Flashback Friday - stupid college stuff

The inspiration for this week's Flashback Friday is not necessarily happy, but it has been on my mind. Several times over the last few months I have woken up in a great deal of pain (see previous blog - my rude awakening) and Monday it happened again. I decided to go to a new chiropractor, one that my friend Josie recommended. He did a nerve test and x-rays, but didn't want to adjust me untill he could look at the results and know what he was doing. So, I went home and slept most of the rest of the day. Amazingly enough, my muscles calmed down enough for me to enjoy Christmas.

We went back on Wednesday to review the results - I'm broken! Almost every nerve at the top of my back and neck are severely affected and my back and neck are all out of whack. At one point he asked what I did to get like this. I didn't think of what it was until later.....

My first year in college the institute was having some sort of get together and all my roommates and I decided to go. For some strange reason, a few of us decided to climb in the back of Christy's truck, standing. She turned onto the street for the institute and I saw some of my friends and was saying hi, not paying attention to the fact that she found a good parking spot in front. She turned, I realized what was going on, and made the quick decision to jump rather than fall on my head. I was wearing sandals with absolutely no traction. I promptly did the splits and to this day have matching scars on the inside of my ankles and my knees from scraping the asphalt - those socks were shot! Someone took me home to get cleaned up although I don't think I really did a good job. Those sores on my ankles got very infected.

A few weeks later (I believe it was Easter) I was home and we were having a family get-together and my aunt Denise's restaurant. I really noticed having issues with my back that I don't ever remember having prior. When I went back down to school I started going to the chiropractor. I went for the rest of the year, and most of the next year. He was the only one in town and, looking back, I wonder how much he really helped me because I have had issues since then.

I guess the moral of this story is don't do stupid stuff like stand in the back of a moving truck.

Flashback Friday - Christmas Traditions

My sister Britta posted her Flashback Friday and it was so complete I asked if I could send people to her blog. She said "Sure, you can even copy and paste it if you want." So I did, with a few changes. Thanks Britta!

On Christmas Eve night, we always read the story of when Christ was born. All season, my mom had her nativity figures on the piano, but she kept baby Jesus hidden. As we read the story from the scriptures, we would put the baby in the stable, to symbolize that being the night of his birth. Then we had family prayer, picked a spot on the furniture for our stockings, then went to bed. Now, going to bed was not necessarily going to sleep. The excitement was always tremendous. One year, Britta and I couldn't sleep, and we decided to both sleep on the top bunk - my bed. This became our little tradition for a couple more years, until we were too big and it was too uncomfortable.

My mom is a nurse, and she almost always worked on Christmas Eve until 7 am Christmas morning, but she usually didn't get home until closer to 8. We weren't allowed to look at our presents until she got home. Until I was about 10, we had the presents in the living room, which you could see from the stairs coming up from my room. So we had to stay in the basement. Around my 11th birthday, my parents added on to the house, building a room above the garage. This made it easier to hide the presents, but until we were a little older, we still had to wait downstairs because it was too tempting to take a peek behind the blanket covering the doorway. My youngest brothers were escorted downstairs to wait with us until she got home. I remember meeting in Amanda and Ranna's room to play games and peeking out the window watching for our mother to come home - Britta and I shared a room which was in the back of the house. Dirk and Eric were old enough to want to stay in bed as long as possible, but the rest of us would huddle together, squealing with excitement. Even when she got home we had to wait a few minutes for mom and dad to hug and kiss and for them to come down and tell us it was okay.

One of our favorite things on Christmas morning was breakfast. We all got to pick our own box of cereal to eat that morning. The entire box was our own, and we only shared if we wanted to, which we frequently did. It was always a big decision to make when my mom asked what kind we wanted. As soon as my mom got home, we broke open the Christmas cereal, and ate as a family. This was my mom's sneaky trick to make sure we ate something healthy before attacking the candy. Thinking about these breakfasts brings back many fond memories. There was rarely a time besides Christmas morning with quite so much laughter and love in our house.

Me, Britta (in front), Ranna (in back), Amanda, Mom

After everyone was done eating, we lined up, oldest to youngest. We waited while my dad took the camera upstairs, exclaiming over the wonderful surprises, teasing us with his new knowledge of what Santa brought. We'd finally file upstairs when the blanket was removed, and rushed to our stockings. There was usually one present from Santa under the tree (Santa always left his unused wrapping paper in the kitchen for us to finish off next year), but the rest was unwrapped next to our stockings. Oooing and ahhhing over our gifts and showing them off to everyone else took several minutes. Then we gathered around the tree to find some more treasures. We would grab one gift and wait for everyone to have one, then open them all at the same time.

Dirk, Eric, Britta, Me

Mom, Joel, Me (the dark hair hiding behind the chair), Britta (in the stripes), Amanda (kneeling), Seth (hiding behind the tree)

We always drew names, then went to the mall together for Family Home Evening one night before Christmas. My mom split us up as best she could so she took half and my dad took half as we searched for the perfect gift for the person we drew, without letting the person in question see what this perfect gift was. This sometimes took some creativity because it didn't always work out perfectly when splitting in 2 groups - we frequently had triads. The triads required meeting in the middle to swap people. These gifts were under the tree, and were often some of the favorites.

After everything was opened, we played with our gifts for a while before heading off to Grandma's house. We usually went to my mom's parents' house in West Valley first for a while, then drove to Coalville to my dad's parents' house. By the end of the day, we were exhausted, but content. And we had the day after Christmas to look forward to, when we ate more cereal, candy from the stockings, and played with our new gifts most of the day.

This was at my mom's family Christmas party 2 years ago. We have added 4 kids since then! The adults were still expected to sit on Santa's lap until just a few years ago.

I have very fond memories of spending Christmas with my family. I love them all dearly and look forward to seeing them all in a few days for another Christmas together.

My Life Story

I pulled my first question out of my jar:

Did you have roommates? Tell about them and the things you learned living with others (besides your immediate family).

I went to Snow College right after high school. Two of my friends from high school and I went down one weekend and found a place together. We found a place called The Rez. It had two separate apartments, one on top and one on bottom, both had four bedrooms and two bathrooms. So, I was one of 8 girls in my apartment. I shared with someone I didn't know before the school year, Dori. She was a lot of fun but would stay with her mom or dad each weekend because she worked and sometimes during the week. We really didn't see her much because of this. She also graduated after the Winter quarter so I had my own room for the Spring quarter. This was the first time in my life I had my own room and I loved it!

One of the funny things about our apartment was apparently the girls who lived there the year prior apparently caused a lot of trouble. The police were called out due to domestic issues over who owned a bottle of catsup. Compared to them, we were all angels and even if we broke the rules, the landlords really didn't seem to care. They really liked us, even though they lived right next door and saw everything we did.

The second year I chose to live in the same place, same room. This time I knew my roommate from the year before. She was on my colorguard. She worked a lot too, but we still had fun. She left after Fall quarter, so I had my own room for Winter quarter. But, my best friend, Angela, came down for Spring quarter and shared a room with me. That was an interesting quarter. That is when I met Kenyon...that is another story!

One of the biggest things I learned was needing to be tolerant of others and their space. There were several times when I would be tired and would go to bed even though several of "the guys" were over visiting. There were times when I felt that I got along very well with my roommates, and other times I felt very left out. I had my own group of friends that I would go and hang out with, leaving to start playing at times when some were going to bed.

I also learned that no matter how close you are as friends, sometimes it really isn't a good idea to live together. I do not keep in touch with the two friends from high school that lived in that apartment with me, mostly my choice.

I loved my years at Snow, and looking back see them as some of the best years of my life, truly. Sometimes I wish I could do them again, and not necessarily any different. Even relationships that didn't work out taught me a lot. I learned a lot about myself and what true friendships really are. I am grateful for the few very good friends I have. I may not have been extremely popular, but I always felt that I had someone I could confide in.

New blog

I have started a new blog. This blog is specifically for things of a spiritual nature.

If anyone is interested, the address is http://journalcharlene.blogspot.com/

Flashback Friday - growing families

It's time for my first addition to my Flashback Friday blog. I've been thinking quite a bit about what to write about over the last week and didn't have anything...until tonight while I was babysitting my nephew Zack. He is my sister Amanda's son and just turned 2 last week.

I started thinking about the other nieces and nephews I have. I didn't have any until Steve and I got married and then all of a sudden I had 5 nephews and one on the way, all on Steve's side of course. At that time, only my sister Britta was married and they didn't have any children yet.
A month after we got married, my brother Dirk married Sarina, and we got Anna. Anna was 2 when they got married, and seemed to take to our family very quickly. This was a fun time as there were no other grandchildren, so Anna was very spoiled!

We have been married for 6 1/2 years now and Steve's parents have about 16 grandchildren, all boys except for 2, and my parents have 8 grandchildren, 4 boys and 4 girls. As my sister Britta pointed out, this matches my parent's 8 children, 4 boys and 4 girls. Some of Steve's siblings are done having children while others are really just starting their families. The oldest grandchild on his side is in high school while the youngest is about 2 months old. On my side, everyone is at beginning. We have Anna at 8 and now Samantha at three weeks or so.

My nieces and nephews mean a lot to me and are a lot of fun. Some of them we don't see often, for different reasons. But when we do see them, sometimes I think I get along better with them than some of the adults!

My Life Story

My sister recently started a blog about her family. She writes something daily and was recently commenting on my blog, and how I don't really post many. Then she remembered one big difference between her life and mine. She has two kids, while I have none. Most of her blogs are about her kids. But this made me want to write more blogs...but about what?

In addition to her family blog, she started a side blog called "My Life Story". She has a list of questions that she can answer one at a time. She asked me if I would like a copy of the questions and I really think it sounds like a great idea, so I am going to do so. She also does "Flashback Friday". In this she writes about anything from her past that comes to mind. The last two weeks have been the births of her two children. Before that a childhood activity that we used to spend hours on. I think that sounds fun as well.

But.......

I am to tired too start it tonight. But watch for it, it will be soon!

Holiday Music

Have you ever noticed that a little bit of Christmas music can change your mood? I didn't say it always lightens the mood, although that is typically what it does for me. See, my sister works in retail. After Thanksgiving, that is all that is played in the store. She gets to the point that if a certain song is part of the music that is played all day long, she gets sick of it and becomes instantly annoyed when she hears it outside of work.

Me, I love Christmas music. However, I am very picky about my yuletide tunes. I have my favorites and don't think that just every artist should do a Christmas album. Certain versions of songs rather bug me...like Mannheim Steamroller's underwhelming version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I love Mannheim Steamroller and have two of their cds. But I won't buy the one with Rudolph because it bothers me so much.

Currently though, I am thoroughly enjoying my sister's choice in merry music. Much better than my playlist...I just didn't know about some of the songs, or just forgot about them to search for them. She has a blog that she adds too faithfully and so I checked to see if she had added anything today. The music caught me pretty quickly and so I have kept it playing in the background. Tonight it speaks to my soul and brings me peace, which I need after a busy day.

Earlier, I was in a much more playful mood and was listening to How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Looney Tunes Christmas. My parents have a fabulous (an very obscure) album called Christmas Fun Songs. It is so much fun and very silly with songs like Santa Claus Got Stuck in the Chimney, Santa Caught a Cold on Christmas Eve and Monster Holiday (kind of like Monster Mash). In addition to the Chipmunks and Scooby Doo Christmas albums we grew up with it is a lot of fun when we turn on the Christmas music at my parent's house.

The music is one of my favorite things about Christmas. It brings the spirit of the season to my mind and joy to my heart.