Title: Snow Back to Where You Came From

Well...shoot.

We got snowed in after Thanksgiving in Idaho. I mean, snowed in like, we couldn't leave my in-laws (Ringo and Honey's) house because of treacherous conditions just outside our front door. Snow drifts, wind whips, immobilization.

Then they closed the road back to Utah, the Great Deseret (we call it), and so we declared ourselves home-bound and proceeded to go stir crazy:

Out of complete anxiety came my epic eating an entire batch of Honey's chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies laced with cinnamon. An entire batch! The stomach pains! The cramping! Oh how it ravaged my insides and tasted so good.

The Chief bossed everyone around using a highly unusual commander voice, "I WANT MO' MILK!" I hated it because I was supposed to, but deep inside my mothering soul, I actually thought it was funny.

We watched the Bee Movie four times because it was a left-over on Tivo from Thanksgiving night. I am really trying to refrain from negative statements on my blog and in real life, but man that movie is stu... I can't do it. It has a good moral...there, Inner Pollyanna--you happy now?

Honey and I watched Beyonce's Thanksgiving Special. Ringo calls her Bounce. After it was over I secretly went downstairs and tried to see if I could still bounce like Beyonce. Maybe I can, maybe I cannot.

I decided that there is no such thing as TMI. We should all be sharing.

We also watched an overload of dramatic football. Boise St. v. Nevada. Alabama v. Auburn. BYU v. Utah--actually we didn't watch that one because it was broadcast on a lam...(refraining) station call the Mountain and the general population in Idaho don't get that station. So I listened to it by KSL via the web hooked up to the tv speakers. Technology in 2010, I swear.

I kicked Chup's rear in air hockey. Twice. And it was so hard for me not to rub it in. I married a sensitive guy, and I'd like to keep him that way. I WON! I WON! I KICKED YOUR...(calming down now).

We taught The Commander in Chief how to play air hockey. Every time he scored a goal he'd yell, "TURKEY!"

We put Ever Jane on the floor downstairs to scoot around while we checked the weather conditions and assessed if we could leave for home. She became so bored she started climbing the stairs. I AM NOT READY FOR THIS EVER JANE, YOU HEAR MAMA? NOT READY, GO BACK TO ROLY POLY.

Chup and I went through a hard pack of Ginger Ale. Being snowed in leads to heavy drinking, you should know. In case it ever happens to...you know...you.

I KICKED YOUR TURKEY CHUPA!

I prayed my sister in law Kentucky and her family across town would come and visit. They tried. And got stuck in a large, unforgiving snowdrift. After Chup and Ringo set out to rescue them they turned around and went back to where they came from. This left me feeling even more destitute. I ate three more cookies.

I once thought being snowed in was a romantic adventure. It had its moments of pure excitement, I'm not going to lie. But listen, there was a lot of bloating involved so in the end, I just don't recommend it.



Thanksgiving photos for your pleasure:

Oh the forceful intimidation of The Commander:


Grandma Caroline, thanks for the sweet potatoes and broccoli salad!


Grandpa Bert, and please say hello to Jiggs:


Ever has her Aunt Heather to thank for the brown eyes:


Ringo with Mia, Chup says, "We lost the battle of the Thanksgiving headgear to Mia."


Pre-feast mingle:


Because prunes for breakfast, that's what:


Phun holds our favorite little "Field Mouse" Mia.


The Commander, Is everyone in line?



I get chills looking at that last one...





Basa Body winner, was it...you?



Andrew's post BYU v Utah game, it still hurts a little.




I am Courtney Kendrick an we are home, safe and sound.
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This Our Grateful Hymn of Praise

To document this Thanksgiving season, I wanted a family picture--not anything staged or orchestrated--but a simple, Here We Are! Thanksgiving 2010. We had planned on a quick self-timer shot on one of Chup's rigged up tri-pods. But just as the golden hour arrived--that luminous time of day when the sun spreads its late sunshine all over the valley--our friend Justin Hackworth just happened to stop by.

It might have been unprofessional of me, but I think we're good enough friends, I asked him if he could shoot the photo with Chup's camera. He called his awesome wife Amy and told her he'd be a little late, then Chup handed over his boxy camera and Justin shot away.

This time of year we talk about things we are grateful for, things of thanksgiving to celebrate. With my parent's move to St. Louis this year and the loss of that immediate support system, I've been amazed to see how our friends have quickly filled in the holes. Friends have given us food, travel, laughs, art, music, design, projects, motorized couches, cakes, clothes, guacamole, wedding parties, swaddling techniques and, (as evidenced in this post) photography that documents our family's growth. We were told we'd see blessings as a part of our parents sacrifice to go on a mission--but we had no idea how much. We see, feel, taste, live goodness daily thanks to our friends.

For *"Friends on earth, and friends above" --and may we add--"friends we haven't met," we praise our Lord and resoundingly say, Happy Thanksgiving To All!

*Words from For the Beauty of the Earth, this beautiful hymn as sung by the Lower Lights (Mindy Gledhill):





We are giving away so much stuff right now, I don't want anyone to be without:

A Kenmore Elite Fridge (read another one of Chup's funny reviews)
A Kenmore 5 Quart Mixer
Every single Basa Body product
Fictionist Album and Two Tickets to See Them Live





I am Courtney Kendrick and I'd like to make sure my international blogger friends know that even though they don't celebrate Thanksgiving this month I thought of them while writing this post.
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When We're Helping We're Happy & Fictionist

There is something about global aid that really intrigues me. I am curious to know what helps, what hurts and who responds. It has been fascinating to talk to the Basa Body crew about how gender roles are changing in rural Kenya, specifically how women are starting to take financial responsibility for the welfare of their children. This is a story of micro finance, hand ups and employment. Troy--founder of Basa Body--guests posts for me on dear c jane. You can read it here.

 

I love this album, Fictionist's Lasting Echo. I love it so much I am giving it away along with 2 tickets to see them perform live in Provo. Check it out here. 

I am Courtney Kendrick and equally like coconut oil and Fictionist.

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On Kindness

 

October's depression came right in on time this year. Like a heavy, black train into a station, it steamed forward, hissed and grounded right into my chest. It heralds the loss of light in this hemisphere--a darkening of days and a shorter daily time period to work. I grieve the sun on my face and it hurts my heart.

Only, this year it came with a fierce infusion of postpartum inconsistency. Like a whipped center into a baked good, hormones stuffed into my body with no apparent exit. This year, more than ever, I went crazy.

Insomnia and worry danced in my head. I was anxious, uncomfortable and tired. There days I'd beg to hibernate, retreat to the bed with arms and legs unfolded wide like I could sleep and stretch the gloom out of me. There was never enough rest.

My personal relationships suffered. Sensitivity took over my balance and I was tipsy and wary and full of second guesses. I was certain I didn't deserve people anyway, I didn't deserve anything. I couldn't be grateful for what was in my world because guilt was in the way. And even though it was always rattling around in my throat, on the verge in my eyes, I couldn't cry because I didn't deserve that either. There was no release.

"Do you want to go see someone?" Chup asked on morning when the depression had hovered over me all night.

I was too shocked to answer. It bowled me down. I couldn't think or deliver form or function. I was just breathing in and out, in and out. My thoughts couldn't get past the ringing chorus, you aren't good enough, you've never been good enough, you will never be good enough.

"Maybe we should get some meds?" he asked again.

On that morning a new limb to my walking dreariness was born, the appendage about hurting others with my hurt. I was about to stop walking and beg to be carried. It was a heavy load for my husband, but he was all I wanted.

I hadn't asked for anti-depressants since college, even though I always felt a little seasonal despondency. Medication made the depression go away but it also made me numb, I missed the nuance of emotion. I recognize it as a blessing in pill form, but I decided to use it sparingly. For me, it was last resort.

"I am going to start a morning meditation routine," I answered. Some tiny part of me knew that the loss of love I felt in my life could be rescued with a heavy dose of consistent, spiritual enlightening. Fear vanished when learning commenced. For me, it has always been my true rescue.

So I started. Every day I'd ignore any impulse to sulk the awakening of my eyes. I prayed, read scriptures, help books and wrote down good thoughts that bubbled into my head. Every day I asked my Heavenly Father for a little bit of knowledge that I didn't have before. And it came. Tiny bits of ideas, pieces of truth until one morning I was healed. It was a flash of brilliance, and my puzzle was solved. It was this:

There is faith, hope and charity.

There is past, future and present.

Faith is believing that everything in my past has a purpose. Every misjudgment, jealousy and hurt. Every joy, indulgence and success. All my wrong choices, all my right choices pushed me forward to right now. My rejoicing, my repentance, my realignments, all of it, has brought me here. Faith is believing that I have been on an upwards progression all my life, guided by the very angels of heaven. There have been no mistakes so grave, no depression so dark, no wind so strong that I've been knocked off course. Faith is believing that the past has accumulated for my good. And though it still makes up my soul, the past is over.

Hope is believing that the future will come. A future of better things, stronger convictions and securer sense of self. It is having the confidence that everything I don't have today, everything I want, will come because I am worthy of it. Hope says, I am weak today, but tomorrow I will be a little bit stronger. Hope can promise all the hurt, all the fear, anxiety, the lacking will slowly leave, vanish, melt away. Hope is okay that today isn't perfect. Hope holds all the mysteries yet to unfold. Hope is never-ending because the future is always ahead.

Charity is all we have in the present. Our past is gone, our future is yet and there is no sense living in those two spaces. We remember, we project, but for now we love. We love all that we have presently, all that our eyes can see and bodies can touch. We love the people who are in our rooms, our spaces our dreams. We love with intelligence and understanding. We may not have the money we want, the body we crave the things that occupy our desires, but we can love the salary we do make, the body we have cultivated, the things that fulfill our needs. We love the meals we eat, the shoes we wear, the woman at the grocery store. Charity is the now we own, the present we can manipulate. It's all we have and it's all we have to give.

So be kind to yourself, I heard the Spirit say to me at the end of this watershed moment.

And I've been trying.

Since then the train in my chest huffed and puffed and finally pulled off into the distance.




You can still enter to win all the Basa Body products you can handle or a Kenmore Elite stand mixer or a Kenmore Elite refrigerator or the kitchen sink. Just kidding about the kitchen sink.


Los Ottavio's?



I am Courtney Kendrick and I am feeling better.
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Daddy Daughter Wife

I can't tell who has it better.

Earlier this week Chup Kendrick took his ladies out to lunch at my favorite locale, Red Iguana in Salt Lake. As we sat there soaking up mole and fried chips Ever passed the time grinning across the table at her daddy.

We have a daddy's girl. Yes, we do.

It's a term I'd never use (cheesy onesie slogan) but the shoe most definitely fits. And I can't tell if I am jealous or not because I find myself contemplating, would I rather be Chup Kendrick's daughter or wife? Who has it better me or her?

Her favorite place of tranquility is completely hidden in his neck and shoulder, her knees resting on his solid chest, bottom slightly protruding in the air. I want to be able to fit my body like that--a puzzle piece of security--and take a nap. Chunk o' heaven.

When he fishes her out of the tub she gets his immediate Japanese-style towel wrapping so that her body never feels any cold. If she cries in the middle of the night he runs to her side with a warm bottle. If she cries during her daily crawling adventures he picks her up and whispers, "It's okay Sister" in her tiny ear holes. If she cries for no good reason he repeatedly makes crazy faces at her until she's laughing.

He sings to her. He never sings for me.

They spend minutes just smiling at each other, why don't we do that? I'd like to try.

Yesterday he dressed her in her least favorite lavender onesie with the silver hearts.Yesterday she didn't scream, begging to take it off. Yesterday it was her favorite thing (even though he put it on backwards and it looked like a mis-sewn import from a unregulated factory in Cheaptown).

Before Ever came along I thought I had it good. I was Chup Kendrick's wife, lover, friend, help meet, support system and recipient of all his manly affection. And as much as I love being all those things (I mean, ok, he gets grumpy sometimes) I still think having Chup for a dad would be pretty danged dreamy. To be sure, we both have it good.

Maybe, it's a toss up.





Speaking of Chup Kendrick, he wrote a really funny review about our new fridge. Oh and do you want a new fridge? How about a new stand mixer? Oh, yes? Click here.






What you are doing tonight...






I am Courtney Kendrick, president of Chup Kendrick's fan club.
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MyGreenRoomCanBlog@blogspot.com

My Green Room needs a blog of its own.

Here is a sample post:

(To be read in a tired, somewhat non-committal voice in the bass range.)

Dear World,
today I had another party.
A dinner party.
For the young women and their parents.


I looked like this:

And this:

And this:

In the past month I've been the concert venue, the fireside gathering and the Halloween party.




Someday I'd just like to go back to being the toy room.



Green Room out.










Basa is giving away all of the products it has, all of them. Plus the new affiliate program and your chance to go to Africa:


Send a gleam, across the way.





I am Courtney Kendrick and maybe we shouldn't encourage the Green Room to start blogging. You had no idea how much I had to edit this down.
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Link Panther

I confess I am a sucker for links. Here's are some of mine own to share. (I was not paid for any of them, but I should've been).

Why Standards Night is Substandard by Kathy Soper about teaching female Mormon youth sexuality. It's pretty intriguing and in my experience, spot on.

The Lower Lights added an extra show this weekend in SLC. You can now take the whole family to an early 6 pm showing.  Kids are encouraged to dance, actually, everyone is encouraged to dance. Oh man I love dancing.

Justin Hackworth has a fresh, new blog. It combines what I love about him most: his ability to tell a story and his artistic portrayal of the sometimes ordinary. I also like his laugh, but that is hard to share in a link. (Photo of above, Folks on Whidbey Island--my title--is his).

And this my friend Colton of P712 and Communal, I love what he says about taking bites and making them count:

p.s. Colton is seen at Jacob's Cove picking produce. We support local growers!

A massage and hypnotherapy all at one stop?





I am Courtney Kendrick and I just combined food, photography, music and the written word all in one post without being aware of it. I hope you likey.
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My Side Kick (Literal)

Yesterday was a big deal. For me.

Yesterday I asked Margaret Blair Young, one of my favorite Mormon fiction writers to come to my house and talk to me for a moment about some new adventures I am considering in writing and her film Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons.

Right before she was about to arrive, Ever fell asleep all tuckered out from a morning in Salt Lake. However, it also happened to be an afternoon where The Chief declined my offers for a nap. We are entering into the To Nap or Not Nap? phase and I am trying to be limber about the transition.

When Margaret arrived The Chief was satisfied to be on the couch, head on my gold pillows, playing all the tantalizing games on daddy's iphone. But as soon as my attention--though it wasn't necessarily his before--was threatened to be diverted to another channel he panicked.

"Mom. Mom. MOOOOOOOOM!"

Suddenly he was on my lap. Suddenly he didn't know how to work the iphone, which is ridiculous because these days every two year old knows how to swipe and touch and manipulate the iphone. (It's the new developmental benchmark.) Suddenly, he was the Incredible Hulk who had swallowed Oscar the Grouch who had swallowed Grumpy the dwarf.

Suddenly he throws the iphone which gets lodged in between the couches and, suddenly it was Code Red.

"Get it Mom. GET IT MOM! GET IT. GET IT. GET IT!" He grunted and punched and paraded on like it was the last days and the iphone was the only remaining piece of fish on the planet.

So there I was on my hands and knees feeling around for the phone while trying to have a decent conversation with Margaret. My hope was to have a more than decent conversation but what can you do when you are on your hands and knees with your arm up to your elbow stuck in the recesses of the couch?

When the phone was retrieved he no longer cared about it. Of course. Then he wanted his spaceship and when I found that for his pleasure he wanted me to fly it around the room.

"Fly Mom. Fly Mom! FLY. FLY. FLY!" His demands reached decibels I didn't know could come out of a human body. So there I was listening to the wisdom of a great mentor while I am making quiet swishing sounds with my lips and flying the mini spaceship throughout the atmosphere of the living room.

This is ridiculous, I thought. I became tempted to use a movie or Little Einsteins or something to distract him but I also was painfully aware that when my son desired my attention, nothing on this planet can disuade him. I was trapped by a toddler--dun dun dun!

The conversation with Margaret was really helpful. I stopped flying around the room when we approached the subject of having energy in voice. It was then The Chief abandoned all decent tactics and just started screaming. Screaming without stopping.

Rolling on the floor.

Hands in claw position like Rigor Mortis had settled in.

Head repeatedly banging on the carpet.

"I should go," Margaret said looking at the display of epic melt downs. "He looks like he could use his mother's attention."

Had I been thinking clearly, I would've come up with a solution to this mini crisis. I would've thought about putting him in his room for a substantial time out or whatever our disciplinary plan called for that day. But I wasn't. I was thinking, Margaret Blair Young is here and I want to consume every thought she is willing to share.

I was thinking about (ahem) myself.

After Margaret left I took The Chief for a walk--his favorite activity of his short lifetime. The sun melted into a sky of bright blue and left a trail of pinks and yellows. The Chief and I watched it for a moment,

"Sun go na-night?" he asked, his brown eyes freckled with reflective lights.

"Yep," I replied.

When we rounded the block to come home he refused to take another step. I carried on knowing he'd eventually catch up. After a few yards I turned around to see him lying in the dry ditch like a fresh corpse. His arms folded about his chest like he was RIP already. I may have been tempted to leave him there.

But no.

I carried him like a sack of potatoes flung over my shoulder the rest of the way home. His kicking and protesting didn't stop until we made it through the front door--which is when I declared an early bedtime.

I am so silly sometimes. Sometimes I think I can compartmentalize everything. Sometimes I think I can do this and do that and then do this after I do that. But the truth is, motherhood permeates everything. It trumps all. It's the calling that interrupts this and cancels that and makes this look like it never mattered anyway. And if by chance you start to forget, or your dreams get too big for your britches, or you begin to ignore the importance of what is already on your plate, someone will remind you.

And I love them for it.

(Most of the time.)









I am Courtney Kendrick and I am guilty of being an absentee mother from time to time. But I am ok with it.
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Terryl Givens in my Green Room

I don't know how I lucked out on this one but . . . we were able to have Terryl Givens in our Green Room on Saturday night.

Terryl Givens is a Professor of Literature and Religion at the University of Richmond and is widely published in Mormon Studies. He is a dear friend of my neighbor's Vicki Jennings and because he was coming to give the keynote address at the Mormon Media Studies Symposium at BYU, we asked him to come give us a small, private fireside. He is a passionate speaker and fierce intellectual and had the whole room completely enraptured by his presented thought process.

As my brother Jesse said, "I understood about every third word."

But it was exhilarating in trying.

Recently I have felt part of myself dying, the part that loves to seek for knowledge, participate in debate and hunger for more. Being in the presence of a man who has dedicated his life to religious luminosity inspired me to resurrect my lifeless learning patterns. Sitting in that room on Saturday reminded me that nothing makes me feel more alive, full of blood and spirit, than intelligence. 

I've listen to too many critics of mine for too long. I've let their blatant pronouncement of my stupidity become my reality. I've misjudged my own thoughts on being a Mormon because I was too scared to misrepresent. But the truth settled into my spirit on Saturday night: I am on a journey for truth and it's as relevant as the next person's journey and I desperately need to stop being embarrassed of mine. "Is it possible to write objectively about your own religion?" someone asked Terryl that night, "No," he replied, "but it is possible to write with honesty."

Then Page whispered to me, "Honesty is the best gift we can give."

And I have been so afraid to give it. It's the best gift we can give but it's the one that makes us most vulnerable, susceptible to interior interrogation and emotionally naked. It's terrifying to be honest sometimes. Terrifying. Because my honesty is not always streamlined--it isn't complacent. It's always changing and evolving and making me look flaky. My honesty doesn't stay still.

But, the less forthright I am the less light I've got in my brain. I become dim and dumb. And along with that loss of light comes with a baptism of reject. I reject my intuition, my ability to write, feel attractive and be compassionate. And (oh golly) the less honest I am the more bitter I've become. Sour to the touch.

So here's to a good start: my views of being a disciple of Christ sometimes radically differ from others even in my own church, but they came to me from a source of peace. And deep down I am proud of them. And it's time to pull them out and let them shine.

Thanks Terryl for coming. It was a remarkable evening.
Read Terryl's essays here.





Can you Bijou?





I am Courtney Kendrick and I am trying to own what I own.
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I Think I Am Starting To Get It

After the Yo Gabba Gabba! concert last Tuesday I honestly felt like everything was right in my world. As though my happy childhood returned for a night and engulfed me whole. I was dancing and singing and hugging, celebrating every fiber in my being. And I have flashbacks about the moment when Plex (the yellow robot) took The Chief's spellbound face in his hands and tenderly cradled him for a second. The Chief inhaled, eyes as wide as Montana,

"Ohhhhh," he whispered, "bobot."

I need to go back there more often. Childhood is rad.





Pictured: Sister in law Megan with Luke, Meri, Stella, Jane, Me, The Chief, Claire, Nicholas, Vivianne, Sister Page, Seth, Ollie.



I am Courtney Kendrick and I'd like to thank Ruth, Scott and Sam Shultz for hosting us. And DJ Lance too.
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The Sisterhood of the Traveling Baby Blue Puff Ball Dress

Clara McMurray was born a few weeks after our Ever Jane, to our neighbors Joy and Joey (I love those names for a couple). Clara has this beautiful baby face--generous cheeks, glittery eyes and round as a penny. One day she showed up at church wearing perhaps the greatest dress anyone ever made a baby girl in the fine decade of 1980 (1970?). It was a baby blue puff of ruffles, bows and lace. Ever experienced her first pricks of jealousy. Ok, it was me. I was jealous.

Joy's aunt had purchased the dress hoping she'd be able to put it on her own daughter someday. After years of hoping and saving, fate did not deliver a daughter. With only sons to her name, she tearfully handed over the dress to Joy and asked that Clara wear it in honor of her wish.

We heard this story from Clara's dad who is our faithful home teacher. I sheepishly asked if we could borrow the dress just for one teeny, tiny photo shoot--one reminiscent of my own baby book photos from the late 70s.I could see it in my mind's eye: the nursery's orange shag carpet, the bear skin rug (faux!) and Ever Jane in that dress. Last Sunday Joy brought the dress with all its puffy glory to church and kindly gave us temporary guardianship. I tried to be reverent in showing my excitement at church but it was hard. I love this dress so much.

Soooooooo muuuuuuuch.

And so did Ever.

Cue montage of photoshoot:

I am sorry to Joy's aunt for never having a girl. But I am not sorry that her dryness in the daughter department gave us an opportunity to wear such a splendid piece of fabric. This is Ever's first foray into vintage couture, but hopefully not the last.





(Thank you Joey, Joy, Joy's aunt and generous little Clara.)




Kash for Kami c jane and friend's package, how you can win it!



The Mormon Media Studies Symposium (I am a panelist!)





I am Courtney Kendrick and don't be jealous.
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