A new calling

Today I got a new calling.  I was called and sustained within 15 minutes...my head is still spinning.  But I am so excited!  I get to serve with women that I admire and like, and I get to work with 12-13 year old girls.  The calling?  2nd counselor in the YW presidency.  It has been 10 years since I served in YW, and I have wanted back in for years.  I wanted to serve while Meg was in YW but it wasn't to be.  Which was fine, because if I had been in there, she wouldn't have become the awesome woman that she is - the Lord knows what is best.  

A calling in YW is super busy but really rewarding!  I look forward to getting to know those 15 Beehives and learning all that they have to teach me.  They'll think it is the other way around, but I know the truth.  The truth is that the learning has already begun. :o)

Sophie was so upset when they released me from my calling as Activity Day leader.  She thought, for some reason, that I had chosen to be released and asked for this new calling.  She pushed me away in tears and wouldn't speak to me all of Sac. meeting.  But I explained to her that callings come from the Lord.  I didn't make the choice, but the Heavenly Father did.  And I explained that she could come to our activities (since Chad is involved in YM, and obviously, Adam and Sam are there too).  When I was set apart, the Bishop mentioned that Sophie would be able to come to the activities and learn from the older girls.  I peeked and Sophie was smiling big.  Our bishop is so great.  

I love this ward.  It is a pleasure to serve here.  I've had three callings in the past year that we've lived here, and every one has been great.      

Why is my power bill so high and it isn't even July yet?

Everybody who lives in Ventura County CA knows, June is a gloomy month.  We call it June Gloom, and it is in the lower 70's (there is steam rising off my pool in the mornings!), and overcast almost the entire month.  It is not summer weather at all.  And yet, the schools let out for the summer between June 7-15.  WHAT is the point, I ask you?  Nobody wants to go swimming or to the beach when it is so dang cold.  My suggestion is that the last day of school should be the very end of June, and the first day of school should be the last day of September, when it is so hot and the kids come home hot and sticky and want to swim.  Where is the logic of the current schedule?!
You may be wondering why I am whining about this since most of my kids are homeschooled.  Well, we do our homeschooling through a great charter school and of course, their programs start on August 23rd, and end on June 7.  I need to talk to them about that.
Anyway, I got the power bill yesterday and about passed out.  I don't even want to say how much it was, you would all pass out too.  The pool is probably the biggest offender, but it wasn't this expensive in the winter, and we run the filter about the same amount of time every day.  Also, think about all the extra power that is used at Christmas when we run all those decorative lights?  Is it possible that the power company is jacking up the cost of electricity on the same schedule as the school year?  Sounds logical.  And lame.  So it really scares me what that bill will be in August and September when it is REALLY summer!

Hooray!!!

We finally got an email!  This arrived at about 8:00 this morning, and totally made my day.  I'm a happy mama.

Ok, now I'm just annoyed.

7 days without a letter from Meg?  Really?  I thought they were supposed to have a P-day once a week, but she has been gone for a week and no letters.  Does that equal no P-day yet?  Or did she have to do snail mail and it got lost?  I know she didn't decide to not write.  Not my Meg.
Anyway.  I can't be the only missionary mom that is checking the email every 10 minutes and meeting the mailman in the street.  Am I?

My proud, aching heart

We took Meg to the MTC on Wed. I'll post more about the days leading up to that another time. It was such a bittersweet day and I have had very mixed feelings ever since. But Meg was ready and she marched off into the MTC doors without looking back once even though I was standing there watching with tears streaming down my cheeks and Sophie was wailing. I kept telling Sophie that she needed to cry more quietly because we didn't want that to be Meg's last memory of us, a bunch of blubbering idiots. I was and am so proud of Meg. She will be the best missionary ever. But here's the odd thing, something that I feel a little ashamed about. I used to text, FB, or call Meg about 25 times per day when she was at school. Especially right before bed. I would often send her a little inspirational quote or just a how are you. Then we would text back and forth for just a few minutes but it was enough for both of us to feel connected. Now that I can't do that, I am going nuts. I have written to her 3 times, sent her a package, and literally check the email about 800 times per day, just hoping for a response. And she's only been gone 2 days!!!!!  It's killing me. I feel empty. I miss that connection. It's not really getting much better but maybe I haven't given it enough time yet.  Ya think??  I'm not much good at this missionary mom stuff.

He knows me, still.

Adam ran away last night, he does this every so often.  He took off in shorts and no shoes at 9:30pm, so I figured that he would be back pretty quickly.  I have made a goal not to let him manipulate me and this running away was one of his manipulation tools.  But after an hour went by and no sign of Adam, I started to get worried.  Really worried.  He had never been gone for so long.  Meg, Sam, and Sophie were hanging around, waiting for him.  They were worried too.  But it was getting late, so we said a prayer and I sent them to bed.  And then I went to bed..and lay there, listening as hard as I could for any sound in the house that might prove that he had come home and was just hiding.  And I prayed.  I prayed that he would be safe, wherever he was.  Contrary to my normal reaction, I did not lay there in a panic, wondering if I should call the police.  I felt a peaceful calm grow within me.  I knew then, that he wasn't out on the streets, but I wanted know exactly where Adam was.  And I couldn't go looking for him or calling for him or he would know he had won.  So I prayed that I would know where he was, and I immediately had a picture in my head of him laying under the piano.  I jumped out of bed and snuck downstairs.  I looked under the piano, and sure enough, there he was, just like I had seen him earlier.

I am humbled to know that the Lord had heard my prayers like that and blessed me with a small sort of vision.  It wasn't just a warm feeling of comfort (although that was there too), it was a definite picture, plain as day.  I knew that Heavenly Father knows me and understands my struggle and pain.  He knows what I am trying to do with Adam, and he helped me accomplish my goal of not being manipulated, and yet know that my son was safe.  In this frustrating fight, there have often been tender mercies.  But this was the first time I had a picture in my head that was this exactly accurate, and that was so immediately given.  When I got back upstairs, I fell to my knees and poured out my gratitude for this blessing.  And for all the others that I haven't recognized.  There have been so many.      

Tender Mercies and Miracles

Last Thursday at about 7:30am, I smelled smoke outside.  When I dropped Adam off at school we joked about there being an evacuation - I told him, "No matter what, I will come and get you.  Right in this spot.  So don't leave, haha!"  Haha.  When I went home, Sam was up and out standing on top of the rock slide, he saw a lot of smoke and was nervous.  I thought the wind was blowing the other way. About 45 minutes later, this is what I saw in my front yard:

Although my neighbors were outside gawking at the smoke and visible flames, I felt like we needed to leave.  I was having trouble breathing because of that smoke, and I could see how fast those flames were moving.  And other than a track-hoe trailer, there were no fire trucks visible.  I started to get very nervous.  Went back into the house, told the kids to pack up things that were special to them, and load it into the truck.  Meg was still asleep, she evacuated in her pajamas!  I grabbed the computer (so many pictures are on it!) and all the valuables and threw them in the truck.  Sophie came out with her bike helmut on!  I don't know how the helmut was supposed to save her from flames, but she was ready.  I felt prompted to shut all the windows - lock them down.  We didn't even lock the doors!  We just left.  As we drove out of the neighborhood, we passed 11 fire trucks.  I was so glad to see them!  Also, just as we drove out of Dos Vientos, they closed Borchard Rd - the main entrance to our neighborhood.  We saw flames on every side.  

I felt prompted to drive straight to the high school.  I was missing one kid, and I wanted him with us.  I pulled into a parking spot right in front of the school, right where I had dropped Adam off that morning.  Almost immediately, I got a text from Adam that they were evacuating the school and could I come and get him...I said we were already there.  He was one of the first ones out, and I left immediately so I wouldn't get stuck in the traffic mess.  Then I realized that I had evacuated without any of our meds.  I had no idea how long we would have to be gone, and I had no idea if our house would be there after they got the fire contained.  I started to panic a little again (with my epilepsy and Adam's bipolar, we had to have those meds!) I started to get choked up, but then I was prompted to go to Target pharmacy to see if I could just get a few days worth of meds for me and Adam.  It took awhile, but they gave me 5 days worth.  I didn't even have to pay for them!  Target was being very good to evacuees.  Then I got a phone call from our Bishop...Bishop Jaggi, I was never so happy to hear his voice.  He asked if we got out, made sure we were all together and ok, and then told me that there were flames all around our house but he thought he saw them dump fire retardant in the area (he ended up being mistaken).  He told me that people were evacuating to the stake center.  When he said that, my panic immediately subsided.  Immediately.  I knew exactly where to go and what to do.  I knew that there would be Priesthood holders at the church who would be keeping track of the fire and would tell me when it was safe to go home.  It was a little weird taking the dogs into the church.  They didn't pee on anything, don't worry!  :)

After about 2 hours wandering around the church, talking to Chad on the phone (he was going crazy at work in Santa Barbara), and trying not to cry, I finally got some news.  The Bishop came up to me and said that one of the brethren in our ward had gone up to my house and could verify that it was still standing and undamaged.  He went around and locked all my doors in case of looting.  Shortly after that, a friend in the ward came up and told me that her husband, who is a lineman for S. CA Edison, was driving around and drove up to check on our house - he called her and told her to tell me everything was ok.  We don't live on the same street as anyone else in our ward...those guys went out to our house on purpose to make sure we still had a place to live.  With flames still all around, they were looking out for us and other ward members.  I love the Priesthood!

With two witnesses telling us it was ok, I decided to go home and pack up a few more things.  The fire was still burning in the hills nearby and I figured that we would have to sleep somewhere else.  But we needed clothes etc.  We snuck into the neighborhood via a fire road that was usually closed off with a barrier...amazingly, we didn't get stopped.  We drove home, passing fire trucks and police cars all the way.  When we went in our house, the smoke was so thick that we couldn't breathe.  The kids all used wet dish towels over their faces to be able to breathe.  It was so bad!  I grabbed some duffle bags, told the kids to pack clothes for two days, and then we left again and went straight to the Courtyard Marriott.  Amazingly (again) the manager at the front desk was a man we knew from Moorpark.  We explained what was happening, and he said he would give us a big discount and allow our dogs inside.  It was so great!  The rooms were nice, comfortable, and not at all smoky.  What a relief!  Plus the Books of Mormon in all the desks were a nice touch.  :)

There were a lot of people from our ward who evacuated to the Marriott.  And we all ended up at a nearby Chili's for dinner.  It was like a ward activity and great to be able to talk to everyone.  It was so wonderful to hear that not one member of our ward had a damaged home, and that everyone got out ok.  I was so happy to hear that!   I had trouble sleeping though.  I kept thinking about the fear I felt.  The worry that we would lose all our possessions.  Although we are renting, everything that is important to us is in this house.  Chad kept telling me that as long as we were all safe, everything else could be replaced.  I know that is true, but I kept thinking about the HUGE hassle it would be to deal with a burned out house...I knew we had been blessed.   

The next morning, I got up, went straight to Home Depot, and bought air purifiers.  Then we went home, hoping the smoke damage wouldn't be too bad, hoping nothing had happened in the night.  It was pretty bad inside but still much better than the day before.  Then the clean up began.  

My kids have never worked so hard in their lives.  There was a layer of ash on every surface and cinders on the floor by every door.  In the boys' rooms, there was a lot of ash - I think the wind was coming from that direction.  We vacuumed it all up and had to wash the bedding and such.  It took us hours, and we hadn't even started with outside.  The pool was full of cinders and ash.  And a dead rabbit in the bottom.  There were huge piles of ash and cinders in all the corners, and the wind had blown all of our lawn furniture against a fence.  That must have been some powerful wind!

Amazingly (again) I was able to reach my gardener and convince him to come out and use his leaf blower to get all the ash cleaned up.  I am so grateful for that man.  He worked out there for over 2 hours, wearing a mask, getting it all gathered up and into our trash can.  

About that time, Meg decided to go for a little walk into the hills and take some pictures of the damage. This is what she saw:

 A geocache, destroyed.  We didn't even know it was there.

 It wasn't until we saw these pictures that we realized just how close the flames came to our house.  It is like there was a protective shield around our house and yard!  There were a few little black spots inside our yard, but mostly it came right to the fence and then died.  I don't know why.  I think maybe the fire fighters lit back fires, or the helicopter dumped water on it.  But I do believe in miracles, and this was a HUGE one.

It rained two days after we went home.  The Lord sent a soft rain, enough to dampen the earth, put out the hot spots, and moisten our skin.  Not enough rain to cause a mud slide.  Another tender mercy.

This whole experience has been a lesson in the compassionate nature of the Lord.  He is aware of us and our needs.  It has been such a bad year so far, our family has struggled with so much.  But the Lord knows us.  Between Him and the fire fighters, our miracle occurred.  I am so filled with gratitude!  I know this is long but I wanted a record of all the tender mercies, promptings, and miracles that we experienced through this Springs Fire 2013.  Let it be a testimony to us and to our grandchildren.  God lives, loves us, and miracles still happen.