What my summer blog posts were supposed to look like

Here are some fun things we did this month and had planned to do frequently.

Grilling!

Laughing together outside!

Let Atticus get soaked to the skin in the sprinklers

Visit local destinations like the Kennecott copper mine 

Hike the beautiful trails just minutes from our door

Ward campout and music with friends 

Climb lots of rocks

Enjoy beautiful mountain lakes

And then last Wednesday a lot of that changed. We were on our way up Big Cottonwood Canyon to venture out on another beautiful hike to another beautiful lake (Twin Lakes by Brighton). About a mile up the canyon, we started around a corner and saw a large truck in our lane. Less than a second later, the scene looked much like this:

My first thoughts were inventory: James is talking and moving; no apparent injury. Atticus is freaking out and breathing; no apparent injury. How are we still all alive? How are we this ok? I am breathing and talking, but there's a gaping wound on my ankle and my foot is hanging funny. My leg is broken.

I smell chemical smoke from the airbags, now sagging uselessly. The engine block is hissing, people are yelling. James has taken Atticus to the side of the road. He tells me they're ok and checks out my leg. I call 911. Why is it taking so long to connect? Oh, I forgot to hit "send." Now it's ringing. I tell them what happened. They want an address. An address? We're on the road in Big Cottonwood. Where the hell is there an address? Having reached the limits of my usefulness, I pass the phone to a witness who knows exactly where we are. The other driver comes by several times, freaked out and apologetic. 

Soon paramedics arrive and the next stage of our surreal adventure begins. More on that tomorrow.

Plans, not goals

I've always struggled with New Year's resolutions. I make a list of things I SHOULD do, like study the scriptures for 30 minutes a day and exercise 6 days a week and lose 20 pounds. I get so overwhelmed by these goals that I have little faith in acheiving and essentially give up before I start.

So this year is different. I made a list of PLANS. Things I WANT to do. Like go rock climbing, and be able to do at least one "real" push-up. (I do need some help defining that "real" push-up, though. Does my chest have to touch the floor? That feels like going too far, but maybe that's just because I still can't get a 90 degree angle in my elbows in my push-ups. Lara, what do you say?)

Because fitness isn't just for fitness's sake. I want to be healthy so that I can do all these active things I want to do. Hiking's on the list, too, as well as the 5K "Dirty Dash," which is a foot race through mud and obstacles on the Olympic cross-country skiing course. Doesn't that sound a lot more fun than "go to the gym 3 times a week"? I think so.

I also want to try new things and learn new skills, so I'm planning to knit a Fair Isle sweater and try some new quilting techniques and start drawing the tree outside our house. (I love that tree. I've wanted to draw it since we moved in, but I'm convinced I can't draw. As Van Gogh said, "If a voice inside says 'you cannot paint,' by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." This year I'm going to try to silence that voice.) I also bought a pattern for a vintage-style dress I want to make. There's an online sew-along I'm going to try to follow, and maybe I'll have the dress in time for my birthday. Mom, I'm going to need your help on this one...

Oh, and I want to try at least one new food each month. This month it was Chinese broccoli (in case you were wondering what that was, Erin). Lots of greens, crunchy stems, and very small florettes. A little bitter raw, but quite tasty cooked. I love our Asian market. A lot of the stuff there scares me, but I can branch out with the greens. They seem a safe enough place to start.

I've also developed a plan to build our long-term food storage. I have quarterly goals, and I've already filled out the order forms for the dry-pack cannery for the next three months. I plan to go once a month, and the budget is $70 per month. All of the storage items are things we already use, like beans and rice and wheat, so I expect to rotate through them and not just stick them in a corner for 30 years. Of course, as soon as I get it all bought and packed away, we'll probably move and have to lug it across town or across the country. But at least they're in cases, not super heavy buckets. And maybe our new place will have a basement to put it in....

We also have some trips planned, and we bought a pass to the children's museum and plan to go at least once a month. Atticus loves that place, even though he got whacked in the nose with a hula hoop almost as soon as we walked in last week. (He still had a good time, and the scab came off today, so all is well.)

I've written down all these plans and made a checklist and I'm putting it next to the calendar, where I'll see it several times a day. Of course, all plans are subject to change and revision. I'll reevaluate in six months. Or sooner, if I get pregnant or something. We'll see.

This makes me happier than it should

I am so thrilled with my latest accomplishment: a consolidated pantry! I'd had half here and more of the canned goods in the back room, but both areas were ineffecient and cluttered, so I weeded out the old stuff and rearranged the shelves and lo and behold, it all fit.

But more than the joy of a completed task, having this store of food satisfies a deep need in me. I've never gone hungry, and I'm not all that worried about an impending disaster, but having food storage makes me very, very happy.

This is just phase one of a much larger project to purge and reorganize all my clutter spots: the living room closet, the back room, and the craft room. I took "before" pictures of each space, but I'm not ready to post them. I don't want to unveil my disaster areas until they're pretty. But trust me, they're completely out of hand.

To keep from getting too overwhelmed, I made the goal to get rid of one load of stuff each week. One week the stuff went to DI, the next week we took all the glass and cardboard to the recycling place. Last week I put some larger items on the "neighborhood cleanup" pile, and scavengers had picked them all up by that afternoon. That made me happy, because it was mostly scrap wood that was perfectly usable, just not for someone like me without tools and woodworking skills.

Eventually, it will all be as pretty as my pantry. I hope.

Meilleurs Voeux!

That's "best wishes" for you, the French version of "Happy New Year." Christmas cards aren't all that popular over there, but everyone sends cards for the new year. The one on the right made me smile because it's a religeuse, a very popular pastry among French missionaries. A religeuse is a nun, and sister missionaries are soeurs religeuses, so the pastries of the same name always made us giggle. And they're dang tasty.

Anyway, I digress. This post is supposed to be about the new year...

We didn't do anything special to celebrate. We were asleep on the couch by 10, and today we went grocery shopping. Woo hoo! Oh, and we bought Atty a new car seat. It's all plush and luxurious, and Atty seems to like it. So we're happy.

I usually make New Year's resolutions, but they tend to be more stressful than they should be. So I've been thinking about other ways to make goals for this coming year. And as usual I found great ideas on the blogosphere.

My favorite isn't really a resolution, but more of a new perspective: find your superpower. Everyone has one; it's just a matter of discovering it. Like my sister Susan used to say, we are all superheroes in really, really good disguises. And of course every superpower comes with kryptonite, and it's just as important to discover what that is as well. So I've been pondering that off and on.

That blog led me to another thing to ponder: my one little word. What word encompasses my hopes for 2009? My mind tells me it's order, as in "establish a house of order" and do all things "in wisdom and order." But that doesn't feel quite right. For some reason hope keeps coming to mind. I do want to establish order in my life: develop better habits, get rid of clutter, get on top of our finances and meal planning etc. But maybe I really need more hope. I'll have to ponder a little further on that one.

Several other blogs just had lists of things they wanted to do this year. Kind of like Lena's 101 things to do in the next five years, but shorter. It's not a list of resolutions per se, just things you hope/plan to do. I don't have much of a list yet, but I can tell you what I have so far:

1. Put Atty's nursery together. We finally bought a crib, but it was out of stock so we have to wait a couple weeks for it to come in. And I'm going to put together the birdie mobile I made when I was pregnant and hang the artwork I've had for months. And move the rocking chair into his room. It will happen. This month for sure.

2. Go hiking at least once a month in the warmer months. I've always wanted to see the wildflowers at Albion Basin, and I've never been. I'll go this year.

3. Take Atty for more walks. At least once a week.

4. Learn to draw.

That's all I have so far. What are your plans for the new year?