Stir Fry

Sundays are fairly busy for me.  I generally leave the house at about 7:30am and make it home around 6:00, except every other week when we have an evening fireside after church that allows me to fly by and pick up Jana enroute to the fireside.  On those Sundays we get home at around 9:00.

But it's such a joy and rather than feeling tired I feel energized and generally come home feeling happy and satisfied.  There's nothing more fun than spending the day with the young people of my congregation, people who are trying to live good: contributing lives; striving to make good choices; looking to find a place where they can make a difference in the world.  What could be more energizing than that?  The maturity and inquisitiveness of their thoughts constantly inspire me to want to be better.  I often tell them, "I want to be like you when I grow up."  They are just so easy to love.

For example, I had a young man inspire me with a powerful lesson Sunday.  I've mentioned that my reason for writing this blog is to capture the many loving things that my wife does for me so that they don't slip away unnoticed.  It opens my eyes and focuses my attention so I'm, hopefully, better tuned in.  However, as I visited with this young man yesterday he commented, "Bishop, I try to notice five times every day when the Holy Spirit touches me or prompts me to act.  Then I write them down in my journal in the evening so I can remember how blessed I am."

How can I help but come away feeling inspired and determined to do even better each day when I get that kind of motivation.

Back to my point.

I woke Jana at 7:30 yesterday, had a prayer with her and kissed her goodbye before leaving the house.  I saw her during our Sunday School time at 2:30 and gave her a hug.  After church, as she was leaving, she asked what time I'd be home.  Based on my interview schedule I told her I should be home by 6:00.

My last interview started at 5:30 with a young man who is new to the area.  We had a delightful visit and talked about some things that were important to him.  I could have cut it short but I chose to let our conversation continue as I got to know more about him, his situation and his desires in life.  He left at 6:30 and I felt good for the time we had spent together.

Before leaving I called Jana to let her know where I was and that I would be home in about 15 minutes.  I took some time to review the day and make notes of what I need to follow up on this week to attempt to keep things from falling through the cracks. (You know, they seem to be making cracks wider lately.)  I was the last person leaving the building so I did a tour around the building to make sure lights were out and doors were locked.  The point is that I didn't make it home until 7:00 and was feeling self-conscious about not being home on time.

I found Jana in the bedroom in the "reading chair" reading her journal.  She's updating her life's timeline for the past three years.  I came in and told her I was home and peripherally asked about her day.  I then said I was going to go fix something for dinner. Jana responded,

"I've already got a stir fry ready to cook so let me get started."

Jana got up and headed for the kitchen.  I headed for the closet to take off my jacket and tie.  I then joined her in the kitchen.  When I got there she had the ingredients for stir fry already cut up and measured in small containers and the pan was heating up.  I jumped up on the counter so we could just talk while she cooked.

It was fun just talking and sharing the spoils of our day.  Jana talked about a new young woman she had met that I had missed.  It's really good to have her there with me because, as I've mentioned several time before, she is really good about visiting with people and drawing them out.  I shared a couple things I had learned and observed that day.  We just had a good visit.

The stir fry was done quite soon and we continued our conversation over dinner.  Jana never mentioned my tardiness, although she had every right to.  She didn't even show any disappointment or disapproval, although I somewhat expected it.

I don't want to take advantage of Jana's patience and kindness.  It is a sweet and selfless gift, a truly loving thing.  As a chicken farmer's daughter she was raised around a set schedule for mealtimes that carried over into our home.  Our family rule is that dinner is at 6:00 and if you're late (that too often meant me) you'll have to eat it cold.  I do not complain of that family tradition.  It has been one of the things that has created a stable and predictable home environment for us all.  But I am so grateful for the kind and loving thing that Jana shared in getting up and fixing dinner when I finally came home and for the refreshing "talking time" as I sat on the counter and she stirred.

I'll be home by 6:00 next week.
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Just Because

I have mentioned before that in our church we try to take care of each other.  We do this by having assigned to us 3 - 6 individuals or families to visit each month just to see how they're doing.  We will have a companion assigned to us so we don't go alone.

This past month I was unable to connect with my companion and couldn't get another to substitute for him so I asked Jana if she would mind going with me to see a couple young women I visit.  I gave her a little more notice this time and she willingly came with me.

Jana is a joy to visit people with.  She always makes them feel special and important simply by how she gives them her full attention, asks questions and listens intently to their responses.  One of our visits was to a wonderful and talented young woman.  In the course of the conversation Jana asked her if she had seen a particular movie.  The young woman replied, no, she hadn't.  Jana immediately said,

"Well, you'd love it.  In fact, what are you doing Friday night?"

"I don't have any plans right now."

"Then why don't you just come over and we'll pop some popcorn and watch it.  Kevin, you can join us if you want."

Jana not only shared a loving thing by her willingness to help me in my visits, but also extended her love to a young woman "just because":  just because she enjoys getting to know people one-on-one; just because she remembers what it's like to be single and alone; just because she's genuinely interested in people.

Sounds like a great date night to me.

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Salmon-Chanted Evening

My Sunday schedules are pretty simple.  I"m out the door around 8:00 am, not particularly early, and try to be home by 6:00.  Two Sundays a month I continue on until 9:00 pm before getting home.  I try to have a good breakfast before leaving in the morning then have a light dinner when I get home.

Jana celebrates the weekend by often staying up late Saturday night and, since our actual church meetings don't start until 1:00 pm, sleeping in.  I'll wake her up to have a morning prayer with her, give her a "morning kiss" (no 7-second kisses before 8:00 am) then head out the door.

At church I will generally see her and give her a squeeze between meetings.  "Good morning" I'll offer, a quick kiss and then move on.

The pattern is just slightly different on the first Sunday of the month which we call "Fast Sunday" – that would be "Fast" as in no eating after dinner Saturday evening until Sunday evening, not "Fast" as in quick.

Yesterday being Fast Sunday I was hungry by the time I got home but there was purpose behind my fast and there were a number of specific issues on my mind that I was absorbed with.  When I got home I went in and gave Jana a hug and told her I was glad to be home.  But I didn't linger as I had a number of things yet to follow up on and phone calls that needed to be made before the evening slipped away.

As I was sitting at my desk making calls Jana slipped in.

"I have some salmon thawed.  Would you like some?"

That sounded wonderful so I said, yes.  About 2o minutes later she came back in.

"Dinner's ready for you on the table."

I finished up and went in and there was a lovely salmon, potato and salad dinner waiting for me.  This, I suppose, doesn't sound momentous, but since Jana gets home from church a couple hours before I do we don't have dinner on Sunday evening.  When I get home I just fix something light and quick.  This was a special expression of love from her, truly a loving thing.  It was purely selfless since she had already had dinner a couple hours earlier.

It just felt like such a sweet kindness and I enjoyed every morsel.  Kindness is always romantic.  Kindness is always a loving thing. 

After my dinner I told Jana I had a "home evening" I wanted to prepare.  I brought the laptop computer into the bedroom along with my desktop speakers, plugged them in, then we listened for the next two hours to an interview of Dallin Oaks and his wife, Kristen.  What fun to just end the evening together.

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IF YOU WOULD, PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO COMMENT ON ONE OF THE LOVING THINGS, SMALL OR GRAND, THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED FROM SOMEONE IMPORTANT TO YOU.

The Power of Her Touch

Since the week between Christmas and New Year's I've been experiencing intense pain between my shoulder blade and spine.  Finally, after three weeks of constant discomfort, I went to see a chiropractor to see if there may be a pinched nerve.

The appointment was very informational and the massage therapist's work felt wonderful but the pain persisted.

This week the pain became distracting enough, or I just felt tired enough, to call my family physician.  He checked me out and did a series of x-rays and found no evidence of any spinal problems.  He, like the chiropractor, determined it was muscular in nature and suggested I go to a physical therapist for a couple weeks and see how it does.

When I went to bed last night, fairly late, Jana had been in bed for awhile and I assumed she was asleep.  When I crawled into the cozy flannel sheets I asked if she was awake and she said yes.  We just prattled for awhile but, as we did so, I kept changing positions to try to get comfortable.  I ended up with my back to her.  As she prattled she simply reached over and touched my shoulder.

"Is this where it hurts?"

She then just started to massage my shoulder.

Even with the attention of the chiropractor, followed by my physician, and with the addition of anti-inflammatory medications my pain persists.  But with the tenderness of Jana's simple though untrained touch the discomfort melted away.  Though practiced in the physiology, anatomy and pathology of the human body, the thing the trained professionals can't duplicate is the healing touch of a loving spouse, a touch that not only warms the aches and pains, but the heart as well.  I drifted off to sleep with the comfort of the loving thing that only Jana can give.
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Twofers are Twice as Good

Chanel, the older of my two daughters, lives about 20 miles away from us.  She lives in a cute little one bedroom apartment that is cozy and decorated to match her sense of creativity and flair.  Periodically she will invite Jana over for a slumber party and they'll stay up late and gab and watch movies and sleep in late and have a wonderful time.  They both really look forward to these mother-daughter slumber parties.

But recently she invited me to come over for a daddy-daughter slumber party.

Chanel is a wonderful hostess and always has fun things planned and great ideas to make any occasion a special occasion.

As I was getting ready to leave the house for my overnight adventure with Chanel, Jana said, "Oh, you're going to have such a good time.  I'm glad you can go and spend the night and have fun with Chanel."  No hint of jealousy.  No guilt trips for leaving her home alone while we were going to play.  Just an "I love you" and "you're going to have such a good time."  Now that's a selfless thing.  That's truly a giving thing.  That's a loving thing.  

And, yes, Chanel and I did stay up late and watch movies and play all day the next day.  And that was a loving thing given to me by my daughter.  WOW!  Two loving things wrapped up in the same adventure.  I love twofers.
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Too Few Evenings

In our church the men who hold the priesthood (which is most of the active men) are given the responsibility of visiting 3 to 5 members each month just to see how they are doing, to provide help if needed and to share an uplifting message.  We call this one-on-one service "Home Teaching".

Even though I'm currently serving as bishop of an active congregation or "Ward" I'm not exempt from this caring service.  But it seems I have a difficult time getting my home teaching done each month as I have so few evenings available.  Last month I had one evening available so I called my companion the day before and left a message on his voice mail to arrange to go together.  I then called each of the five individuals I'm responsible for to try to schedule a few minutes to visit each one, not knowing if I was going to have a companion or not.

I was able to schedule visits with three of them, but first I had an interview at 7:00 with a young lady at the church.  Two of the members I was going to visit were single young women.  We have a policy not to visit a single woman without a companion and, when the evening came, my companion was unavailable.  At the last minute I asked Jana if she would mind coming with me.  She and our daughter Arielle had some running around they needed to do but she said she'd try to meet me at the church at 7:30 after my appointment.

At 7:35 there was a quiet but melodic knock on my door.  I excused myself briefly and answered it and there stood my sweetheart.  I told her I'd be out shortly.  My interviewee was talkative, which is good, but I didn't get out until about 7:50.

Jana then followed me in her car to my first young woman's home and, like she always does, fully engaged her with questions and empathetic listening.  She then followed me to my second appointment at a young man's home.  Jana suggested I could visit him alone (his father was also home) and asked that I pick her up at home on my way to my third appointment at another young woman's home, which I did.  We again had a wonderful visit with this young woman.

Jana's help that night was truly a sacrifice on her part and, frankly, disrupted her evening because she had other things planned.  I was so grateful for her help.  She is always such a good listener to the members of our congregation.  She has a gift of getting them talking about themselves which makes them feel heard and valued.  What an extremely loving thing Jana did for me and for those we visited.  She's not only a blessing to me, but to our entire ward, one-on-one.
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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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IF YOU WOULD, PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO COMMENT ON ONE OF THE LOVING THINGS, SMALL OR GRAND, THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED FROM SOMEONE IMPORTANT TO YOU.

Pork Roast and Heart

Some months ago I started changing some of my eating habits to improve my health.  These eating habits required some small changes in our grocery shopping, including more protein in my diet along with more veggies.  Jana does the grocery shopping for our family so she was the one who did the greatest amount of preparation work to accommodate my changes.

This afternoon she did some minor grocery shopping to restock the larder.  An hour or so later she was getting ready to go pick up our daughter from work.  I wandered into the kitchen and she was just putting a pork roast in the crock pot.

"I'm just putting this roast in so it will be ready in a couple hours.  I also have some chicken and some ground beef that I'll cook up so you'll have plenty of variety to choose from this week."

Precooking the meats and putting them in the fridge makes meal planning for myself so much easier during the week.  This kind service Jana does is really just for me as this meat isn't really used much for family evening meals.  I am so grateful for this loving thing that is so helpful to me.

It's after 11:00 now and Jana is still up (listening to her iPod) waiting for the pork roast to cool down so she can bag it and put it in the fridge.  You know, I really think I can probably do that, so I'd better sign off.
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Sometimes Love is Blurry-Eyed

On this Thanksgiving Holiday weekend we have made it a habit to stay up late (1:00 to 2:00 am) visiting with my daughters and my son and daughter-in-law who are in town for the holiday weekend.  What fun it's been playing "Grandma & Grandpa" to our 3 year old grandson.  Jana took Friday off work just to make the holiday more festive, which means the luxury of staying up late and sleeping in equally late.

Even so, holiday weekend or not, our ward had the responsibility of cleaning the church today (we have the fourth Saturday of each month to clean the church and make it ready for Sunday meetings) at 8:00 am.  All by itself, 8:00 am isn't early, except when placed in the context of it being Saturday in addition to the mix of holiday indulgence.

After a 5 hour night I rolled out of bed to get ready to go clean the Cheerios off the chapel benches.  After dressing I walked over to Jana's side of the bed and she was out cold, blissfully enjoying her cozy slumber. I didn't really want to wake her, wishing I was still cocooned on the other side of the bed, but I gently patted her hip and she aroused semi-consciously.

"Sweetheart, I"m getting ready to head to the church to clean."

"Uh. OK." she mumbled, not moving.

I headed to the kitchen to grab a banana, then outside to get the car warmed up.  I had decided to not trouble her again, figuring that if she fell back asleep, she deserved it.

Back in the kitchen I stood, eating my banana when Jana came walking in.  "I'm ready."

Neither of us had done any more personal preparation than to drag combs through our hair and, given my unshaved, unshowered state, I was grateful her eyes were having a hard  time focusing.

We headed for the car and drove off to tackle the awaiting vacuums, the 14 miles of halls and the crushed Cheerio dust.

Without complaint or even a word about how short the night had been or how warm the bed was, Jana was there: blurry-eyed, dressed and selflessly supportive.  A simple but loving thing.  How grateful I am for her.

(Parenthetically, my first counselor gave me two tickets to Applebees for a High School Band fundraiser breakfast so we had breakfast after cleaning the church before coming home and starting another special day of playing Grandma and Grandpa.)
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IF YOU WOULD, PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO COMMENT ON ONE OF THE LOVING THINGS, SMALL OR GRAND, THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED FROM SOMEONE IMPORTANT TO YOU.