I am a mother who knows I can teach my children hard things, and they will accept it.

Today my good friend Kathy passed away.  Kathy was a beautiful and inspiring mother of six.  My fondest memory with her is one afternoon she came to my home to visit.  We were discussing nutrition while our children were playing together.  Kathy was passionate and a deep well of  knowledge about wholesome nutrition.
I was struggling with wanting to make further changes to our family's nutrition, I had been learning and trying new things myself, and I wanted to share those benefits with my children, but I did not want to force them or make them eat healthy against their will, because I knew that would cause more psychological damage than the health benefits would justify, and when the cat was away the mouse would play anyway.  It wouldn't be a lasting change.  I was expressing all of my concerns or hesitations about implementing the new food ideas for our whole family to Kathy.
She became very calm, looked me in the eyes, and told me that if they were good things I was desiring for my family, God would guide me, and would help me teach them, so they understood; if I wasn't sure about teaching something to my children, then I needed to pray about it, and God would answer me.  She had perfect faith that if we teach our children why and how we are doing something, and it is good, and of God, then he will bless our efforts, and help them want to follow our teaching.
Over the years following, on more than one occasion I have had Ally, Kathy's oldest daughter with me in situations where there are treats being served.  One of Kathy's food beliefs is: no sugar!  Little Ally has always politely declined anything with sugar in it. One time I asked her why and she said "it isn't good for me."  I asked if it was hard to not eat it when everyone else was, or if she felt left out.  She frankly said "No, our family just doesn't eat it. My mom gives us other better treats."
How many 8 year-olds do you know who decline sugar?  Kathy had taught her children in what she felt was best for them, and they believed.  I too, find that when I desire to teach my children, and ask for God's help in doing so, they accept my teaching, beyond my expectations.
Thank you Kathy for teaching me this powerful lesson in motherhood.

http://kathysmiracle.com/

I am a mother who knows that I can recieve what I ask for.

For Christmas, I asked for the gift of Charity.  Since the realization that I needed that gift, I have  been praying daily to receive it, and have carefully studied Moroni 7.  After several weeks of bumpy roads, I had nearly two weeks of peace and joy. The fruits of Charity seemed a peaceful part of living.  Life was moving cheerfully forward for our family. 
Then, on Sunday night I was triggered.  A phrase that I came upon in my reading, that provoked a torrent of negative emotions.  I struggled all through Monday and Tuesday, trying to finish Christmas preparations and wanting to have a happy spirit in our home for my children.  But I failed.  I was edgy, losing my temper occasionally, draining all the joy out living in our house.  How is it that mother can be the naughtiest one in a family?  I knew I was in the wrong.  I was searching for how to rid myself of the negative spirit.  I tried prayer and scriptures study and writing and sleeping.  Finally, Tuesday evening, with sincere pleading I asked the Lord to give me Charity - it is what I needed to let go of the trigger from Sunday night.  I needed to stop dwelling on the past, forgive, love, acknowledge the good in my life now.  Almost immediately, a calm sweetness came over me.  I felt the power of Charity.  It washed over me, pushing out all the negative and dark thoughts and feelings.  My good, forgiving family then embraced having their mother back and we enjoyed a beautiful Christmas Spirit in our home for the next few days.
Because I asked, the Lord blessed me with the gift of charity for a time, when I especially needed it.  I know I will need to continue to work on it, foster it and practice it, in order to really own it continually in my life. 
I feel that God let me struggle, so I could feel a need, and have to practice the hard work of striving for Charity.  If life had kept on smoothly, I would not have realized how powerful a gift Charity is, nor would I have recognized His giving me that gift this Christmas.

I am a mother who knows there is power in journaling.

For the past several weeks I have been going through all of my past journals, letters, and other writing.  My entries are not daily or even weekly, but there are many over the years.  I am finding things I had completely forgotten about.

Admittedly, I have been looking for the dark and negative pieces in order to gain clarification on my struggles with depression.  I have found plenty of black pearls, entries that show patterns, false beliefs, weaknesses, and heartaches.  From these I am able to see what I have changed and overcome, and what I still need to change.  I have made it for about 5 months now without a real dip into depression.  It has taunted me,  especially through some intense struggles in recent weeks, but I feel I am breaking new ground in understanding it, and that there is hope of casting it off forever.

Much to my joy, I have also found precious treasures of personal revelations, the tender mercies of God, and experiences and feelings that are evidence of goodness in my life.  It is a healing journey to see that in all my inconsistency and repeatedly making the same mistakes, I was consistently working at gaining wisdom, through study; I was consistently repenting and turning back to God - although many I times I had to be compelled to be humble; I was consistently trying to be a good mother, and slowly but surely gaining better skills, patience, and vision of what a good mother can be.

I have read things that I learned and loved, and have forgotten.  I feel a renewed hope in implementing these in my life.  My love of traditions that are meaningful, my love of the Constitution and liberty, my love of agency education - my love of writing!

I am a mother who knows Christ will not leave us comfortless.

Today is Addy Day.  It is the day she returned to our Father in Heaven 13 years ago.   Here is some of what I wrote at the time.


Addy came to our home as a gift from our loving Father in Heaven.  She came to gain a body, and complete a short but important mission in this life.  Our family is greatly blessed to have had her. When I first realized that Addy had died I was scared, hurt, confused.  But very quickly my Father in Heaven blessed me with a sweet peace, and the knowledge that Addy's life on earth was complete, that he had called her home to do his work on the others side of the veil.  I know that Addy is with her Savior, and is happy.  I feel that she misses us with the same sweetness that we miss her, but her spirit will always be near to our family, And Kate will have a sister on the other side watching out for her, as a guardian angel

Addy was beaming, Kate, not so much

My Heavenly Father knew how quickly my heart would break when Addy left us.  he did all he could to prepare things to ease my pain.  The week before she died we had our first ever family picture taken..  Addy beamed for the camera.  The last day that I had my sweet Addy was the day before we had planned to go home for Christmas.  I wanted to have pictures to take to Grandmas and decided to use up the last of my film in the camera to try and get a current picture of Addy, and of Kate and Addy together.  I took pictures of my sweet , happy girls and took them to be developed.  The roll came back with some wonderful pictures.  We had bought a couple of special stories to give our girls for Christmas.  That day, because everything was going smoothly, I took time to write a letter to Addy inside the front cover of her book.

I put two happy girls to bed that night, and finished wrapping a few last gifts and put the last of our clothes in suitcases to go hoe.  I finished at 11 and just then Addy started to wake up.  This was not usual for her. and if I had followed our "rules" I would have let her cry it out to keep her sleeping through the night, but instead, because I was still awake, I got her up.  She was happy and seemed playful so we sat on the floor in front of the Christmas tree, and played.  She crawled across the floor to me a few times and gazed at the Christmas lights.  She sat on my lap, and played with my hand, patting it, and waving her hands.  Then I went and nursed her.

 After eating well she still was not sleepy, so I took her in her room and rocked her and sang to her all my favorite carols. I started with Silent Night, then God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, O Holy Night, Away in a Manger, We Three Kings, many others I don't recall.  I ended with Hush Thee My Baby, and one more time of Silent Night.  She snuggled in my arms and after a while, settled down.  I laid her in her crib, covered her up, and kissed her goodnight.  This sweet little baby knew she was leaving and said her good-byes to ease her mother's pain.  I did not know it was good-bye then, but I am so grateful for such a sweet last memory.


Years later I can say that I still miss my little girl.  I know she watches over our family, I feel her near when I am at the temple.  She is a tangible anchor that keeps me striving to return to Heaven myself.

Most of all I can say that God knew what I needed to experience in order to make me really change and learn and grow.  He gave me the sweet and bitter experience then, to prepare me for other experiences later on, and so that I can have empathy for others.

Each time I turn to God for comfort, with real faith, and purpose of heart, He does give me solace. He lets me choose to turn to Him for peace or to try and fight through on my own.  I have tried both options at different times.  I can definitively say I prefer the peace and comfort that He offers to the pain and loneliness and despair that I find on my own.  He has shown me his working in my life, in the little details, like a picture taken on certain day, and in the big over-arching direction of my life.  I have felt His presence, I know He is there.  He has not left me comfortless.

I am a mother who knows peace.

Merry Christmas 2014!

Twas the night before New Years and all through our house,
There was peace and rejoicing, for me and my spouse.

The children were tucked all snug in their beds,
While visions of happiness danced in their heads.

I had thought through this past year and saw good and bad,
Some hard times of sadness, and the miracles we had.

Our measures of progress were scarce to appear,
Our lives looked the same to those we call dear.

But if you could open and see in our hearts
They now are fast made with much stronger parts.

We learned from our garden that God has a plan.
His cycles teach patience to impatient man.

Bright Kate found her dream to teach others truth
through music and stage about Esther (and Ruth?)

Good Cassidy has served her family in love.
Our expectations she exceeds beyond and above.

Boy Wyatt has grown to love working with Dad.
Also reading, eating, and flying are times to be had.

Joy! Mille has taught us to always keep trying,
Though sometimes life's hard and we find ourselves crying.

Estella Jane's walking and smiles remind
that her health is a miracle from a Father, kind.

At Crossfit we're given the chance to grow muscle
that helps us at home and when life is a bustle.

But greatest blessing this year that I can recall
Is Christ's Atonement to lift us each time we fall.

Jesus came into our home through scripture and prayer
Our lives are changed for we felt him there.

May this new year for you bring a blessing so sweet.
Although the joy comes after tears at His feet.

Home-grown watermelon.  Can't we eat it already?

Home crafted costume of Glinda the good witch

Getting violins for first lessons.

Saying Goodbye to Raksaka

 

Airplane ride for 9th Birthday.

  

Hot date to see the lights.

 

I am a mother who knows how to be consistent.

But this used to be a real weakness for me.

I have always loved diving into a project, or chunky time, as I have heard it called, but even just a couple years ago I really struggled to do the things that needed attention every day.  Dishes, making my bed, homeschool devotional, math drills, writing, personal scriptures, journal, prayer, and exercise.  I would set a goal, and do well for a few weeks then it would peter off, till I was depressed with my failure and lack of stick-to-itiveness.
I wanted to  teach my children to know Jesus Christ, and love learning in every subject, and how to work hard.  I wanted to finish fixing up our house, and then maintain it well, and to study the gospel, and everything else, getting my own scholar phase, and grow real, healthy, nourishing food that I could feed my family.

In 2010, I hired a personal mentor to help me learn how to do it.  Jodie Palmer.  She did teach me, but it has taken until this past year that I have fully been able to understand the power of what she gave me.

One time, in my frustrations, she told me the story of the Tortoise and the Hare.  I could see that I was much more like the hare.  When I tried to do something, I would do it big, and fast, then I would get burned out, life would be out of balance, and I would do nothing more.  Like the hare, I would lay down and take a nap in the middle of the race.  She asked me why.  I realized that a part of me was afraid that with just slow, little steps I would never get to the finish line.  That the project or goal would be unraveled at the beginning before I ever made it to the end.  She asked me to give it a try.  To experiment with the small, steady, daily actions.  Jonathan bought me a tortoise, that I named "Connie," short for Constance.  I kept her in my pocket often to remind me of my need to do small efforts daily.  When

She taught me to make and keep commitments, and that goals and commitments are different.  As I was working with her, she did not let me set a daily commitment for several months, until I had a track record of keeping weekly commitments.  I was so excited the first time she let me set a daily commitment - it was very small - Read at least 1 verse every day.  Eventually, seeing that I could keep the small commitments gave me power to keep bigger ones.  Having to consistently report to her helped me be consistent for a time.

After my time working with her was over, I had to learn how to do it on my own.  That didn't come right away.

It took exercising faith in the principle, giving it a real try before I could believe it would work for me.  And my effort wasn't always constant.  But I have consistently kept trying to be consistent.

This past year I wanted to learn how to double-unders at Crossfit.  I spent several months doing them one at a time.  I would do one, then trip up on the rope.  I worked at them for a few minutes every day I went to the box.  After a couple months, I got a rythym of single, single, double, single, single, double where I could get 5 to 10 double-unders in.  Finally, after months of consistent trying and literally being in tears over them I strung 2 together.  Then I could only get 1 again.  A week later I got 6.  Then I started getting 2 and 3s more consistently.  Today I hit 75 unbroken for the second time.  Tomorrow I will be doing good to get a couple sets of 25.  When I can get 100 unbroken, most any time, I will consider the skill mastered.

This is how implementing every new skill or piece of knowledge goes for me.  Slowly and steadily, if I keep trying, it does improve.

I am a mother who knows what gift to give.

It is one gift that everyone needs:  my husband, my in-laws, my children, my friends, my great aunt, and my neighbors.  Even those who don't want it, and leave it on the front porch or trample over it, need it, they just don't know it.  It is beautifully simple, yet too magnificent for me to fully comprehend.  It is unique for each person who receives it.  It tastes sweeter than anything else I have ever tasted.  It is solid as stone, solid enough to build a house on!  It never runs out, the more I use it, the more there is available to me.  Someone else has already paid for it, so it is not really mine to give, but I can share it!

It is the gift of Jesus Christ!  His gospel.  His Love.  His Life.  His Atonement.

#Sharethegift

I am a mother who knows who to trust.

 I trust in my Father in Heaven.  He is all powerful, all knowing, unchanging, and has a perfect love. His mission is to bring me (and you) to eternal life with Him - which is happiness.  Parts of this mortal journey towards God are very difficult and even painful.  The most rewarding and joyful times come after I make it through the hard ones.  The most peaceful times are when I walk through the hard times with the Lord.  

I am learning and working on, this principle of trusting in God and not in the arm of flesh.  When I live with good people, and love them, it is easy to trust too much in them.  But there is no mortal who has the understanding of my heart, my potential, and my struggles like God does.  No matter how well a parent, spouse, friend, or mentor knows me, they will not see my divine and individual worth as clearly as God does.  They can love me, but not as God does.  God commands us to help each other on our way.  He often does help me through the hands, words, and actions of others, but only by knowing that I am trusting God, can I know who else to trust.  I have to go to him first with each question, idea, problem and desire.  When I have turned my heart to Him, and keep it open to Him, through the day, I am given the answers and help that help me grow, often through the blessings of other people in my life.

I have taken poor counsel from others at times in the past.  When I realized the counsel did not serve me well, I was angry.  Under the anger was hurt.  I have reacted to or been pulled along by the plans and ideas of others, rather than purposefully acting in accordance with my own heart, and what I know God wants me to do.  I am learning that God will answer me, in all things, if I ask with real intent.

So today I choose to get smarter.  I choose to act in accordance with God's will for me.  I choose to be true to myself.  I put my trust in God.  I trust God to tell me when and who else to trust. 

I am a mother who knows what I celebrate. Part 4

I celebrate Jesus Christ.  

This year for Christmas, I want our family's celebrations to teach of Christ.  Here is my vision.

The day after Thanksgiving, my children were excited to decorate for Christmas.  So we pulled up our two totes of decorations.  As we carefully consider what to put out we discuss how it reminds of Christ.  
Most of our decorations are nativities.  One for each room.  A couple that the young children can play with.  We put away the regular toy basket to make a place for the Christ Child.  Janey, 1 year, has loved wrapping up our baby boy doll and putting him in the manger.  "Jesus" is one of about 5 words in her vocabulary.
Lights on the front porch symbolize that Christ is the light of the world.

We hung stockings on the mantle, sharing the story of Saint Nicolas throwing money through the window of a poor family, and it landing in a stocking. His desire to serve and live like Jesus is worth emulating.  We also talked about the Secret Santa that our ward does for needy families and how it is a chance for us to do what St. Nicolas did.
All the lights on our fake tree were dying last year, so we got rid of it.  We have never had a real tree before, but this year we made a switch.  We actually, opted for a living Christmas tree, that we will plant in the spring.  This fit well into our new found love of growing things.  The evergreen tree symbolizes everlasting life, given to us by our Savior.  
We decorated the tree with strung popcorn, we had just read about that in Man of the Family by Ralph Moody, and our children wanted to try it.  The white represents Christ's purity, and that we can be made clean through baptism and repentance.
We have a star on top to represent the new star that signified Christ's birth.
There is a red cloth draped under the tree, to signify the blood of Christ, that he shed in our behalf.

We sing and listen to Christmas carols in honor of the choir of heavenly hosts who announced Christ's birth to the shepherds.
Our read aloud stories this month are about Christmas.  We just finished A Christmas Carol, and I found much of Christ in it, and laughed at my own narrow-mindedness of the past.

We are teaching our children that Santa Clause, and all the wonderful stories and traditions that have evolved around him, come from those who want to live like the Savior and "sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me."  Luke 22:18.  In this light we are not asking for gifts, (i.e. lists for Santa) but focusing on what we can give.  If Santa visits, it is because there are good people in the world trying to live as Christ did.  We hope each of our children will become excited about doing the same.  

Our Christmas is simple this year.  I am choosing not to go to all the parties, not to spend much time at stores or pouring over catalogs and searching online.  I am thinking more of homemade gifts and service, or gifts that remind of  Jesus Christ: His gospel, His way of living, how we can become like Him, how we can prepare for Him to come again.

I really do want to celebrate the birth, life, mission, atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I  want to talk of Christ, rejoice in Christ, and write of Christ that my children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins, for healing from pain, for strength beyond their own, for guidance and truth, for happiness and hope.

I am a mother who knows her child is a blessing.

Yesterday was Cassidy's 11th Birthday.  We celebrated it today, due to family schedules.  She is a great blessing to me.  Cassidy has a strong inner drive, and has chosen on her own to use it for good. She is a girl who sets an early alarm because she wants to wake up.  Get's up and does her morning routine and chores, rarely needing to be asked.  She then helps me with her younger sisters, or breakfast, or jumps into her school work.  She doesn't complain when I ask for her help, just obeys.
We recently have had discussions on the importance of her asking for and communicating her needs and desires, because I fear her giving nature would cause her to not take care of herself, and in the end leave her less able to help others.  The smart girl, seems to have understood it.  She proactively wrote me a list of her desired meals for her birthday, before I asked her.  She also asked if she could have a day of no chores today instead of yesterday.  She used the time to engage in art, cooking, Google sketchup, music, and invited her siblings along as they were interested.  (Helping Mille paint is a labor of love.) I am grateful that she has been able to communicate and acknowledge her needs and desires.

She is my child that has taken up the slack for the times when I am depressed over the last few years. She is fully capable of cooking a meal - eggs, fish, chicken, soup, steamed veges, salads, casseroles - anything with a recipe.  She has dried batches of produce on her own, and helped me with canning. She has used every appliance and tool in our kitchen.  She has made bread, pies, cakes from scratch, and even played at her own recipes occasionally.  She can lead school, do babysitting - truly nurturing and engaging with her siblings, change a diaper, prepare a bottle, bathe children, put a baby to sleep, clean a house, or do laundry - not all at once, but who can?  I often refer to her as my secretary, as she will take care of paperwork, or online purchases for me.  When I am driving or have my hands full, she will send text messages or emails for me.

On her own, she loves to read - classics usually.  She loves writing - lately it has been poetry, drawing and painting, learning about plants and herbs, exploring and building outside, she has taken up violin this year and practices without my asking, and is progressing very well.  She can sew, and I think knows more proper methods and techniques than I do now, thanks to some amazing mentors in her Little Women's group.  I will forever be grateful to Michelle Mullis and Heather Poll for their influence on Cassidy and I.  She spends time designing on Google Sketch-up, or using photo editors, or searching for names on Family Search.  She has completed more than the required number of goals in Faith in God, and should have another year.  She has begun to love dressing up and getting pretty.

She knows she wants to learn a healing art.  It used to be doctor, then midwife, now she is not sure exactly what, but she stills desires to learn about and become better at healing.  She certainly has a gift of compassion and blessing others.

I could go on and on about what I learn from and admire in this child.  I love her, I am blessed to be her mother.  As she is showing so many signs of being ready for scholar phase, I am sad to lose my little girl, and in a selfish way, know I will certainly miss all of her help, but my heart sings, to see her growth and feel the peace that she is so well prepared.  She has a solid love of learning, understanding of right and wrong, good and bad, true and false, is humble enough to be very teachable.  I pray God will show her and us the right mentors and paths, that she can be prepared to be an instrument in his hands, to bring her own children, and others around her unto Christ.

I am a mother who knows what I celebrate. Part 3

Real growth always includes an element of struggle, difficulty, often pain.  I researched the origins of my childhood traditions.  I found lots of information, then I had to sort through it all to decide what is truth and what is the philosophies of men.  What is good, what is not so good.  We are to judge something as good or evil by its fruits, if it persuades me to come unto Christ, and serve him, it is good.  If it inviteth or enticeth to sin, it is evil.



St. Nicolas as we know him originated from several different customs of different countries.  St. Nicolas was born in the 3rd Century A.D.  His wealthy parents had raised him as a Christian. Orphaned as a young man, he followed the Savior's counsel to sell all that he had, and give the money to the poor. The story is told of a poor family with 3 daughters,  They were to poor to provide a dowry for the girls, and hardly had money for food. The daughters were destined to become slaves.  Nicolas heard of their situation.  On the eve of the day that the oldest daughter was to be sold in to slavery, she washed her stocking and hung them to dry on the mantle.  That night Nicolas came and threw in a bag of gold threw the window.  It landed in one of her stockings.  She was provided a dowry and saved from slavery.  As the other daughters grew and were to be sold, he repeated his tossing of gold threw the window.  Some stories have it land in a shoe.  Thus many countries have children leave out shoes.  There are many other stories of Nicolas kindness and giving, especially as a protector of children. St. Nicolas' feast day is December 6th, the day he died.  In Holland children leave out shoes and it is the Christ child who leaves money in their shoe.

December 25 and Saturnalia.   By modern revelation we know that Jesus was born on April 6th.  Roman, pagan celebrations of Saturnalia took place for a week starting Dec 17.  The solstice, December 21, was considered a birth of the sun, as it was the beginning of days getting longer.  There are lots of conflicting views as to how benevolent or evil the celebration of Saturnalia was.  Likewise there a conflicting theories as to weather December 25 was declared as Christmas because of a calendrical theory or decision, or as a means of Christians molding a pagan festival time to suit their own beliefs.  Most agree the on the latter.  It was about the 4th century that Christians began celebrating Christmas.   There is a good case that Saturnalia's customs have influenced our Christmas celebration.  Singing in the streets, gift giving, worshiping of trees, and bringing them in the house, and general merry-making and revelry were all part of Saturnalia.  At times one time Saturnalia included human sacrifice, which was later replaced with eating human-shaped biscuits or what we now call gingerbread men.

I remember a Relief Society activity in California, where a sister who loved languages and history, and was from Norway, taught us about the history of the Scandanavian traditions.  She told us there were pagan origins of a visiting man leaving gifts, and the families having to leave him a gift of food in exchange, that origanited before Christianity and St. Nicolas entered those countries.  But eventually the traditions mingled.

Santa Clause as we know him today, a jolly, rotund character in a red suit, driving a flying sleigh pulled by reindeer, coming down a chimney with a sack full of toys for children, is a collection of many different cultures adding on traditions that derive from both St. Nicolas, the Christmas story, and Saturnalia customs. The origins came from different European countries mixing the ideas of the two holidays. Most of these traditions were solidified in the early 1800s by the poem The Night Before Christmas and a  cartoon by Thomas Nast that illustrated it.  Elves were added to aid Santa Clause in the work of making toys for so many children.  All of this quickly evolved into commercialism.

I first found much information that was very negative, even dark and evil, about the pagan origins of many "Christmas" traditions.  It really upset and angered me. It felt like Christianity had given up Christ and adopted pagan and worldly traditions instead.  For a time I let my pendulum swing to one extreme, so that I wanted nothing to do with any tradition that appeared to have a pagan origin, or that was not obviously focused on Christ.  In my early days, even Scrooge and the Grinch seemed to have nothing to do with Christ. (I know, reader, you are either laughing or cringing at that.)  They were just stories about being kind, I was angered that they left out Christ.  In my passion, I tried to share these thoughts with my sisters.  They were not warmly received.  :-) The Lord was patient with me though, and continued to teach me.

A turning point was when I found an article that discussed a motive for this merging of the Pagan and Christian holidays.  There is evidence of the Catholic leadership wanting to create a celebration of Christ's birth at Saturnalia as a means of helping to convert pagans to Christianity.  Another idea presented was that in predominately pagan countries, the minority Christians were forced into the festivals as it was a time when no business could be done, so to make the best of it, they chose to place Christian meaning to it, and create their own purpose for celebrating.  Both of those reasons fit under "good."  I was trying to use Christ's words of "by their works ye shall know them; for if their works be good, then they are good also."  Moroni 7:5

In this world there are so many experiences that can be good or bad, depending on what we make of them.  We can't choose what others do, or the consequences of their choices, but we can choose what we do...