Zen and the Art of Mazda Maintenance

I love this Zen Buddhist parable (though it looks like it has Taoist roots, which I didn't know), and it came to mind this week.

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically. "May be," the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "May be," replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "May be," answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "May be," said the farmer.

This is totally the way life goes. Curses turn into blessings and then blessings can turn into curses. Tradeoffs and ups and downs. A month or so ago, the powers-that-be at Sean's work decided to switch him from office staff to maintenance staff, which didn't change much except for who he reports to, but still, he was worried about any unforeseen negative outcomes. Flash forward. The transmission in the Mazda has been acting up. The girls and I drove it to Salt Lake on Monday night, about 40 min from my house, to shop for a prom dress. Once we got out there, the car started slipping out of gear. On the way home it was really bad, and it totally had a melt down (literally) about 5 miles from home. Which sucked, but it could have happened clear out at the mall. Or on the freeway. At least we were close to home, and close to our mechanic, so Sean could easily come and get us, and we just towed it right over there. We got a place to rebuild our transmission for a little under $2K. Which, ouch. But then Sean found out that, as part of the maintenance department, he was on mandatory overtime for at least the next 2 weeks, including weekends... somewhere between 36-56 hours of overtime at least. So glad he was switched! That would pay for the transmission so we wouldn't have to use the money we've been saving for trees and vacation and other stuff. Until they told us that the whole thing was melted from the inside out and the core was shot, so we have to buy a new one for $3K. (The car is only worth $4K LOL. But I can't buy a new car for $3k and it's got a lot of life left in it. So you repair and move on.) Ah, well. Ups and downs, right? Life is always interesting, that's for sure. Hopefully he'll get enough overtime to cover it. He likes to work the weekends, I think, because he gets out from behind his computer and phone and gets to do things, like welding.

So that's my story. Oh, here's a picture of the prom dress.



Her hair turned out really cute. I should have taken one of the back, too, dangit.



Lexi kept calling out to me to take her picture wearing someone's old flip flops. All kids are fascinated by that, it seems. You'll walk in and find your shoes just sitting in some random spot because Lexi has been wearing them.

Two More Good Things

Pigtails and Pajama Day at school.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Good:
St George was beautiful and warm. Things were green instead of brown. We drove down in a snow storm, but, like magic, as we pulled within a few miles of St. George the weather turned lovely. Every time we go there, we all sit and ask each other why we don't live there. And my answer is always the same: "Because it's April. If it were July we'd all be saying something different."





I have been somewhat enjoying American Idol this season. My favorite is Adam Lambert. And it's not because I like his music (which I do) but just because he's so different than the usual contestants. I'd like him even if I didn't like his music. He just seems confident and centered and hearts and flowers and puppies.

I am also loving Survivor this time around.

Spring is coming! Flowers are coming up. Blossoms are on the trees. It's Easter.

I think that everyone is finally well here.

Sean and I are going on a date shoe shopping. It was his idea. He said he'd take me out and buy me some shoes, which I desperately need. We're also shopping for trees. Yah, I don't know about that part.

Bad:
I didn't get many good pictures on our little getaway. Boo.

I hate hate hate that American Idol has taken one of my all-time favorite songs "Home Sweet Home" by Motley Crue and Idolified it for the bye-bye song when someone is going home. Ugh. I like Carrie Underwood OK. I think that's who they got to sing it. But not for that song. No no no.

I really really hate Coach on Survivor and wish they'd vote him out.

I haven't accomplished anything this week.

I'm tired of people telling me that Josh has dry skin and that they invented this thing called lotion that I should put on him. No, really? Wow, thanks for that advice. Do you have a few hours, because I'd love to sit down and tell you the history of the creams and lotions and whatnot that I've tried, to no avail, because the dry skin is only a small part of the problem. He doesn't scratch because the skin is dry. He has scratched himself bloody in parts of his body that aren't dry. Blah, whatever.

Ugly:
Me in a swimsuit. Gah! And my hair. I'm getting it done asap. I'm shaving it all off. Josh and I are going to have the same haircut.

American Idol Allison's clothes and crazy hair. And the audience always being so stupid to Simon. He's 97% always right, end of story. And Lady GaGa. And Kelly Pickler's voice.

My messy house.

My to-do list.

This week it's been a year since my dad passed away. I miss him. He was an awesome dad and an awesome grandpa. Everything was about his kids and grandkids. I wish my kids had been able to have him in their lives longer. And me too.






Last Sunday we took the little kids fishing at the pond by the house. Most of the time I get Josh out of the house looking semi-respectable, and usually he goes to daycare looking OK-- well, except for the flood pants-- but check out this picture of Josh at the park.


Check out the gloves. I don't even know what's up with that, and I just didn't care to fight him on it. I guess he's doing some sort of ninja curse on the fish, I don't know.


Lexi is wearing capri pants with boots. She had chosen her own outfit that morning, and Sean let her wear it. It was a pair of black leggings with candy canes on them and a pink shirt. It was hideous. I had to change her before taking her in public, but her pants were all in the wash, so it was capris and boots and still pretty hideous. Remember how you used to look at pictures of yourself as a kid and say, "Moooooommmmm, how could you dress me in that? I mean, red corduroy pants? Reallllyyyy mother. So gross." Yah, well, now I know why I was dressed that way. Either I insisted, or it was laundry day.

Third term is all over but the begging!! It's a teacher prep day tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll still get a few last minute students and parents wanting to plead their case and turn stuff in. Last week I actually did have a student tell me that the dog ate her homework. She has a new puppy, so it probably did. The last week of the term is the worst. I spent at least 8 hours at home grading research papers last week, which I normally try not to do. I'm just so glad to be done with it all. Fourth term will fly by, and then it's summer! Yay! Got lots of plans for summer.

March Party

My friend and I were talking about how glad we are that spring is around the corner and she said, "I feel like I should have a party to celebrate that it's March and I made it through January and February." Amen! The two worst months of the year, behind us. So I came home later that day and proclaimed it time for a March party. I came up with some different ideas and different days to do it, but then never really decided, so it's been March party all week.

Tuesday we had a picnic at the park and flew kites. Well, the little guys did. The big guys were too cool so they stayed home.





We've been grilling and just generally being happy that spring is around the corner. My family is coming over for the March Party Finale tomorrow night. Not even sure what that will entail... we'll see. I'm thinking cupcakes, but that's all I've thought of.

This kid has the craziest hair. I had to get pics because it was cracking me up.




I wrote about all the changes up at WSU since I went there.... Courtney was up there for the state debate tournament tonight and came home with a parking ticket. Nice to know that some things never change....

Look how cute my sister Heather's new baby is! I just want to squeeze her. She looks so cuddly.

Nostalgia

Today was a long day. I went to work and sat through two hours of meetings this morning, which always makes the day feel longer for some reason, and then rode the school bus up to WSU with a bunch of awesomely cute high school kids for an English competition. It was a lot of fun. I got to judge the Reader's Theater, and there were some really great dramatic readings. Being back on the university campus always makes me want to go back to school, but this time was different. The last time I went up I was taking a test in the Social Sciences Building, and it made me want to take some classes and be a student again at this point in my life. But our competition today was in the student union building, and it just made me want to go back to *that time of my life and be a student again. I hope my kids will enjoy every minute of it and really jump into the whole college life with both feet, because there's so much fun to be had. They have completely remodeled the student union building, and it's beautiful, but it's a weird feeling when that happens. It's like... all my memories are gone! The Funky Carpet Room where we used to eat Subway for lunch all the time... Gone. The downstairs bathroom with the ratty old couch and the linoleum floor with full-length mirror where Nicky used to "practice" clogging just to be weird... Gone. The bookstore no longer downstairs, the vending machine no longer by the Wildcat Theater. It's just so weird to think back on that time of my life and how close it seems, yet how far back it really is. I can't even imagine going back to BYU at this point... I probably wouldn't recognize half of it.