Life By Lindsey Rae

There's one thing I forgot to mention. I remembered it was coming up, but forgot about it on the actual day: August 19th was my 5 year anniversary of when I moved to Tennessee. I can't believe it's been that long. In some ways, it doesn't seem like it's been that long. However, when I think back to all that has happened since then, I guess it really has been 5 years. Jerrod had his 5 year anniversary of moving here about a month before in July. Strange that we both moved here at almost the exact same time and probably passed each other at many a church singles activity, but never met until a couple years later.

Anyway, I was just remembering when I was younger and I wanted so badly to move here. I planned it for 5 years before it actually happened and now it has been 5 years since it did happen! I could never have imagined that this day would have come back when I was 14 years old and first got the idea that I should move to Nashville. And now we are even building a house in Nashville! It makes it seem that we are even more settled here. Sometimes when I am driving places I think to myself that I can't believe I actually know how to get where I am going around here (with my bad sense of direction and all). But then I remember I have lived here 5 years!

I have felt very good about living in Tennessee for the most part. I mean that, I have always felt at home here. So, I am very glad that we are here and very grateful that Jerrod has a good job gives us another good reason to stay...and very relieved that I have my permanent residency so that I actually CAN stay! The only other place I might want to live would be in Osaka...but that's another thought for another day.

I'm realizing that most of the stuff I have been writing about lately has to do with my primary class...I guess that shows where the majority of my social interaction has been coming from.

This week's lesson was on faith. So we talked the scripture in Alma 32 and about faith being like a seed and like a seed if we plant it and nourish it, it will grow. So, I got this wonderful idea to do the thing where the kids get to plant a seed and all that. I remembered that I had these tiny little terracotta pots that I had got somewhere at one time and I could paint those up all nice and then give them seeds to plant in there and they could take it home.
Only problem was the seeds...at least, I thought that was the only problem. I didn't expect there be a big selection of seeds this time of the year, but I thought I might find some left overs of something. I didn't really care what...just wanted to find some seeds. I looked at 3 stores and called around, but had no luck. Even Wal-Mart and Home Depot didn't have any. Finally, I found a few packs of vegetable seeds at a discount store. I ended up getting lettuce seeds because that was all they had that would work.

When I went home, I washed all the pots out and then prepared them by filling in the cracks in the surface, sanding them, and then started to paint. Well, after days of dry, 100+ degree heat, at the moment I started to spray them...and I am not even kidding about this...it started to rain. Not a lot, but enough big drops to mess up that nice wet paint. It was too hot and humid out and I couldn't even get them to dry. So, I had to bring them in and ended up hand painting all them. Everything was working against me. Plus, I have a cold and I felt horrible yesterday, so the last thing I wanted to do was to be running around looking for seeds and trying to fix a messed up paint job.
After those were dry, I painted a quote from a primary song around the rim of the pots: "Faith is like a little seed. If planted, it will grow." Then I used scrapbooking rub-on embellishments to put their names on each one and add little flower decorations on the outside.
This morning I got up and filled them with dirt and boxed them up to take to church.

After we taught them the lesson, Jerrod and I helped everyone plant their seeds in the pots. They all wanted to know what kind of seeds they were. I didn't want to tell them I could only find lettuce seeds, so I kept saying, "Faith seeds." "Yeah, but what kind of seeds are they?" "They're faith seeds!"

One of the girls really liked her little pot a lot and was very excited about the color she got; she was excited to put it in her window. I was happy about that. She is one of the only ones who ever says that she appreciates the stuff I do. I appreciate that. However, I don't know if any of them ever said thank you after all I went through to get those little things done for them! I want them to appreciate it, because I think it's important they should learn to show gratitude. Maybe the next class they are in won't be so fun and then they will start to realize that our class was better than they thought! I try to do fun stuff, because I know that it's hard to sit through church sometimes and I want them to enjoy being there and look forward to being there.

The primary presentation is coming up. They are having quite a few kids do little solos on the songs, which I thought was different. I offered to give a free voice lesson to any kid who is going to do some singing in the presentation. Not that I will be able to do much with a 4 or 6-year-old in one lesson or even two, but I figure it's good for them to get practice and build up their confidence. And, it's something I can help out with that I don't mind doing.

I found this picture and I thought it was kind of funny. It's also a little sad though...but kind of funny...

Sunday seemed very stressful. Mostly, because Jerrod had been sick since the previous afternoon and so I had to go to church by myself...which meant I had to teach our class by myself.
This was the first Sunday since May when almost all the kids have been there. We've really only had about half of them during the summer, since everyone is always gone on vacation while school is out.
But today, I think maybe because they were all there and there was so much to talk about after so long, they were very wound up. And of course, being that I was by myself, it was more frustrating to keep them under control. They pretty much drove me crazy.
Usually, I prepare and teach the lesson and Jerrod helps answer questions and keeps them under control. Especially the boys, since they tend to have a harder time sitting still. They all really like him, but he also doesn't let them get away with anything.
After I had asked the kids to pleasestop talking, poking each other, moving around, etc., about 50 times, I finally said, "guys, seriously, you are really not being reverent and I've told you and told you too many times that we are in church and you need to act like it. I can't handle you all being like this all by myself! What would Brother Barrows do if he were here?" and right away one of the little boys who was being most obnoxious said, "he'd kill us!"
So, they are obnoxious, but at least they know it. I guess that's a start.

After I was thinking about the kids, I realized what the problem is: None of them are troublemakers and they are pretty good kids all around, but there is not a shy one in the bunch! So everyone has got to be saying something all the time! Oh well, I guess it could be worse. I know I sure went to Primary with some kids that were worse.

Jerrod is still not feeling well tonight. He is going to stay home from work tomorrow too.

Today we had a baptism for three of the kids in our primary class. Jerrod gave a talk, I sang 2 songs and then I gave a talk...so it was a little bit of a Lindsey and Jerrod show. haha.
It was actually a really good baptism and I really felt the spirit there. It was also a very big baptism...enough people that they had it in the chapel, so it kind of felt a little bit like church. (We figured that meant we were done our duty for speaking in church for awhile!) We also drove the missionaries and then took them out for supper after.
Jerrod spoke on baptism and I talked about the Holy Ghost and told the kids about one experience that I can remember when I listened to the Holy Ghost when I was younger; their age or a little older: I used to like to walk around the farm and down to the dug-out to see if there was anything interesting. One night I noticed a bunch of little flowers that were growing by the water that I hadn't seen before, so the next day I was going to go there to look around again and pick some. I was going to ride my bike, but, when I went to go, I had a feeling that I shouldn't...that I should walk instead. So, I listened to that feeling and decided to walk.
When I got to the dug-out, I saw that there were some baby ducks. As I went to look at them, the mother duck jumped out at me and started to chase me away. She kept chasing me as I ran, all the way back to the barn, almost to my house. That was a pretty far distance for her to keep going after me. It was one determined duck! After, I realized that if I would have taken my bike, I wouldn't have been able to get away fast enough. I would have set it down and then panicked and had to leave it when I was trying to get away from the duck. Also, I wouldn't have been able to ride very easily over the bumpy ground and the hay that was growing. So, later, I felt that the spirit had told me to walk instead. That probably saved me from getting attacked by an angry duck! 'Cause that duck wasn't going to give up!
Anyway, that was an experience I had when I was smaller, but I told the kids that when they get older and have to start making big decisions about things like moving, college or getting married and all that difficult stuff, then they will appreciate even more that they made the choice to to the right things when they were younger so they can have the guidance they need when they really have things to stress about. haha. I really hope that all our kids stay good. It would be disappointing to see one of them go astray.



I kept looking behind me and something like this was what I saw! (except only one angry duck.) It's actually more terrifying than it may appear.

Today the temperature got up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, which was supposed to be close to record highs. I knew it was hot, but it wasn't until I read the temperature in Celsius that I realized just how hot....That's 40 degrees!
The rest of the week is supposed to be close to the same 36, 38, 39. Pretty warm out there.

Last week, I had a special day where I was able to meet up with one of my friends that I knew from living in Osaka. My friend Wakana and her husband are living in the US right now, while he goes to grad school in Indiana and so they came for an overnight trip to Nashville and also brought her parents, who were visting from Japan.
We went to a coffee shop in the hotel they were staying at and were able to sit and chat for about 2 and a half hours. It was so fun to be able to see someone from Japan here in Nashville. We hadn't seen each other for about 5 years, so it was a nice little reunion and so nice to be able to talk about so many different things that have happened in life since we last met.

It amazes me sometimes how small the world really is and how you can unexpectedly end up meeting people from so far away, so close to home.

(First picture: Wakana and I at the live house in Osaka, 2002. Second Picture: Wakana and I in Nashville, 2007.)

It is around 3:30 am and I am awake...so I was making a little snack. I burnt my toast. Again. And I'm not even sure how. I was trying to watch it to make sure it wouldn't burn. Not too long ago I actually burnt 6 pieces...not at once, but in a row...like with 6 different tries. I blame it on that new toaster oven. It's hard to get used to because it takes so long to heat up and then with in seconds it gets so hot it just burns.
Now I am worried that the smoke alarm is going to go off and wake up Jerrod and maybe even the upstairs neighbors.

Anyhow, once again, I have reaffirmed my thought that I hate cooking...I shouldn't be cooking....If you can call making toast cooking.

And, if it can get this disastrous with a toaster, imagine what I could do if I tried to really make something?! Yes, it could get much scarier. So for all the people who ask who cooks at our house or when I'm going to start learning to cook so I can cook at our house.....just be glad that it's Jerrod who does the cooking at our house. Don't question...just understand it's for the best.

(But I promise I really can make a few things, which sometimes I do! I'm not totally useless around here!)

Thursday night was the long awaited Nashville Zoo benefit auction. As I wrote in a previous post, I had heard about it a couple of months ago and we really had wanted to go to get a Meerkat painting.
There was quite a few different paintings there by a variety of animal "artists." I had only seen Elephant paintings previously and would like to get one of those someday. Those are actually really neat, because they elephants have a really distinct style and their paintings actually look like something, since they teach them to use a paintbrush.
Most of the paintings were animal footprints on paper. But there were some different styles too. They had one where they put paint on a horses whiskers and he put his whisker prints on paper and another where a cow had made tail prints on paper. I kind of wanted a cow painting too.

Anyhow, our goal was to get a Meerkat painting and there were 3 for sale. It was a silent auction. We bid on all of them. Jerrod wanted to get all of them, but there was a girl who was wanting 2 of them and she sniped them by sitting beside them in her wheelchair until the end of the auction. She kept watching us and was very irritated when we came over and bid them up. Fortunately for her, we had won our painting a little earlier and so we let the last two go...we thought the one we got was the best anyway. But, that other girl was lucky to have won hers because I get pretty competitive with auctions, so I might have kept on bidding just because I want to win! Jerrod wants to go back next year and possibly get another painting and build a collection. It's for a good cause, I guess. And, it's very original art!

A couple of nights ago, I was out in the garage working on a mosaic table. While I was breaking glass with a hammer on the floor (Jerrod's favorite thing to see. haha) I happened to have my head up for a moment an saw a furry tail in the air. My first thought was that it was a neighbors cat come to annoy me again, and in the moment I would have gone to try and get it away, I realized that it was actually a skunk! As I was sitting in my garage, a skunk walked right in and sat down almost beside me. I panicked! But, silently, thank goodness, because the usual kind of loud panic I usually have when I see a bug or something would have not worked out well in this situation.
I ran into the house to tell Jerrod about it and he said to just stay inside and that it would go away. But, I said, I don't think that is a good idea, because he might wander further in and decide to hide somewhere and then when won't know where he is and when we need to close the door later, we have no way of knowing if he is locked in!

So, Jerrod said to go watch him. So, I had to go watch him. I went out and stood in the driveway, behind the car and tried to keep my eye on him to see where he would go next...hoping it would be out. But, he wasn't in any hurry to leave. He made himself quite comfortable curled up in a little ball in a corner. It was in this moment that I realized that I had never before thought of how to deal with an intruding skunk. Because, trying to make him leave could be disastrous. So, I was more annoyed then anything because of the fact that he interrupted me while I was hard at work making a mess with glass.

After a little bit he finally did waddle away. I was pretty glad about that. I have seen skunks around in the flower beds and stuff before, but they have never actually tried to come inside. He better not come back though. Not that he would really care what I think and I'm pretty sure he would win if we ever got in an argument about it.

Below is a picture of the table I am working on. I get stained glass scraps and broken glass and break them with a hammer to shape them closer to how I want them. I also put silver leaf on the backs of a lot to add a metallic shine and to lighten up the color. That takes a long time. Then. I arrange them, kind of like putting a puzzle together and glue them down and then after that, do the grout. It's got a way to go until it will match the previous one I made, which is below this.
These are a few pictures of a coffee table I did last year. Unfortunately, the pictures really don't show what it truly looks like because it's almost impossible to capture the look of stained glass and mirror in a photo. It looks much better in real life...but this is a little bit of an idea.


And a few other things I made with my broken glass....The first thing I tried was this mirror covered box. I got a wooden box, painted it and covered it with broken mirror. The mirror was all free because I ended up getting a ton of it from some people on craigslist who gave me some old broken ones for free! This was an experiment to see if I would like doing mosaics.

These "Love" letters were done on letter forms with mirrors and black grout.

I found this big pot and plant stand at my appartment...someone didn't want them, so I claimed them for free! I painted the stand with textured paint and then did the rest in mosaics with the matching pot.


This globe was another Craigslist find. It was a regular globe, I got for $4. I sealed it and then got tiny pieces of glass and covered each country with a different color.
I really liked it the best before it was finished, but now wish I had not done the ocean area with mirror. It reflects too much and takes away from the colors of the stained glass. I don't like the white grout either, so I might try staining that. It has become a very heavy globe. That's a lot of glass on there!