God is Good to the Johnsons

Reading . . . Writing Book . . . . . . Pen . . . . Paper. I curl up with a paperback And read quietly for hours Laboriously I scratch Ideas My brow spouts cold sweat showers I yawn and set my book down The story puts me fast asleep I struggle over the sentence I've been wording for a week I crease my brow in thinking The story grasps my full attention My hand cramps as I speed write My own adventure weaves suspension I fly in freedom winging As the story sweeps blue skies My fingers drag enduring Try to keep the writing alive It's easy just to read away And enjoy a sea of words But when it's  my  pen scratching I create my own bright world I can't decide the ending In a book or play I like But I make my own adventures  When  I  find the time to write.

L U L L A B I E S Little Boy, At night when we rock, and rock, and rock I sing you songs. I sing of webs like spider webs (made of silver light and shadow). I sing of the sandman bringing you a lollipop moon (although I still don't know what that is). I sing of the doggy in the window and the popcorn on the tree. But Little Boy, The songs I sing most are the ones about the man who built his house on the rock About kindness beginning with you and Jesus telling us to love everyone. And Little Boy, if you don't remember, if you don't believe any of the other songs I sing Remember those songs Believe the songs I sing most.

I was intrigued and touched last week by a BYU Ted Talk I listened to while folding my ominously large pile of laundry. Part of the talk is given by Moe Egan, who shares his incredible story about his past life as a convict and addict. He and his mentor, Tim Stay, share the story of his recovery and change through the help of true friends and his peers and mentors at "The Other Side Academy."  As I listened to Moe's story, my heart particularly cried out to him as he talked about his childhood. His moral education (among other things!) was neglected by his family and other adults who should have been looking out for him. This awful beginning spiraled him into a dark pattern of immoral and illegal behavior. BUT MOE WANTED TO CHANGE. He knew what he was doing wasn't right, but he hadn't had a pattern or example or friend group strong enough to aid him in that transformation. It wasn't until he landed in prison (not the first time he was there, I mi...

The sun stays with me all day now. His present energy seems so bright compared to the beleaguered guise he wears in winter. Instead of rising reluctantly, only to quickly retreat to his nighttime den beyond the mountains-- He bursts triumphant at 6am each morn, and doesn't retire til 10pm A day's heat and light and life brought, A day's sticky sweat and garden growth and summer swim's retreat accomplished, A day's rollercoaster rides and farmer grunt work and road construction and picnic play overseen. And while I said I'd have no favorites, because of you, oh precious star, Summer is the one.

Yesterday morning, around 9am, I went to the cupboard to pull out the formula--Charlie was nagging me about his hungry belly, you see. To my surprise a sticky note was plastered to the side of the formula box. It read: "I'll be your Gilbert Blythe if you'll be my Ann e  Shirley! Love, Kevin" My heart about exploded with the giddiness of a schoolgirl while nearly melting from the delicious sap of that darling little note. Especially the part where he underlined the "e." Dear Kevin has lovingly endured 9+ hours of watching Anne of Green Gables (and the sequels) over the past week. I haven't seen them for over 13 years, and when we had to opportunity to borrow them, I couldn't resist. The first film is definitely the best (I'll save my critiques of them for another post) and I giggled and laughed and sighed as I watched and reminisced and quoted... "Diana Barry is my bosom friend!... Would you call me Cordelia?... The Lady of Sherlot!.....

Two weeks ago I was checking out at Target. It was a large purchase, and it wasn't until the last few items were being scanned that I noticed that I had left my wallet in the diaper bag... in the car... flustered, I explained my predicament to the cashier who gave me a warm smile and told me not to worry, just to retrieve it. So I gathered Charlie in my arms, hurried across the long expanse of the parking lot (I'm one of those weird people that parks in the boonies) and hurried back. I thanked the cashier and gave an apologetic look at the woman behind me in line. She shrugged nonchalantly and said with a sincere smile, "we've all done that at least once." On my way out of the store, as I tried to carry my frustrated baby in one arm and push the cart with the other, a different lady with two elementary school aged daughters ambled up next to me and asked, "can we help you to your car?" To which I gladly accepted, and they did. Last Saturday, I was chatt...

Yesterday, I hiked. I strapped baby boy to my chest and met aunts, grandma, uncle Brett, and cousin kidlets at the trailhead And away we went! Up, up, up, and down, down, down, to the waterfall. Anne carried my backpack. I had a baby in tow and didn't know what all he'd need, so I over prepared. She helped save me from being too much of a pack mule And I helped save the worries of those that used the outhouse because in my over-preparation I had brought hand sanitizer. There were steep parts with slippery needles from pines There were trip wires made of tree roots And slick rocks worn from thousands of hikers' boots So 9-year-old Ben stopped to be my anchor I held his shoulder while I clambered down I hiked this trail before when I was 13 with my Young Women leaders and friends And it kicked my backside when I had to climb the steep parts But this time, I did it with baby boy strapped to my chest I surged ahead with stamina and a smile. It ...

GRATEFUL My gratitude is more than just a little full today Kind words sent from loved ones close and far away "One Year Older, and Wiser Too," Through joy and through the strife Today Lord, on my birthday, I'm so grateful for my life! HER DAY TOO Today they say is mine But how can that be right?  My mother labored on this day For hours, day through night At 10pm I came to her After tears and pain and blood So why today's not HER day Well, I've never understood. Mom, today's my birthday but you're the hero here Now that I've given birth myself Today it's you I revere. I LOVE YOU MOM!

t w e n t y      f i v e What are you? A quarter dollar Quadranscentennial The cost of two movie tickets on opening night these days The number seven... if you add yourself together. Words being said again Words being written again Words being read again, for hours. Lullabies A first set of wrinkles Wishes for a time machine And ixnay-ing those wishes Walking Not Walking Walking again, and shouting HALLELUJAH for it. Four years since Argentina Three years married Two years teaching One year a mother. Pain Joy Pounds gained Pounds lost Recapturing beauty all the while. Crayons Gardens Walmart Grocery Pickup Poco , The Eagles , Grizzly Goat , Phillip Phillips , and Owl City on repeat Holding two people REAL close every night t w e n t y   f i v e  I'll miss you. Say hi to  TWENTY SIX  for me.

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'" -Mr. Rogers There are times when the hate the dismay the catastrophe the bullying of everyday for others and for  me they fog up my soul and my hope, my faith, it seems exhausted There are times many times I can't watch movies or the news without turning it off or without gasping for breath because the panic fills me for them with them together, they and I I can't explain it but it's not just a film to me because somebody's hurting whether two years ago or 2,000 years ago the person they show is hurting and I feel it  too There are times when anguish fills me at the sound of sirens and the flash of red lights and the crimson streak of those trucks because they're reminders that somebody is havin...

I made the mistake of admitting to eager and loving 8-year-olds that I love chocolate. I like to pretend all the chocolate I got for teacher appreciation week (and Valentine's....) (and parting gifts the last week of school...) I like to pretend that I shared them with all the people and that's why my treat basket is empty.

TO MY TEACHER SELF Girlfriend, I miss you. It's not to say I'm not happy being a stay-at-home mom--truly, I love seeing the kidlet struggling up on all fours as he figures out the crawling thing.  But I miss you, that teacher you. Lady, you sure had a GREAT gig going on at that rockin' elementary school, and YOU LOVED IT. Room five was your other home. The smells of crayons came like a wave of welcome each morning at 7:29 (or 7:35 if it was a rough morning), and your mind started to race in full-gear preparation mode. I miss how you greeted each class with gusto as you went to pick them up, "HELLO, BLUE CLASS! HELLO, YELLOW CLASS!" and how they responded with bright smiles. I miss how you asked your students at the start of class "0 to 5, 5 being the best, how are you feeling today and why?" and you'd listen to their responses, relating everything from excitement over a new hamster to mourning after the Jazz game last night to longing ...

At the end of the day I'm looking back on today and realizing... ... ... ... ...all I did. And I think it as a prayer. All I did today was play with my kid Who is lonesome for attention and cries when I leave the room for any reason. He needs people or he gets scared. So We read stories like The Pout-Pout Fish and Mama, Do You Love Me? and Oh, The Places You'll Go! The best part was when I got out the pop-up book The Wide-Mouthed Frog and with each animal that leapt out of it's pages my son's squeals of joy increasingly got louder. That's about all I did today, Lord. I did a few other things. Like I put the laundry in, it's tripled since having a baby because now I wear at least two outfits a day and so does the little bean himself because babies are messy and they like to share the mess. It's not folded. The laundry, I mean. But that's what tomorrow's for. Oh... I fed him zucchini-corn-pear puree, which h...

I love you more now That This Father's Day Means You With him in your arms

You're making a mess with a mischevious grin While you throw your food all over the floor. As I clean you up day in and day out I wonder what future messes lie in store Your face and your clothes have a brand new design The blinds and the cupboards are covered in grime But kid, how can I truly ever mind? When through all the muck is your smile benign?

"All the hopes that sweetly start From the fountain of the heart, All the bliss that ever comes To our earthly human homes, All the voices from above Sweetly whisper: God is love." -Thomas R. Taylor There's this phrase that has exploded in the world over the past couple years, and it drives me crazy. It's this: Love is love. No. Actually, God is love. And today, in simple words, I just want to express that I know that God's ways are not our ways, God's thoughts are not our thoughts. God loves each of his children perfectly. He's also given us standards for how to love in our friendships, family relationships, and how to love total strangers! When we do what He asks, when we follow his commandments as best as we humanly can, we are filled with PURE, UNDEFILED, PERFECT LOVE. And by the way, the pure love of Jesus Christ, His perfect charity for all mankind, can be found in us if we simply ask Him to put it there (and do our best to ...

My family has this tradition of receiving breakfast cereal as a birthday gift, and ofttimes as a Christmas gift, too. You see, growing up, we didn't get breakfast cereal much. At least, we didn't get the name-brand, sugar-tastic breakfast cereal. I'm assuming it's because the cereal was too expensive and not ideally nutritious or "part of this complete breakfast," despite the indoctrinating slogans commercials taught me. Each birthday, Mom and Dad gave us a special box of cereal, usually a limited-edition or brand-new type of cereal. To the Boren clan, cereal is a special dessert-like food. A few years ago, I bought Kevin some delicious waffle shaped cereal for his half-birthday (just because). It wasn't Waffle Crisp, it was a local brand. Embarrassingly... I ate the whole box before he could get a chance at eating even a single bowl. IT WAS DIVINE! I went back to the store later that week to try to redeem myself, and sadly, it was already off t...

Today's blog post is a question, a question for YOU, the reader.  No, I don't mean somebody else in the blogosphere.  You there, reading this, right now. What makes for a happy childhood?  How can I raise the "Wright" kind of family? During my brief visit to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., what amazed me more than all the aircraft and space gear and aerodynamic science combined was the following quote by Katharine Wright, younger sister of Orville and Wilbur Wright: Additionally, Wilbur stated: WHAT A STATEMENT. What a tribute to their parents and to the family culture fostered in their home. My interest and desire to know more about their homelife is piqued, so I'm 99.9% sure I'm going to buy this book on Amazon tomorrow so that I can learn more:  What I want to know is how to grow a family where the kids rush home because home is the place to be! I want to know how to host an environment that suppo...

This might be TMI, but... Do you get upset while reading in the shower? I do. I'm a ravenous reader so I read just about everything, including the ingredients on Fruit-by-the-Foot, the bland recycled mazes on the back of Cereal-boxes, and--yes--the labels on hygiene products. Barbasol's label really bothers me. "DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR EVERY MAN" .... Um, hello?! Do you know what "specifically" even means, Barbasol?  Do you understand that you can't design something specific if it's going to apply to everyone? Pick an audience, pal. Pick a consumer. It can even be every man if you want it to be, but it can't be designed "specifically" if it's made for billions. You know what else gets me a little sherangry (shower-reading-angry)? Fancy body butters, washes, lotions, etc. If you ever read the fine print at the top of the rear-facing label, there's ALMOST ALWAYS an elaborate piece of prose. It relates how the makers...

I said once that you're not   old til you're 72. I meant it then, it felt so far away. But look at us, each year fleeting I want this moment, here and now, to stay. I know, because I talk to God, that years are man-made He told me this life's not the end and you and I Have eons after all this mortal to love, to be, to watch our tenth-great grandkids learn and try. Yet here we all are, around the campfire up the canyon of my youth Cooking, laughing, singing Les Mis And I'm still fighting the age-old truth... ...Of time... Must We Grow Old?

FOUR WORD CAPTIONS PICTURES TAKEN WITHIN THE PAST 7 DAYS Outside Sunshine Playtime Buddies LOC Kinda Like Sistine Two Not Like Others Garden Words of Affection Smithsonian Aged Potato Chips Man of Simple Tastes DIY Infant Lazy Boy First Garden Box Project

Yesterday Kevin and the kiddo and  I went on a road trip with our friends, the Ruesch's.  Yesterday Kevin and the kiddo and I tried to go on a road trip with our friends, the Ruesch's. We were chatting together, the five of us squished into our car, cruisin' down the highway and excited to see Utah's gorgeous southern sights. But the car decided to up and quit about an hour into the journey, and we landed ourselves in the sleepy town of SCIPIO. We snagged some icewaters, cheese curds, caramels, and cowtales from the gas station as we waited to hear the diagnosis. Luckily, the car trouble wasn't major--transmission fluid just needed replacing, and we could safely drive the vehicle back home and take it into the dealership the next morning to get the fluid replaced (it's weird to me that an auto shop couldn't do it... I thought they could do everything car-related?). So we scratched southern Utah and cruised back northward. At 9:30 at night we found ourse...

"Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you, Away you rolling river. Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you, Away, I'm bound away 'Cross the wide Missouri. 'Tis seven long years since last I saw you, Away, you rolling river. 'Tis seven long years since last I saw you, Away, we're bound away 'Cross the wide Missouri." These are the words of a well-known American folk-tune, one of my absolute favorites. I became familiar with it as we practiced and performed it in my choir class in high school. "Mama J," our instructor, was a brilliant, fierce woman. When we lacked feeling while singing, she stopped us short and asked us to envision the anonymous author's yearning--seven long years since seeing his beautiful homeland of Shenandoah.  At that point in my life I had never been away from home for any amount of time longer than a week (which was usually spent in Disneyland, where I was too busy having too much fun with my family to have any amount of lo...

To My Dear Grandpa Bob, I was there this last Monday, Grandpa. I was there at the memorial they built to honor you and your brother, Bud. Mom, Dad, Tyler, Jordan, Austin, Corey and me--we were all there. I saw the wreath that honored you and your state, I read the words that honored your efforts, I saw the sculptures coming from the wall honoring your comrades, and the banner of our noble country. And last, I wept when I saw the gold stars. I wept for gratitude because you came home, Grandpa, you came home and married Grandma Iris and decades later I got to be your lucky great-grandbaby. I wept for sadness because one star was for your brother Sheldon "Bud" Barrett, who didn't come home, he was struck down as he flew over Italy. And I wept because of all the pain of all the people of all the places in that war. And I wept for freedom, because it isn't free, and you know that as well as anyone. Grandpa, thanks for the ice cr...

6 WORD MEMOIRS #10--Andes Mints on my Grandma's Table. #9--I'm gonna worry, but not now. #8--Lost a fight with a Goldfish. #7--Prevent regret before you feel it. #6--Seventeen, College Plans, time to fly. #5--Car stopped at a forked road. #4--Fingers raw from pressing six strings. #3--Blue eyes, free skies, heavy sighs. #2--One lane highway ahead, no exits. #1--American Stars on my father's coffin. A note to readers--I wrote this post as a senior in High School, the prompt from my creative writing teacher was, if I remember right, to write ten memoirs of our life in six words exactly per memoir. What I love about this piece is I had forgotten about it til yesterday, and while reading it, I realized I couldn't recall what half the memoirs meant. Their simplicity leaves my present self at a loss of understanding of my past self. Consequently, this entry is a mystery for me and for you in taking insight into the life and memories of a 17-year-old Mikayla Johnson. P....

I stroke the fabric of your withering all-star frame. Red, red, red shoes. And who'd have thought? I had boring sneakers previously, Before you. And then I saw an ad, a colorful array of Converse shoes splayed out upon the page. Lots of colors, but my eyes could only focus on one pair. Red. Red. Red shoes. I took a chance, stepping outside my normal fashion realms. And suddenly I realized-- Who cared about my disproportionate bony toes, When enveloped inside a stylish crimson case? Adorned with  brand new   fresh   white    laces. Beautiful! Red, Red, Red shoes. I remember you dangling beneath me, On a roller-coaster inside the magic of Disneyland Park, soaring over the Mickey Mouse hats beneath us. I remember afternoon walks after a rainy day, when the air is thick and fresh with moisture.  unreservedly we leapt into the joyous wet of a thick mud puddle. Perh...