The Rainbow Connection

The rainbow has always been special to me. I grew up loving the story of Noah and the Ark and enjoyed sharing the story over and over with my little ones. But in the last sixteen months, it has come to be my comfort and confirmation of the promise that there is life after death. When Grandma Connie died, I was putting together a video of pictures of her life for the viewing and I wanted just the perfect music to accompany the images. I really agonized over it and finally ended up choosing, "Wonderful World/Somewhere Over the Rainbow," by Izzy. On Tuesday before the funeral, Duane, Danny, Brian, Laurie, Cindy and I went to the temple. We sat for quite a while in the chapel and I talked to mom. I wanted her confirmation that she was pleased with the video tribute of her life. As we left the temple, there was a brilliant, beautiful rainbow. I felt the comfort and confirmation that I was looking for. The veil seemed so thin and mom felt so close. Since then I have seen some of the most magnificent rainbows and it always seems to be at times of need or of celebration. For example, last week at church, Sister Connor brought me copies of some of the pictures that she took at Gage's Eagle ceremony. She said, "Did you see the beautiful rainbow after the ceremony. I just couldn't resist taking a picture of it." This was one of those times that I know Grandma would have wanted to be there celebrating with us. She loved and adored her grandchildren so much. She was so proud of all their accomplishments and always loved to celebrate with them. I miss you mom. Just keep sending those rainbows.

Harmony

Today was Stake Conference and we had a satellite broadcast from SLC. What I gleaned from the talks was the importance of keeping our covenants and doing the simple things that bring strength and power to our lives. It made me think of a a musical element called harmony. Harmony is a more advanced concept to teach and perform but when done well, it adds incredible beauty. I was in a professional singing group at one time and I remember this moment when we were singing a French ballet and all of our voices became perfectly in tune. It was this amazing moment and was so powerful. At the moment that our voices became perfectly in tune, they were miraculously magnified. Even though none of us were singing louder, the sound filled the church where we were singing. I remember becoming so overwhelmed with this feeling that that must be what it is like to have our life in harmony with the Lord's commandments. That is what it is like to have our life in tune with our Savior. We become miraculously magnified and it surrounds us with power to make something ordinary into something heavenly.

Computers!%#@#^*#$#@

At the beginning of the school year, I thought of a fun idea to make music more enjoyable for my students. I asked them to bring in their favorite songs for me to make a school play list from. Students have been excited about the activity and have brought in some great stuff. I use the songs for compare and contrast, listening activities, movement activities etc. It has done just what I hoped and caused them to become more engaged in class. I had collected almost 500 songs. The IT gal was working on my computer on Monday and when I got back on it, all the songs were gone. She worked all day today trying to retrieve them but it hasn't worked so far. It has been really discouraging. All that work and no songs to show for it. To add insult to injury, the home computer's mother board is fried. My brother Don is trying to transfer all of my information from the hard drive. I am a little anxious there too because it has the last 10 years of family history that I have done. I have been taking deep breaths and repeating over and over, "I feel peace."

Counting Blessings Instead of Sheep

Today I was in the grocery check out line and this guy came up to me and asked if I wanted a 10% off coupon. He said that he wouldn't be able to use it in the next week and wanted to know if I wanted it. Blessing? Yesterday we had the missionaries to dinner and I had to work late so I ran over to Papa Murphy's and got the meal deal. As soon as I got home with dinner the missionaries called and asked if it would be okay if they brought a few extra missionaries for dinner. I took a deep breath and said, "Sure." Some how those two medium pizzas fed 11 people. Blessing. At the beginning of the school year, our principal told us to make sure that we were dressing professionally. I knew that there was not a budget for clothes so I worried about it. Last week a friend from the ward gave me three bags of clothes. There were very high quality clothes and so very beautiful. I had a great time trying them on and a couple hours later I had 17 new outfits hanging up in my closet. Blessing! "When you are worried and you can't sleep just count your blessings instead of sheep."

Ending Up on Top

I have been thinking about something that I learned while watching Gage wrestle last season. At the end of the year his coach was talking to me about Gage and said, "He isn't the fastest, nor the strongest but one thing that I can be sure of, he will always end up on top. I never worry when he walks out there on the mat." I was thinking one day, can you hear Heavenly Father saying, "I haven't giving you all the talents, nor all the strength or knowledge but one thing I call tell you is that I have given you sufficient for your needs and one thing that I can assure you is that you will end up on top. You will not fail but succeed." In one of Grandma Connie's notebooks was a quote that she had written down and it said, "I have not sent you here to fail but to succeed gloriously." I just love that quote...."to succeed gloriously." I've been worrying a little lately that my life is not turning out as I had dreamed and planned. There seems to be more bumps and storms then I have energy for and yet I have faith that somehow the Lord has given me sufficient for my needs and with the Saviors atoning sacrifice to make up where I lack, I too can end up on top. Maybe someday I will hear the words, "I never worried about sending you to earth, I always knew you would make it back."

Hard Decisions

Sometimes life is made of hard choices. I think for me as a mother, those hard choices that my children have to make seem to be harder on me then my own hard choices. Brock is involved in Football and Colorado Childrens Chorale this fall. There was one conflict between the two for the whole season and it was for this weekend. Both Brock's coach and the director of CCC wanted him to be with them. When push came to shove, Brock chose to play his football game and not attend the camp for CCC so now he is no longer able to be in CCC. This is hard on me because exposure to good music is very important to me. I have been trying to concentrate on the good things about the choice: my taxi service will not be so busy, there is not money to buy tickets to see him perform this year so I will not have that stress, I have a hard time getting him to rehearsal on time. But when all is said and done, it still makes me sad that the choice had to be made and that a compromise couldn't happen. Brock has such a beautiful voice and I love how he is always singing. I hope that he will continue to sing.

Labor Day is for the Laborer

Well today being Labor Day and all, I got up at 6:00 a.m. and headed to the garage to try and clean it out. It was an absolute disaster. I think a child unplugged the freezer and the refrigerator and all the food had gone bad. Boy did it stink to high heaven. Of course I was the only one to handle the food that had turned into a science experiment gone bad. Even though that was very exciting, the most exciting part was when Duane saw a large spider and started screaming and running for his life. I came to the rescue and saw the sweet thing a few minutes later and sent it to heaven so that it would never bother Duane again. Just so you know, Duane said it was the size of a small tarantula, and I caught a fish this..............big.