So I finally went visiting teaching last week for November (yes, I occasionally, ok, ok, . . . um,  lately, it has been always, wait until the last week). I found out that my new sister I am assigned to visit teach is a self-proclaimed atheist. She let us know that right away up front. Hmmm, so what now? What would you do if you were in this situation? I feel completely out of my league with this experience. Do we continue to visit and be sneaky about fitting in a spiritual message by saying it is from Gandhi? Does anybody have experience with this? I wonder if the blogger over at http://visitingteaching.net can help me out. My friend Wendy Roberts sent me this cute bookmark, a printable, from the just mentioned web site. It is a cute bookmark with the color and pattern from the new book Daughters in My Kingdom, http://visitingteaching.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/visiting-teaching-relief-society-bookmark.jpg. It is so lovely and inspiring, just like the book! I am loving reading the book.

As we were leaving this sister’s home, my partner wished her a merry Christmas. I started wondering, do atheists celebrate Christmas? What about Thanksgiving? If you don’t believe in God, then who do you thank? The rest of the day felt a little cheerless and glum as it sank in that I had met my first atheist, face to face. I wanted to have her tell me her whole story and then talk her out of it. Not a debate, but a heart to heart talk. I just want to look her in the eyes and say, “Oh, honey. Tell me all of your troubles.” The trouble is I am not a “gooey” type of person, as my daughter puts it, but more of a prickly person, at least with someone I have met for the first time. Maybe after building some rapport we can have such a talk.

I have been switching things around on this web site a bit, wanting to make it more navigable by consolidating tabs and reordering them.  I just have so much I want to share. If anybody has any tips to help me, please comment below. This technology thing is a learning curve for me, most of the time I have to ask my teenage kids to help me.

I finished my Christmas apron! I am so excited. It’s cute, but I forgot that one thing I learned from the “What Not to Wear” books is that gathered skirts don’t look that swell on people with poochy tummies, like me. My apron has a gathered skirt. I used the pattern here http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=2309.msg15734 It looks a lot better on my daughter. I think next time I make an apron I will go with this pattern http://sensibility.com/patterns/ladies-edwardian-apron-pattern/. But add ruffles. It can’t be a flirty apron if it doesn’t have ruffles. I finished it on Wednesday and was glad I did because the next day the power went out so my sewing machine was out of commission.

Yes on Thursday our power went out. We had this terrific wind storm in Davis and Weber counties that made Winne the Pooh’s blustery day look mild. It almost felt like the Second Coming was here. The book, Wild at Heart, has a section on the wild heart of God, as evidenced by all the wild, strong forces in nature. We definitely saw this wild force in the form of wind on Thursday. The wind knocked down four panels of our fence. It uprooted tons of trees, not spindly ones, but four feet diameter, heavy pine trees, root balls, turf and all. The news reports said the wind got up to 100 mph! I had to drive Honor to commonwealth school that morning and only after we got there did we discover that school was canceled because the power was out. I was so scared driving on I-15! Semi-trucks were knocked over on the side of the freeway! I could not drive more than 50 mph or we would go sideways. I was happy to get back home in one piece. We lost shingles on our roof, which my husband was actually praying for so that we could get our insurance to pay for a new roof. Now we are eagerly awaiting the claims adjustor to arrive. One brother, a young father in our ward, confessed in fast and testimony meeting that the storm was all his fault, because he is going to college and didn’t have an assignment finished that was due Thursday. He prayed for help, the storm came, and school was canceled!

We missed our outing to go make gingerbread houses with my friend and Homes School Coach, Mary Ann Johnson. I just didn’t want to go out driving any more during the wind! She posted some cute pictures at the link below. When I got the email invitation I was thrilled because I have always wanted to make gingerbread houses with my kids like my mom used to do with us. But I’ve been too lazy to do all the work involved. Now I know why she was able  to offer this activity to so many friends, it’s because she cheated and used graham crackers instead of real gingerbread. Smart lady! I guess nobody cares about not having real gingerbread but me. http://home-school-coach.com/easy-gingerbread-houses-for-kids-make/ I missed being able to visit with Diann Jeppson and Jodie Palmer and Mary Ann but i just didn’t want to brave that storm again, even though it had started to die down.

This day without power from 9 AM to 6:30 was the longest power outage I have ever experienced. I’ve always wanted to experience a day where we could just curl up the by fire and read but it didn’t work out that way. The reality of having to do certain things at certain times set in. When you don’t have electricity, your economy level slips back down to a much more personal scale. It means washing things by hand and eating dinner before it gets dark at 5 PM so you can maximize candlelight. We didn’t have as much time for leisurely sitting by the fire as I had hoped. But fortunately we were mostly prepared, with firewood, candles, a camp stove powered by butane gas, a hand-cranked-power radio, and flashlights. We were low on matches so I called my husband, who was staffing a Kirk Duncan event to come home and buy matches on the way. No way was I leaving the house to drive and find some. I learned from the kids that we could light the fire in the fireplace by sticking a toothpick, since we thought we were out of matches, into the gas flame of the stove. Kind of dangerous so don’t try this at home kids, hee-hee..

While the boys hand washed all the dishes, since the dishwasher didn’t work, I read aloud to them. I read from this old book I picked up used somewhere, probably D.I, called All About Scientific Expeditions. Talk about wild at heart! Why do men willingly leave the comforts of their home to climb snow and ice, falling in crevasses disguised by snow, and brave whipping wind, all while surviving on Pilot biscuits and pemmican? I guess it’s because of that inborn desire of men to seek wild adventures. I like wild adventures too, but more of the kind that comes from reading about them in a soft chair with roof over head.

Cowboy is really liking this set of stickers for homeschooling. It provides a great launching off place for stories about world and American history.

I read the chapter aloud to them about the conquest of Mt. McKinley. It told the story of this guy named Dr. Frederick Cook and his expedition. They didn’t climb the mountain all the way because of problems and turned back. Then Cook told everybody he wanted to go exploring a different way with one guy and they separated. Then a few months later he claimed that he reached the top after the expedition party separated. At least one of his original party, Belmore Browne, doubted the claim right away. His claim was proven false later by people who took photos that looked exactly like the photo he took of the supposed summit, it was a peak 19 miles away from the summit. Later, this guy named Hudson Stark, an Episcopalian priest who lived in Alaska, made the first successful ascent with his party.

I like that the author of this book published before PC days pointed out that Stuck was an archdeacon and had a mission in Alaska. I really liked the end of the story. It described the contrast between Dr. Cook, who had an advanced, professional education, but a low character, with Johnny, the boy who helped Stuck by being the housekeeper of the base camp and the sled dogs while Stark and the others reached the top. Johnny, although a boy with little formal education, had the noble character to decide that he would not eat any of the sugar or milk in the camp during the party’s absence so they would something good to eat when they came back.

That made me ponder. Would I be willing to be so selfless and deny my appetite? The power outage made me snappish because of my lack of comforts. I felt humbled by this boy’s example and wanting to be more unselfish..I also felt inspired to become more prepared for emergencies with a power generator and more food and fuel in case the power is out for weeks or months.

We eventually did have our story around the fire, after the power came back on, with some Christmas bedtime stories. My older son kept saying, if only we could listen to the Christmas Chronicles, when the power was out. He later listened when the power came back on.  If you haven’t heard them, go here http://treeoflifemothering.ning.com/page/audio-freebies. They are delightful half-hour episodes, that tell the complete and true history of Santa Claus, and the story doesn’t leave Jesus out. You can also get the book.