Specializing!!

I am a specialist - that is my title, Resource Specialist. It means that I only teach children with identified disabilities. I actually am not licensed to teach anyone else. I don't mind though, because the idea of facing 35 students every period, every day, really doesn't do it for me! I like teaching small classes and being in charge of a smaller number of students than most other teachers.


I have thought a lot about this recently as I have received congrats and kudos for things that I am really not responsible for. And it occurred to me that the key is to focus on one thing and do that one thing well. I'm not a hair stylist, but I can French braid - and with 8 granddaughters, it's a skill that's in demand. And no one seems to question that I can't do much else with hair!

I've made bread for years - more in years past than in recent years - but I got pretty good at it. But I mostly only made one kind. Recently I've tried my hand at a new kind, but it feels more like work. I plan to persist at it, but it will be a chore for a bit I think.


At my school, there is an assumption that I am a great cook, an outstanding seamstress, and a wonderful gardener. I have earned these accolades by bringing lilies that bloom in my garden to school and putting them in the main office and the library. Since my lilies - through no effort on my part, by the way - are beautiful, everyone thinks I must be some kind of gardener.


And I put jam in pretty jars and give it out at Christmas - so there is another assumption that I am a great cook. (The hilarious part is that for the last two years, I have not given out jam at Christmas, but Marcie has. And I have gotten the credit, since she doesn't put tags on hers!)


I also make lots of aprons and have pretty much given them to a significant number of staff members - most of whom don't even mend, for heaven's sake - so it is once again assumed that I must be a stellar seamstress! I enjoy sewing - I have for a lot of years. But I don't enjoy struggling through a new pattern or fussing over unfamiliar details. So I just make the same thing over and over again - and enjoy doing it.

I can do lots of things - and in the past I did a lot more - but I am thinking that this business of specialization has real merit!

Upon rumination, however, I came to the conclusion that I have always been sort of a specialist. Maybe I have a hard time focusing on more than one thing at at time. Or maybe it just works out that way. When I was younger, my job was to mix the bread and clean the bathrooms. Alice always excelled at lots of things - but I pretty much kept to bread and bathrooms. And my mom, for one, would always comment, when I went to visit, that she loved when I came to stay because I did such a great job on the bathrooms!! I could be feted for much worse things!

I remember my friend Linda Rich saying, "Well, I'm not a cook. But I can get a chicken at the deli and mix up a bag of salad and slice some bread from the bakery!" And that's not a bad meal folks! In fact, it's a pretty darn good meal!

I can eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch for weeks in a row. That characteristic can drive some people nuts. But sameness isn't always a negative. Sameness can bring comfort and security.

I'm not sure where this is going. It's just something I've been thinking about. I'm not writing so that you will comment and tell me how many great things I do. I'm writing because I feel like I am going to a place in my life where I don't need to keep "adding" things. I can focus on the things that, as Bonny would say, "bring me joy!"

And working with the familiar does indeed bring me joy!

Errata:

I wrote a post and thought I was posting it to this blog. It was very late - and it ended up here.

So, check it out there!!

Where's the clue??

Copies of these two photos hang on the wall in the hallway. We took all the photos down when the floor guys came - and then rehung them. As we were putting them back up, Dad commented,

"I think these two photos were taken on the same day." Since it looked like it was Phoebe's birthday that was being celebrated, and since there were 10 candles on the cake,
and since we knew that the second photo had been taken at church for a directory or something, we Googled to see if October 11th had been a Sunday in 1987.


And indeed it had been a Sunday!! (Don't you love solving mysteries - or even just finding bits of trivia here and there!?)

I mostly just thought it was kind of remarkable that no one had ever pointed that out before.

Maybe you can't go home again, but you can look at an old photo and take a trip down Memory Lane!

I honestly sometimes just pull down a box of photos and browse through them. Sometimes nothing comes up of any interest. Other times a whole train of thought emerges.

This rather poor-quality photo is dated May 1982. That would be Leslie walking with Bonny and Phoebe - and Harry is in front. I say it would be Leslie, because I'm probably taking the picture - and I'm not that tall or that long-legged.

They are walking towards the beach house in Oxnard. I'm not sure why we were there in May - maybe for Memorial Day - or maybe just some random weekend. Maybe Leslie would be just back from her mission? Maybe the date on the back is wrong?

The possibilities are endless.

What I do know for sure is that we went up there many times after we moved down here. And my kids always loved being with their Aunt Leslie. And it was always fun to get away - even to Oxnard!

Believe it or not!

According to the notation on the back, this is a photo of my dad, taken in the summer of 1934. After visiting with my Uncle Byron on Sunday, he commented that after his mother's death in 1934, Ted went to Salt Lake for the summer, and Dad went to Logan, Utah. My mom thinks it was Roy, Utah.

Byron was supposed to go to Springville but refused. So he spent the summer living with Uncle Paul - who was 20 years old at the time.

Up close, this doesn't look like my dad to me - but someone said it was! Obviously he spent the summer working on a farm!

Dad told lots of stories about living on the farm and working - too bad I didn't take notes!!

Lipstick!

I was putting on lipstick this morning and thought about how the whole issue of lipstick has changed and evolved. When I was girl, being allowed to wear lipstick was a right of passage into womanhood! Now I'm not sure how women really feel about lipstick. I know that I put it on in the morning - and that's it - however long it lasts is it for me.

Mary Stevens - circa 1938 - not sure if the lipstick and blush are real or "painted on!"

I know women who truly will not be seen without it. In fact tonight, when we were at a restaurant for our "Girls of '45" get together, I asked the waiter to take our picture - and Sandee wouldn't hear of it until she put on fresh lipstick!!

I remember a friend once saying that if she walked into the room naked, her husband might not even notice - but if she didn't have lipstick on, he would!

I also remember watching older girls put on lipstick in the restrooms at school - many of them used some amazing techniques that I was sure I would never be able to master. Fortunately, I have lived long without the skills, and it seems to have not made a difference.

I know that the magazine ads make lipstick look like it's still pretty essential. And it's certainly for sale everywhere. But most of the women I'm around seem to mostly use Chapstick and lip gloss - many times a day.

Maybe I'm just genetically predisposed to have self-moistening lips, but my lips don't get dry - and they survive nicely with my once a morning contribution of Carmex and Coty.

And I've never worried much about being trendy about make-up.

But I do feel naked without mascara!

A name from the past - with a photo to go along with it!

You have all probably heard me talk about my experience as a 14 year old babysitting for a recently widowed young mother of 8 children under 7 - because there was a set of twins. She moved into our ward from Idaho, where her husband had been killed in a farming accident.

It was difficult to babysit for her because there were so many children and the house was very chaotic, and so no one wanted to do it. My mother pretty much made me do it - and made me tell her she couldn't pay me because I needed service hours!! (She was taking classes to upgrade her nursing degree so that she could be a school nurse, so she needed babysitters two nights a week.)

I am so glad my mother made me have this experience. It taught me many things - chiefly that "when we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are only in the service of our God." But I also have used this experience over the years to remind myself that difficult service is often the most rewarding service of all. And I am grateful to have that understanding.

I came across this photo in a box of picture's at my mom's house - and I reflected on how sweet those children truly were. Their living situation was very difficult - but they were not. And there's a great lesson to be learned there.

Also, Sister Harris would visit with me when she got home - while we waited for my dad to pick me up - and she treated me not like a peer, but like what I had to say was really important to her. I came to feel valued by her, not just for babysitting, but for who I was. There's also a great lesson to be learned there.

Finally, looking at the photo took me back in time to a place where I might have acted very differently. And if I had acted very differently, maybe I would feel badly about that now. Another great lesson!

Long ago and far away!!

I came across this photo recently, and it brought back a flood of memories.

It's Girls' Camp 1975 in Centerville, Utah. Dale Lords was our ward Young Women President - and she asked for me to be the Camp Director.

It was an interesting experience - one I didn't totally enjoy - except for my association with the leaders there. The girls were less than friendly - they short-sheeted my bed, put Saran Wrap over the toilet bowls, and talked all night long!! Of course, as soon as one of them didn't feel well, it was a plaintive, "Sister Terrill?"

But I remember taking the 5 mile hike - and Dale and I ended up at the tail end. And Dale kept me laughing the whole way. "I'm sure this is the 3rd time we've circled this pine tree. I know we've gone 10 miles already!" A woman after my own heart!!

A few months later, she and her husband and family moved to Oregon, I believe. We soon got word that Dale had been killed in a tragic auto accident. There had been other deaths by auto accidents in the Centerville Ward we lived in - and it was a pretty new experience for me to lose people so suddenly and unexpectedly.

Seeing this photo was like a little frozen moment in time - one that won't come back.

Treasure the here and now.