My Boring 900 East Saga

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point"
C.S. Lewis
I am not saying that I am courageous by any means(I am actually somewhat wimpy)...but in this issue, I must say, I have often met my testing point. I am talking about safety issues on 900 East. Construction will soon begin (March 5) on speed tables on 900 east (which are low, wide easy on cars...not AF highschool..speed "tables"). I have had periods of time where I have sincerely wondered if putting myself and my reputation on the line was really worth it. I am generally someone who likes to blend into the wallpaper and I don't usually put myself out there too much. It has saddened me with rumors of untrue things that have been told (i.e. We never called police, we never called on individuals for tickets, etc). We (myself and other concerned neighbors) did personally take our own time to take speed studies in order to push the city into doing a speed and safety study which, when finally completed, indicated dangerous levels of speeding on 900 East. The cities traffic study also discovered that much of that traffic is "cut-through" traffic (not local) trying to use a quicker alternate route. The rest is probably us running our kids to and from school. Children hit by a car at the average speed the cars were traveling on 900 East had an estimated 70-85% chance of being killed by a "car" and an almost certainty of death if hit by an "SUV or Mini-van" going that same average speed. We have also spent countless hours attending city council meetings, traffic committee meetings, community meetings, and many hours getting signatures and doing research on potential solutions. It has been an over 2-year process that I will be glad to have over. During the two-year process we got 900 East blocked from going over the rail-road tracks to State Street (which I think would have been a huge disaster for the whole neighborhood) and was in the city plan to happen within the next five years. At this time, there is, under construction, a huge medical office complex (with 500 parking spaces) going in below Haymaker with 900 East as the North entrance. We are hopeful that cut-through speeding traffic will be decreased, in light of this new development and before traffic patterns for this complex are establilshed.
Yesterday we discovered that the city had altered the placements of the speed-tables. I feel bad if people didn't want them close to them...and now they are. I personally would not mind one by our house (they won't inhibit parking etc.). I do wonder myself about the changes in placements. We had hoped for a cross-walk down on the corner by the Houles house which has been changed to a different place (and no longer a cross-walk) due to a man-hole cover which is in the way. I wonder if we need as much signage as the Af planners feel is required. Ultimately, however, I am hopeful that overall it will be a serious improvement in safety for all the children who use the street. I am grateful the city sees fit to do something. Maybe kids can cross the street at the cross-walk without a near-death experience. Perhaps kids can even ride their bikes. People who have the same speed tables in their neighborhoods in Cedar Hills report loving them. I hope that is the case here, I am sure there will be some negatives and some who do not love them. I apologize in advance to them I really do feel bad about that. I wish we had a little more control over the placements and the timing of the installations. I am sure it will be a nightmare and I hope it is not too early with the weather. But I (and I think the neighbors who have also been working on this) do not think I could live with myself, daily witnessing the probem, and doing nothing and then having a child injured or killed. Those are my random and hopefully non-offensive thoughts for the day.

Here Comes the Sun

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air…” (Ralph Waldo Emmerson)

I am so grateful for the last couple sunny days! They help me look toward spring and growth and good changes. I love the kids...outside; playing basketball and frisbee, running in the grass, holding the bunny and playing with friends. I am hopeful for a continued run of sun...but will accept whatever will come (I think that last line was a rhyme). And here are some new pictures of my beautiful grand-daughter from Melissa's blog. Pictures of her are like little rays of sunshine to me.

"All seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within." (Horace Freiss).

So Instead of the Valentines Dance Where We Wanted to Be....

So instead of the valentines dance where we wanted to be....we were at the emergency room with Matthew. He had gone to his cousin's birthday party in Draper where he was going to spend the night. At about 6:00 when he was wrestling with his cousin, somehow Matthew's arm went "the wrong way" and he heard a loud "pop". Lane went back to get him...I have seriously never seen Matthew in as much pain as he was in. He kept almost throwing up because of the pain and even got the Hives. His arm was swollen up at least double size and looked deformed. We both took him to the hospital. They took an x-ray and discovered his elbow was dislocated. It was dislocated in a "rare" way however and they couldn't get it back into place initially. They had to completely sedate him via IV, bring in an orthopedist (warn us if it didn't work we were headed to PCMC for surgery) and put it back into place using a continuous x-ray machine. I guess there is an artery by the elbow that makes elbow dislocation somewhat dangerous. Luckily it worked and Matthew is feeling 10000% better than he did last night. He gets to have a cool cast which he is excited to show everyone. We took pictures of the freaky angle his arm was last night and him with an awesome IV but I can't download them off the phone. The doctors couldn't believe how good he was. He was much much braver than I was and I hadn't dislocated anything. I could never have been a doctor...I couldn't stand seeing the pain. I kept almost throwing up too. Was it Friday the 13th??? We are grateful for a brother-Radiologist and Dr.Greenwood in the emergency room, and we are grateful all is well in the light of this snowy Valentines day!

Angels and Bats

I got to go to a marital therapy conference today and must say I enjoyed it despite a random blinding migraine (wish I could get rid of those). It is great to live in an area that has such an investment in marriage and family. The Utah Coalition on Marriage subsidizes the event and has a pretty good web-site as well at http://www.utahmarriage.org/. The presenter, John van Epp, has written a book called, "How to not fall in Love With a Jerk". The title sounds kind of humorous but the topic was actually very substantive. One part I found interesting and made intuitive sense was that how a person pictures their partner in their mind has a huge impact on their attitude toward their partner...more than the actual reality of their partner. His theory is based in attachment theories concept of object permanence. As a relationship starts out people picture their partner in primarily positive ways, but as the relationship goes on it becomes more of a choice to be aware of the negatives but hold the positive picture of our partner in mind (especially in times of stress or dissention). The presenter used the above picture as an example. I only saw bats (demons) at first (tells where my mind must be) but there are angels and bats. Van Epp discussed how in any relationship if we attempt to hold the positive pictures and keep those in our memory it can make rough times much easier to work through. Even with my kids, not that I don't have great kids, but I think this could be helpful. With the inevitable ebbs and flows of teenagerhood, pubertal mood swings, difficulties with chores etc., to hold in mind the positives, when negatives are tossed at me, would be a great help to me. Something for me to try to practice. Anyway it gives me something to think about...and I really liked the angel/bat picture...so I thought I would share.

The Queen of Valentines

When I took this picture, Brynna said, "I'm like the queen of valentines".

I have always loved Valentines day. It probably my mom's fault, as a kid my mom always made it fun. She would get us treats and "ding-dong-ditch" them on our doorway. They were usually red cups filled with candy or a little stuffed animal. We were excited all day waiting for the doorbell to ring. We would also "Punch out" our friends valentines out of big "punch-out" books and put together treats and do the same thing for our friends..."the big "ding-dong-ditch". Did anyone else do that? It could have been a tradition in the "olden days". I even remember one year my dad attached the cards for our friends to a fishing rod and we reeled them toward us from a bush when our friends would try to pick them up off of their doorstop.

As I have gotten older (much older) I have come to love the concept of "love" in it's purest form. Like the scripture on charity I have come to think that love is kindness; love is patience; love is unselfishness, sacrifice and thinking of the other person (even when you feel it is not returned); love is giving when you don't really feel like giving; love is forgiving over and over; love definately is not proud; love is humble and strong at the same time; love is taking your child's lunch to school no matter how embarassing it is that it is the tenth time; love doesn't avoid the hard things of life but bravely goes toward them knowing that sometimes it will not go well personally; love is something I keep learning about everyday and will probably never get it completely right. No matter how much I read or study or seek, I always find that I learn I have so much more to learn.

I found the following definition, "Defining what love is has been the work of poets and philosophers throughout time, but it's our job too. It is something we all know when we feel it, but words simply are not adequate enough to define it. Love is so many things, a feeling, an intention and a thank you. It is compassionate, it is generous, it is funny, it is serious, it breaks our hearts and yet it heals all things. Love is expressed in a trillion ways, it is found in a smile, blowing a kiss, a wink, a song, a poem, a word or even a batch of chocolate chip cookies. There is so much to say about love, but the heart of the matter is, we all want to be loved and we all want to love. " Hope you have a day filled with much love.

If you still want to vote...here is the link: http://music.mormontimes.com/contest.php?id=757&nocache=1