"I Have So Much to Talk About"

Jana always seems to come home from work happy.  This is especially true on Friday.

I had sent her an email at work at 3:50pm, just ten minutes before she was to get off work.

Would you like to go to a movie with me at 7:00 tonight?

Mystery Date

When she walked in the door she declared,

YES!  I'd love to go out!

When we climbed into the van to head out for a cheap dinner before the movie she effused,

I have so much to talk about.  I can hardly wait!

We got to Chicago Connection and ordered our salad bar dinners and she almost exploded,

Can I tell you about my day?

She had a great day at work and was able to get resolutions on several large hospital insurance accounts that she has been dogging down for two and three months. This was a major victory and she was excited and proud about it, and rightfully so.

She then brought along some papers and announced,

These are the finalists in my hunt for an Oregon Coast rental house for our anniversary in October.  Read them and tell me what you think.

I read through them and commented on them as I did.  We then discussed the pros and cons and narrowed the choice down to two properties in Otter Bay, north of Newport.  She then jumped in,

Can I go ahead and make a decision?  

Jana loves to have something to look forward to.  I found last weekend as we listened to a set of tapes called "Light His Fire" that women in general always need something to look forward to; it makes the minor inconveniences and trials of daily life more bearable.  I have learned how important it is to her so I try to encourage it.  Besides, it's fun for me too.

One of the things I love about Jana is her optimism, joy and excitement for life ... especially for experiences ... and especially for experiences with me.  It's so fun to hear the excitement in her voice and see her eyes flash.  What a loving thing.  Am I smart or what in choosing Jana?
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Slumber Party

This weekend was my slumber party weekend with my daughter.  I had mentioned it to client on the East Coast yesterday.

I'm having a slumber party this weekend with my 28 year old daughter.  What are you doing this weekend?

I received a reply.

When I first read your email I read "slumber party" and then saw "28".  My first thoughts were, "28 girls at a slumber party"?  Then I reread it.  I'm headed to Nashville for the weekend.  Enjoy your weekend with your daughter.

The main feature of our agenda for the weekend was to watch the new BBC production of Jane Austen's "Emma".  We went to Albertson's to pick up some dinner food, had dinner and watched "Star Trek".  We finally were ready to begin watching Emma at 1:30 am.  We watched the first hour of the four hour epoch before turning in.  I love Chanel's little apartment.

Today, after a leisurely morning and a more than late breakfast we watched the other three hours of "Emma".  I quite enjoy Jane Austen and the view of the era she creates.

After stopping at the home of a workmate of Chanel's for an open house for her husband who just graduated from BSU, we finally arrived home at about 7:30 this evening.  Jana was her animated and joyful self.  She actually came outside to welcome me home as I brought in my overnight gear.  (Jana always chides me for taking more than I need when I go overnight anywhere.)

I love coming home to Jana. Her smile and constantly cheerful disposition is a loving thing. By nature she's a happy person.  She makes our home a loving place. 

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Smells Like Bruschetta

Each Monday evening we have a get together called Family Home Evening with the members of our church congregation or ward.  We usually have about 30+ young single adults there.  On the fourth Monday we have a dinner.  Each month the group in charge of the dinner picks a theme and with the creativity and energy of the young adults of our ward you can be assured that no two potluck dishes will be the same.

This month the theme was "Euro-dishes": some dish inspired by European cuisine.  Jana really got into it this week and did some online searching for inspiration.  Her criteria: simple, as in able to be whipped together in 30 minutes or less because she gets home from work at about 5:30 and the dinner was to start at 6:30.

She found a recipe for Bruschetta.  On the way home from the Rec Center after work she stopped at Walmart and picked up some prebaked french bread and other ingredients: two flavors of cream cheese, deli sliced roast beef, fresh Roma tomatoes and fresh green onion.

She painted each side of the sliced (yes, to save time she even found presliced french bread) bread with olive oil and baked them.  When toasted she pulled them out of the oven and let them cool for a few minutes so they wouldn't melt the cream cheese.  She then employed me to help dress the bruschetta.

It was quite fun and the finished result looked every bit as appetizing as the full colored pictures online.

For my part I cooked some bacon, sauteed some diced onions then added whole green beans and stir-fried them, adding peanuts and a "savory blend of spices".  We then headed for dinner.

The loving thing was just the fun of creating something together and laughing and joking while exercising our culinary inspirations.  Jana likes to say she doesn't enjoy cooking but it's fun watching her, in her most pragmatic way, create something fun and different than the normal fare.  

One of the things that originally drew me to Jana was that, when we first met and worked together on that play so many years ago, I could see that we really worked well together when confronting a common project – in that case, the play.  It is still true.  We do work well together and it's fun doing simple, out of the routine things that allow us to add a dash of creativity and a dollop of fun to the recipe.

I think loving things smell surprisingly like Italian bruschetta.

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Half Hours Strung Together

Jana had already left for work and I was changing clothes to head to the rec center.  The phone rang and I almost didn't answer it.  I dashed to the office and picked up the receiver.  It was Jana.  She'd only been to work for 15 minutes.

"I left my bag of chips for our work luncheon on the kitchen counter.  Would you like to bring it to me?"


"Sure.  I'm headed for the rec center.  I can drop it off in a few minutes."


"Well, I was wondering if you'd like to bring it at lunch time and we could eat lunch together."


"That would work, too.  I'll see you at lunch."

After the rec center I dragged myself home and worked for a couple hours before my computer alarm told me it was time to go to lunch.  I microwaved my vegetables and brown rice and headed for the hospital central billing office (CBO).

Jana met me with a smile as I walked up to the door and she took the bag of chips from me.

"I'll take this in and will be right back."

When she returned she asked,

"Should we go into the hospital cafeteria or just eat in the van?"

The van it was.

As we sat Jana told me about the visitors touring the CBO as part of the preparation for the sale of the hospital to another owner.  She shared stories about some of the interesting women she works with and the triumphs and trials they each face.

The half hour came and went very quickly and she needed to get back to work.  But it's the small moments and opportunities like these, taken, created, that carry us over the sorrows, disappointments and uncertainties and on to the quiet victories and joys that give meaning to mortality.  It's the half hours, strung together with loving things and bound by hope, that give joy to the journey.

I'm just grateful that Jana is my traveling companion.

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Connection Points

When Jana comes home from work she has a routine.  She grabs the mail out of the mailbox and brings it in with her; she sets her bag down and takes off her coat; she makes a pit stop; then she comes into the office where I work and plops down on the white leather couch that sits in front of my desk.  We then take a few minutes and just visit, generally about the day or how many accounts she processed or an interesting story or whatever comes to mind.  It doesn't really mater what.  It's a few minutes of decompression for her and connection for both of us. 

She will then sometimes go in and take a little nap before dinner.

Tonight, at about 5:30 (I generally work right up until dinner at 6:00), I heard Jana's voice float in from the bedroom,

"When did you eat lunch?"

"At about 2:30.  Oh, I know what that question means."

That question means "I'm just too comfortable here so do I really need to wrestle up some dinner?"  I was trying to finish up a project and get it emailed to a client before I finished my day.  I replied,

"Sweetheart, simple is just fine."

This past year I've changed my eating habits so that meals can be very simple.  Jana precooks the meats on Saturday so during the day I can just pull something out of the refrigerator and heat it up with a salad and veggies for lunch.  In a pinch this also makes preparing our evening meal just as simple.

I noticed a stirring in the bedroom but was focused on finishing my project.  Shortly Jana came walking into the office from the direction of the kitchen.  "Dinner's ready."  I took a few extra minutes to finish sending the project off through cyberspace and met her at the table.

Even though we don't have the kids' days to review any more Jana and I still always seem to have plenty of things to talk about at the dinner table.

After dinner I cleared the table and filled the sink (we still do dishes the old fashioned way) then headed for the bedroom to change clothes for my evening meetings.  When I came out Jana was just finishing up the dishes.  As I collected the notes and things I needed to take with me to my appointments Jana asked, "Would you like a hug?  And how about a kiss to go with it?"

"I'll never turn down a hug AND a kiss!"

It wasn't a "7 second, steamy glasses" kiss but it was just right.  And with that I was ready to slay dragons.

I'm so grateful for those little connection points each day.  They really don't take much time: ten minutes to decompress and reconnect, conversation over dinner, and a hug and a kiss before slaying dragons.  But they are the loving things: the things that make a relationship.  They are the things that remind us that life and love were meant to last beyond the sunsets.
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Mulberry Street

A whirlwind of a weekend on the heels of the holidays has concluded with our depositing our youngest daughter safely at college.  Today concluded her second day of classes and based on her emails and a quick phone conversation she is enjoying her new life, her new friends, her apartment and even her professors.

As I've watched her grow over the past couple years I have seen an intelligent, funny, caring, aware, talented woman begin to take her place in the world.  I expect to see the rapid rate at which she continues to grow and develop to increase exponentially over this next semester.  Her confidence is already beginning to assert itself in her ability to confront and handle change and new circumstances.

This leaves Jana and I, tonight, concluding our second full day of empty-nestedness.  The house is quiet, even with Jana having taken off two extra days "just to settle".  She is a purposeful woman.  She attacks the day with a steady pace that moves her from one task to the next predetermined task without a moment of lost energy.

Arielle's bedroom is now spotless and dejunked, the "kids' bathroom" is scoured and Jana is ready to a pursue our next stage in life.

Jana is one of the most honestly cheerful people I know.  When she comes home from work it's like the whole house lights up.  She doesn't come home carrying the burdens of a "hard day at work".  She virtually bounces in the house, hangs up her keys in the kitchen, makes a pit stop then often comes in and bounces onto the couch that sits in my office directly in front of my desk.

"How was your day, sweetheart?" I ask.

"Oh, just fine.  I just plowed through my stack of patient accounts. And, oh, I have to tell you a story ..."

whereupon she relates an entertaining slice of life she had seen or overheard during the day.  When she comes home it's almost like rereading "To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street" by Dr. Suess.

Jana makes our home a bright, happy place; she is totally content with her life as she goes about making each day an adventure of simple pleasures and found joys.  The way she lives her life is, to me, a loving thing as she somehow decided long ago that life was meant to be enjoyed and adventure can be found in the dirt trap of a vacuum cleaner, on the faces of those she loves and in the 3/4 of a mile distance between home and where she works.

My daughter is starting a new and exciting life as she grasps the adventures of college.  It's beginning to settle in that I likewise get to start a new and exciting life as I grasp the adventures that await Jana and I in the simple things, the loving things, of our life.

Does anyone know of any upcoming adult education couples' classes on "Cooking for Two, Again"?
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A Gracious Christmas

Christmas night and we all just got home from a Christmas night movie -- "Blind Side".  So many loving things went on today.

This year was a different kind of Christmas for us.  We spent Christmas Eve night with my 28 year old daughter in her single bedroom apartment.  Kindly she let Jana and I sleep in her new queen-sized bed, which was o-so comfy with the comforter and fluffy pillows, while she slept on the floor in the living room and her sister slept on the sofa.  That definitely qualifies as a loving thing.

For the past nearly ten years we have drawn names for Christmas, pooled our combined Christmas money and each provided Christmas for the person whose name we drew, complete with Christmas stockings.  Only this year our youngest daughter is headed for college in one week, as a brand-new freshman, and she really needs first-time-on-your-own stuff for college life.  The solution was that, even though we each drew names again this year, each of us (except our college-bound daughter) were going to spend the money on her.  She knew nothing of the arrangement.

After spending the night at our other daughter's we made it home with Jana's mother to open gifts at our home.  It didn't take long before our youngest, who loves to save opening her presents to prolong the anticipation, kept urging others to open their gifts.  Well, we really didn't have many so we finally let her in on the secret.

She was shocked, surprised and, frankly, a little humbled at the thought.  It was just so fun for all of us to watch her open gift after needed gift.  She was simultaneously gracious and excited the whole time.

We had opened our stockings at my daughter's apartment.  I gave my wife the movie "Julie - Julia" which she loves and wanted.  That, coupled with the Reese's mini-bite peanut butter cups and the navel orange in the toe, was all that was in Jana's stocking.  I had her name this year.  The rest of my budget (along with everyone else's) went to our daughter.

Jana didn't receive another present for Christmas, according to our plan.  We did each receive some wonderful and thoughtful gifts from outside family members which was really fun.

Another part of our Christmas tradition was that we each need to make a homemade gift for the person whose name we drew.  After all the gifts were opened and photographed and appreciated, and we had finished stuffing the garbage bag with wrapping paper I said,

"Jana, I have one more gift for you."

and I pointed to our family picture wall.  One Christmas about 6 years ago I had Jana's name.  My homemade gift was a bunch of group picture frames for our wall.  I got the frames up and a couple photographs inserted, but due to time I never filled the picture holes.  My gift this year was to fill the rest of the picture holes for the frames.

Jana, in her sweet joy was totally excited, as if that was the only gift in the world ... which it pretty much was.  Her willingness to be slighted for Christmas for herself and her excitement about giving to our daughter was a loving thing on so many levels and for so many people.  I am so grateful for her graciousness, her giving heart, her finding joy in the simplest of gifts, her willingness to sacrifice for her family, continually, with such grace and joy.

It truly has been a Merry Christmas!
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An Unexpected Lunch Date

Today has been a wonderful day.  It's my birthday and I've celebrated it with a tradition I began when I was 15: I treated myself to go out to breakfast at IHOP (International House of Pancakes).  One of the young men in my ward met me there and we had a wonderful time.

But an even greater joy was a phone call I received at about 12:10 pm.  I hadn't seen Jana up to then as I had gone to the early morning session in the temple.

"I wanted to wish you a happy birthday.  So 'Happy Birthday'."

"Well, thank you."

"Would you like to come and have lunch with me?"

"Of course I would.  I'll be there in a few minutes."

So we had lunch together.  I brought some veggies and Jana had her sack lunch and we ate in the hospital cafeteria.  It was fun just to talk with her in the middle of the day.  It was truly a loving thing for her to think of inviting me to join her for lunch.  I love unexpected time with her.  It's like a gift.

I even got to go back to the IHOP this evening for dinner so I could have my birthday breakfast with my family.  Too breakfasts in the same day.  Cool!

A Phone Call at Lunch

Jana and I have a slightly different living/working arrangement.  Jana works in a medical billing office a mile away.  I work at home.  I work in front of my computer all day and she works in front of hers.

At about 1:10 today, right after her lunch break, I received a phone call from Jana.

"Hello."

"Well, Hi."

"What are you doing?"

"Just sitting here staring at my computer."

"Well, I just wanted to call and say 'Hi'.  So, 'Hi'.  That's all."

That brief interchange was followed by some mushy remarks.  But, during the day, it feels nice to be thought of.  It doesn't take long at all.  It doesn't have to convey stories or events or requests or assignments or ... anything.  Just to know that the one you love is thinking about you is often enough.  It makes their homecoming an event to be anticipated.  And when Jana got home from work, after first doing some grocery shopping, you bet a smile teased at my face when I saw the familiar green van pull into the driveway.  And you bet I went out and helped bring in the groceries.  And you bet I gave her a hug once we set the bags down on the counter.

And it was enough.  A phone call.  A small thing.  A loving thing.
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Still A Smile in Her Voice After 6:00

Jana grew up with a father who had more peas on his knife than could possibly be swallowed.  She grew up feeling that everything else in his life was more important than her – primarily his work (as a self-employed, one-man chicken farmer) and his church service (as bishop then stake president over a multitude of Mormon congregations in southwest Idaho).  She drew a distinction in his need to provide a living for his family but grew to resent feeling orphaned by his church service.

"When deciding on the qualities I wanted in a husband," she later recounted, "I wanted to marry a man who was kind, lived his religion, honored his priesthood, but would never be a bishop."

After 31 years of marriage I was called to serve as a bishop over a young single adult ward.

The Mormon church does not have a paid ministry.  We all serve in the church when asked or "called" by our priesthood leadership.  We do not seek positions, we do not aspire to callings, we do not apply for station, we do not campaign for office.  We also do not turn down opportunities to serve each other, in whatever capacity and for whatever duration we are called.

I can not begin to explain the depths to which Jana had to reach to find the faith, or at least a glimmer of hope, to support me in this new calling.  The little girl who felt so neglected, unloved and unvalued reemerged, her insecurities and loneliness almost overpowering her.  This was truly a trial of her faith.

I can't say my own history in our marriage has been that much of a solace for her.  I have displayed a tendency to grasp hold of "extra curricular" service, be it Boy Scouts, church callings or a fatherless boy, and spread my time as thinly as a child trying to make a sandwich out of the last scrapings from the peanut butter jar.  Jana didn't have much to build her hope on.  Even so, like the widow's mite, she gave "all her living" to the hope that somehow she would not be lost or forgotten or ignored in my press to magnify my calling and serve those I had been called to shepherd.

As time has rolled on an unexpected "tender mercy" has unfolded.  My call has somehow simplified my life, or at least my thoughts, and has focused me.  It has slowed me down and given me far greater appreciation for Jana, for her strength, for her wisdom, for her patience and for the secure calm that lies at the core of our relationship.

As we began this new journey a year and a half ago, I committed to be home on Sunday evenings by 6:00 with my attention turned to home.  I have not perfected that commitment yet but my success rate continues to improve.

This time of year I am in the middle of the annual end of year "tithing settlement" where I meet with each member of the ward in the course of one month's time in one-on-one interviews.  It is a wonderful, enriching experience as I connect with each member of my ward and simply listen.  The interview's are short but sometimes the course of the conversations require a few extra minutes to allow for individual needs.

Tonight, after having left the house this morning before she was up and after only seeing Jana once across a classroom in one of our meetings, I finished my last interview of the day at about 6:05.  I called Jana to let her know I was finished and was heading home.

With the cheerful lilt to her voice that reveals her native happy personality which I've come to love over the course of 33 years, she replied, "OK. I'll see you in a few minutes."

The melody of her voice and the simplicity and ordinariness of her response belied the arduous journey that has brought her to this place.  Having a knowledge of that journey, what I heard was an ocean-deep loving thing that ripples through my heart and reminds me how blessed I am.
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