Alec On A Roll

to see alec's adventure from logan to cedar go to youtube and search "alec on a roll".

Elder Alec Turner

Present to approximately December 7, 2010 via snail mail:
MTC Mailbox #294
DOM-SDOE 0118
2005 North 900 East
Provo, Utah 84604-1793

OR

www.dearelder.com
if you write him using this website, they will print it out and have it in his box same day (if before 12, next if not). make sure and put that he is in the Provo, MTC. this is free--you don't even have to pay for postage.

He is headed to the MTC in the Dominican Republic the first week of December.

blogs are a funny thing......for me. (mine especially) i love the idea of keeping a record--using it as a journal. but normally--or the old fashioned pen to paper way, people, not just loved ones or those with the same blood pumping through the system, read/analyze/judge... your written thoughts. i have not written for months. a lot has happened in those months. a lot. many times i have thought of things to brag, oops i mean blog about..but i wondered at the purpose. many times i have thought of things to (for lack of a better word) whine about. again, i wondered at the purpose. i do enjoy the comments from the brave reader who will actually admit that they have read your blog. i have good friends and family who support and offer words of support and advice. people who will laugh and cry with me (most time both at the same time). these family/friends know me better than anyone ever has--because they read my journal. that seems creepy in a way. that being said, i check my google reader multiple times a week to see who has updated their own blog--hardly ever writing a comment.

alec is gone. i packed him, tried to jam all the advice/example/teachings of 19 years into a few precious weeks, and then dropped him off--yes literally dropped him at the curb and said good-bye. i was told that he did not look back, i could not see because of the tears i was holding back so he would not worry. i will not see him for two years, not on christmas, or mother's day, his birthday, or even groundhog's day. i hear he may call on mother's day and christmas--oh, but not this christmas because he will still be in the MTC. who does that?? well, i did (as has thousands of other mothers and fathers). and i would do it again....actually i hope to do it 3 more times in my life. how crazy is that?

how is that for a blog (brag/whine) post?

ADDENDUM:
approximately 4 minutes after posting this i decided to delete it. i again changed my mind but wanted to add:

in said post, it sounds as if i sent alec off by myself. there is nothing further from the truth. sending alec off was a group effort. and this effort started years ago. he said himself (as we were eating our last meal together) he was a product of the imperial 1st ward. his ym leaders and bishopric created this missionary. to actually get him on the above mentioned curb took family, friends and ward members. i will never be able to express my gratitude to them....i only hope/pray that i am around when they are sending a missionary or in need of some service. they showed me what to do. thank you.

hmmmm.....

I woke up at 3:00 am, yes that is early. The entire house was asleep. I layed there in the dark quiet and thought, I remembered, I cried, I I wanted to shout--I wanted to wake up this tiny dark house and alert it--the occupants to what day it was. This was not just a normal, everyday kind of day. But I remained still.

I said my good-byes to Ryan then dropped the kids to school. They were busy with their own agendas (school politics, track meets, lunches, and friends). I was still heaving around the weight of the day but chose not to burden.

I went to the gym and glanced around at all the bodies getting in their daily exercises regime. The treadmills, ellipticals and stair climbers were all humming. I wanted to scream--"DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT DAMN DAY IT IS??" But I did not, I ran as fast and as hard as my own body would allow--thank goodness that it can run far and hard!

A call came in from work--my favorite fragile patient had just taken a "ground level fall". They asked, "would you please come and check her out--see if she should go to the hospital". I went, I assessed, I advised. Not once did I mention what today meant to me. I chuckled to myself thinking of how I would bring it up in conversation. Something like: "Yeah, bad fall, bad bang up on the knee, she is anticoagulated so you should go get a picture of the knee to make sure she is not bleeding into the joint, and oh did you know today is my dead dad's birthday? That would have been awesome (as William loves to say).

I came home from work. Asked all the questions a mother is supposed to ask about--only I am not sure I entirely cared about the answers. Nobody seemed to remember what day it was. Well, not nobody. My brothers, mother and SIL sent comforting texts. They knew what day it was.

It is funny how the world continues on, no matter what is happening inside of me.

It makes me look at the guy next to me in the line at the grocery store, or one of the other mothers picking up a child at school, or even one of the people I call friend and wonder what day it is for them.

Puzzled

My dining room table (we call it this even though we don't actually use it to dine on) has been consumed by a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. It has been for over a week now. Notice how the edge pieces have all been put together--that happened within 2 hours of dumping the pieces out onto the table, any other progress is barely noticeable.


It is not this way due to lack of energy, effort and time. Believe me, I have spent many hours puzzling over this table. So have many of my family members. At one point I had my Mother, my Brother, my Sister (in law), Ryan, myself, Alec, Austin and Jayden working to make sense of this--to create the picture that is promised to come once every piece is in place. We used up hours trying to make sense of it.

How can something that so many people have worked on still be such a jumble of separate confused little pieces? CRAZY!

On a related topic, I am puzzled over many things of late.

1. Why do I still get a killer headache after my long runs? I rehydrate, I replace protein but if I don't take a few hundred milligrams of ibuprofen I suffer with an annoying head splitting ache.

2. Why does making health care available to more people mean that my diabetic patients get their services dropped? They once (and still are!) were productive members of society, they served in wars, they held jobs and paid taxes, they produced children that joined the workforce and served America. But yet medicare (with private insurances following suit) refuse to pay for a skilled caregiver to come and give them what their own pancreas refuses to deliver--life sustaining insulin.

3. Why is my body so sore after X Country skiing for 45 minutes? I complete SPIN CLASS without the dreaded lactic acid overload--and it is hard and does not equal the amount of fun!

4. Why can't I help the ones I love in the way they need help the most? Friends, family and former patients.

5. Why does William have a love/hate relationship with escuela? He loves it one day. The next he hates it and cries when I leave him. Sad!

6. Why do some receive while others get nothing--even after working so hard?

7. Why does the dog insist on sitting on my couch?

8. Why are my children slobs? I am not.

9. Why can't I solve these puzzles? I try.


(Of course the majority of these listed are just silly--but still my mind spends too much time with them.)

I will keep trying--as we all do. Maybe most of them don't need to be solved. Maybe the result is not a picture that is worthy of hanging. Maybe it is the act of trying to solve the puzzle where the value is found.

On a encouraging note the puzzle on my dining room table will be solved. (I will post a picture.) To anyone who loves jigsaw puzzles and wants to help all I can say is: you know where I live!

side note: Ryan and I don't "do" puzzles. We just had a wild idea for New Year's--it was the puzzle. Call us CRAZY! While most of you were out living it up, celebrating the new year, Ry and I were sitting home quietly putting the edges of our new puzzle together.

The house is warm while outside is chilly with a layer of snow on the ground. My snowman dishes have been carefully unpacked and are being used for everything from "Holiday Crunch" to peppermint ice-cream. The tradition of arguing with the youngsters concerning the white lights or colored lights has been waged--and won. The Annual Holiday Bells have been polished and now adorn the beautiful evergreen standing in my front room (with white lights glowing I might add). The Nativity has been arranged and rearranged many times. Fragile decorations have been broken in excitement and super-glued back together to look as if new. Gingerbread Houses have been decorated and massive amounts of sugar has been consumed with close friends. The lines of "Santa Claus is coming to town" is being sung by everyone in the house in hopes of getting the 3 year old to behave--so much that the said 3 year old is now singing the song himself. And this list seems never ending, the Christmas Blankets are out, the Grinch, Frosty and Rudolph have been viewed,lists have been made, Holiday parties have been attended, the 12 Days of Christmas has arrived............

So where is my Holiday Spirit? I am afraid it will not be making an appearance this Holiday Season. I realize that this is a common dilemma, I have seen enough Hallmark Channel Movies to know, but still it festers inside me.

I worry it has died along with the other loves in my life.

While growing up (well into my late 20's and early 30's), I was surrounded by the people who made Christmas "Christmas"! My Grandparents would spend Christmas Eve at my childhood house so they could be there for the quiet reading of the nativity as well as the chaos of gift receiving the next morning. They would bring a cooler of goods with them for our feast--my Mom would complain that they would even bring butter. We would eat, sing Christmas Carols, visit the lights, some years my Granddad would lead us in calisthenics in hopes to get us to bed earlier. My Dad always threatened to catch Santa and tie him up so that we would not receive any gifts.

Christmas morning I would wake and go to my parents room to count down the minutes until we could get up with my Dad. He always seemed just as excited about Christmas Morning as I was--but would try and pretend he was a Grinch. "Bah Humbug" was a phrase he used often. He always had batteries, his pocket knife (for stubborn packaging and little screws), and a garbage bag (to keep the garbage under control) at his disposal. Christmas Morning was a smooth operation under his management.

Needless to say, traditions have changed. Some have fallen away completly. Some have just been altered.

Today, Christmas 2009, I have found Christmas Spirit in some unlikely places. It is this that I will cling.

While "decking the halls" a decoration was broken. It truly did not upset me all that much, I was not attatched to it--not until my son spent well over 6 hours painstakenly super-gluing it back together. He carefully picked every shard up off the floor and fit them back together. You can hardly see the deformity. I now LOVE the decoration. A spark of 'Spirit'. Everytime I look at that decoration it grows.

Our trip to see Santa was typical--magical. The youngest was overcome with excitement about seeing the big guy while the older ones did their traditional protests of being too old. All of this while I knew that the younger would not actually like Santa and that the older group was excited about this annual ritual. Here is where the sweet feeling of Christmas was once again felt. We battled the crowds, waited in line for over an hour, but we also ate yummy cookies and enjoyed each others company. We joked about what the kids would ask santa for and if he would actually bring it. The excitement sparked in the kids. They BELIEVE in Santa, or the idea of Santa. To this I cling.

(As I read this, I too am thinking what you are thinking: Form traditions within your family now, be grateful for what you had and NOW HAVE, stop whimpering! I am very grateful for the goodness in my life--I just want it ALL.)

What's in a Name?

Mom: What are you doing William?

Will: Thank-you Mama.

Mom: For what?

Will: Thank-you for saying William--that is my NAME, not Will. Why people say Will?


I was not able to explain that Will was a shortened version of his name--at least so that he was satisfied.

I still catch myself using Will as opposed to his given name. But now I know. Since this conversation with my young master, I have noticed that when he refers to himself he uses his given name, William.

Hmmm..

William Cole Turner.
He was named after my Granddad. William was his Father's name (William Austin), Cole was his Mother's maiden name (Ida Kaziah Cole Austin).

Obviously this name means a great deal to me. I loved my Granddad--I was his "fav-o-rite granddaughter" none the less.

I should use his name more often and not keep it locked up for those special times--like when he is in trouble.