Training Wheels WILL NOT do me in today..

Ginny left for Idaho this past Thursday for a quick trip to see all the fam. When she returned last night, it felt so natural to sit with one another and fill each other in on all of the details of both of our last couple of days. I know that once she moves on from this temporary time with us, I will miss having someone know the ins and outs of my life and my everyday activities, triumphs, heartaches, and struggles. For now, Bless You! Ginny, for sitting through all of those conversations and just letting me talk about nothing. It's quite healing.

I can't remember exactly how we started talking about this topic, but we started talking about people we went to high school with. It started a very fun and crazy hour of sitting on Facebook looking all sorts of old friends up. I had a moment of realization, as I often do every single day, where I discovered something else I am grieving over. I had hoped to someday take Naki back to where I grew up...show him that marvelous house and property, take him on a tour past the Amish barns, go see the Hill Cumorah Pageant together, and maybe even visit my old church building. Even though High School Reunions aren't really my thing, I couldn't wait for the day when I could walk back into a room filled with my teenage peers with him on my arm...the Ultimate Prize. How giddy I felt at the thought of having the opportunity to show all of my old friends that yes, the Abby who never had dates anywhere, who never seemed to catch the attention of any of the boys she deemed attention-worthy, and who felt all-around backwards in most situations, had somehow managed to snag the best-looking, most friendly, the complete life of every party, and biggest in personality and stature person around. Naki. All mine. Last night as I lay in bed I was broken hearted to think that I'll never have that opportunity to show off my Trophy-Husband! I realized that I define myself by him. When people meet me, I don't feel like they actually meet all of me until they meet him, too. I started trying to figure out if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Can I figure out myself without him? Can I walk in a room and feel like a whole person without him by my side? I don't think so. It then occurred to me that as much as I love where I live, who my friends are, and who knows my family right now, they all know our ENTIRE family, including Naki. It is an absolute that there are going to be people in mine and the girls' lives that will never have met him. How can that be possible? I don't want it to be possible. This discovery just broke me apart last night, and when all I wanted to do was fall asleep it seemed that I couldn't stop crying long enough to enter into rest. As a result, my morning started on very little sleep, puffy eyes, and a huge headache. My day went as follows:

*Wake
*Make Bed (I have a goal to always make my bed, so that when everything else is falling apart, I know I accomplished at least one thing!)
*Have Family Scripture Study and Family Prayer
*Get kiddos dressed, teeth brushed, breakfast fed, and off to school
*Drop other kiddos at Grandma and Grandpa Maile's house
*Workout (Ran 5 miles today! WooHoo!)
*Picked up the kiddos from Mom and Dad's
*Headed over to meet my Mandy...a former mission companion
*Played at park with kids and Mandy and her baby
*Picked up free Kneaders bread and distributed it to some Family
*Headed home for lunch and eventually laid kiddos down for their naps
*Blogged about fundraiser
*Took a much needed shower
*Headed outside to work on the yard (my favorite part of the day) Spring is definitely here!
*Trimmed all of Perennials I planted last year
*Cleaned out all flower beds
*Dug around all 6 trees, 5 of which we planted last year, to apply their spring fertilizer (weeded at the same time)
*Moved rocks around to different beds
*Planted perennial grasses that had been left out of the ground all winter (I'm crossing my fingers that they grow)
*Negotiated with the Comcast cable buriers who were trying to figure out how to bury my backyard neighbors' cable line in my yard
*Organized the troops in an effort to pick up all the scraps, cardboard, carpet pad remnants, plywood, tile leftovers, plastic wrappers, screws, nails, and such that had been resting underneath the snow all winter and had recently been unearthed when the backyard snow melted
*Pulled all the bikes, scooters, and helmets out of the garage for an inventory to match bike and helmet sizes to children's sizes
*Figured out how to work the air pump machine thingy and put air in all the girls' tires
*Loaded the kiddos in the car and headed to Walmart to pick out the missing pieces from the inventory and also to let Eli pick out her first item earned on her Kitty Chart
*Shopped and did damage control from when Lose was supposed to be pushing Ane in the cart calmly back and forth in the Garden section (which is by the bike and pet section) but instead was doing wheelies and donuts which resulted in Ane being tipped over in the Walmart Shopping Cart...I really LOVED this moment, being the target of all the penetrating and accusatory stares of the other shoppers
*Purchasing all the necessary items only to reach the car and realize my error...6 children + 1 mom + 1 minivan + 2 bikes and assorted shopping bags = an impossible situation...It was quite possible I could have been decapitated on the ride home
*Got everyone in the house, fed them dinner, had family home evening, and then sent everyone back outside to ride their newly acquired bikes (whether from the store or from inheriting their older sister's bike from last year)
*Attempted to assemble Eli's training wheels while convincing Eva she didn't need to peer in the next door neighbors' windows while they were eating dinner or continue to knock on their front door, and while making sure Ane stayed out of the road, and while making sure the kiddos weren't turning their bikes around in anyone's driveway that had cars parked in them, and while clenching my jaw together just waiting for the first bike accident of the season

I don't list all of the things that I did today as some proverbial pat on my back. I do it as an exercise of clarity for myself to not sweat the small stuff. Because it was at this point that I lost it. C'mon...we all knew it was coming. I'm running on vurry vurry little sleep at this point. What I've failed to mention is that bikes are Naki's territory. I never do the bike stuff. I'm very good at the shopping for them part, of course, but not the tire pumping, chain replacing, helmet tightening, and definitely not the training wheel assembling parts. I thought I had it going just fine, until I absolutely could not get the training wheels to tighten to the bike itself. Now, I have to write at this point in this post, that I'm going to finish them. Don't anyone feel badly for me and sneak into my garage to finish them for me. I will get it. I refuse to listen to little Eli's advice, "Mom, why don't you just have one of our Uncles do it?", repeated over and over, every oh, 2 minutes or so.

I. Can. Do. This.

But it was when I was trying so hard to not throw Naki's wrench across the yard, and when I was wheeling her bike into the garage because it was now too dark outside to carry on any longer, and when I heard the parts I'd assembled so far fall off and roll somewhere into a dark crevice on my garage floor, that I started making that list in my head. The list of what I'd actually accomplished today. Just because this one segment of my day was a failure, albeit a temporary one (because I WILL finish it), it was such a disservice to myself to get all worked up and pissy to everyone around me when in fact I'd accomplished such great things today for a woman who woke up feeling completely broken inside. This is my plug to you all to not sweat the small stuff. Talk yourself down from the ledge you want to jump off of and take a step back..or two, or three, to see what you've actually done. Training Wheels will not do me in today.

Fireside Fundraiser

For about the last year before Naki died he participated in a Fireside Group with his brother Junior and their good friends the Fano brothers. They would prepare special thoughts about their feelings and experiences in developing a personal testimony of their ultimate Brother, the Savior, and also prepared musical numbers to sing in addition to their thoughts. They would travel around the valley, speaking and singing, as often as anyone would ask them to come. I'll admit. I loved hearing them sing and speak, but it was often difficult to attend because of trying to convince the girls that they could sit quietly for another hour on a Sunday evening after they'd already done so for our weekly church meetings in the morning. How I regret that. I wish I'd attended more so the girls could hear their Dad sing and share his deepest feelings of love for the Savior and for his family. Recently he and his brother proposed to the group that they should do some fundraising so that they could travel to Florida, where Naki was raised, and spend time there doing a Fireside Tour. Talk about devotion and ambition! I remember him telling me that he wanted to do that...get enough money together to be able to go back home and invite his friends and family to come and be touched in their hearts about something so sweet and so necessary as gaining a personal relationship with God. He was super excited about it...what am I saying. He was always super excited about his future plans! After he died, the guys he was singing with approached me and told me that they wanted to carry through Naki's plans still, and that they wanted the girlies and I to come along with them. These kind of things are so bittersweet for me. They are things I know I should do in his honor but can be so painful doing because of his absence.

One of the fundraisers we'll be doing over the next couple of months is a BBQ lunch plate. I'm posting the flyer here so you can read the info on it. I can guarantee that it will be yummy food. (Why do you think I can never lose any weight? These guys cook way too often and the food is way too delicious to resist.) We are hoping that anyone who sees this flyer will perhaps pass it along to people at your workplace, be it a business, school, or just your own home! If you're interested in contributing to our group's fundraiser, please email me at thamailez@yahoo.com with the following info:

Your Name
# of Plates
Phone #/Email

I thank everyone in advance who decides to help our group out with this idea. We are excited to get to Florida and to do what Naki had originally planned. (And yes, even though the girlies and I never sang before even though they asked PLENTY, we have decided we should in honor of Dad...uuugh. If I could just get over singing in public! Why is it always easier to sing at home or in my car?)