Monday, November 22, 2010

Not Thora

This is not Thora. Not at all. This is, in fact, Thora's husband Avram, of whom you may have heard tell. I have commandeered this 'blog in order to praise my darling Thora. You may have noticed that my dear Lady does not 'blog near as often as she used to. You may even have lamented this fact, and you are right to do so, for my wife's writing can be a joy to read. The simple fact of the matter is that Thora does not have the kind of uninterrupted time which is most conducive to 'blogging. Know, however, that she does miss it, and that she will liably return to it some day. Life moves in troughs and valleys, and Thora is quite busy right now, finding her feet after a third child, a major illness and a move. She is doing a very good job of it, too.

I actually didn't hijack Thora's 'blog for the purpose of explaining the relative paucity of her posts, however. Rather, I took over here, as I have done in previous times to praise my lovely and beloved wife. She does so much for our family, and our household, and like most stay-at-home mothers, rarely gets the positive feedback and validation which is by justice hers. This is my (public) way of demonstrating how important her private acts are. Thora is a wonder with all three of our girls--from Lydia's dynamism to Elisheva's giving stubbornness to little Guinevere's emergent personality; Thora is able to handle it all. She deals all day, every day with bodily fluids of every kind imaginable, and does with a smile. Out of financial and environmental concerns, Thora recently switched us over to cloth diapering--the brunt of which she bears on her own, for I am not home near as often as she. This is but one example of the great service she does for the family. As another, in order to more fully illustrate the depth of my Lady's largesse: just yesterday my wife made pumpkin bread for a youth fireside, for me to take, while I was still at a presidency meeting. Her support of me in my calling is help and strength to me.

Indeed, all of Thora's support of me is a help and a strength. I do not forget, if indeed I could, that Thora chose to marry me when she had other choices, and I am grateful to Father for her every day. To paraphrase Mark Twain's Eve: "I am not so necessary to her as she is to me." She is indeed "necessary" to me. I cannot imagine life without Thora, nor indeed would I wish to. Whenever I speak of Thora, I find myself struggling to express with mere words, what my heart feels, which is why so often I go to poets and other authors, whose command of English surpasses my own feeble skills. There are no good words to express how important Thora is to me--I love her smile, her laugh. Even her frown. There is no doubt that Thora is more than I deserve, and more than I could have hoped for. She indeed, "almost makes the day begin" for me (the actual privilege of making my day begin goes to Lydia and her inability to sleep past about 6:45--but far be it from me to ruin a splendid metaphor through simple reality).

I must close this, wholly inadequate, praise of my wife, for I have a paper to write, and I reckon that my wife would much rather I work on that than spend more time weaving her praises. She is, of course, right. So, I will end merely by observing "how much I ardently love and admire her, " and a final paraphrase from Twain to end things: "Wherever she is, there is Eden."

I love you, Lady.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Bubbleicious

Yesterday was a good day. The kind of day where I feel like we are busy, and not just lazing around, doing nothing. Avram had Church Leadership Training in the morning at Church, so I got up and cleaned the house. Exciting, I know. But it was nice to have a nice, running house. Then Avram came home and had the young men over to do a Star Wars Roleplaying game. I went grocery shopping just with Elisheva, and it was fun to only have one child in the grocery store, and to spend some time with my poor middle child.

In the afternoon we walked with Samuel and Aleatha to the local, huge Oakland Park Nursery, where we wandered for an hour. I dreamed big thoughts of beautiful gardens, with a bounty of flowers and beautiful - not staunchy - bushes and trees, like the Japanese Maple. I settled with some bulbs - hyacinth, crocus, and Dutch Iris, some lilies, and a Wild Rose bush that was 75 % off - it's the "Bubble-icious" variety. We then planted everything, with Avram being a trooper and doing most of the digging, while Samuel and Aleatha went and got us frozen pizza. We had pizza, and then Aleatha and I went to a Girl's Night out of Window Shopping and cheesecake. It was fun. And I visited a bunch of stores I've never been to before, like Anthropologie and Pottery Barn. Mostly I was amazed at how expensive everything was.

Here's hoping that my yard comes up all flowers next spring :)

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Halloween and Health Update

Aleatha made halloween costumes for the girls, and instead of posting about it, I'm going to direct you to her post, because she is just that good (and links are a beautiful thing.) So go here to see Aleatha's handiwork and my cutie-patooties. What she doesn't tell you in her post is that while I was sick, we were also moving in a week, and she came over EVERY day, and packed and cleaned my house, plus keeping her own house clean and fixing dinner for two families half of the time. My mother in law basically packed and cleaned and parented the rest. I....didn't. But I am very grateful for families who help us when we are super-lame-o. And now we're moved and I love our new house (except for the kitchen storage, but I have come to terms with that), and we have a basement and three bedrooms.

Also, I am feeling myself again - after two months, I feel great, and healthy. And they only have me on one medicine right now, a beta-blocker, because they are thinking that it is probably only Post-partum thyroiditis, and not Grave's disease. This also means that it should subside on its own in a few months, which is quite exciting (although still likely to slide into hypothyroidism because the thyroid wears itself out). But, thanks to my disease, I lost all my baby weight. As Pa Ingalls says in the Little House on the Prairie (which we just finished reading with Lydia and Elisheva last week. Now we're reading On the Banks of Plum Creek) there is no cloud that doesn't have a silver lining.