May 17, 2009
Dear Family,
If I was feeling in the "Girls Camp" of my life last week, I had cause this week to remember all the times it seems to rain at camp.
Starting with Tuesday morning: I was asking Maddie which song she was playing for their piano recital, which is tomorrow, and she went to play it, and I about croaked at how rough it was for her to play, not to mention, completely unmemorized!! Her duet w/ Brent was not too many shades brighter either. Fault of the teacher, you may suggest?—Perhaps, except that Brent is overly prepared himself. I tried to stay calm in asking her if she’d been practicing every day, which was answered w/ a string of excuses of how much Brent plays, etc., etc., and the horror slowly sunk in. I also realized that we’d missed an extra lesson from the day before, and felt like we must we wasting all our efforts! Anne woke up screaming, Spencer refused to get dressed, I realized Emily had not been doing her daily reading for about the past month, and I was beginning to lose all hope for my efforts as a mother. Monday I’d taken Spencer and Anne to the park after some errands, after hearing all of these wise mothers on Mother’s Day say that if they had it to do over again, they’d just play more and enjoy more their children while they’re young. It was a gorgeous day, and I felt the joy of progress. Too bad it wasn’t enough to cover up what felt like my world of failures the next day. I had grown used to seeing Maddie read so often, and with reading being such a virtue, I thought everything must be in order in her life. I hear Brent playing the piano so often, I assume everyone is practicing as they should, and all is well. Somehow, Maddie’s reading even translated into, "All my children are reading so much" and I don’t even know when Emily slipped off of the bandwagon! I started panicking a little at how slack my organization has become (or may have started out!), and so worried for little disheveled Maddie, who NEEDS good patterns, and wishing I’d absorbed so much more of my Mom’s own natural structure and orderliness. I had this wave of, "It’s all too late!" wash over me, as I realized that if my older children hadn’t picked up good habits yet, and I was up to my neck trying to train the current young ones, there was nothing more I could do, and most hope washed out the window!!
Now, mind you, I wasn’t completely insane, and a tiny voice kept telling me, "This isn’t really the end of the world---it just means a disappointing very first recital, but there is still much to be gained, and learned, and many recitals ahead—it will be okay!" but the voice was very tiny, seemed a tad bit unreasonable, and did little to assuage my fears in the middle of things. By the time they had their rehearsal that afternoon though, I was much calmer (poor Maddie was probably NOT, wondering whether to be more worried about her piano recital or her crazy mother), and JOY! You guessed it, we had Relief Society that night, and though I was late and sat on the back row thinking my comments were flying through the air unheard at first, by the end, and from just a couple of small positive comments in passing, and a few minutes of sisterly conversation, I could hear that little voice much more clearly, and life seemed more aright again. I only wished I could take them home with me!! I really need sisters!!!
So, it’s been a week a bit like that, but with some good excitement too. In between my parenting failures, I found on the online classifieds, a bookshelf someone wanted to sell over in Clearfield. It looked the perfect size for our family room, and though I was just price checking a little, thinking shelving upstairs was quite a ways off yet, at $95, I couldn’t resist checking it out! I showed Brian the pictures, and got the okay if they seemed sturdy and good—they were obviously worn a bit, but w/ real wood, there’s still so much use! I drove over w/ S&A Monday morning, they seemed sturdy, it was a young mom who didn’t have a place for them in her new home, and I quickly parted w/ the cash. THEN, as I unloaded them at home, I nearly wept, when I saw imprinted on the drawers, "Ethan Allen by Baumritter Made in Vermont"!! I didn’t know Baumritter was the founder of Ethan Allen, and thought it might be a weird coincidence, but after looking online, I was even happier w/ my purchase to know it was of such good workmanship!! I spent an hour after the kids went to bed every night putting on a coat of paint (3), and then made an antique wash out of some leftover dark brown and water to rub on, and then sanded till my hands bled around corners and edges to give it a distressed look, and put it all back together. It was quite a project, esp. when I was supposed to be finishing out the basement sorting, but I am so happy with the end result. I walked around a store that sells a lot of country-look furniture kind of this style to get a feel for what I wanted to see if I could mimic it. I was also happy to see price tags of around $600 for something like my finished project! Admittedly, it was a bit painful making something new look old, I felt like someone ripping holes in trendy jeans, etc., but once I started, I had to at least see it through! I am really thrilled, and could barely get anything done after we moved it in, for wanting to keep stealing a glance! I was so sad not to have a fireplace mantel or central focus on this long wall, and this really did the trick, AND provides lots more storage for our so long neglected books!!
Another success this week was planting our garden! I wrote in our "garden journal" what was going in every square, while Brian let the children help him plant things. There is a TON, and I love the optimism of spring J . Brian even wanted to go and buy more jars for canning, but I assured him they are easiest to find at canning season, where we’ll know better if and how many more we’ll need J . I mowed the lawn right after, while he ran some errands and got things ready for Grandpa Duncan’s 90th Birthday Party, and partway into, I mowed OVER the waterline w/ the hose faucet (it just sticks up out of the ground)!!! I thought I was just getting to the edge of it, not realizing it was just PVC pipe, and it snapped right off, and created a little Old Faithful at the edge of our deck. Brian was gone, w/o his cell phone, and I ran around a little crazed, pulling up every lid in the yard I could find, seeing if I could tell how to turn the outside water off. I nearly went and cut a hole in our wall downstairs where they sheetrocked over our in-house water shutoff, thinking I may have to use that (a project for another day), then started looking online for "how to turn off your water" where there were all kinds of videos and options, none of which seemed to apply. Meanwhile, the kids were, of course, putting on their swimsuits and jumping through the thing and the swamp it was quickly creating, while I could only move the lawnmower out of the way. I finally had the sense to call our hometeacher, and then neighbor, who came right over just as Brian pulled in, and it was off in no time—the one lid at the corner of the yard I’d forgotten. It made for less lawn to mow, and then we all got ready to go to Pleasant Grove for the Family Birthday celebration. There was an Open House at their chapel, and then Brian’s aunt nearby had everyone over for a casual supper that night. It was perfect weather, and their made for 12 children home and yard, was like a little heaven for the children—swinging from willow trees or in a hammock, playing in the sandbox, following a cat, even Anne was amazingly at ease the whole day—not clingy at ALL, and happily wandering around. I told Grandpa she was really taking her Duncan name to heart, and really feeling at home w/ everyone, as she is almost NEVER that way! It was a great afternoon, visiting w/ other moms and aunts and uncles, and we hated to pull away! Poor Anne is pretty covered in an itchy rash, just as I though her eczema was improving—now you can’t tell one from the other, and she looks rather afflicted, and since she had a fever on Thursday, she stayed home from church today w/ Brian, and we’ll take her in tomorrow. I tried calling for an appt. Friday, but all the Dr.’s were gone to a conference, and I thought she might be getting better, so put it off. We’re also excited to be going up to Idaho Falls this weekend for Memorial Day, though we’ve been spoiled seeing Dad and Kathy twice this month already!—as they had special permission to come for the baptism, and Gpa’s birthday J . Hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day while I make new job charts! Love, The Duncan’s
Here's the shelf right after I brought it home--you can't see the dings and worn spots too well in this picture, but it remains, BEFORE

And, after!! (if you can see it behind Anne's fro!) Brent's enjoying the photo albums that have been packed away for about a year

Emily's first report--she was SOOoo excited--got to pick the topic (horses, of course!), and whipped through the whole thing in about 17 seconds. She's standing in front of her poster, and holding the inspiration for it all: Misty of Chincoteague that she got for Christmas a couple of years ago about a real American Painted Horse.

Here's the original Duncan family--Brian's dad, the oldest is 3rd from left, and the sign tells Duncan Family est. 1941!

Here are all 9 children and spouses

This is a shot of all the grands and great grands that were there (a bit over half the total, probably) G&G are down in center, and I put a yellow square around the area we're standing...Em gets her own little square :). Quite an amazing posterity!! I can scarcely imagine!--but then, could they have imagined this 60 years ago?