Imperfect=Perfect

Wow! It has been a really long time since anyone has posted anything. I've wanted to post something again but felt a bit weird doing one right after another, but it seems that since no one else is stepping up I'm just gonna go ahead.

One of the main things that I remember, really admire and respect mom for was that she WASN'T PERFECT. Now don't get me wrong. Mom was amazing. One of the best. But she wasn't perfect, and she excepted it, and used it to her advantage.

Example 1: She didn't always make dinner every night. Some may see this as neglect, but it was really a teaching tool for us (her children). It taught us to not only appreciate it when she did make dinner, but it also taught us to fend for ourselves. After she passed, we had neighbors coming over and asking how we were doing and if we needed meals brought. I will admit the first couple weeks of having meals brought over was so nice (cause at the time non of us felt like cooking), but even after the meals stopped coming it wasn't so much of a drastic change.

Example 2: She understood and proudly shared her problems and conditions with others. Some may think that if you have psychological problems that you should keep it on the down low and avoid others knowing about it. Mom was SO not like that. She understood anxiety and depression and made sure that others knew too. I remember listening to her talking to others about these problems and explaining (quite well) what it is like and that it is perfectly normal. This not only helped herself cope, but also helped others to realized that they might have it and that it is nothing to be ashamed of. I was one of these individuals that she helped to except and control my condition. I will be eternally grateful for her influence on me and the incredible happiness and relief it have given me.

I'm sure there are many more examples of her genius, but at the moment I'm just too tired to go into great detail so I shall leave the rest to you good people. Have at it! What imperfection of mom was perfect to you?
<3

"Mommy Songs"

Okay. So I think it's high time I post something on this blog. I confess I feel a little left out. So, here goes.
Personally I don't know how everyone else keeps mom around, but for me I have some songs that remind me of her. I put some of them on playlists on my Ipod that I listen to often, and when I'm not expecting it, a song comes on and I just think "mom." Therefore, I am going to share with y'all what these songs are and why I relate them to mom. And if anyone think of any other songs that I missed or that remind you of her please pitch in. :D
Okay. Here I go.

1)First of all, the one song that always gets me thinking about mom, as crazy as it sounds, is I'm Too Sexy by Right Said Fred. Yes. That's right. You heard me. Don't deny it. It is her song. Every time it comes up I can just see her singing along to it and doing her little upper body strut.

2) Every time this song comes on it's like a stab to the heart and then yanking at the heart string, but oddly enough I love it. This song is If I Ever Leave This World Alive by Flogging Molly. Mom loved this song. And ironically it's fitting.

3) No matter which version it is, or who sings it, or even when it is sung, it's a mommy song. Amazing Grace. Yup. I know it gets me every time.

4) Monday, Monday by The Mamas and the Papas. I just remember growing up during my early years and hearing this song played frequently. And she would sing along with so much emotion and volume that I can still hear her singing it my head.

5) Now I don't know if mom liked this song of even if she knew it, but every time I play Cristofori's Dream by David Lanz it somehow reminds me of mom. I don't know if it captures her personality, or it describes her life, or if it's how I feel and view my relationship with her, but I seem to find myself playing it for her sometimes. And I even end up crying while playing sometimes. If anyone has ever done this, you know what I'm talking about when I say they are the most amazing moments of my life.

If you have any others you can think of that are "mommy songs" please mention it. I'm sure all of us would love to have a "mommy playlist."

It Was Love

So here's the story as I know it. One day when Mom was at the Ricks College Library, a handsome young man came sauntering into the room. Actually he was crazy shy and Mom would always talk about how his neck got really red while she was talking to him. Later when they were both at a dance he asked her to dance and after that they started dating. All the girls wanted to date Dad, but he was interested in Mom and couldn't see any other girls. Then one day Mom went over to Dad's apartment which he shared with I think six other guys (maybe it was seven). She was just sitting in the front room with another of Dad's roommates when he arrived. Without even saying hello he went into his room. Confused Mom kept talking to Dad's roommate and gave Dad his space. While in his room one of Dad's roommates started to sneakily put it into Dad's head that Mom was starting to show more of an interest in the roommate sitting out in the front room. Dad just shrugged it off at first, but his roommate kept taunting him until Dad started to believe him, and soon he was angry and went out into the front room. Scared by his obvious anger, the roommate left my Dad and Mom in the room alone together. But Dad wouldn't say anything. Confused Mom went home and in a couple of days Dad took Mom on a drive. Mom was nervous and trying to prepare herself for rejection. But then he surprised her when he asked her to be his eternal companion. She said yes and after a summer break apart, they got married. I think it's the strangest love story ever, but they were in love.
Alright, so I left a lot of details to this story out, but that's only so that others can put them in. So put them in!

Do it with a smile

Hardly anyone can remember Mom with out remembering how upbeat she was through out her chemo. Breast cancer is a hard thing to take on and she did it with a smile. It was far from easy. The process is all that is life altering and not in a good way, but she did it well.

Here's a few pictures of that time.

Here's a before picture of mom when she got her head shaved

Here's an after picture. I love this picture because my dad looks oriental.

Here's mom at one of her chemo infusions. Yes she is making a baby blanket for some one else.

Always smiling.

One thing that stands out when I remember Mom is how organized she was. She had lists and charts all over the place. She even had her own collection of books on the subject of organization she was always looking at how to be better organized. Well there is one aspect of her organizational skills that really stands out in my mind, how she organized our toys. I remember when we were little and living in West Valley we had an unfinished basement. So Dad finished the basement and we received another bedroom and a play room where we could put all of our toys and have a place to play with them without being in the way or making too big of a mess. But what to do with the toys? She couldn’t just have us stuff all our toys in a closet down there (there wasn’t one). So she had my dad make these cubbies where we would organize our toys. That’s right, we organized our toys. I can still remember the labels on some of them. I remember one was misc. that was where we put toys we got from McDonalds or what ever. One that was Fisher Price. One that was dolls where our “jumpy dolls” went. It looked beautiful when mom was done. The only problem was, we were kids and we wanted to play with our toys. She would come down stairs and see the mess and tell us to clean it up and I would scream “No Mom! I just organized my toys so I can play with them.” I had these elaborate setups that I had to finish before I could play with it. She, feeling sympathy for having something you had just organized ruined, would let me keep my toys out. Well my excuse started to wear out and one day she came down and was furious. There wasn’t a bit of carpet to be seen because our toys were literally all strewn out on the floor, even her bins she used to organize our toys were upturned and on the floor. Realizing that our organized mess was really just a mess she had all three of us go down stairs to clean up. We pushed the toys to the middle of the room and made a huge pile. Then she took the toy bins and laid them out in a row. What we did next is still to this day one of my favorite memories. She would take a toy from the pile hand it to us and we had to then run around the pile to the bins and put the toy in the correct bin. Then we would continue to run around the pile back to her to get another toy and do the same thing. It was so fun! It was like a race. The whole time we were laughing and trying to go faster than each other and pretty soon the job was done. I think mom was even surprised at how well it turned out. She was always trying to make things fun for us and let us do our own thing. I hope someday I can do the same thing for my kids.

Ann Marie, thanks for creating this blog for us. It looks great and I love your initial post about your Christmas memories of mom/Michelle. Sorry, I never could get used to calling Michelle Shelly and she never called me Jim even though everyone else did. I'm afraid I'll have to continue to go with Michelle here even though the blog is called Memories of Shelly. I've been told that writing memories like this is a good idea and can be very therapeutic. So thanks.

I'll share a few Christmas memories from our early marriage years that you kids wouldn't remember. Our first Christmas was in the "castle" with the turret in Rexburg. It was a beautiful old house and we loved living there until we got our first heating bill. It had no insulation so we basically turned off the heat, bundled up, put on lots of blankets, and made good use of body heat. We quickly found a job managing apartments and moved out of there the week after Christmas. We were dirt poor so that Christmas in the "castle" was where the "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree tradition started and there wasn't much under that tree, but we had each other. The next Christmas we were managing Pineview apartments at Ricks. Ann Marie was 6 months old and Grandma and Grandpa brought Christmas from Oregon and we got spoiled. I think that was the year Grandpa bought Sweetums and gave him to Ann Marie. The co-ed girls in the apartments threw their trees in the dumpster before they went home for the holidays, so I went dumpster diving and found a really nice "Charlie Brown" tree, and it was free. It even had all the decorations still on it. Ann Marie, I just noticed that the first picture of Michelle in your Christmas post shows this free "Charlie Brown" tree in the picture with the free decorations still on it. She loved all Christmas decorations but her favorites were always the nativity sets. Michelle loved Christmas because she loved the Savior. In one of the many boxes of decorations we went through this year, and among the several nativity sets we found Fisher Price nativity sets that were not even opened. Michelle had obviously purchased them for future grandchildren (hint, hint). She always made sure Christmas was centered on Christ, for her children and even for her future grandchildren.

Karen, thank you for sharing your childhood memories of Christmas with Michelle.

Since we are sharing Christmas memories of your mom I thought I would share a few as we were growing up. I remember waking at the dark hours of the morning and we, Gary included, would sneak into the living room and check out the unwrapped gifts set-up in front of the Christmas tree. We would get quietly excited and eventually return back to bed. I also remember having to wait for our Grandma & Grandpa Orth to come before we could open our presents. Our dad used to take the longest time going to pick them up. We would get so anxious and grumpy but it was worth the wait to see their excitement also. Time was also spent at Grandma & Grandpa Evans singing Christmas carols while Grandma Evans played the piano or organ. We always had a big breakfast Christmas morning and it was wonderful. Christmas was always our favorite time of year. I also make a list in my planner of what Sean & Malena get for Christmas. Your mom and I would have fun with our sock gifts. I do miss sharing those moments with your mom. Written by Auntie Karen.