Happy Birthday Mrs. Landbeck!

What words exist to capture how much good a single person can do with her life?

Mrs. L was born this day. I met her about nineteen years later. She has made me happy all my days since. I am thankful for her grace, beauty, wit, intelligence, and spirit. Her faith has given me strength. With her life and might, she has given me a family. Her standards move me to strive to be a better person, a better man and father. Her artistry and industry have made my home, my life beautiful.

If I spent all my life looking up adjectives in the thesaurus to describe how good she is and how happy she's made me, it would be insufficient. I knew when I met her that she was amazing, and that opinion has only deepened in certainty in the years since.

I love you, dear. Happy Birthday!



My only regret is I wish I'd met you sooner!

Go me-ee! Go me-ee! We're gonna party like it's my birf-day!

So many celebrations this time of year. Do you have your Birthday near another significant event? How do you handle it? I mean, it's just another day of the year for everyone else. Halloween. Valentine's Day. D-day. 9-11. Easter.

Christmas!

I took the philosophical, stay-on-the-happy-side route. Better one big present than two little ones. At least everyone remembers my birthday, even if it's, "Oh, hey, isn't it your birthday this week?" sometimes. And I NEVER had to go to school on MY birthday!

So here I am, forty-one.
Why do we have birthday parties?
To remember our lives?
Do you remember to thank your Mom, on this anniversary of her pain?
How can flowers make up for that?
Do you recall your victories? The pots of gold won?
The adventures you've had?
Is it just a chance for everyone who loves you to commemorate you?
That special meal, that one dessert?

See, I wake up every day gifted with a fortune in children and family
An embarassment of riches.
I come home every day, and the scent of special meals, the sense
memory of meals past, caresses me.
A wealth of love and joy that nearly buries me.

If birthdays are to celebrate, to find a particular and lovely
sentiment about the history and future in life, then
Every day is my birthday. This day, this actual anniversary is
special only on a calendar.
But each day of life is the wealth of joy, my adventure, my victories.

I don't need a party, or a cake, or a meal or gifts.
All I need, is the life I lead each day to make a day
special.

I am happy because I am loved by those I love.

Happy Birthday, Joseph!

"[The Prophet Joseph Smith] loved learning. He loved knowledge for its righteous power. Through the tribulations which had surrounded him from the day when first he made known to a skeptical world his communion with the heavens, he had been ever advancing in the acquisition of intelligence. The Lord had commanded him to study, and he was obeying. … His mind, quickened by the Holy Spirit, grasped with readiness all true principles, and one by one he mastered these branches and became in them a teacher."

--George Q. Cannon

This inspired me Sunday. What knowledge am I pursuing? Do I love the getting of wisdom? There is more to learn than there is time to study, of this I am certain. Surely the Lord will guide our pursuits, if we seek his input.

So, resolved; I will seek more earnestly to know how I should spend my time in learning.

What Makes It Feel Like Christmas?

You'll be doin' all right, with your Christmas of white
But I'll have a blue, blue blue blue Christmas!

I'm not sure where I come down on the epic question of holiday aesthetics. Which is more sublime, more wondrous? The Elvis version or the Porky Pig version? I guess you could say . . . I am of two minds about it!

The inestimable Mrs. L asked in Family Home Evening before December started, "What makes it feel like Christmas?" She wanted us to participate in making it feel more like the holiday, so the Spirit could surround us. The answers were enlightening.

Singing Christmas songs! Which we've been doing every night after reading a loop from Mrs. L's Christmas advent paper chain.

Going caroling! Which we are going to go do as soon as number one daughter gets home from BYU.

Making Cookies, decorating the tree. Snowy weather was one suggestion, but not one I have any control over. Putting up our outside lights. One thing that makes it feel like Christmas is the crush of events, concerts, and school functions that swamps our calendar, which while tiring, is very, very rewarding.

One thing I love is hearing Christmas songs. The sappy holiday favorites. Bing Crosby's "White Christmas". Springsteen's "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". The radio station that signal's a surrender to middle age, Lite-FM 101.9 , switches its programming to all holiday favorites after Thanksgiving. And I love it.

Well, in small doses anyway. I realized after hearing George Michael sing "Last Christmas" for the third time in one day that 101.9 only has about three or four hours of Christmas Songs, so the likelihood of repeats is depressingly high. So it doesn't take too long before I start to switch away from the station when one of the sappier repeats rolls by.

But not so for The Royal Guardsmen's "Snoopy Versus the Red Baron". I could listen to that on a loop for at least two or three days. Add Thurl Ravenscroft's excellent baritone singing about bad bananas and arsenic sauce in "You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch", that is holidays, baby! What can I say? I love cartoons.

Though I have noticed a distinct and disheartening lack of The Waitresses' "Christmas Wrapping" on that station. Maybe it's just a little too alternative? Never fear, the internets holds everything in its infinite grasp, you can listen to it here!

But the thing that makes it feel the most like holidays? My family. I love having them around. Seeing them, talking to them, playing with them.

ahem


Kissing them!

Make the holidays happy!

The "Friend" fiend, and Come What May

First, a completely un-related aside, a warning to my daughter; avoid guys with this vibe like the plague!



I missed Elder Wirthlin's final talk, Come What May, and Love It. Ironically, I was at the emergency room, waiting for someone to stitch the gash in my youngest son's leg. My wife told me about the talk on the phone, and I wondered if now (well, I mean, then I was wondering), if now was really the time to encourage me to try to find the positive side of things...you know, in the middle of the blood, and the gauze, and the anti-biotics and stuff.

Annddd it turns out the answer is YES, that is exactly the time! There is always something to be grateful for. And finding a way to be grateful in a time of adversity, for me, means I can find a way to be happy. Instead of bitter, frustrated, angry. Happy is a good goal.

So it's winter, and lucky us, it snowed! I woke up this morning, and it was snowing! Not sticking to the road, but snowy, blowy, whirly snowing! The pre-dawn pinky orange on the horizon was amazing in the wispy snowy clouds. During the month of December, the Elders Quorum is in charge of clearing the sidewalks. So I left about 25 minutes early for my early meeting, so I could clear the walks.

Annddd about 100 yards shy of the top of that really high hill on Paradise Road...cough, sputter, wheeze, chug...my awesome 1983 classic car ran out of gas.

Out of gas!?! How is this possible? I drive it 3 miles a day, from home to seminary to the train station. Oh wait...I drove it to work a couple of weeks ago. And to harp lessons. Ah, 278 miles. Yeah, I'm out of gas.

Sigh.

So what did I love about that? I had put on a second coat this morning. I was only 1.5, maybe 2 miles from the church. It had stopped snowing. Because I left early, I knew I would still get there about in time for my meeting.

I called a friend that I knew would leaving about then for the meeting with me, and asked him if he had a gas can he could bring. He's the kind of friend who laughs at me when something funnily misfortunate happens, and said of course (snicker) I can bring some gas (giggle).

It is, I think, a good gift. The ability to instantly know exactly what to do next, and be able to just start slogging away at it. And away I slogged.

Good time to have a beard. Like a built-in scarf. The only things that got cold were my ears, my nose, and my bald spot.

I got to my meeting about six minutes late, but one of the other attendees drove out the last 200 yards to meet me. Everyone else was out shoveling the walks, and right as I arrived, my friend (and he didn't say, "HA-ha!" even once) drove me back to retrieve my classic ride.

It was definitely a "Come What May, and Love It" kind of morning.

What silver linings have you found? Do you ever look at a problem long enough, that you realize it's actually a mostly silver cloud, with just this little dark section here in the middle? I think most of our problems are like that. Not really mostly problems at all, but blessings disguised or clouded by irritation.

Two months ago, we got an audit letter from the IRS. That was definitely not a "Come What May and Love It" morning. Well, not at first. I did my slogging thing, dug out the records it asked for, began making a pile of what I would need to bring to the audit. Had I missed something? Were we in trouble?

And I found something that horrified me. Not about the audit year (2006), we were absolutely righteous about that. But in 2007, I participated in another NIH Vaccine Study (H5V1 Bird Flu), and had completely forgotten to claim the income on my taxes for that year. And the day I was doing my slogging? October 15th.

The absolute final deadline for filing a correction to 2007's income taxes. So. Completely unnecessary (and very stressful and time consuming) audit of 2006. But it pointed out to me, on the last day I could fix it without penalties, a stupid mistake I made months ago. We owed another couple of 100 bucks in taxes. I got that check out post-haste, and was grateful.

I am sure most troubles arrive with a not-so-clear indication of how they can also be blessings. But I am also sure that with the right frame of mind and heart, we can see them more clearly. Today, I am thankful for feet to walk, a coat to stay warm, friends to ferry me gas, who pitched in and helped shovel snow.

Love your Life!

Potato Corn Fritters!

What to do, two days after Thanksgiving? The awesome homemade rolls are gone. The super-yummy artichoke/mushroom stuffing is gone. Tons of potatoes, a whole bowl of corn...

Fritters!

Put a bunch of mashed potatoes and some corn in a bowl. Crack two or three raw eggs into it, and stir with a fork. You should have something that is the consistancy of ready-to-serve oatmeal.

Melt a pat (maybe 1/2 a tablespoon) of butter in a hot pan, and put forkfuls of fritter batter in the butter to fry.



Carefully flatten the forkfuls out with a spatula (so you don't scrape the pan!). Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. When they start to look brown at the edges, flip them.



I love my huge crepe-flipping spatula, but something smaller works better. Don't worry, the first several will get all scrunched up, and break when you flip them. It's not an art project, just frying potatoes; if one gets mangled, just cover it with more cheese.

Sprinkle with a little parmesan, a little cheddar.



What do you think kids?