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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Lets end this year by killing something.


Well... Hm... This post isn't one that I've really been looking forward to writing but I should write it anyway at least for my own benefit. My dog died on Sunday, he was ran over by a car that didn't even bother to stop or brake just outside our house. We found his broken body a few minutes after it happened.
My wife absolutely loves dogs, I figure the reason for this is because though out her life she has always had a dog. Her mom dropped her off at her grandparents house when she was really young and she was practically raised by her grandparents and her 13 aunts and uncles, but her childhood was not exactly happy. Most of her aunts didn't want her there and were very mean to her. One was so mean that to this day you can see the scars on my wife's hands. Nevertheless there was always a dog at her house, and she loved it. Her only memory of her biological father was when he came to visit her and he brought a dog with him, she never saw him because her mother rushed her out of the room while her mother shooed him away, but my wife remembers clearly playing with the dog under a bed. In fact some of my wife's most happy memories of her childhood has something to do with dogs. So the death of our current dog was devastating to her, and the worst part is that we can't get another for a while.
So although I did love that dog, it hurts me more seeing my wife hurting. I've never seen anyone get so attached to an animal like her she did and as I've stated above I think she has some good reasons for getting so attached.

On top of my wife's pain I took it upon myself to try and explain to my daughter that her dog wasn't coming back. My question is how far do you go to get the message across before you start to be just a jerk about it? I explained to her that the reason we don't let her go out in the road is because she might get hit by a car. Then I told her that her dog went into the road and isn't coming back, and that he's now with Jesus. She cried with us for a while and I felt that she understood but I think she thinks he's lost. I tell her that he's not going to come back and that Jesus is in heaven and so is her dog. She still can't get past the idea that he's lost. I thought about showing her the body, but I really began to think that I was crossing a line at that point. My wife and I decided that there really isn't any point in pushing it. Death isn't something we believe that there is any hurry to learn about, she has her whole life to learn about it.

Farewell my little furball, you'll be missed.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

The 2008 Christmas Letter

Last year I started a little tradition. That of adding a little family letter to our Christmas cards. I've tried to stay away from the standard format of general boasting and just wanted to give people a laugh.

Once again the Breakdown family is sending you the most valued gift a person can hope to receive during the Christmas season. A greeting card and a piece of paper that you can display in your front room so that you can show everyone that visits your house that you really do have friends and family that go through the trouble to mail you something at least once a year, and probably you have more of them then the person that is visiting you. Awww, the spirit of the holidays. So without further adieu, I will now fill the page as to impress upon anyone glancing at it that I have a lot to say without actually reading it, because if they did happen to read it, they would find the opposite to be true.

As for me, Breakdown, this year I have made a number of wonderful accomplishments. The first and foremost being that I have achieved the long sought after title of every father and man of any household across the nation if not the world. That of no longer being the hairiest member of the family, or the stinkiest, but since we still have a child in diapers I never really got the title of being the smelliest. We got a dog. I also installed a fence at our house, that is to say I installed it by calling a couple of guys, got a couple of bids and then paid them to put it in. The fence and the dog has resulted in a dispute with the post office as both are in the way of them getting to my mail box. I told them to just hold my mail, I'm at the post office everyday anyway, but they refuse to hold it. I guess it's only fun to hold a person's mail if it's an inconvenience.

Mrs. Breakdown also has had a number of wonderful accomplishments. The one that she is most proud of is that she continues to kick me out of the house everyday to go to work at a very unreasonable hour leaving her the ability to stretch out across the bed in pure, blissful comfort. Mrs. Breakdown also believes that the fact that her mother visited us this year was also an accomplishment but the jury is still out on that. Oh yeah, and there is that thing about becoming an American Citizen but like I told her, “Who isn't?”

Litte Miss Breakdown has reached the delightful age of five. Which means she is a sixth of my age and a quarter of my wife's age, which is the age at which my wife will remain no matter what her diver license says if I know what's good for me. As she reaches the age of five she has started kindergarten and has already let me know that although I am her father it doesn't mean that she has to be seen with me, especially around her friends. Little Miss Breakdown has begun to discover the wonders of language. She finds that if she doesn't want to do something that she can dispute it with her teacher just long enough so that time will run out and she won't have to do it. She has also taken to giving fashion advice to my wife as to type, style and model of clothing she wears. I can say with complete confidence that any and all hair loss that I have suffered this past year is in direct relation to my daugher's actions, or because my grandfather was bald. I tend to believe the former.

Little Breakdown continues his education in the very complicated art of little-brothery. He has mastered the art of getting his finger close enough to annoy his sister but not actually touch her resulting in Little Miss Breakdown's cries of “He's touching me!” Little Breakdown's reply “No I'm not,” my inevitable shout of “Keep it down or I'll tell your mother!” and my wife's exclamation of “Why do I have to be the bad guy?” Little Breakdown's exploits have had such lasting effects as can still be seen in the form of a purple crayon on the living room wall, a slightly darker stain on the downstairs carpet and the smell of decaying Cheetos emanating from somewhere in the house.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Somedays your the giver, somedays your the reciever

I think I can say with a fair amount of confidence that I grew up in a proud family. I don't think that we were haughty, but we were not a people that really went outside of the family if we needed help. For that reason I feel kinda odd about the world right now.

I've spent most of my life were I've been self-sufficient. I had enough for my needs, sometimes a little more that I could share but not often. On the whole I didn't need extra help. Although there have been times when my family have swooped in to give me an extra hand. I've always been very thankful for those times but I really wish to be in a position were I could do a little more giving than I do.

As I have had a family of my own we have gone to extraordinary lengths to stay out of debt. Most/if not all of our stuff is second hand. The only things in my house that we have counted as having bought as new are: Our bed (2004), Our TV (2002), Our computer (2003), Our DVD player (2000) and that's it. Everything else has started out their lives with someone else and we are just trying to make them last. Often I feel as if we should be better off then we are but every time I look at our finances I see that we aren't. Sometimes the feeling of just being out of debt isn't quite enough. Especially since we just had to buy a new furnace and water heater, we didn't need the water heater but they gave us a good deal on it and ours is 18 years old. So we find ourselves in debt yet again.

Nevertheless last month a little form came home with our daughter asking us if we could use some help this Christmas. We just needed to fill out a couple of things about our income and see if they choose us. I was a little stand offish on the idea, but I told my wife to fill it out anyway because I didn't think they would pick us. Well, they picked us and that's when it hit me that our financial situation may be a little more bleak then I thought. Now, we aren't on the edge of poverty or anything, but when a local charity group wants to help you out for Christmas then suddenly you realize how close to the lower end of the spectrum you really are. I agonized over the gifts for almost a week, asking myself how is it we got here. Should I just consider it a blessing? Should I take it as a sign that we really should be trying harder? Should I take it as a sign that the Lord needs us to try harder in our spiritual lives? Is the Lord trying to make me more humble so that I can be more willing to accept help when it's offered and not be distraught about it? Is it all of the above? Or none of the above? Or could it be that the Lord needs people to be on the receiving end of people that need to give?

I really don't know. I hope that one day I can start looking for people to help out. But I guess for today we get to be on the receiving end. Thank you for the gifts.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Closing Doors and Closing Windows.

Overall it's been a tough year for furnaces. Must have something to do with the winter starting as late as it did.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been getting this feeling of impending doom. Not the regular feeling of impending doom that I'm used to, but a different kind. I have been increasingly worried about how precarious our financial situation is. I know we could be doing better if my wife was working but we made the decision a long time ago that it was best for the kids if she could become a full-time mother and so we have persuaded that avenue ever since. Well, the big problem with our plan has always been that we can't save much, or anything at all, and if something big happens well, we're pretty much doomed.

Not an easy way to live, but so far it's worked out. Until maybe yesterday. Turns out my the pilot light on my furnace went out. I got home from work and my family was freezing but I was able to restart the pilot light but after a few minutes it went back off, again I lit it praying that this wasn't going to be the 'BIG' problem that we have been so fortunate to ward off these past couple of years. It lit, the furnace turned on and I was elated. I went about my business of the morning but when I went back to check on the furnace I discovered that the pilot went out again. This time it didn't light, no matter how long I held the little button. I did it over, and over, and over. Every time the pilot would light as soon as I released the little button it would go back out with a little hiss, almost as if it was stifling a chuckle at me. Often when things like this happen I get angry, bent out of shape and I curse the Lord for not fulling his promises. I've been trying not to do that and just thank him and ask him that it's not as bad as I think it is.

I still don't know what the problem is because a heating guy is going to come over later today. But He blessed us with a fireplace that we hardly use, mainly because I am terrible about starting and maintaining fires. Nevertheless last night I was able to start a fire, keep it going and the house has maintained a very comfortable temperature ever since. I was beginning to think that we were never going to be able to use the firewood that we had stockpiled in the garage. So although it would have been nice that my furnace not have had this problem, it is really nice for the Lord to guide us through this problem as we face it.

So I guess it's true that whenever a door closes the Lord opens a window, but I told him to close it again because he's letting the heat out.

Monday, December 8, 2008

A House of Order

Since becoming a husband and father there has been a scripture that I have referred myself to with reasonable frequency. That is D&C 121:41, I will cut and paste it here just to go over it, "No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned." Oh sure we all know that it would be great if all of our leaders would do this but that isn't the case and it isn't what I wanted to talk about.

Since I've been married and even more so since I've had kids I've had a problem with finding ways to get my family to church on time. Seriously this is the number one problem my family has. This problem has only been compounded by that fact that I have to work up until a half-hour before church starts. This usually consists of me coming home from work and finding my wife and kids still in their pajamas and me asking how is it possible for all of us to get to church on time with only twenty minutes before church. I'll let you know that we never make it. Over the years I've tried every possible idea that has popped into my head in order to "persuade" my wife to get up a little earlier or at least start the process of getting the kids ready a little earlier. I've called from work to remind her, I've left notes, I've just let it go, I've helped out, I've cried, I've spoken quietly about it, I've yelled about it, I've ranted about it, I've gotten the Bishop involved. Despite my efforts I still come home from work twenty-minutes before church start to find everyone still in their pajamas. Did I mention that we have the 11:00am session? Perhaps in this case I should quit trying to persuade her and start the part about long-suffering. The one thing I do know is that I shouldn't get upset about it.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The story of the Shher.

As a Mormon I've had to accept a couple of things about the world around me. For one, I have to realize that I'm am never going to be able to understand everything that the Lord passes down, at least in this life. Another is that Mormons, for the most part, are about families and like it or not families are loud.

In our building we have an English speaking ward, a Spanish speaking ward, and a singles ward. For whatever reason the singles ward always gets the 1:00pm slot, a fact that bugs me because I don't get off work until 10:30 am, so every other year I have to miss the church instead of every 2 years. Nevertheless, as I was walking around the building after church with my son and a young man came out of one of the classrooms to ask the people in the hall to please be quiet because they were going to pray. Ah, to be young and naive again. It wasn't that people were yelling, screaming or the like. People were talking, kids were playing. General inter-family chaos. If you have a family or go to a family ward, you know what I'm talking about.

This little incident reminded me of another incident a couple of years ago when I, at least I think I was the primary cause, chased off the BYU ward that was in our building (the singles ward replaced them after about 6 months). I was the scoutmaster in the young men's program. I would sit in on the meetings and help out. Our classes were pretty close to the chapel and every time we would go to class we would walk by this single guy who's calling was to shhh people in the hall. "these walls are paper thin," "we are having sacrament," "please be quiet," were the kind of things this guy would tell us. Made me feel like we were in a library not a church. We did our best but you try to keep about 2 dozen adolescents quiet. On one particular Sunday one of the more rowdy boys decided it would be fun to just run out. One of the young men's consulars and I ran after him. We grabbed the kid and began walking back to class and the shhher was right behind us. "You guys need to keep it down!" I turned to him and said, "you try and keep a teen quiet." I was a little short with the guy because it bothered me a little more then I should have allowed it that this guy's whole calling was to shh people, and he had been especially vigilant toward my boys. Suffice it to say, I never saw the shher again and two weeks later the ward moved to another building.

I understand that reverence invites the spirit and it's nice to have when you can have it. But sometimes I can still feel the spirit through the chaos of children playing and general well-being of all.