Engaged!

So, I'm standing in line at Costco, waiting for my pizza to be ready when my phone alerts me that I've got a text. When I open it, the first thing I see is that beautiful shimmering diamond on my daughter's hand, and then I read, "WE'RE ENGAGED!!!"

My heart started beating and my eyes filled with tears of absolute joy. My precious girl, my only daughter has found her Prince and tonight they have made their intent to marry official. I couldn't be happier. Of course, I had to show the complete strangers around me the picture and share my news! Bless them, they were excited and happy too!

When I got home, I ran in the door and shouted the news to the boys and Conor and I started jumping and dancing around the living room. Lyndsay and Nate FaceTimed us when they got home from Park City, where he had taken her for dinner and the proposal. They told us, through their beaming smiles, the story of how the night went down, complete with fancy steak, a walk in the snow (and she didn't bring a coat!), and a bent knee with a ring extended. She said, "If I had known he was going to propose, I would have washed my hair! Or worn eyeliner! Or worn pants!" (she had leggings on). She's so silly.

Afterwards, she sent me the other selfies they took afterwards. I love the pure joy on their faces, even though her nose and fingers are pink with cold.

Love is beautiful, and I am so grateful that Lyns and Nate have found each other. I truly love Nate. I feel like the Lord has prepared him for my sweet girl, and she for him. They will be a great pair with a glowing future. I had a serious talk with Nate when he was here over Christmas, expressing to him my deep love for Lyndsay, how precious she is to me, and how because of the things I have experienced in marriage, it is so important to me that she be safe, always. That she never feel what I have felt. He listened carefully to me. He promised me. I trust him, and that's big.

So, the kids were up late reveling in their happiness, but got up early the next morning to attend the Provo City Temple Open House before Nate headed off to classes.

And then Lyndsay's room mate begged to take some pictures of them. She got some terrific shots. They will have professional engagement pictures taken next month, but I love to look at these and just smile and laugh and cry. The emotions of motherhood take over my heart at times like this.

So happy for my girl! Later this month, she and Nate will be coming here so that Lyndsay can go through the temple and take out her endowments. Nate's family will come down from Visalia to attend with us and we will celebrate together, and get to know each other a bit, and PLAN A WEDDING!

O, matre pulchra filia pulchrior

(~Oh, daughter more beautiful than your beautiful mother)

I miss her already. My sweet, beautiful jewel of a daughter, Lyndsay, headed to Kentucky for a week to lend a hand to her postpartum Aunt Abby, who just sent her husband to Afghanistan five days after giving birth to their second baby. Their first baby is 17 months old. Lyndsay to the rescue!

This is the first time that Lyndsay has flown all by herself, and it's a big one since it's out of LAX first thing on a Friday morning, and finding a connecting flight in Atlanta. She sweated it out, but in true Lyndsay style, faced her fears head-on and steeled herself for the adventure that awaits. My sister will be there to meet her in Louisville around 8:30pm, lugging two babies and so happy for an extra pair of arms, I'm sure. The two of them will have a magnificent time. My only regret is that I could not join them for this girl time.

I wrote Lyns four letters last night, one for each leg of her journey there and back. They are sealed in envelopes with instructions not to open until on each particular airplane. I hope they will be a pleasant diversion for her. In them, I tell her how incredibly proud I am of her for her competence, responsible nature, unselfishness, grace, poise, cheerfulness, sweetness, capability, trustworthiness, beauty, maturity, and wisdom. It is because she is so exceptional that I felt she could handle this trip alone. Sometimes sending a 12 1/2 year old into a situation like this could just mean more grief for the one needing help. But Lyns is a professional, trust me. She can multi-task with the best of them. She can cook more competently than many mothers, she bakes the best brownies from scratch, plus she can clean anything, quiet newborns, sing every great baby song, make intricate origami creatures, perform all kinds of amazing string games, and then in her spare time she'll knit, weave, read...and call her mom. She is so much fun to be with, never a bother, very unobtrusive, and always helpful. I absolutely live in awe of her. She never says anything she regrets, like I do, because she has this skillful poise with which she can express herself truthfully without hurting anyone's feelings in the process. She's a leader without being overbearing. She's beautiful without being intimidating. She's smart without being arrogant. She's gentle in every way. She would make any mother proud. How in the world did I, of all people, get so lucky? Once when asked who I would most like to be like in the world, I replied, and I mean it, "my Lyndsay".

So, I will endure another week without my sweet Lyns. She is so good I simply can't keep her all to myself. I must share her so she can brighten more of the world. Look out, Fort Knox, Kentucky. You'll never know when night falls!

I Wanna Dance with Somebody...ANYBODY!

A party! A cyberspace party! People all over the world having fun visiting from blog to blog, making new friends, learning new things, awakening to new ideas, even winning prizes...who would have thunk it? Ah, the blessed internet! This invisible world linking us all. I was marveling this morning at the blessings the internet has brought into my life. I met a best friend on the internet. And if that can be topped, I met my husband on the internet! Maybe those stories on another day. For now, let me dwell on "letting loose". This IS a party, right?

It's sometimes hard for me to let loose. Maybe I'm just not yet comfortable in my skin, but I'm definitely riddled with insecurities and inhibitions. It's my least favorite thing about me, and the thing that people find most difficult to believe about me. Here comes a confession: I've never danced. Never. I WANT to dance, oh, how I want to dance! But I can't break free of the cement casing that binds fast my body. Growing up LDS, I attended every Stake dance. Every single one. I was fairly pretty and popular enough with the guys. I don't think I ever sat a slow dance out. But when the beat would accelerate, and I would feel that rush of blood and adrenaline course through me, somehow the excitement would come to a dead halt somewhere between my head and my feet. I just couldn't do it. I have a natural sense of rhythm, that isn't it. It was more, "what if I look dumb?" I would watch the other kids on the dance floor and envy their sense of abandon and fun. I would carefully watch the moves their bodies did and try to memorize them. I can remember vividly trying to will up the courage, and battling between this intense desire to just go have some fun and let loose, and the defeating voice in my head reminding me that probably everyone will notice my inept sense of dance style and will stop and stare....and think less of me. One of my very favorite songs of that era, ironically, was Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody", and every time it would play I would think, "okay, okay, I'm gonna do it this time. Okay, next phrase. In just a second. Well, the song's almost over now. Next song." But I never did. Years went by like this. Years are STILL going by like this. It makes me mad! Sure, there have been occasions when I've been pulled out there by a frustrated and well-meaning friend and I've done some stupid two-step to the beat just to appease. The whole time I'm running this tape in my mind that says something like, "Move your arms, dummy! Yeah, like that. No, that's dumb. Try this. Too forced." Dying for the song to end. Faking a good time. Just enough to keep suspicions low. Many times I went home from those dances and cried in my room, or blasted some Debbie Gibson and tried to let loose privately. Even THAT couldn't happen.

My daughters are great dancers. Carefree and spontaneous. My oldest daughter, who's almost 13, has taken 6 years of dance instruction in tap, ballet, jazz, and Highland. She has the guts and the self-confidence that I admire so much. I've tried really, really hard to instill that in her. When she would perform in her dance recitals each summer, I would be the mom in the audience crying. Yeah, I was proud of her and had all those mom thoughts of "look how beautiful she is", and "look how my little girl is growing up", but my tears flowed from a much, much deeper well. Those tears were because I wanted to dance. I watched those girls dancing, and any other dancers dance, and I have had this distinct impression that I CAN do that. That I AM a dancer, and I just haven't learned how. I haven't remembered that talent, given to me long before I came to this earth. I have even watched prima ballerinas, and the absolutely infectious Riverdance dance troupe and thought that somehow I belong to those groups. I'm one of them, but nobody knows it. I have this uncanny feeling from the deepest part of my soul that I miss dancing, though I don't know where that would come from.

Just the other day, I popped in a favorite CD of really fun, let-loose music. I tried a few moves, but it was a complete joke. I can't even take it seriously, I'm so afraid of rejection, so I have these ridiculous cop-out dance moves. I even went to the Ellen DeGeneres show and let me tell you how I sweated that one out. She dances! She expects the audience to, also! So, to cover my shame, I worked it with these completely embarrassing, silly, goof-ball, borderline retarded dance moves that I mortify my children with, and don't you know, I was pulled down on stage to dance for the entire studio audience and given an "I Danced With Ellen" T-shirt. What a joke. Everyone else REALLY danced. I was so jealous! All I did was make a fool of myself to AVOID making a fool of myself.

Every now and then I feel those moves trying to bust their way out, but I always stop them. I don't even mean to. My husband caught me in that snare the other day, and he just came over and held me and quietly laughed. "You poor thing," he said. "I saw you almost break free and then you shut it down. You poor, poor girl." He's such a good dancer. Totally uninhibited.

My goal is to dance. Just once I want to break free and feel it flow from my head, through my heart, and fly out through my arms and hands and fingers, and legs and feet and toes, and everything in between. I want to laugh with unabashed joy and freedom and surrender, and I want to sweat and get tired, and keep on dancing. A party is a real good place to start.