Calendar

Do you remember day planners? My mom had one and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I got one as a teen and LOVED it. I thought it was the best thing ever to color code everything. (I'll admit it, I was totally a nerd! Oh, I guess I still am.) The only problem was that I didn't have all that much to keep track of in those days (which means it must have been before my junior year of high school when I started getting really busy). Even when my oldest kids were little, there was very little to keep track of on a calendar. Now, though, my days are very full with all our family's activities, and unless I keep very careful track, we miss important things. It turned out that being a nerd and loving planners has come in handy.

If you are a parent, you know how important routine is to a child. They thrive on knowing what to expect, and what is expected of them in any given situation. Calendaring for my family has solved so many issues, from Adam knowing what is happening that day to the constant question from the kids: "What are we having for dinner tonight?" What was most surprising to me as I began calendaring for the family, is how much it changed for me. It has helped me stay on track in all the areas of my life.

This is our family calendar, hanging on my pantry door. I found a planner printable I liked on Pinterest and tweaked it in Photoshop to be what our family needed, then printed a 16x20 of it and framed it. I learned the hard way that the frame has to have glass, and not plexi glass, in order for it to work long-term with dry erase markers. I buy the ultra fine point Expo markers that have 8 colors, and store them lid down, like this:

Each person in our family is assigned a color, including the dog, and then anything that pertains to more than one of us, or the whole family, is in black. The colors correspond with the (Google) calendar on my phone. Not every color translates, which is annoying. But on my phone pink=yellow and black=navy. I know what they mean, so it works. Each Sunday afternoon or evening, I erase the weekly calendar and the week's menu and write in the coming week's information. I know this would be a sticking point for some people, but because of my love for planners, color-coding, and organization in general, I just love writing in the calendar and look forward to it every week. If you're not a weirdo like me, setting a reminder in your phone can also work! As I fill in the calendar, I quickly become aware of any conflicts in the schedule, or the need to rearrange a carpool, and take care of that immediately before moving on.

That reminds me of the most important part of this whole system: adding things to the calendar the instant I hear about them. I absolutely cannot wait until I get home, or I'm done with the dishes, or I have checked with someone to write it down, because then I will forget and it won't be on the calendar. So when I make an appointment, I put it into my phone as I make it. Someone suggests a play date, and I put it into my phone right then. The kids run into the house with a birthday invitation, and I stop right then and put it on the calendar. Having my phone give me automatic reminders is super helpful, so that if I forget to transfer something to the dry erase calendar, at least I have it somewhere!

So, how do you calendar for your family? What makes it successful for you?

Love Thy Neighbor

I've been thinking about a concept for a long time, and it all began during a Sunday School lesson over a year ago, when we were discussing Samaritans and how the Jews wanted nothing to do with them. My sweet neighbor, Kathy, posited that members of the LGBTQ community could be our present-day "Samaritans," the people we as an LDS community often want nothing to do with. This struck me with such force at the time, it really resonated with me.

You all know the parable of the Good Samaritan, right? A man travels from Jerusalem to Jericho, and on the way falls among thieves and is beaten and left for dead. A priest comes along and crosses to the other side of the road rather than helping the man, and then a Levite (one who works with the priests, or under the priests) does the same thing. Only when a Samaritan, one of the race of people that the Jews reviled and thought of as dirty or less-than, travels that way does the man receive any help. That Samaritan man goes out of his way to bind up wounds, take him to a safe place to rest, and take care of him, paying for his care .

What is interesting to me is that in the parable of Good Samaritan, the Samaritan is not the receiver of service but the giver. I have felt quite frequently lately that it is not our responsibility to serve and "save" our LGBTQ friends and loved ones, but our privilege to be taught by them, and to learn to love completely by knowing them. Can we see them as Christ does? Can we humble ourselves to be like the man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, receiving compassion and having our wounds bound up? Or will we continue to only play the parts of the priest and the Levite and assume that we are good people and need not dirty our hands with serving someone we don't know or coming into any contact with the Samaritans we could learn and grow from?

I hate politics. I don't like the way people turn ugly as they assert their opinions, as if the best way to prove their point is by discrediting their opponent, tearing down others to build themselves up. So I try to stay out of it as much as possible. But I feel the need to break my silence, to differentiate myself from the priests and Levites of the world to say this: I feel the LDS Church's amicus brief for the Supreme Court case regarding transgender bathroom rights was unnecessary. Religious freedom and human rights do not have to be pitted against each other. We can worship as we choose and be respectful of one another's needs. In fact, as disciples of Christ, we should already be doing that.