How do you like your eggs?

So, if you immediately thought of this movie when you read the title to this post, we were destined to be friends forever. For some reason back in 1999 when this movie came out, the line where Ike tells Maggie she didn't even know what kind of eggs she liked (because she liked whatever everyone around her liked) really struck a chord with me and I've probably thought of it half the times I've made eggs over the years, of any type. It became a sort of quest - what kind of eggs do I like?

To be honest, I never liked eggs of any kind as a kid. I have a very vivid memory of my mother forcing me to eat a bite of scrambled eggs, and then promptly throwing up all over the kitchen floor. I also remember we were both really mad. Her at me for throwing up, and me at her because in my mind it was her fault! I was kind of a bratty kid. Sorry mom.

Anyway, for what it's worth, and for the sake of family history and all that good stuff and because I was thinking about this while I cooked MY eggs this morning, I've learned over the years that I actually DO like eggs. I like omelets, I like hard boiled eggs, I like fried and scrambled and poached and baked and even eggs Benedict. I like all kinds of eggs! But THESE are my eggs:

Scrambled with Swiss cheese, ham, coarse black pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. 

Nutmeg, you ask? Seriously, don't knock it until you try it. No matter how we make eggs, most of my family agrees a little nutmeg makes them especially yum. You don't need much salt because of the ham, though, so watch that. This morning's combination was four eggs, a slice of swiss, two slices of ham and a pinch of nutmeg. Salt and pepper to taste. 

I've also realized I like my eggs a little overdone. Soggy eggs? Disgusting. That's why I don't love them with milk mixed in, as they too often tip toward soggy and not fluffy. I like some substance to my eggs. The cheese adds that, along with flavor, and I love how it even browns up a little before the eggs themselves are burned as I am apt to do in my quest for "not-soggy" eggs sometimes. The cheese acts as a buffer of sorts, and when it begins to brown I know they're done.

Surprisingly enough, I love runny yolks with toast, too. Just not soggy scrambled. And all forms of eggs must be peppered. Who knew there were so many types of eggs? I love that it's a dish that can be completely, 100% personalized.

As for the family history part of this post, this is my "secret" recipe for green eggs and ham, a tradition on St. Patrick's day every year. Same recipe, just add food coloring. The kids love it, although we usually buy a ham steak an cube it instead of the costco lunchmeat ham shown here. 

Because it's a top secret recipe and I'd hate for my kids to realize their favorite green eggs and ham have *gasp* swiss cheese in them, I typically get this yummy breakfast after they've gone to school on something like cold cereal. Sorry kids. But I do have one little snitcher these days I share with, and she seems to appreciate them, too and will eat a full half the pan most days. :-)

And if you didn't get the movie reference or click the above link, here's the trailer. It has been too, too long since I've seen this movie and it's become a priority after watching the trailer twice. Maybe I can squeeze it in during that blessed second naptime, before the kids get home from school. Folding laundry or something, of course! But this was seriously some of the greatest chemistry between actors ever, don't you think?

I love to see the Temple...

We have Family Home Evening on Tuesdays around here, because that's just how we roll. And because piano lessons otherwise occupy our Monday nights and I have refused thus far to lose a weekday FHE to Sundays. Sundays the kids are already mine, but I crave that additional day, don't you agree? 

Anyway. 

I won't blog every single family night activity, but this one was special.

Matt's been asking to go to the temple, so as soon as Justin walked in the door (he's such a good sport!) we packed up the kids and Little Caesars and had a loverly evening on the temple lawn. I was actually more than a little impressed at how good they were, and how interested in the temple. We pointed out symbolism on the temple, talked about what is required to get a recommend and talked about the temple ordinances. It was fun to point out which rooms were lit, as well. That's the Celestial room behind Izzie's head. 

It was a warm beautiful March night, post daylight savings time and the temple was closed for cleaning - hence the heavy equipment in the background - so I think we picked a winner. It was fun because I felt fine walking right up to the front doors and allowing the kids to peer inside knowing there would be nobody at the front desk and the doors would not be sliding open. Seriously, it's a little thing but it was great. It reminded me a little of peering through the windows of a home being built when you know the owners are away. You've done that before, right? Except this is the ultimate house.

The evening also provided opportunity to do something I've been looking forward to for a while now. A few months ago, my good friend Julie Jolly brought me four pieces of opaque white glass from the St. Louis temple windows and I gave one to each child with an invitation (okay, maybe sort of a plea) to stay clean and to look forward to attending the temple when they're 12. I bore testimony of the Spirit in the temple and the peace and inspiration we can receive there. They loved it, were super excited about their souvenirs and I hope had a sweet taste of the nature of that special place. 

We are so blessed to live near the temple, and I think the evening was a rousing success. I don't think, however, they have any idea how badly I want them to take these things to heart. To come to the temple and be blessed. And like so often in this parenting adventure am reminded once again of our Heavenly Father's love and just how much He must feel the same.

After we returned home Izzie found me and with tears in her eyes told me she thought Erick had ruined the experience for her by singing his current favorite pop songs in the car on the way home. Lousy older tween brothers. (I didn't say it, but I suspect he's getting his ducks in a row for that awesomely annoying deacon phase and that he'll come out of it eventually. I don't know how long that takes though, and didn't want to get her hopes up just yet.) I was touched at her sincerity and her desire to feel the Spirit and promised her we'd return again soon, maybe just me and her. So sweet. How did I get so lucky?

Does this depression make me look fat?

Turns out, it does!  Obesity, genetics, depression and weight loss

This is a pretty personal post, and I feel comfortable posting it because I know so few people see it. I think writing is therapeutic, and although it can be argued I should be out enjoying the gorgeous sunshine, or exercising, or providing service to someone else or praying or forgetting myself and going to work (all good things to do when I feel this way) today I've been down and I'm choosing to write.

Hi, my name is Laura and like 10% of Americans I struggle with depression.

I didn't realize for a lot of years what was wrong with me, but I knew I didn't feel right. I didn't feel like me. I had felt so happy in the past, and considered myself a happy person. I even had roommates tell me they wanted to make sure we lived near each other forever because I was so full of joy that radiated to others. I don't say that to be vain. In fact, if I'd felt that way recently I'd feel it was vanity speaking but it's been so long now it feels like talking about someone else and can be a more rational conversation. It's just a personality thing, and I didn't understand why so many people would (in my perspective) choose to be less. I did (and still do, to some extent) belive happiness was simply a choice. You made that choice every day, and for some reason a lot of people chose otherwise.

I didn't know what happened, but sometime after I married a developed the blues. I don't know why I didn't realize it at the time, but I know now my depression is pregnancy and hormone related. Justin and I discovered we were expecting only two months into our marriage, and while it was part of our plan and we were thrilled, I struggled.

I thought maybe it was the weight gain. In the early years I thought it was the transition from working to motherhood. I thought it was loneliness. I thought sometimes it was financial stresses. I thought it was isolation due to numerous relocations. I wondered briefly if it was marriage that did it to me. I thought it was being a mother to young children. What's funny is the depression could have been caused or aggravated by any of those things, and often is, so my feelings were somehow easy to rationalize away into the infinite details of an ordinary life.

The other reason I didn't recognize the monster for what it was is because I wasn't always sad. I thought depression meant I was sad all the time, holed up in a room I refused to leave thinking suicidal thoughts. I've never felt that way, in case you were wondering. Instead it felt like a tightness in my heart. Like walking in mud up to my ankles. It was being angry at everything for no reason at all. It was telling myself I'm a failure. That I'm fat and ugly and my kids and husband deserved better. I read a paper this week that describes my feelings perfectly.

The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment. Everything there was to do seemed like too much work. I would come home and I would see the red light flashing on my answering machine, and instead of being thrilled to hear from my friends, I would think, "What a lot of people that is to have to call back." Or I would decide I should have lunch, and then I would think, but I'd have to get the food out and put it on a plate and cut it up and chew it and swallow it, and it felt to me like the Stations of the Cross.
And one of the things that often gets lost in discussions of depression is that you know it's ridiculous. You know it's ridiculous while you're experiencing it. You know that most people manage to listen to their messages and eat lunch and organize themselves to take a shower and go out the front door and that it's not a big deal, and yet you are nonetheless in its grip and you are unable to figure out any way around it. And so I began to feel myself doing less and thinking less and feeling less. It was a kind of nullity.

With my first pregnancy I read all about post-partum depression and baby blues, and thought I was really on the lookout for symptoms. It's funny I didn't see them and put together the timing, I just thought I was depressed. Then I had another baby 18 months after the first, and another 24 months after that, and another 30 months after that. All that time. All those years. I mean, it was a period of peaks and valleys, not just one long low, but it wasn't until my fourth child was almost three that one day cleaning the kitchen I realized without knowing when it had happened that the fog had lifted. I felt like myself again, and it was strange to realize how long I'd been gone.

Incidentally you know what's funny? We still had financial stresses, I still had young children, we were still moving around and I was still overweight. But you know what? I wasn't depressed and everything I thought was the problem was more manageable. And more interestingly, when the depression was gone, the weight came off. I organized my house. I was working on a financial plan and was motivated to be room mom at school and to do whatever else was needed for my kids. My relationship with my husband was better, closer. All this time I thought the problem was someone else. Something else. Turns out it was me, after all!

By the time the day came that I received very personal, very specific revelation that we needed to have another child I had figured out that was my trigger and I cried and cried. I knew what I was headed back into and the toll it took on me and on my family. I knew, though, there was a very sweet little girl waiting to join our crew and that at 37 the clock was ticking, so we jumped in again.

I interject here now and forever unequivocally she was worth it. I love that little girl so much it's crazy, and I have loved having a baby again. Even thought I'm living in a fog again it's been worth it. I find courage and comfort in the story Elder Neil A Maxwell related in his talk, But for a small moment, where he says:

Several hundred Spartans were holding the pass at Thermopylae, that narrow pass, and the Persians came in overwhelming numbers and urged the Spartans to surrender. Hoping to intimidate them further, the Persians sent emissaries to the Spartans, saying they had so many archers in their army they could darken the sky with their arrows. The Spartans said, “So much the better. We shall fight in the shade.”

We shall fight in the shade.

I know families are ordained of God, and that He has our best interest in mind. I know He has a plan for me that involves perfecting my heart and my soul, and even more importantly that he has an individualized plan for my husband and each of my precious children and I have hope they won't fail. I have faith He fills in the gaps where I am woefully inadequate and weak, and although I cry to him sometimes in faith and sometimes in despair, I know He hears me and understands my desire to be who He needs me to be. And although I now fight in the shade, I know He is the Light.

Genesis 3:16: Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.

1 Timothy 2:15: Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness.

em-jay...

This little sweetheart is already 8 months old! I can hardly believe it. In fact, even though I've been through this four times previously and could go back and re-read every time in the past I'd said the same words, I must have thought I was delusional. Let me say right now forever and always, I honestly am sitting here dumbfounded by how quickly the time has gone. Emilie is my baby and it's somehow just a little more exciting and a lot more poignant when she reaches milestones because I find myself every time saying that "L" word. Last.

She's not crawling, or army crawling, or scooting or anything akin to moving around really yet. She does do some pretty good rolling but I'm not entirely sure it's motivated by a desire to go somewhere. She's an excellent sitter, though, and just seems very content to stay in one place for now. I'm not worried developmentally because she pulled herself up to standing next to one of her toys the other day. She's just apparently chill enough she has nowhere in particular she wants to go yet.

She's a lover and a kisser and a cuddler. She loves music and being sung to and babbles with the best of them. She's getting her D's really fast and we wake up every morning to the sound of Emilie talking and singing her her crib in the other room. Erick calls it the Emilie alarm clock. Lucky it's not really early, usually somewhere between 6:45 and 7 am.

She is a great shopper and loves to go places in the car. She doesn't laugh easily and sometimes frustrates strangers with a cool stare, but loves her family and smiles for her brothers and sisters at the drop of a hat. And she smiles at her stuffed animals. They love her back equally, and our home is more full of love and joy than it's ever been. I forget how babies do that! Lately we've gotten a kick out of her fake cough. She'll sneeze or something, then give us coughs for as long as someone will cough back in reply.

Emilie loves most foods, but if we feed her she doesn't like she just refuses to open. It's funny because the look on her face is more "I forgot we were eating" than frustrated or angry, it's like she's just decided it's not good, and lost interest completely in food. Once again, totally chill. I seriously love this child.