True Gratitude: A Lesson I Learned from a Woman with Downs Syndrome

It's been over a year since I posted on this blog, but I was so profoundly moved by a recent experience, I felt I needed to write it down.  And since this time of year everyone seems to be saying what they are thankful for, I decided to post this on my blog.

We have a woman in our church who has downs syndrome.  The first time I met her, I sat near her in adult Sunday School and introduced myself.  She was a little flustered, because she saved the seat I was sitting in for another person.   It was really no big deal to me, and I didn't want to upset her so I moved over.

A few weeks later I was at the church for a youth activity and she was sitting on the ground with a drawing pad in her hand.  She was drawing socks and decorating them with all sorts of designs.  I sat down next to her and asked her about her drawings.  I found out that she absolutely LOVES socks.  She loves to wear colorful and mismatched socks.  The knitter in me found a connection with her.  Even though I have never successfully completed a pair of socks (I have SSS--second sock syndrome, where I only ever finish one sock), I have poured over knitting books drooling over all the beautiful sock patterns.

I went home that night and looked in my drawer.  I had purchased a few pairs of socks in England that I rarely wore (too thin for my cold feet), and wondered if she would like them.  One pair, in particular, was mismatched, but had come from the same package of socks, so they looked good together.  Both had pastel colors, but one had pastel polka dots, the other had a flowery pattern of the Union Jack.  Not sure if she would like "slightly used" socks, the next time I saw her I asked if she would like them.  She vigorously nodded her head, and the following week I brought three pairs of socks to church with me.  As I pulled each pair of socks out of the bag, her eyes lit up like she had just won the lottery.  She was grinning from ear to ear.  As soon as I handed her the last pair, she jumped out of her seat and gave me the biggest hug (which lasted several seconds).  I was touched by her genuine gratitude for receiving such a small thing.  When I saw her the next week, her mom said that she had been wearing the socks all week.  This also surprised me.  After I heard that, I caught myself looking at all the different socks at the store and wondering if she would like them.  How could such a thing as used socks bring so much joy to someone?

Yesterday, before the church service began, and as I sat in my pew with my family, she ran by me and playfully tapped me on the shoulder.  Grinning from ear to ear, she raced back to her seat.  Yesterday happened to be fast and testimony meeting, where members of the congregation go up to the pulpit and share their testimony and feelings about Jesus Christ and the Gospel.  She went up and began expressing gratitude for many things, including a few women in the audience.  At the end of her testimony, she pointed to me and said "And I love her right there!"

I was taken aback at her love and gratitude, and how her simple expression of it made me feel like reaching out to her even more and doing more for her.  Since this experience, I have wondered if this feeling I have for this beautiful person is how God feels towards us when we show Him gratitude.  As we thank Him for even the littlest things in our lives, I do believe that he wants to bless us even more.  What a wonderful gift she gave me.  I hope I can be more like her and that by my actions God will know how grateful I am for all He has given to me.

"And he who receiveth all things with ^athankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an ^bhundred fold, yea, more."  (D&C 78:19)

Moving and Storing Canning Jars

I have been reluctant to unpack and use my canning jars because they are such a pain to pack, unpack, and store. And because we move so often, they don't always get packed right and I usually end up losing a few with each move. So I haven't done much canning beyond applesauce and jam since I lived in Washington (over 3 years ago). I have been putting money aside since being in the UK to buy food storage and emergency supplies for when I returned back to the States and I recently found a solution to storing my canning jars. They are called jarboxes. They are a little pricey, but they will protect my jars during our moves over the next few years. I can even store jars with food in them. There is a great video about them on www.jarbox.com. I bought mine on amazon.com.

They only have quart-size storage boxes, but I found an inexpensive solution for smaller jars. I found these small white storage baskets at Walmart near the canning stuff. One size fits 12 pint-size jars perfectly, and the other one fits 1/2 pint-size jars. I cut strips of cardboard to separate the jars to keep them from banging against each other. I used to store them in cardboard boxes, but sometimes the movers individually wrapped each jar and threw out the box I had them stored in. These baskets stack on top of each other and are more sturdy than cardboard boxes, and much easier to carry. They look nicer and more organized than what I had before. Too bad I missed most of the canning season this year.

Greeting Cards

Shutterfly.com was having a deal--10freecards--and so I turned some photos I took of our cruise to the Mediterranean into 5x7 greeting cards.  I only had to pay for shipping/tax.

Portobello Road, London (During the Queen's Jubilee)

Venice, Italy

Ephesus, Turkey

Mykonos, Greece

Mykonos, Greece

Rome, Italy

Stairs inside the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy

Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Barcelona, Spain

Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Barcelona, Spain

Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Barcelona, Spain

Sometimes moms don't have all the answers. . .

Two days ago Brooke and Roger were jumping on the trampoline.  I don't know how it all started, but they began to hit each other.  Roger came storming into the house extremely agitated and upset, saying that Brooke should never be able to jump on the tramp again, and claiming that she hit him.  I must say that once Roger gets upset, it is very tricky to calm him down.  I called Brooke to my room to get her side of the story.  I don't remember the details of what started the hitting, but she sort of hit him, and then she started blaming all sorts of things on Roger.  I told her that hitting is not something she should do, and started giving her advice of how to make amends with her little brother.  She was unwilling to budge or forgive him in any way.  I took a deep breath, stepped out of the room, and then a thought came to me of an article I read a while back of a similar situation.  I returned to the room, and said to Brooke,  "Sweetheart, I know it isn't easy to forgive your brother, and I just don't have the answer on how to solve this.  Will you please go to your room and say a prayer, and see what you should do to fix this situation?"  She reluctantly went to her room and shut the door.  Meanwhile, I knelt down and said a prayer that her prayers would be answered.

A few minutes later she came out and asked if she could have some wrapping paper.  Normally I don't like her getting into my wrapping stuff, because she tends to overstep her bounds and I don't have wrapping paper when I need it.  But I reluctantly said, yes, and she grabbed a roll of wrapping paper, thanked me, and went back into her room.  I could hear her humming and ticking away in her room as she wrapped up Rogers's basketball (that they have been fighting over for the past couple of days) and a little wooden box that I had bought for Roger at JoAnns craft store.

A little while later, she brought a wrapped gift downstairs, and handed it to Roger.  "Here Roger, I have a present for you!"  Roger, who LOVES getting presents, excitedly tore off the paper.  "My ball? and my treasure chest!"  Brooke said,  "I decorated your treasure chest and filled it with jewels (made out of tin foil)."  She was so happy about giving this gift to her brother, and he was happy to receive it. They played happily after that for quite a while.

As I have been thinking about this experience these past two days, I noticed that what helped Brooke to forgive her brother wasn't what I expected.  She is a very creative person, and nothing makes her happier than to make things for other people.  It was her use of creativity that got her heart in the right place to patch things up with her brother--something I wouldn't have thought of for her to do.  We both learned a lesson that day.  She learned that if she has a problem, saying a prayer can help to solve it, and I learned that sometimes moms just don't have all the answers. . .

Felting with Brooke

As many of you know, I learned to knit in Norway in July 2010, and since then, I haven't been able to stop.  I have even started a video podcast, wannabeknitter.blogspot.com to help track my progress, and also keep me motivated and challenge myself to improve upon the skills I have learned.

I have secretly been hoping that  my daughter Brooke would also share my same passion for knitting, and I started taking her with me to a knitting group I started in our old town of Thetford, UK, and began to instruct her on how to knit.

One night, one of the other ladies of the group was needle felting.  I have seen this done before, but had never really thought much about it.  Brooke begged to try, so the lady showed her how to do it, and then I bought some felting equipment. She loved poking the needles and creating pictures.  She took her needle felting to Utah, whe she stayed for 6 weeks while Sam and I moved to our new home in Ohio.  She even taught her cousin how to do it.

I started attending a weekly knitting group in our new town at our local yarn store, and as soon as Brooke joined us in Ohio, I brought her with me.  of course, she wanted to bring her needle felting.

I was reading a book about Knitalongs, which is where people knit together, or knit for a cause, or work on the same project at the same time, and in the book was a pattern for a cute hat.  I thought how fun it would be to knit up this easy hat and felt it by throwing it in the washing machine, then having her needle felt it.  I knit the hat on the biggest needles I had, felted it, and before I knew it, Brooke took it up to her room and needle felted a cute flower on it.

When I heard about the Mid-Ohio fiber fair, and saw that they were offering two felting classes, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to sign up and take my daughter for some mother-daughter bonding time. After all, I hadn't seen her for six weeks!   I was sorely tempted to take the double knitting and sock knitting course, but this was all about Brooke this time around.

Brooke is decorating our felted mittens

All our finished felted projects: Hat, bracelets,
and mittens.

The first class we took together was how to felt gloves from carded Alpaca wool.  I let Brooke decorate the top of the mittens with different colors of wool.  They turned out really cute!  Then we learned to make felted beads, which we then used to make a bracelet.

Our felted bracelets

We both had so much fun, and we can't wait to go to our next fiber fair.  I was so happy to have spent this time with my daughter.  She is such a delight to be with, and I'm glad that she is learning to love fiber art as much as I do, even if it isn't knitting.  I just bought a book on how to knit doll clothes, and she loves to make clothes for her Liv dolls, so there is still hope!

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Strasbourg, Alsace, France

Here are some scrapbook pages from our recent trip to Alsace. I don't have all of them finished yet, but will upload them to my Picasa account as soon as I do.

First Day of School--EVER

Well, I thought I'd share some school photos, since it is the first time EVER most of my kids have been to a brick-and-mortar school (Stuart went to kindergarten). After five years of homeschooling, I decided that I needed to take a little break and allow my kids an opportunity to see what public school is like.

Stuart started 6th grade at Lakenheath Middle School at RAF Feltwell, UK, and only goes part-time. Every other day he is home with me, where I teach him maths, science, economics, and any other subject we feel like. It's a good transition for him, and he seems to enjoy both being at home and at school.

Brooke and Roger started going to a primary school, where there are around 50 kids in the entire school. Roger is in year 1 (kindergarten), and Brooke is year 3 (2nd grade). They are both behind in their classes because England is on a different learning schedule than the US. There are plenty of helpers in each classroom, so they just work with the children where they need help. Hopefully they will catch up. They say they don't like school, but it's too early for me to pull them out. They need to try it out longer.

I have been enjoying the time to myself, but I actually fee BUSIER than I did when I homeschooled full-time. I think it's because I only have a few hours to get a lot done (and I feel like I'm running to get things cleaned the entire day), then as soon as the kids get home, I have to help them with their homework, get dinner on the table, run them to after-school activities, get them ready for bed, make sure their clothes are ironed and ready for the next day, and get them in bed early to start the next day early. (Whew. I'm tired just writing that last sentence!) It is nice to clean the house without any distractions, though.