.  I just work on one thing and nothing else (in my little free time).  Do you get that way too?

Well, with all of the many things to talk about, today I want to talk about a keyboard.  I just barely bought a plug in keyboard to attach to my lap top.  My lap top has been a good little computer, peppy, runs well but, it drops key strokes.  I will be typing along and it will just leave letters out.  This is not a big deal in the whole scheme of things and honestly, I've just lived with it for the past three years.  But last week, I threw up my hands and started looking for a keyboard.  Do you know how much they are on Amazon?  $8.  Eight dolars!!  I could have avoided the three years of frustration for just $8.  I ordered one right then and there.

What else in my life could be fixed by just a tiny bit of effort? 

Well, now I'm on a mission.  Our first fix was a spice organizer.  I have looked through piles of bottles forever.  Now, every time I open the cabinet, I know where everything is.  So satisfying.

Ever since we moved into our house, there's been a corner in our front room that drove me crazy.  I kept putting different pieces of furniture there in the hopes of improving it.  What we really needed was a bench that would add some seating but have storage too.  We finally bit the bullet and went shopping.  There was nothing I even half liked for under $1,200.  We aren't really in the $1,200 phase of life with wildy kids.  So, we went to Ikea and got creative.  We started with this:
 

It's a sofa table.  Heber took it out to the garage and cut the top part and that I painted it.  And now it looks like this.

 

 It's just the right size for the space and it makes me happy every time I walk past it.  The whole space looks and feels so much better.  I'm still working on the bench cushion.  It's all a process, right but at least we're moving in the right direction.

The Accident

Heber was in a car accident this week.  He (thankfully) is fine as is the other driver but the truck is totaled. It's been a bit stressful as we've tried to deal with the aftermath and buying a new car. 

 

I've spent the past couple of days thinking how lucky we are.  How can I think that?  Well, there were so many things that could have gone a lot worse.  Heber is ok (I don't know what I would have done if he had been injured), the other people are relatively uninjured.  After hitting the car ahead, his car swerved into another lane and there happened to be no traffic in that lane at the time.  You see, it could have been so much worse.  I just really feel like Heavenly Father was watching out for us in the whole situation.

As I was getting online to reserve a rental car, I saw that the last time I'd rented a car was a year ago this week.  That is just a week past our move to Virginia and we were still in the crazy hotel phase.  Somehow, this how experience with the accident made this last year come full circle.  I remember renting that car, at that point, I had never rented a car myself before and I had to learn how to do it.  When the call came that Heber had been in an accident, I knew that I needed to address the immediate needs and just got it done.  This is something I wouldn't have known what to do a year ago and here we are with all these lessons learned.
 
So, it's the end of an era as we say goodbye to the old truck.  I'm not particularly sentimental when it comes to the truck but it's been a part of our lives for a long time.  It's funny, the night before it happened, I took a bunch of pictures of the kids in the truck playing.  It's like it was meant to be.

 

We spent Saturday buying a new (to us) car.  It's a Subaru Outback and we are excited.  I can only hope it runs as well and as long as the last.  

 

Eleanor and Fear

It's been two weeks of swim lessons around here.  We have been watching Leo learn the fine art of bobbing in water and blowing water bubbles.  There was a distinct shift about the third day of class when it all got a little more serious.  It was time for the kids to put their faces in the water.  There have been scared little faces and tears almost every day since.  Leo doesn't really cry, he just doesn't do it.

I really can't blame him, I am not a water person.  I have never loved putting my face in the water, it's always been a bit of a fear for me. 


All these mornings of watching fear in action have me thinking about fear and what it means to face those fears.  I've been reading a book lately all about fear, "My Year With Eleanor."  It's about a girl who embarks on a year of doing things that scare her based on Eleanor Roosevelt's advice to "do one thing every day that scares you."  While I thought the book was so so, the author's voice was not my favorite, I did really enjoy learning more about Eleanor.  She was truly one who faced her fears and moved forward.

I try to push myself to do things that scare me but sometimes I don't.  I fall into ruts just like everybody else but I know that I'm happier when I'm pushing myself outside my comfort zone.  I meet new people, I go new places and embark on projects that I never would have if I'd let my fear stop me. 

I thought about so many of the things I've done in my life that have utterly scared me and I have almost always come out on the other side so thankful that I'd done it.  Back when I was in high school, I got it in my mind that I wanted to be a state officer for a club.  I remember filling out the application and then making preparations for the speeches and interviews I would have to undergo to be selected.  The night before it was all set to happen, I was so terrified and told my mom that I didn't want to do it.  The next morning, I went and I faced it.  The whole experience turned into a life changing experience for me.  I met people, traveled, presented and became a completely different person.  It gave me so much confidence and self assurance that carried me into my college years and shaped me into the person I am today.  

In the words of Eleanor, "The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find you are freer than you were before....You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face."

"A great deal of fear is a result of just "not knowing."  We do not know what is involved in a new situation.  We do not know whether we can deal with it.  The sooner we learn what it entails, the sooner we can dissolve our fear."  This thought is so true for me.  When I finally dig in and get details, it all becomes a little less scary but it often takes a while for me to get in there.

I want to be afraid sometimes, I want to face that fear and do things I never thought possible.  "The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear, for newer and richer experience."

Raleigh

Over a week ago, we returned home from Raleigh.  It was my third trip to North Carolina in June.  Perhaps that's a sign that I'm destined to live there someday.  It's also a sign that I'm utterly done with road trips for a while, I may never catch up on sleep.

Raleigh has been on my bucket list of places to see forever.  For no reason in particular, other than it just sounded like a charming place.  I have several places like that on my list: Maine, Seattle, Savannah Georgia....  

 

 

We drove down to do a final farewell for one of my best friends.  It was comforting knowing she was relatively near by, a four hour drive is far but it meant a few visits a year.  Now, they are heading much further south and I am sad to see them go.  I miss seeing my best friends and talking to them face to face often.

 

Raleigh lived up to all I'd hoped it would be, except for that darn humidity.  If you see me bright red and sweaty in the pictures, well, it was over 100 and HUMID.  We visited a great farmer's market, you know what a sucker I am for those.  The kids ran around the awesome children's museum that was a steal at $5 admission.  Of course, Heber's favorite part was the electricity section (you know, he's an electrical engineer).  We ate a divine meal at the Pit, seriously, one of my top meals ever.  Those po boys alone are worth the trip.  We visited Pullen Park, a charming complex with a train and carousel and playgrounds that are in shade no matter the time of day (that is my kind of park).  And, you already read about the bead store (swoon).  It was great, except nobody slept.  But sometimes, it's worth it just to be there with old friends.     

 

Oh Raleigh, may we visit again.