Hello Monday

I really want to get back to blogging but have been having a hard time doing so. A prompt seems to be the best place to start. This one comes from Lisa Leonard and seems like an excellent place to start.

Hello baby Allred. This weekend was my baby shower, thrown for me by my cousin Michelle. There were probably about 20 guests plus a few drop ins. It made me feel so loved that people would come to say hi or just drop off a gift even if they didn't have time to stay- to me it said, "You matter to me". The love and generosity of my friends and family makes me feel much more prepared for baby Matthew's arrival in February.

Hello to a busy week. I have various appointments on three different days this week, starting with a consult at the oral surgeon. I have a rotten tooth that is infected and the situation compounded by my one wisdom tooth pressing on it, so the dentist referred me to the oral surgeon to have both pulled. Then tomorrow I have a prenatal appointment with my OB/GYN. This appointment will set off the scheduling of appointments every two weeks. Thankfully, Eldon's new office, if our information is correct, is a mere five minutes from the doctor's office. My third appointment this week is on Wednesday at Howard Community College. My friend, Mara, is doing a sonography program at the college and their unit this semester was on obstetrics. She needed a model for her final- someone who is currently pregnant. I am flattered she asked and excited to get the extra ultrasound free of charge. The college has a 3D ultrasound machine, something my doctor's doesn't have. I went and got an ultrasound at the college back at week 18 of my pregnancy and got the 3D pictures then - the baby looked more like an alien at that point. Now, at 31 weeks, he should look much more like a baby and like what he will look like when he is born.

And finally, a big hello to keyboard malfunction. Writing this post has been torture because after typing every few letters, the cursor has been jumping around. I will be typing halfway back up the page or worst of all, it will highlight whole paragraphs and my typing will erase all I have written. Thank goodness for the undo button that restores what was erased. I checked in Microsoft Word, to see if maybe Blogger was the issue, but had the problem there, too. I'll have my computer engineer husband take a look later- probably after he finishes up the work for his two master's classes that end this week. Until then, typing remains nightmarish. (Hmm, maybe it was my hands hitting the track pad as I typed. Weird.)

Sunday's Letter

 Dear love of my life, thanks for making me apple crisp tonight! Dear Forreste, I am so happy 

for you cousin, and wish all the best in your upcoming marriage. Dear Brittany, thanks for 

helping me feel like I'm finally starting to make a friend here. Dear swan, you did a great job 

defending your pond. I loved watching you intimidate and chase the geese away. Dearest 

Eldon, I am so glad we started dating a year ago this weekend. What a marvelous journey we 

unwittingly began!

Sunday Letter

Dear Eldon, hope you beat those dandelions soon. Dear Evanses,  congratulations on baby Arwen's 

birth and thanks for letting us be faux uncle and auntie!  Dear Tumblr, sometimes I play on you too 

much but thanks for the encouragement to be the most positive and enthuastic person I know. Dear 

Come, Follow Me, I so enjoy your lessons and videos. Dearest husband, I'm so blessed to share my 

life and home with you. 

source

Catch-Up

I almost started this post by berating myself for not blogging sooner. But I am blogging now, and that is Awesome.  I am slowly learning not to be so hard on myself. 

It's been a few weeks since I blogged, we had a very slow, lazy Sunday morning, and then a traveling Sunday morning. We were coming back from visiting our friends in Philadelphia, for Anna's baby shower. It was a wonderful visit: Curtis and Anna Evans, who are friends of Eldon's from college, are just wonderful people and I enjoy them so much. First there was the baby shower, and then we went back and hung out until Anna and Curtis had to go out because they had previous plans. Eldon and I just hung out and watched The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)- which I picked to pieces. Then C+A came home and we played Dominion, and then Curtis and I played Mancala 3 times with a different rule set each time. That was fun! And then we talked until 1 in the morning. Oh, to be young. We also made reservations for our group camping trip this summer, on the Outer Banks. A whole week at the beach!!!

I don't remember much of the week before the visit.. This is why I try to blog more regularly..We did make new friends. Friday, March 9th, we had a couple from our ward over to dinner and then played Scrabble and Skip-Bo. They quickly reciprocated the invitation and we went over to their house for dinner the following Monday for dinner and a few rounds of Uno. They live about 10-15 minutes walking distance from our house, and I hope to become good friends as time goes on. 

But this week was abnormally busy. We spent two evenings helping my cousin, who broke her foot whilst her husband is deployed. We helped clean up and helped put her littles to bed. What an adventure. Then Wednesday night was my first night as an Activity Days leader. It was a Father-Daughter activity, so my interaction with the girls was about nil, but it was so much fun to watch them with their dads. Then Thursday night was our temple night. Friday night, we fell asleep on the couch, crashing from our long week. 

Then today we ran errands - bank, library, etc, after a leisurely morning. Tomorrow, Eldon speaks in church.  :)

Thanks for reading my long, long catch-up post. :)

Water Heaters and Church Callings

Eldon finished putting in the new water heater on Monday. He was exhausted afterwards, so we had pizza for dinner and watched Dr. Who as our FHE activity. And the next morning, there was hot water again! Hallelujah! Later in the week he took out a mini water heater that was living in the hall bathroom. Taking it out seems to improve the speed with which we get hot water, so that is a huge plus. 

Eldon and I go through milk and eggs very quickly. We can go through a gallon of milk and over a dozen eggs in a week. Sometimes Eldon will ask if we shouldn't just buy a cow and I reply that might be a little more expensive, because we would have to feed the cow, too.  Just wait 'til we have kids, then we will be buying a gallon of milk just for us and another just for them.

We finally finished Eldon's birthday cake today, more than 2 months after his birthday. We kept it in the fridge in a Pyrex container, and it never got stale. The last few pieces we mixed into milkshakes, which was an idea I found in all the recipe searching I do online. It was a brilliant idea. 

Eldon and I both got church callings. We will both be working with Primary children (the Primary ranges from nursery, which is 18 months to 3 years, to 11 years old). He is a Primary teacher, but they are not sure yet what class they want him to teach. I am the Activity Days leader. Activity Days is actually an evening program for girls 8 to 11. We meet two Wednesdays a month. I am the head leader and have 2 assistant leaders. We work with 18 girls from our ward. That is a large group of girls.

It was a pretty uneventful week at work. They were upgrading some systems at work on Thursday and Friday, so I was pretty bored. Seriously, why would you upgrade systems during the work week??? So I ended up going to my supervisor and saying "What can I do for ya?" It was slooow, usually I'm pretty self sufficient.

Eldon and I walked about a mile and a half to the grocery store to get a few items on Friday night and then back the same length. I enjoy walking in the brisk air with my very warm coat, but ohhh, I am ready for spring. 

Yesterday Eldon made a video showing just how much, or how little of our house we own. 

Happy Home

This past week we had Monday off, which was nice, because we need the time to recover from the  busy weekend of visiting friends. Then Tuesday it was back to the working grind. Well, sorta, Eldon took off early on Tuesday to go pick up our new water heater at Lowe's because that's when my dad and his truck were free. Tuesday, I also started the move to my new desk at work. I have a much bigger cubicle and a window now, if only because we needed to free up my old cubicle for a new hire.

After dinner on Tuesday, Eldon and I took a walk around the neighborhood. It was a nice night, not too cold and no wind. We walked nearly three miles and really enjoyed ourselves. We enjoyed being outside so much that we have tentative plans to camp in the backyard some Friday night.

Wednesday the electrician came and upgraded our breaker box to accommodate our new, fancier water heater. Then Thursday was our monthly temple night. We went to our temple here in Washington, D.C. then had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was a wonderful night.

Friday night we tried to watch the 1988 BBC version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but ended up falling asleep. Then Saturday Eldon spent all day working on the water heater switch, which has resulted in a washing machine in the middle of our kitchen, and no hot water until Monday. I used a bucket of hot water to bathe this morning. Life is never dull here!

One Word: Family

So, it's nearly the end of February, but I have finally decided what word I want to have be my one word for 2013. The word is FAMILY.   I believe that strong families are the answer to many if not all societal ills. Nuclear families, extended families, ward families, the family made up of all the children of God.

The journey to picking this word actually started a while ago, when I became a bit more aware of Mormon Feminism after the Wear Pants to Church event. This made me begin to think about feminism more than I had in a while, and what the goals of various feminists are. I began wondering how this applied to me...

I also read a book, called Almost Home, about the Covenant House and the work this charity does to help homeless youth. This book speaks to my deep desire to champion youth who so desperately need it. One thing that they point out is that helping to stabilize the family is often far more effective than putting the children into foster care. Family matters!!!

I am having a hard time focusing on writing this post because sometimes it is so much easier to let other people say it for you. I have read so many inspiring things this past month that just speak to me about the importance of championing men, women, boys, and girls. We cannot exclusively focus on just one label, only one oppressed group. Christ calls us to love everyone, the oppressor and the oppressed. All are in need of Christ's atonement, of our love. We must seek the lost sheep- those lost and sinning, those lost and hurt- as all of them belong to the family of God.  I truly believe that when families are strong and healthy and happy, that this is the best classroom to promote everyone's happiness and healthiness.

Here are a few links that show what is on my heart and mind.

Protect the Children by Dallin H. Oaks
This is the Type of "Feminist" I Am from the blog Women in the Scriptures
Why I Respectfully Decline Feminism from the blog Deeper Story
What Do LDS Women Get- Sheri L Dew
And this one just because it's beautiful: On Choosing to Listen from the blog Deeper Story

Family is the answer. God teaches us how to make healthy, happy, eternal families that produce wonderful human beings. One of the missions of Latter-Day Saint Young Women, Relief Society and Priesthood is to strengthen home and family. We must strengthen our own home and family and those around us, because this is the building block of Zion.