Uriah enjoys shutting himself in rooms. Back in October he had a traumatic door-related event. At the time he was only 18 months old, and could not open the door to let himself out. Well, on this particular Saturday while I was at a church activity, he went into our small laundry room and shut the door. Everything would have been fine if he had not then opened the drawer that is located inside the laundry room adjacent to the door. Once this drawer is open, you cannot open the door from the outside of the room. I took a picture from inside the laundry room to show what it looks like with the drawer open.

Uriah soon started crying because he wanted to come out. Rubin went to open the door and quickly saw the severity of the situation. He started calling to Uriah through the door, telling him to close the drawer.  Uriah would not close the drawer. He just cried and cried but did not see the simple solution!

When I got home from my activity, Uriah had been trapped for nearly one hour. Once he heard my voice, he started crying harder. It broke my heart! I put my fingers under the door and touched his fingers briefly. But when Uriah realized I was not rescuing him, he retreated to the far end of the laundry room and resumed crying. It was hard for me because I wanted at least to be able to touch him and give him some comfort, but he wouldn't come near me.

Rubin was doing everything he could to get Uriah out. Unfortunately the screws on the doorknob were on the same side as Uriah, so Rubin couldn't remove the doorknob. The hinges were inside the laudry room, so removing those pins was impossible. My husband was desperately pushing against the open drawer with a hanger that he snaked through the tiny crack in the slightly ajar door, but as he pushed the drawer closed, it simlutaneously closed the door. Finally Rubin got the idea to borrow a golf club from the neighbors. He slid the handle under the door, while holding onto the foot of the club (sorry to all the golfers out there if I am using the wrong golf club terminology!) and used the handle to hit the drawer. It took a long time to finally get the drawer all the way closed so we could open the door. But it worked and Uriah was saved!

Later I thought about the spiritual parallels of this experience. Sometimes we wonder why Heavenly Father does not just take our problems away and rescue us from difficult situations. We fail to see that we either created those situations, or that there are things we could do to ease our burdens, like closing a drawer. Also, God is always there to give us comfort during our trials. We should not withdraw from Him just because our trial is not being taken away. He is there to help us, if we will let Him.  And while it might not always be apparent, He is always helping us. More than we could ever know.

Anyway, I thought I should document this story before I forgot the details. It was funny because for weeks afterward Uriah was terrified of going into the laundry room! Lesson learned.

New Year's Resolutions

I know, it's been a long time. I almost gave up on this blog. But then I had a couple of people recently tell me they missed reading it (my mom may or may not have been one of those people). So here we go.

I made some New Year's resolutions in January. Here are several of them:

1. Run a 5K
2. Exercise more
3. Read less
4. Learn to crochet
5. Write in the blog
6. Finish 4 quilting projects
7. Go to the temple every month
8. Read the Book of Mormon as a family

Luckily I am ridiculously awesome at making and keeping goals. Here's how I'm doing so far:

1. Running a 5K in the winter is just crazy. I'll wait until spring ... or summer ... or possibly the fall.

2. I exercised every day for 2 whole weeks in January. I think we can all agree that's nothing to sneer at. And it's more than I exercised all last year. Check!

3. This one might sound a little strange, but I was definitely reading too much in 2012. I read 44 books, which, let's be honest, is pretty great. But I found I was getting a little too consumed by it. I would read rather than clean, play with the kids, interact with my husband, make dinner, etc. Also, I hardly quilted at all last year. I think I finished only one quilt! ONE! *gasp* It was ridiculous. The amount of reading has to be reined in so I can actually get things done! I have already let several books expire that I had on hold at the library (it hurt a little).

4. I learned to crochet last month, though I'm painfully slow at it.

This will eventually be a small crocheted quilt.

5. So I was a little less on top of this resolution, but I just renewed it today. That's right, I can renew resolutions at the end of February.

6. I am almost done with a quilt I started in the middle of January. It's a truck/tractor quilt (from a Buggy Barn book) for Uriah's 2nd birthday (which is in a month!). I love this quilt! Two years ago I made one each for RJ and Graham. Luckily I bought extra fabric when I made theirs so I was able to have Uriah's look the same. I'm excited to see it finished! Here's one of the quilt blocks. I will post a picture of the finished quilt soon.

7. As far as the temple, we made it in January and we are scheduled to go Thursday (so what if Thursday is the last day of February, it still counts!)

8. Finally, as a family we are in the middle of 2 Nephi. Right on track!

I think 2013 is going to be a great year! (Rubin is going to point out to me that 2013 is 1/6 of the way over already, but I don't care!)