I lost my wedding ring last Friday. I spent hours searching for it throughout the week unsuccessfully. This Friday morning Riley found it...in the crayon container. The scary thing is the crayon container was on top of my dresser next to my jewelry box toward the end of last week and I know that as tired as I am at night, it was most likely me that put it in the crayon container. While mine is not the most expensive or glorious of wedding rings, to me it has great sentimental value and I find going without it for a week can be very harrowing. I never worried so much in my earlier years of marriage because within a few days it would eventually show up, but then the following happened.
A few years ago, while Brad was in dental school, I had taken off my wedding ring close to the bathroom sink. Apparently I had a bad habit of this and Brad would always chastise me that my ring might get knocked into the sink and be gone forever which would probably result in a slow deterioration of our wedding vows and eventually hostile divorce proceedings. At least that was his theory and on this day he happened by the bathroom shortly after I had taken it off. Upon seeing it near the undesired location, he decided he would teach me a lesson and hide my wedding ring in a "safe place". (Here in the narration I would insert ominous music if I could) Inherited from his father is a stellar memory block which enables Brad to hide things and subsequently forget where he hid them. Better even than that he can hide things, forget where he hid them and then completly forget the entire episode. And so Brad hid my ring. After searching for it fruitlessly for some time, I asked him if he had placed my ring somewhere safe and he quite honestly replied that he had not seen or touched my ring because he really had no recollection of the event. This went on for over a year until we were moving to another rental in Vegas and deciding what we should pack up and bring along and what we should get rid of. An old radio we had inherited somewhere along our travelings was up for being thrown out. At the last second I decided to check the tape decks of this stereo. There sat my wedding ring in the defunct tape player of the old radio, along with a vial of anesthetic? Now, what really illustrates the almost super hero-like amnestic abilities of my husband is that, as he remembers it, it was him that found the ring and gave it back to me. He points out that it would have been impossible for me to find it because why would any sane person ever look in a tape player of an old radio about to be thrown out in the age of CDs and DVDs for a lost wedding ring? I claim inspiration. He claims it would take a person who hides things in strange places to recongize a potential hiding place of long lost relics to check inside just incase. Since I didn't write this story down after it had just occured I'll leave it to you to decide who found the ring. Regardless of all that, it was a whole year that I went without my ring and I was very close to throwing it out with the trash. Every time I lose it now, I remember how close I was to losing it forever then. Needless to say, Brad has never put any of my belongings in another "safe place" since. However, his belongings are another story altogether. In fact, moments ago, he was just about to blame me for putting his coat in some unknown location when I found it hanging in one of his "safe places" for keeping.
Kenzie is in the stage of changing her mind every few seconds. She went to a birthday party last Saturday night and I think she changed outfits about 15 times...seriously. So you can imagine how our selection of Halloween costumes has been with her. She wanted to be (in the following order) a football player, a vampiress, smarty pants, a corpse bride, something bought from the store, a she-devil, a piratess, etc, etc...
She has finally decided upon a gypsy. Of course, I LOVE this idea because I only had to buy some fake costume jewelry and everything else came from what we already had. I don't have to make a thing. I think I will make a tambourine though just for added effect. We are trick-or-treating in a neighborhood that is not ours this year. It is supposedly the best place in Colorado Springs to trick-or-treat where they have haunted houses and decorations galore. I'm excited myself to see it. I kind of feel guilty not living in the neighborhood and trick-or-treating there, but really who else will we trick-or-treat with, the cows?
Jordan's homework/tests/projects have really increased this year. I understand now, why they used to tell us as junior high teachers how much the students' lives changed when they moved from elementary to jr. high. There is just a lot of different things going on constantly for those kids. He seems to be taking it all in stride though. It's me that's not so much. I ask him to bring home everything so I can check if it's in good enough condition to hand in. You see, Jordan has this tendency to always want to be the first one done (of course, I don't know where he got that from) and because of this his work is not always the quality it should be. Most of the time it's good enough. He especially seems to be on top of things with his math, science and social studies, but writing can be painful for him. The other day we spent two hours together while he rewrote a simple compare/contrast paragraph. With Kenzie it's the opposite. Writing is never a problem for her. Heck, she probably even writes better than me now...but we're starting to spend more and more time together in math. Anyway, multiply Jordan x5 and activities x5 and I wonder how we're (me mostly) all going to make it through the next 10 years together. We can do it, right?
We had Stake Conference today. McKenzie and I were talking before church about how one knows that God truly exists. I was able to talk with her about the wind and how we know it's there because we can feel it. She then replied that we could see it too moving the leaves, but we can't see God. Of course, then we got on the discussion of how, if we recognize it, we can see and feel God in our lives too. How at first, we have to rely on the testimony of others until we've had enough experiences of our own with Heavenly Father and our testimony grows stronger. I then said, listen in Stake Conference and maybe someone will address your concern. I truly appreciate the first speaker because one of the things she spoke on was attending church activities. She said that the youth activities are designed to help youth have the experiences they need to develop their own testimony and to be able to recognize God in their own lives. Kenzie then turned to me and said, "Mom she answered my question." I also appreciated the last speaker who Jordan enjoyed the most. He spoke on agency and how Satan attempts to wrap, bind and chain us so that we can be as miserable as he. He spoke of how keeping the commandments is really what keeps us free to continue to choose. I'm hoping Ben, Riley and Jake heard something but it is rewarding when you know your older children listen. It is so hard during those younger years to motivate yourself to bring your young ones to Stake Conference, but in the end, it is worth all the struggles.
Off to carve the Jack-o-lantern and make sugar cookies!
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