Just the fact that you remembered means everything.

Lizzie's 4th birthday was earlier this month.  We had her party on Saturday and it was our traditional "Lizzie's Birthday Oktoberfest."  I wish I would have taken pictures of the food because it was pretty and yummy.  We had rouladen, altbier chicken, a whole mess of wursts, German potato salad, gurkensalat, potato pancakes and spaetzel.  This year I did not make a  Kirschtorte because last year's was a little too Kirsch-y and I didn't want anyone getting drunk on the birthday cake.  Lizzie had lots of friends and family to celebrate with her.  She had fun opening her presents and eating cake.  I love Oktoberfest.  I hope Lizzie always wants to have it.

Yeah, and when I see freaks in the street, I never ever stare at them, and yet I'm careful not to look away, see, because I want to make the freaks feel comfortable.

I'm a freak about the Relief Society clipboard.

It started in the University Ward in East Lansing.  We didn't have a clipboard in my BYU ward, so my first introduction to it was at MSU.  The RS president held it up as she talked about announcements and showed us what fun classes we could sign up for or how we could sign up to have the missionaries over or take a meal to someone who had a baby.  Then she'd had it to usually the sister on the farthest left or right on the front row.  And it would go from sister to sister until it reached every sister or time ran out.  This clipboard has been a staple of every Relief Society I've been in from MSU to Toledo to Plymouth.  And I've always been a freak about it.

I watch the clipboard going from sister to sister.  I worry that the date I want for the missionaries will be taken.  I worry that  all the slots for the class I want to take will be filled.  I worry that I won't get to sign up for a meal for that good friend.  Most of all, I worry that the clipboard won't make it to me.  When it gets to the end of a row, some people don't know which way to send it.  They look at each other with puzzled looks and finally send it on it's way.  I want to run over and be the clipboard traffic director and make sure it goes the right way.

So now you know, I'm a freak.

After the song, babe.

It's funny how when I hear a song on the radio, it will bring back such a clear memory for me.  This morning on the way home from driving the carpool, I heard the song, "I Won't Back Down." by Tom Petty.  I love this song.  Love Tom Petty.  It took me back to my senior year in high school.  We had to participate in a yearly retreat each year of high school.  It was a requirement for religion class.  Senior year, I went on KAIROS.  I can't tell you exactly what happened there, but it was one of the best experiences of my life.  I spent four days with peers and teachers learning about myself and my relationship to God, my family and other people.  I really grew a lot those four days.  I wish there was a KAIROS for adults.  It would be really cool and I would totally pay to go.

Part of KAIROS involved music.  Songs were played that had meaning for speakers and most of them were very touching in one way or another.  They weren't necessarily religious songs.  They were rock songs, songs from musicals, just songs with meanings.  I left KAIROS with an awesome mix tape.  Wish I still had it.  The speaker would play the song and also give you a sheet of inspiring quotes to read.  I still have all mine in my KAIROS folder.  

So I left KAIROS feeling very inspired and closer to God and family and friends than I ever had.  Maybe this is what EFY feels like?  Anyway, in Young Women, we used to have a devotional every Sunday.  One YW would give a quote or tell a story in front of the group that was inspiring in some way.  So the first time I have devotional after KAIROS, I decide to make a quote sheet and share a song that had some meaning for me.  So I played "I Won't Back Down." by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.  I'm sure that makes some of you and probably made my YW leaders at the time squirm in your/their seats.  Rock songs are hardly appropriate for Sunday YW opening exercises, saith the letter of the law.  They endured and let me play it.

This song had a meaning that I wanted to share with the girls and I couldn't find a better way than through it.  I wanted them to know that we have to stand our ground in this world.  We have to live our standards and not back down.  I wanted them to know that they could go to the gates of hell and I would still be there loving them.  I was only 18 but I really thought I was inspired to share the song.  But you know, I'm a spirit of the law kind of person.

Every time I hear this song I'm reminded to stand my ground.  Even when the world is pushing me around and telling me that what I'm doing isn't important or that my standards need to be relaxed or that it's ok to break commandments.  I'm going to stand my ground. And I won't back down.

You know where I got this? I found it in the garbage can. It kept terrible time. I brought it over to Jimmy Sherman right here on 85th and Columbus. Gave it to me back the next day. Works great. What kind of idiot throws away a perfectly good watch?

Did you own a Swatch in the 80's?  In 1986, I was DYING to own a Swatch.  Everyone in my school had a Swatch.  EVERYONE.  I didn't own one.  There was no prospect of me getting one.  I seem to remember they cost $35.  My parents wouldn't have spent $35 on a watch for me ever.  Not only wouldn't they, but they couldn't have.  We were poor.  I wouldn't have ever even asked for a Swatch.  But, man, did I want one sooooo badly.

This is the Swatch that I really wanted.  It had the 9,6 and 3 really big.  And the Swatch protector.  So cool!

Being poor would have been ok if I didn't go to school with an entire student body that had money.  I went to private school on an academic and need-based scholarship.  I envied everything those other kids had.  Especially their Swatch's.  So one night, my mom and I are out shopping for Christmas and I discovered that you could buy just the Swatch protector.

The Swatch Guard.  I started thinking.  Could I put the Swatch Guard on my current watch and pretend I had a Swatch?  Would the other kids at school be fooled into believing I was cool?  I was willing to give it a try.  Please don't laugh when I show you the watch I was putting the guard on.

It wasn't this exact watch, but it was close.  So I put the guard on my Timex and thought I was the shiz.  And I went to school the next day.  I was pretty sure I was so cool.

A mean kid named Mike Kotnik, let me know how cool I was not.  He noticed my Swatch Guard on my very uncool Timex.  He grabbed my wrist and showed another boy in the class.  "She thinks she can put this on her watch and make it a Swatch!"  They both laughed.  They told other people.  I was humiliated.

I ripped the guard off my lame Timex and threw it away.  I remember how mad and embarrassed and stupid I felt.  I've never forgotten that day.

I never did get a Swatch.  My mom actually got one from my dad when she was dying.  She had a hard time seeing and she couldn't read her watch so he went to the store looking for a watch with really big numbers.  It was a Swatch he bought for her.  He had no idea how cool it was.  He just wanted a watch for his dying wife and he would have probably paid 8x the amount if he found one that worked for her.  After she died, I tried wearing her Swatch but I couldn't.  I still have it in a box.

When I met Chris, one time I was looking through a drawer in his room.  No lie, this is what it looked like.

That boy had the Swatch's.  He used to let me wear them.  I was in heaven.  I have no idea where they are now but we should find them because I would look cool wearing a vintage Swatch.

For once, I'd like to be gaga!

I have boxes and boxes of memories.  Silly things that I don't want to throw away.  Anna and I had talked about it and she said I should take pictures of the items and blog about them and then I can throw them away.  Good idea.  So this is the first installment of that process.

When Chris and I were dating, his family invited me to go to Chicago with them for the weekend.  They had a suite at a hotel downtown with plenty of room for everyone.  It was supposed to be a great weekend of shopping and eating and fun.  At this point in our relationship, I really liked Chris a lot and the prospect of this weekend with his family was very exciting.  I went shopping and borrowed clothes from girls in my building.  I got my hair cut.  I was thrilled to be going.

We stayed at his house in Plymouth the night before we were leaving because we were taking the train to Chicago and the train was leaving very early in the morning.  I got to sleep in his old bedroom.  Chris helped me put my bags in his room and on the bed was a Godiva Chocolate box.  I was thrilled.  I had never had Godiva Chocolate before but had heard much of its delightfulness.  I didn't want to open it and eat it then.  I wanted to savour it and make it last.  Chris was like, "Open it and eat one."  So I reluctantly opened the box.  Inside was not chocolate but a gold bracelet.  It was beautiful.  I had never been given jewelry so beautiful before.  I put that bracelet on and did not take it off until it fell off years and years later because the gold wore out and it broke.

The first item I picked out of my memory box was the gold Godiva box with the original ribbons and tissues still inside.

As a side note, I had never slept on sheets as soft as the sheets on Chris' boyhood bed.  I didn't know sheets that soft existed.  I was responsible for the laundry and had never been clued in to something called "Fabric Softener."  Also the sheets were probably 700 thread count.  They really were wonderful.  I put my head on my pillow that night and thought, "This is what it's like to have your mom do your laundry."

I am not going to hell and if you think I'm going to hell, you should care that I'm going to hell even though I am not.

When I was a freshman in high school, the vending machine sold Lipton Iced Tea.  I tried it and it was delicious.  I bought one every day at lunch.  It was my favorite drink.

About half way through the year, we had a lesson at church on the Word of Wisdom.  The teacher went through the usual no tobacco, no coffee, no tea. No tea, hot or iced she said.  I sat there horrified.  I had been breaking the Word of Wisdom!  It never occurred to me that iced tea was part of it.  I felt terribly guilty and I told my mom what I learned that day when I got home.  She assured me I wasn't headed straight for hell and to stop drinking it.

Stop drinking my favorite drink!  It was hard but I did it.

In 1996 the Prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, was interview by Mike Wallace on 60 minutes.  They discussed the Word of Wisdom.  Here's what was said:

Mike Wallace: No alcohol, no tobacco, no coffee, no tea, not even caffeinated soft drinks... 
Gordon B. Hinckley: Right

So I gave up caffeinated soft drinks.  Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper.  All of them.  Because the prophet of God said the word "right."  It was hard but I did it.  I haven't had a caffeinated pop in years with the exception of some Sunkist Lemonade that we didn't know was caffeinated and all spit out simultaneous as a family about 3 years ago.

Then the Church issues On Wednesday (Aug. 29), a statement on its website saying that “the church does not prohibit the use of caffeine” and that the faith’s health-code reference to “hot drinks” ‘’does not go beyond (tea and coffee).

Ok So this is confusing.  Was President Hinckley just giving an off-handed "right," when questioned by Mike Wallace?  Did he just not want to get into it with him?  Have I been teaching my family the right thing for the last 16 years?

I'm really not ready to start drinking caffeinated Coke.  It just seems not right.  However, when school started and I began getting up at 5AM every morning and going to bed at 11PM every night and getting up several times in the night to feed the baby, my butt started really dragging.  I mean really.  So I talked to my sister and told her I was considering a Coke or 5 Hour Energy or something.  I was desperate.  Anna told me about this really great thing called Water Joe.  Water Joe is water with natural caffeine.  Just water and caffeine.  Only two ingredients.  So I went to Meijer and bought it.  I felt about as sneaky as a 18 year old trying to buy a 6 pack of beer.  I didn't drink it for a couple of days but then finally when I was dying, I drank one.  It felt like on Desperate Housewives when Lynette takes her kids' Adderall.  I was worried I was going to get caught or in trouble.  But I didn't.  And the most AMAZING thing happened.  I don't feel tired.  It is keeping me awake all day.  And I still feel tired at night when it's time to go to bed.

So no coffee, no tea-hot or cold, no alcohol.  That's in the book.  Black and white.  No caffeine?  Still a grey area.

I mean once for like, no reason, I flattened my hair and I had all these strands hanging in my face all the time...

In sixth grade, I got a really bad haircut.  This would have been 1986 and I got this awful asymmetrical 80's style.  I seem to remember that it was on a magazine in the salon and I told the stylist to do it like the picture.  But I didn't leave the salon with any product or hair-doing know how.  The haircut was really bad.  I remember no one liked it.  I didn't even like it but I was fierce in it's defense.  My mom would ask me all the time, would I like to get another haircut and I was determined not to.  Finally after weeks of this haircut growing out and progressively getting more and more awful, my mom must have had it.  She came into my room one day and said "Jennifer, your hair makes you look like a slut."

You can imagine my response was not very receptive to her criticism.  But it hit me in a way that her "nice" comments had not.  First of all, I heard my mom use crass language very rarely.  I knew when she used the word "slut" that she meant business.  Second of all, if she was willing to hurt my feelings by being so blunt, that hair must be really bad.  Grudgingly on the outside, but willingly on the inside, I had her take me for a new haircut.  Luckily it was right before picture day so my new haircut was what lives on for posterity.  I have searched for a picture of my ugly haircut but one doesn't exist.  I should probably be thankful for that.

This experience taught me a valuable lesson. I  could always trust my mom's taste in hair, clothes and other things like that.  She knew what looked good and what didn't and she would be honest about it.  I hope my kids will trust that I am honest with them about their appearance and won't lead them astray as to what looks good and what doesn't.  And I hope I never have to use the word "slut" to describe something they are wearing!