"The first forty years of life give us the text," Schopenhauer said, "the next thirty supply the commentary."

And it's apparently widely known that life begins at forty, an idea that started to circulate in the early 1900s when life expectancy started to lengthen.

And, speaking of how medical improvements and mental attitudes have shifted, the New York Times said "All our age benchmarks, which used to seem solid as rocks, have turned into shifting sands. 'Life begins at 40?' More like 60."

Deep breath.

I'm trying to not let myself obsess over the fact that in less than a month, I'll leave my thirties behind forever. Yet, despite the euphemisms, that number---40---seems so, well, strange. In an effort to both commemorate this milestone and to get myself accustomed to the number 40, I'm going to do a little 40 Series on my blog over the next few weeks. Not daily or even with any regularity, but 40 is going to pop up here and there.

I'm starting with this, the list of forty memorable things I experienced during my 30's:

1 baby

(I think I need an "awwwww" here)

1 marathon

1 just-beaches California trip

1 trip to San Diego

1 pioneer trek

1 Ragnar

1 real (read: paid) writing opportunity, the 4-year-long stint I had of writing for the now (sadly) defunct Simple Scrapbooks magazine

1 broken nativity piece

1 beloved kitty lost

2 funerals of close family members (my dad and Kendell’s)

2 trips to Disneyland

2 years of teaching high school

(One of the few photos I have of my classroom. This was the weekend before school started and I still needed to finish my displays)

2 trips out of the country (Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and Niagara Falls, Canada)

3 years (just a month shy of 4) working as a librarian

4 classes developed and taught at Big Picture Classes (My Word, The Gift of Words, Write Now, and Textuality)

4.5 "Marathons" (which is my modified way of counting my 9 half  marathons so that I have room to include more stuff)

5.5 summits of Mount Timpanogos (.5 for the time we tried to make it to the top but didn't)

6 national parks visited: Arches (twice), Zion, Bryce (twice), Capitol Reef, Yellowstone, Grand Teton

(That is Arches)

Stuff I didn't count: a bajillion scrapbook layouts, countless pages read in books, roughly 25 quilts, 5 1/2 years of blogging, plenty of church callings (Relief Society teacher—my favorite; Sunday school teacher to the teenagers—my longest; Primary—my newest), dozens and dozens of pairs of pajamas and 5 or 6 Halloween costumes sewn, 40,000 photos taken, 35-ish birthday dinners, 1 skipped high school reunion, an entire decade of being a mom and a wife and a sister and a friend and hopefully a good person.

Looking at it that way makes me feel hopeful: what numbers will the decade of my 40's bring?

• Haley's dedication that got me out of bed and to the gym this morning when I did NOT want to go
• a healthy body that can exercise, even if I am a little chubby these days
• post-workout protein shakes in the dark and quiet house while everyone else is sleeping
• cute workout clothes
• Kendell taking Haley to school in the mornings
• emails from friends who are also patient with my slow replies
• my carpool compadre who is so patient with me and my carpool fumbles (like the Wednesday this month when i totally forgot that yes, I *do* drive on Wednesdays and I have driven every. single. Wednesday since September)
• my kids' hard work at school and seeing those 4.0s on their report cards!
• witnessing a fierce spring windstorm this morning. It could've only been better with more rain.
• I finally, after 2 1/2 hours, finished the sit-at-the-computer tasks I had to do this morning. My butt is tired of sitting but they are FINISHED
• my goal of interspersing long sit-at-the-computer stretches with little bursts of 100 jumping jacks. It probably doesn't really do anything but make me feel like I'm not being a lazy computer-chair potato, but still: my lazy computer-chair potato feeling was alleviated with 3 bunches of 100.
• The hot shower I can finally hit!

Felt important to share my gratitudes this morning!

Thank you for your comments and emails about this post. I'm really trying to push forward and to find my way.

Yesterday I was reading my friend Monika's blog and saw this image from a mini scrapbook she made:

I thought about this all day yesterday...during my long run and my long, hot shower and while I was making dinner (chicken pot pie) and even while I was watching The Hunger Games with Haley. Because, you know...I'm 39. And in less than a month I will turn 40. Even though I believe in the idea that you're only as old as you let yourself feel (one reason I run: to run away from getting old), turning 40 feels like a marker. In my thirties I felt like I still had time to change my life and accomplish my dreams. Will it still feel that way when I am in my forties?

I don't know.

Monika's little page made me think: where was I ten years ago? What did that version of myself hope for? Some of the same things I hope for now, but some of my hopes have been fulfilled. What would the almost-30-year-old Amy thing of this almost-40-year-old one? (I think she'd be pleasantly surprised at some things, disappointed in others.) It made me want to look back. Some of the things that defined me ten years ago (March of 2002):

• I was attending college to work on my second bachelor's degree, this time in Secondary Ed. I was bitter and sad about this development in my life because all I really wanted to do was stay home with my three little ones and have one more. But I did learn so much about myself during that time, stuff I never would have figured out or put to rest any other way. Plus I made friends with the other old and bitter Secondary Ed student, Hayley.
• Kendell had just be rehired at Novell and was working the graveyard shift in customer support. This was a tough time for him because A---customer support really stinks and B---graveyard shift. He'd get home at 6:00 in the morning, wake me up, and we'd watch one TV show together before he went to sleep.
• I loved the TV show Alias and I never missed an episode of ER.
• Haley was only six and in first grade. She was a cheery, outgoing little person who loved her first grade teacher with all the devotion a first-grader can muster. (He was an awful teacher and only lasted one year and taught them almost nothing; the only good thing to come out of that year of school was the fact that the majority of their time was spent on writing stories, which I think contributed to her current love of reading.)
• Jake was four. His preschool teacher was named Mrs. Pope and she loved him so much. I still see her every once in awhile and she always knows who I am and asks about Jake. No one could NOT love Jake at four years old. Oh my, he was sweet. He was happy and laughed all the time and the thing he loved the most was being outside with his friends playing Bad Guys. He had to go to daycare for a few hours while I was in class and he hated it.
• Nathan was two. He loved daycare so much he'd sometimes cry when I came to pick him up. He was still so little! He had the softest whitest hair you can imagine—like corn silk. Toss in his bright blue eyes and his chubby cheeks and oh, my. He still had enough Baby left in him that he was a solace to me.
• Kaleb lived in my imagination. Not Kaleb himself, of course. But really: there was the stuff I was learning about being a teacher, and I was refreshing my memory for Algebra so I could make it through the upcoming College Algebra class I had to take, and I worried about money and I cried about not being at home, but in the forefront of my mind was always this: I am not done. I need another baby. Someone is still waiting! I wasn't just baby hungry. I was baby starved. Baby emaciated. "How can I have another baby?" was the first thought I had in the morning and the last thing I prayed about at night.
• I was still thoroughly addicted to drinking Pepsi. I had at least one 32 ounce Pepsi every day.
• For the first time in my life, I had to start watching what I ate. I gained ten pounds in the four months between Christmas and my birthday.
• We only had one vehicle, our 2001 Sienna mini van.
• I was running a little bit, but not enough to keep everything in check.
• I still played Bunco once a month with a group of eleven other women.
• My dad was still alive. His Alzheimer's wasn't even a blip yet. I thought I had decades left with him.
• I hadn't converted to a digital camera yet—I still loved my Pentax SLR. I bought all my film at Costco in the 8 packs.
• I filled up my last Creative Memories album and started using Close to my Heart albums. (I still do!)
• My favorite pair of jeans was one from the Gap that had a button fly.

So much has changed in ten years. So much has stayed the same. There are plenty of things I wish I could change but I feel powerless over; there are other things I did manage to proactively change. I have learned and come to understand many things. I think one of the most important things is just how bewildered I was then at how I wanted so desperately for my life to go one way (the fabulous lives that most of my Bunco friends had) and how it refused to do that. It went in a way I never expected when I was 19. That was bewildering and painful, but I do understand now, at 39, why it happened like it did. There were things I needed to learn and I am grateful, despite the aches of the hard times, for many things from my past decade.

Plus, I still own those button fly jeans!

What were you doing ten years ago?

Since the events that transpired to create this post happened, I have been in a dark place in my soul. I have doubted my decisions, my relationships, my faith. I had a dark moment on a dark night sitting alone on a cold bench in a park, so late at night that the lights had gone out.

I want to believe what I have believed. I want to believe what others have said about my choices. I want to believe, again, that I am forging a good life. But I don’t know how to do that, here in the dark alone. And I don’t know how to convey what I believe to the people who need to believe it too.

So. I’m in this dark spot.

I can’t really talk about it, because talking induces hysteria. The kind of tears that feel like a heart attack. Putting it into spoken words, the kind with sound waves, makes it feel even more real.

So I’ve written a lot in my journal. I’ve fasted for myself (not something I ever do). I’ve thought and relived and tried to see things from an objective perspective.

I’ve spent a lot of time crying in the bathtub.

Two weeks ago, my mom asked me to come to her church’s birthday dinner. Some sort of writers or artists were coming to speak—she was vague on the details—and she thought it would be fun if I came because, you know, my writerly ambitions. And while I usually feel guilty about doing things in the evening on nights when I’m not working, something told me I should go.

So I did, despite the fact that I argued with Kendell about it and I argued with Haley about it and there was a big meltdown just before I left and I left late and then I had to speed down the freeway (which is a brave thing to do in Utah right now, considering all the freeway construction). I went, taking my darkness with me and my hope that the something telling me to go was right.

When I got off the freeway and turned east towards Springville where my mom lives, I gasped. The moon was rising, very close to full, right in the valley between two mountains. A sheet of clouds hung in the lower part of the valley, so it looked like the bottom quarter of the moon had been torn off. The rest of it, though, looked enormous—you know how it looks when it first rises?

If I wasn’t late and the road wasn’t so congested, I would have stopped and taken a photo of it, even though I’m certain that my camera phone couldn’t begin to capture how that moon made me feel. A little bit of light.

I rushed to my mom’s, picked her up, and drove to the church. She was still a little bit vague on the details of who was speaking, but as I listened to the conversations around me, I picked it up: the painter Liz Lemon Swindle, who does religious paintings, and Susan Easton Black, who is a church historian and a professor at BYU. She also writes the books that tell the story behind Swindle’s paintings.

And it just so happened that my mom and I ended up sitting at the very same table as these two women.

As I tend to do when I am around successful people, I clammed up. I wanted to talk to them both, gush my admiration and ask them for advice and learn their secrets, but mostly I just listened and ate chicken salad.

I loved listening to Liz Lemon Swindle speak about her art. As art is something I am immensely fond of—partly because my grandpa, Curtis Allman, was an artist—but not anything I can do with any resemblance to actual art, I find artists to be amazing people. The translation between the idea and the finished painting—it is a source of magic I think.

But the talk I needed to hear, the one I didn’t know I came to the meeting for, was Susan Easton Black’s. She spoke of a time in her life when she found herself in bed, having given up trying to live any sort of real life, and how a sort-of acquaintance helped her get out of bed, wash her sheets, and move forward. "You just have to find your talents and then do something with them," the friend told her, and so that is what she did. She took her talent of being able to remember the details of anything she read, and she became a teacher of church history. She wrote books with her knowledge, and shared what she knew. She made a life for herself by building up her talent.

Talent.

That word came up several times in these two talks. Over and over, in fact. By the end it was almost the only word I could hear: talent. Find your talent. Build upon it. Move forward by using your talent. Build a life based on your talent.

What is my talent? I thought. And what I want the answer to be is this: writing.

What have I done with my talent? I asked myself. Focused all of my education around it. Taught it to high school students. Used it to share my kids’ stories. Taught courses on it to scrapbookers around the world. Put down my thoughts about books so that other people could discover the good ones, too.

But never what I really, really wanted to use it for, ever since I was 16 and listened to a popular girl in my sophomore English class read her poems out loud and knew: my poems were better than hers even if every boy in the school adored her. Writing books that other people might read: that is what I have wanted to use my talent for.

But I got married young. And then I had things like a mortgage and health insurance to pay for. I had babies. I finished school. I tried to be a good wife and mom. I suffered through Kendell’s unemployment, went back to school, became a teacher. Became a librarian. And throughout most of those years I kept my writing ambitions a sort of secret. I kept my Madeline L’Engle moment in my head: once my kids were all in school, it would be my time to write.

And here I am: all my kids are in school. It is the time my writing has been waiting for. But here I am: in the dark. Unsure. Maybe all those years were simply my way of laying in bed, ignoring the world and trying to sleep through my life? Maybe my Madeline L’Engle moment was only an excuse for me to not try? Because trying? Trying means failing. If I never try to be a writer, if I only talk about it, then I will still have the dream in front of me. By not starting I don’t have to ever confront failing.

Because that is the hitch that all my darkness spins around: is writing really my talent? Am I good and strong and determined enough to take the road I want to take? Is it selfish of me to even try, when my kids still need so much from me, both emotionally, yes, but also financially.

I thought, and I listened to Susan Easton Black’s story, and I thought some more, and soon the only word I heard was that one: talent.

A fragment of a Mary Oliver poem skipped into my thoughts:

little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

(I am a mother and a wife and a friend and an employee. But I am also myself, and no one else can save my life but me.)

And of course the scripture from Matthew:

For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

(Have I waited too long? Did I bury instead of build upon? That unprofitable servant who buried his talent didn’t just go away. He was cast into outer darkness, with much weeping and gnashing of teeth. Did I only once have the ability to write?)

And an idea from Borges:

"like every writer, he measured other men’s virtues by what they had accomplished, yet asked that other men measure him by what he planned someday to do."

(Can I only talk and dream about it?)

And that word:

talent
talent
talent.

And then the talks were over. I told them both how much I appreciated their words, my own syllables hollow. Neither one of them could know the story behind my appreciation. Because it felt like there was an answer here, somehow. An answer I still don’t know how to make be the answer. Because I have to believe in the answer so much that the other people who don’t believe in this answer are converted to it. And I have to be good enough to make it the answer. And I don’t know how to move from what I planned to someday do to actually doing it.

But it still felt like an answer somehow.

After I dropped my mom back at home and started the rush for home (Haley needed the car), I thought. I thought out loud—a sort of a prayer. I drove the long way home (despite Haley needing the car). And when I was out on the road that runs between towns, a road tucked right up against the foothills, I looked across the lake and I saw a shooting star.

Then I stopped my talking. I didn’t think, really. I just drove, to the end of my night which was book-ended by celestial lights, a sort of punctuation to the message I still don’t properly understand but know, somehow, is the one I needed to hear.

I confess: I am still in the dark. I am subsisting on shaky faith, doubt, and self-flagellation. But the dark is not so dark, quite. It is that word—talent—which is a light I can almost, almost see. And perhaps if I keep moving forward I will catch up to it.

it usually means there is something I want to write about but can't yet.

That's certainly true right now.

What I want to write about is the night I had with my mother last week, and answered prayers; an enormous moon and a shooting star.

But every time I try, I change my mind. I look at the blank screen, take a deep breath, and then do something else. I balance the checkbook instead. Clean out a drawer of scrapbook supplies. Do a load of laundry.

I want to write what is simmering in me.

But this time I am afraid to, because I don't know what it means yet.

And I can't write about anything else until I write about this topic.

So if I am bloggily silent, you know why: I am trying to find my writerly courage.

Hopefully it will blossom soon.

 finally got some of my photos from trek scrapbooked! Rather than just making a layout, I made a mini (8x8) album. Here's a teaser:

Go HERE to see more details!

I made this album for Jake. One day soon I'm going to make one for Haley and one for myself as well.

One thing that this album reminded me: big projects come together so much faster when the journaling is already written! I just had to tweak a little bit, and proofread, and then the journaling was done.

One thing that this album taught me: how to print small, double-sided booklets full of journaling without using Publisher. (As I don't have Publisher on my computer at home!) It's a little tricky and involves some cutting and pasting and some strange arranging of pages, but it can be done!

Another thing this album reminded me: I really, really loved going on trek, despite the cold.

And: despite my insecurities over being the historian, I did get some good photos.

Oh! And it also taught me: 6x8 prints are an awesome size!

Anyway. If you also went on trek, or know someone who did, you might hop over and see the rest of the album!

Last Monday while I cleaned out my pantry I found myself talking to my radio. That's because I was listening to NPR and they were discussing a bill that was on the Utah senate floor. Bill HB363 goes something like this: Utah schools can only teach abstinence-only concepts for sex education. Nothing else. If students ask teachers about something otherthan abstinence? Teachers cannot respond. This bill was fueled by homeschoolers who didn't like the fact that some of Utah's current sex education comes from Planned Parenthood.

As I listened to the radio (and argued back), my fears started to calm a little bit because every. single. person who called in to the radio show was against the bill. This made me feel a bit better because A---if the average person doesn't want this bill to pass, it shouldn't, right? And B---it seems obvious and logical that almost every average person would agree that this bill is a ridiculous idea. How could our state legislators pass this bill?

Well. I was wrong. It passed.

And I am up in arms. Never mind the fact that if people actually voted on this bill it wouldn't, I believe, pass. Never mind the fact that the passing of bill HB363 reinforces my current deep discouragement over and deep mistrust in politics actually being about American (or Utah) citizens. What really got me going is the horribly flawed concepts behind such a bill. So today I am ranting. And I am hoping that if you live in Utah OR you care about what happens in Utah, you will write the governor TODAY and ask him to veto the bill. My rants, which might be surprising to my friends and neighbors but which I need to say anyway:

1. People in Utah are so afraid of abortion that they lose all common sense. Yes: Planned Parenthood provides abortions. They also provide other services that some people don't have access to in any other way. The reality is that the fear of abortion, or anything slightly linked to it, makes people forget that there are bigger issues at play here. The reality of life is that there are going to be accidental pregnancies. Teenagers, whose brains are still developing and who don't, in a physiological sense, always really understand the fact that they are not immune to bad things, are going to have sex. Some of them are going to get pregnant. Some of them are going to get abortions. 

People here tend to think that teenage pregnancy and abortion doesn't happen in the "good" families. I personally know two friends who came from those "good" families who had abortions. They both look at that time in their lives as one of their hardest and darkest. They also feel like they made the right decision.

Unlike perhaps most of my neighbors, I am pro-choice. That doesn't mean I'm pro-abortion; I don't think I would ever personally chose to have an abortion. But the important word in this debate isn't even abortion. It is CHOICE.  Having seen first hand the affects of someone choosing abortion, I know that the idea that this is a choice made lightly is completely false. It is a HARD choice and a life-long consequence, but so is any pregnancy. I think that until you have been in the shoes of a pregnant teenager, your opinions don't really count. I am also a adamant proponent of adoption, which is a choice that not enough pro-choice supports remember. I believe that in ideal situations, a pregnant teenager should have her baby and place it for adoption. But I also know that ideal situations aren't always in the cards. Sometimes teenagers chose abortion and that is simply life. Basing so many other decisions on the people who chose abortion is illogical.

2. One of the point of sex education should be preventing teenage pregnancy—to educate students so that they never have to chose between adoption, abortion, or becoming a teenage parent. Abstinence-only concepts will fail at this because of one basic fact: teenagers are going to have sex. Sure, in the (again) ideal world, none of them would. In the ideal world, they would know that what their bodies are capable of is a separate issue from what their minds, souls, and hearts are capable of. (Meaning: they are physically able to create a baby, but not emotionally able to parent that baby, let alone the financial aspects.)

Teenagers might look like young adults, but they are not. Think back to when you were a teenager and learning about your body. Did you really have an understanding of how it really all works? Of course not. You learned by doing. And some teenagers are going to do it. When they are in the heat of the moment, some of them will remember the abstinence-only education. Not all of them will, though. (Let's face it: how many adults could stop in the heat of the moment?) But maybe if they've also been educated about condoms they might go ahead and use one. Maybe the fear of STDs might stop them. Maybe knowing that they can get pregnant if it's their first time might stop them. Maybe understanding that just because they didn't get pregnant when they had sex with their last boyfriend doesn't mean they can't do so with this one will stop them.

3.  Abstinence-only cloaks sexuality in mystery. This is because it removes the ability to talk about sexuality. It makes it forbidden; HB363 literally makes it illegal for teachers to discuss anything about sex. Let's think about what makes something intriguing: mystery certainly does that. "Forbidden" does, too. It's the same concept as banning a book: people want to read that banned book simply because it is banned.

I believe that people should talk about sex. Teenagers should talk about sex with their parents. AND with their teachers. This is because of one shocking point: teenagers don't always listen to their parents. Having another adult in the world telling them that they CAN get pregnant if they have sex and they CAN catch diseases if they have sex reinforces their knowledge. Having another source of education means that they might be more likely to believe or to listen to what they are hearing.

Sex isn't bad. It doesn't need to be relegated to darkness. And, let's be honest here: the world does not relegate it to darkness. Nearly every TV show you can think of has sexuality in it. Music is sexual. Movies. Magazine ads. Walk down the mall and you're bombarded with sexual images. Telling kids to abstain until they're married won't make the rest of these images go away. Talking about it will help them know and understand what to do with the emotions that bombardment causes.

4. One of the supports of the bill said something like this. "If we teach our teenagers that abstinence is the best choice, but then we turn around and teach them how to get access to birth control, it's just like telling them that drugs are bad but then giving them a list of places where they could get heroin." Deep sigh.

Sex is dangerous. But, you know? I think heroin is worse. If this makes me a bad Mormon then I am a bad Mormon, but if I had to chose I would rather my teenager was sexually active than a drug addict. Or an alcoholic, for that matter. (Of course, I don't want them to be either. Which is why I talk to my kids about sex. And drugs. And even...rock and roll. ) This doesn't mean I am downplaying the risks and the emotional impact of adolescent sexuality. It does mean I know, first hand, the devastation that drugs and alcoholism cause, and it is worse. The fact that some well-meaning person can make that comparison speaks to the logic behind the bill.

5. One more personal truth. Deep down, I honestly don't believe that any sex education plan will be able to help ALL teenagers. There will always be teenage pregnancy because of the way that teenagers work. That is just reality. But to me this means we need to work even harder to educate them with the facts, because if our education can help even ONE teenager from getting pregnant, catching an STD, or going through the emotional consequences of having sex before he or she is emotionally ready, then our education has been successful for that teen.

In other words: education is only going to stop some teens from having sex. How many teens will abstinence only stop?

If you want to contact the governor and ask him to veto bill HB363, you can do so HERE.

(I hope those of you who know me in real life will still be my friend after reading my rant and my opinions.)

Yesterday when I was rushing home to make dinner, I passed a silver Camry going super slow in the middle lane of a busy road. While I try not to get all road-ragey, I did turn to glare a little bit as I passed this car, and discovered that the driver was holding her data phone against her steering wheel and texting as she drove. Apparently steering, texting, watching the actual road and pushing on the gas pedal was more multitasking than she could manage, because she went slower and slower. Then we got to the light at one of Orem's busiest intersections. Her car had already stopped actually moving  before she made it to the line of cars, so there was a FOUR CAR length between her car and the one in front of her. (I know because I counted.)

This makes me insane. And grumpy.

I confess: if I am stopped at a red light and I know it's one that will take a long time to turn green and I have a text waiting, I will read it. At the red light. But I sort of have a Thing about Not Texting While I am Driving. The thought of getting in a car crash and possibly killing someone simply because I neededto write something to someone right then while I was driving is horrifying to me. I don't want to risk it. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but I think that texting and driving is completely and utterly selfish. What is so important that you must text it while you are driving? And if it really is that important that your message goes out right this second then pull your damn car into a parking lot and write your text there instead of putting everyone else on the road around you in peril.

But you know what bugs me even more? the iFans. I don't mean people who just happen to love their iPhone. I mean the people who are obnoxious and ostentatious about it. The iFans. One example is a member of my extended family (who doesn't read my blog but shall remain nameless on the odd chance that she might). At a family Christmas party I listened to her go on and on and on about how much she loves her iPhone and her iPad and how awesome it is and how Apple is just the most amazing company ever in the existence of companies. "I mean, I just can't use anything other than Apple products. I just can't. I honestly don't know how anyone can."

O.
M.
G.

I honestly can't think of one single product or company I am that dedicated to. I love my Burt's Bees chapstick but if I need some lip balm and some other brand is all I have? OK, pass over that Chapstick brand chapstick! And seriously, I understand. Some people like Macs. Some people (me!) like PCs. (One of the reoccurring dreams I used to have while I was working on my teaching certificate was that some nameless IT guy was making me use a Mac for all my teaching stuff. And I seriously asked, during the interviews while I was looking for a teaching spot, if the school used Macs or PCs. The high school where I taught did, in fact, use PCs. I think an all-Mac high school would have gotten a "no thanks" from me.) I understand that you get used to how things work and you like the way it operates and looks and feels. I get that because I don't want to switch to a Mac.

But the slavish dedication to all-things-i? I just don't get it. More than not getting it: I think it's ridiculous. It's fatuous and fabulous and, well—flashy, I guess. The iFans aren't just about using what they own. They're about making sure that everyone else knows what they own. They want everyone to convert to their iReligion, which is ironic because hello: if everyone converted then who would you make feel inferior to you for not owning an iSomething?

Honestly, what this all does, more than anything, is discourage me. It reminds me of how we as a society are changing, pinned as we are becoming to our devices. This week's Time had an article about how our brains are in The Cloud---it is literally harder to learn and remember something if you think you can just google it instead. (There are research studies to support this idea.) Devices, be they iSomethings or Androids or our PCs or our Macs or whatever, affect our physical selves. The way that iAnything is a status symbol will only fuel this connection. And while the technology is great, I still think we are too connected to it.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not exempting myself (even though I am decidedly not an iFan). I know I spend too much time putzing around online. Sometimes I check Facebook from my phone when I should be talking to my kids instead. I refresh my email from my phone too many times when I'm out and about, just to see if I have any blog comments to read. I'm too connected, too.

I just think this: if a person is going to be slavishly dedicated to something, it should be an idea. A belief, a cause, an art. Something that does something for the world. I think we should be slavishly dedicated to fixing the environment, finding alternative energy sources, ending war or curing Alzheimer's or cancer or diabetes or depression. Or hangnails. And I also think this: if you have an iPhone and you love your iPhone, then that is awesome. But what *I* love about you is not the kind of cell phone or table you use. It's how you think and what you say and how you treat people. Not your iPhone. Slavish devotion to devices creates, in my opinion, shallow and meaningless lives.

And it creates people who think it's perfectly fine to text while they're driving.

So, tell me, what do you think about devices?

And I think that needs to be celebrated! It was 59 degrees here today, cloudless and windless. Beautiful. The air had that smell of damp earth and greenness starting its return. It reminded me of a line from a William Carlos Williams poem I had forgotten until I stepped outside: The sky has given over its bitterness.

Today was only sweetness and that new raw happiness of coming spring.

Haley, who was accidentally locked out of the house this afternoon for twenty minutes, sprawled in the grass and soaked it in. Spring! Even though it doesn't feel like we ever really had a winter, it still feels good to welcome spring.

The weather brought a desire back to me: I want to go running. I had to work, and I'd already worked out early this morning anyway. But if I hadn't had work, I would have put on some (definitely pink) running clothes and hit the road. I haven't felt the yearning to run for awhile. I've run because I know I should. But not because I needed to. Today, I did. I wanted to go running, and then come home and stretch under my naked trees in the sun, and then do a little bit of gardening. The return of that desire makes me peaceful. It makes me feel normal.

Tomorrow, it's supposed to snow again. Spring in Utah, as the sighing goes around here. This early in March I cannot begrudge the snow. We still need more moisture.

But today, the day that felt like spring—today I was nearly unbearably happy. But in a good way.

In a way I needed.

(via Francine)

1. Eddard Stark, I hope that calculating Cersei didn't kill you.
2. Mary Oliver, your poems are little oases of peace in my life. Thank you for writing them.
3. What should I do for sharing time*?
4. Squee! Brooke is having a girl!**
5. Windows, I think you were programmed by the devil and not actual human Microsoft programmers.
6. Will my sharing time be long enough?
7. Seriously: where did that font go?
8. It is snowing at last! Wait. I knew this would happen: winter would arrive just in time for spring.
9. My snow crocus are blooming! Color at last!
10. Will my sharing time be too long?
11. I miss my dad and wish I could talk to him right now. Really, really talk to him.
12. I am sick to death of coughing and hacking and having a sore throat and blowing my nose.
13. It is so awesome, having teenagers.
14. I miss having babies and I want another one right now.
15. I'm so glad I don't have a baby right now!
16. I want a cat. An orange tabby. Or a Russian Grey like Emily.
17. My kids are awesome & amazing & wonderful.
18. I am going to take photos of the icicles dripping on the snow crocus right now.***
19. I should have made better visuals for my sharing time.
20. I'm so glad sharing time is finished for the week.
21. Will I ever be able to take my dream trip to the Alps before I'm too old to enjoy it?
22. I have to do sharing time again next Sunday. What should I do?
23. What book should I pick for the next SDBBE round?
24. Please don't crash, because you and all my other babies are in the car together.
25. I hope I never get divorced because the dividing of stuff is ugly and painful. (Wait! that's not the only reason!)
26. little donut holes from Costco. little donut holes from Costco. little donut holes from Costco. little donut holes from Costco. little donut holes from Costco. little donut holes from Costco.
27. Tax return! Already spent...but on something awesome!
28. I miss you Chris. Stupid cold + helping recently-divorced friend divide up his stuff = let's go in two weeks!
29. My sister is awesome.
30. The first drink of water on fast Sunday is the best thing in the entire world.

{key to random thoughts}

*Sharing time = fifteen minute teaching experience for Primary-aged kids (3-11) that is part of my new responsibilities at church, which I haven't blogged over because, well...it's a long story.

**My friend Brooke is the mom to seven boys. She told me last week that she is expecting a girl. I have squeeeeee'd about this approximately 1 million times to myself. In my head. Because she is in Arizona. But I have also squeeeeeeee'd to her on Facebook.

***I did take said photos. But I'm too lazy to go find where Haley put my memory card. Searching down your memory card = one of the less-pleasant aspects of mothering teenagers.

What are your recent random thoughts?