Brindle Brittany: Beguiling Boxer

In late 1995, I had neck surgery and then we decided to move from Boise, Idaho, and build a new home on five acres in Eagle, just a few miles from Boise. Since the surgical operation and the building project weren’t adding quite enough stress to our lives, we decided to increase the size of the family by one and the amount of stress exponentially. Yes, we really got a second dog, and a large one at that. Actually, Jonathan is the one who really wanted another canine and even paid for half the initial cost so it would be his. He wanted a “big” dog that could romp around with him on the property and protect him from any possible bullies. Twinkie, our miniature poodle, was, well, just a Twinkie, at eleven pounds.

After looking at and researching several different breeds, Jonathan decided on a boxer, since TerriLu and I would not even consider his first choice—a two-hundred-pound Mastiff. After checking the classifieds, we looked at several fawn-colored (i.e. light brown) boxer pups and one brindle (i.e. dark brown with black sort of stripes like tiger-eye). Jonathan and the rest of the family fell in love with the brindle pup. They even liked the name for the color of the boxer, and that’s what Jonathan decided to name his puppy: “Brindle” Brittany.

On October 5^th, 1995, the family picked up Brindle. Jonathan was really good to let everyone hold her in the car but he did reserve time at home to be alone with his new puppy so they could bond.

As much as we loved Twinkie, Brindle was our favorite. In spite of her incessant intractable activities, her antics were fraught with jocular, whimsical moments of mirth.  For example,…

As a puppy, Brindle had to be rocked to sleep because her breeders had planned on keeping her because she was so cute so the children constantly held her and rocked her. And we had to rock her to sleep before putting her in her bed at night.

Then to keep track of her location at all times and what she was up to, we placed a bell on her collar that gave a pretty good indication of location and activities such as digging potting soil out of pots or chewing on books or on chairs.

Puppy Brindle with Twinkie

Twinkie and Brindle got along great from the start – some of the time. When Brindle joined the family as a puppy, Twinkie wasn’t sure what to think of this rambunctious creature that always wanted to romp and play the way Brindle played with her littermates. In the beginning, Twinkie wasn’t sure if it was okay to fight back because she had once gotten in big trouble from me, the Dad and alpha dog of the pack, for nipping at William in self-defense. She learned that you don’t nip at any pack member even when the nipping is deserved.

Twinkie remembered that reprimand and she was reluctant to defend herself from this spirited, young pup being foisted upon her. She looked at us and asked skeptically, “Is it really okay to fight back?” With lots of encouragement from the fellow pack members (a.k.a. Mom, Dad, Melissa, Michael, Jonathan, and even four-year-old William), Twinkie stood her ground and then began playfully fighting back. It wasn’t long before Twinkie and Brindle were playing rough like puppies do and loving it. At first, Twinkie could knock Brindle down and hold her down by the throat in play but also to demonstrate who was more dominant. When we brought Brindle home, Twinkie was a bit bigger, and, more importantly, Twinkie had the definite advantage with dexterity and agility.

When Twinkie was tired of Brindle’s inexorable roughhousing, she would hop up on a couch. Lacking the coordination, Brindle couldn’t jump up so Twinkie was “safe” for the moment. Occasionally, Brindle had enough of Twinkie with her quick attacks so she took refuge under the couch where Twinkie was too big to fit.

With four months of intense Pilates training, meticulous aerobic exercise, and lots of food, Brindle weighed in at a bantam weight division of twenty-five pounds, more than twice Twinkie’s flyweight size at eleven pounds. Brindle only went down on her back when she felt like it. She was as quick and as nimble as Twinkie and didn’t need a couch to hide under – besides she no longer fit anyway. To Twinkie, Brindle was nearing the size of a couch or at least a loveseat and was too big to be pushed around. Within a year, Brindle was a burgeoning, bulging, muscle-bound, sixty-pound in the behemoth weight classification.

One day TerriLu took Brindle to the veterinarian for her shots (Brindle’s shots not TerriLu’s). By coincidence, one of Brindle’s actual littermates was getting his shots at the same vet at the same time. The other customers, mostly little, old ladies, sat nervously with their well-mannered, delicate, tea-cup sized dogs on their laps, as these two rough-and-tumble boxer pups rambunctiously romped and barked and growled and sparred and wrestled and boxed each other all over the waiting room, with Brindle much more the aggressor.

Twinkie and Brindle on Stairs

Twinkie and Brindle had starkly contrasting personalities. Twinkie was this dainty, fastidious little thing that pranced around with a “tink tink tink tink” like a little ballerina. Brindle, on the other hand, was this rough, tough moose of an animal that clomped around with a “thud thud thud thud” like a…well, like a sixty-pound boxer – with bulging, bloodshot eyes, oodles of drools, and an apathetic attitude to almost everything, except other dogs. In spite of Brindle’s distinct size advantage, she never really thought of herself as being bigger than Twinkie. She got down at Twinkie’s level to play by getting on her belly or back. She let Twinkie win at all their games. She let Twinkie chase her. She let Twinkie eat first. Brindle showed respect for Twinkie in just about everything…

…But when it came to going out the front door, especially to get in the car, she climbed right over Twinkie and didn’t even notice when Twinkie got squished between her clodhopper-sized toes, with Twinkie nearly disappearing from sight entirely like a smashed marshmallow.

One time when we were about to leave our cabin to come home, the car doors were all shut but the trunk was open. Brindle could tell we were getting ready to leave so not wanting to be left behind, she ran around the car five or six times looking for an open door. Finding none, she hopped into the trunk and sat there ready to drive home. We looked at her like, “What’s wrong with you, Dog?”and she replied, “Look, I’m not taking any chances on getting left behind, okay.” Even once we started opening the car doors and loading the car and loading the trunk, Brindle stayed perched in her position until we made her get out so we could finish loading the trunk.

Brindle never quite learned how to associate with other dogs. While driving down the mountain from the cabin one evening, Brindle saw a dog outside on the road. She went ballistic and started clawing at the window with the hackles on her neck standing on end and hair shedding and filling the air like a dust bomb had exploded. After that hair-raising incident we learned to yell “Dog Alert!” if we saw a dog on the side of the road. Then the closest person to Brindle simply covered her eyes until we passed the danger point. She never quite figured out what we were up to – she just thought we were playing a game called “Dog Alert” and so she went along with it because as you will see later, “Any game is better than no game at all,” to quote Brindle directly.

One day a nice gentleman from the neighborhood was jogging with his Golden Retriever. Somehow Brindle broke through the screen door and in 1.2 seconds, crossed the yard, the sidewalk, and the street, and had the dog pinned on its back with her jaws around the dog’s throat demonstrating with no question who was top dog. It was kind of obvious when she kept yelling, “I’m the top dog! I’m the top dog! I’m the top dog!” TerriLu quickly darted out and did her best to apologize as she also tried to wrestle and drag Brindle away from the poor Golden Retriever who was unhurt, except for perhaps her ego.

Needless to say, while Brindle was wonderful around humans, she never quite mastered the right social skills around other dogs – it was simply attack, attack, attack. Far from mastering, she never even learned the basics skills of dealing with other dogs, like just sniffing rear ends. Why couldn’t she just sniff butts like a normal dog? Mainly, because no one in the family was willing to teach her that particular social skill.

Since she thought of herself as a human in a family pack, Brindle felt that every “real” dog was a threat to our pack. Once a neighbor was playing with his dog in his front yard. Brindle somehow got out and went right next to the man and barked at the other dog – she went to rescue and protect the man from his own pet.

Twinkie, being delicate, light, and non-shedding, was allowed up on couches, recliners, and beds. Brindle, being a shedding machine roughly the size of a quarter horse, was not allowed on any furniture except Jonathan’s bed and on one specific couch on one cushion wrapped with her doggy blanket.

Snoozing Together on the Couch

In the early years, Twinkie would jump up on a couch, usually to escape from Brindle who didn’t know when to quit playing. When Brindle would start to jump up too, TerriLu would say, “No Brindle! Stay down!” And then Brindle would get that sad look in her bloodshot eyes. “But, Mom, <sniff>, how come you let Twinkie on the couch?” So TerriLu would opine about dog size and toenails and shedding and smelly couches and replacing furniture before its time. Then Brindle would look up again with even more heartrending, bulging puppy-dog eyes. “But, Mom, <sniff-sniff>, don’t you love me, too?” So TerriLu would lug Brindle up and cuddle this massive creature on her lap because, technically, Brindle was not on the couch—she was on TerriLu’s lap. And besides, she was being well supervised.

Interestingly, Twinkie was not a lap dog – she preferred snuggling right next to you on the couch. Brindle, on the other hand, loved to be held on your lap, probably as a carryover from her puppy days when she was held all the time. Sitting on your lap basically meant stretching out across your upper thighs so that the center third of Brindle was on your upper legs, her head-end third sagged on your left side and her hind-end third drooped on your right side on the couch. Brindle was just a big, lovable cuddler.

Twinkie La Belle: Poodle Extraordinaire

For most of 1992 the kids pestered my wife, TerriLu, and me to get a dog. They promised to feed and care for it and even cheerfully clean up the messes. Yeah, right…for a week, tops. In an attempt to placate them and even dissuade them, we took the kids to see the movie Beethoven about the rather obstreperous Saint Bernard who nearly destroyed the family home. Unfortunately, the movie only served to fuel the fire as the kids thought that Beethoven was the perfect pet.

Of course, you’re thinking that the kids wore us down with their constant pressure, and TerriLu and I finally succumbed. No way. We were in complete control in making the decision to get a dog. We had actually been talking for some time about finding a reason to steam-clean the carpets on a weekly basis. We also noticed that the couch and recliners had not been wearing out fast enough to be replaced with the latest styles. And then we were feeling sorry for Dr. Betts with all those veterinary school loans—we just felt we should help him out somehow. And last, but not least, we thought it would be rather exciting to have a new addition to the family without TerriLu having to go through nine months of pregnancy and then hours of labor and without me having to worry about future orthodontist and college costs.

What really pushed things over the edge was a visit from my brother, Dave, and our sister-in-law, Diann. When the conversation moved to pets, Dave mentioned his feeling that every child deserved to have someone who never gets mad at you, who always has time for you, and who lets you vent all your frustrations without ever passing judgment. I humbly suggested that I filled those roles quite well, and after the kids’ guffaws subsided, the family members decided they were in dire need of a dog.

Thus began the search for the perfect puppy. Jonathan, age 8, wanted the toughest watchdog available, which based on his research, was a Doberman Pincer. We checked out a ninety-five pound mama Doberman with $1,200 puppies and decided that ninety-five pounds of any non-human creature was seventy pounds too heavy for indoors and $800 too pricey for purchase. We were looking for a nice Toyota, not a Lexus.

Michael, age 10, favored a Bichon Frise because it would remain cute and cuddly, but after further investigation we concluded that the fragile bones might not survive the rambunctious Ross kids.

Melissa, age 12, begged for a Labrador retriever because it could fetch, it had a golden yellow coat, and she could take it duck hunting. Well, okay, not duck hunting. Melissa also suggested getting a Bulldog just so she could name it Meathead.

We wanted something fairly small so it wouldn’t eat the house, figuratively and literally (i.e. nothing over one hundred pounds and preferably nothing over twenty-five pounds). We also wanted a bit of a watch dog that would bark to warn of intruders but not bark because a car door down the street got slammed shut (e.g. Fox Terrier strung out on caffeine). We wanted something playful with some energy but nothing so wired it would wear paths in the carpet from pacing back and forth (e.g. Beagle on meth). We also did not want a languid slug of a dog where you could burn down the house around the dog and it wouldn’t even notice, other than being immolated in the process (e.g. Basset Hound on Xanax, Valium, and Prosac). We wanted a dog that was fairly easy to train, easy to housebreak, and wouldn’t snap at children.

So we considered the Miniature Schnauzer (sorry, too yappy and snappy), the Australian Shepherd (sorry, still too big and sheds too much), the Welsh Corgi (sorry, too long), and the Australian Cattle Dog (sorry, too homely) before settling on a cream-colored miniature poodle (ugly only when groomed with balls on the ankles, back, and head).

Twinkie with a Bad Haircut

We first visited the prospective poodle puppy on Halloween afternoon and that night after trick-or-treating, we brought home Twinkie, a seven-week old miniature French poodle. Yes, it sounds like a ridiculous name for a canine but she was a cream color as a puppy and looked much like a Hostess Twinkie with four little legs sans the cream filling. Twinkie didn’t complain about the inane name, but then again, she couldn’t talk yet at seven weeks.

The kids even discussed naming her Hostess Twinkie on her AKC papers until William, age 4, who was studying trademark infringements in his law classes, pointed out that Mom and Dad could lose the house if the Hostess Company filed a lawsuit and won. So they settled on an appropriate name for a female dog of French descent: Twinkie La Belle.

Within four days of bringing Twinkie home, we had a light blue leash with a matching collar, a dark-blue harness with a matching sixteen-foot retractable leash, a training collar, a dog kennel with a soft, cedar-chip-filled pillow pad, three chew toys, an extra-gentle wire brush, a fine-tooth flea comb, a three-month puppy package at the veterinarian, a bottle of special pH-balanced dog shampoo, and a second mortgage on the house.

It took only three months to make the first emergency trip to Dr. Betts, the veterinarian. I had inadvertently left a fifteen pound dumbbell weight on a small bookshelf in the boys’ room and William happened to be standing next to the bookshelf when Twinkie trotted by. Because he was studying animal-reaction times in his zoology class, William decided to shove the weight off the bookshelf, just to see how Twinkie would respond when it hit the floor. When the dumbbell crushed her foot, she yelped and yelped, “Oh, he broke my foot. He broke my foot.” I panicked, when I thought of the veterinarian bills, and yelled, “Oh, he broke her foot. He broke her foot!” TerriLu started crying as she held her injured baby and reassured her, “It’s okay, Sweetie. We’ll get you to the vet. Poor baby.” And William, when he saw his yelping dog, his yelling dad, and his crying mom, started laughing, and, of course, he took detailed notes for his parent psychology class. Six hours, two x-rays, and $83 later, Dr. Betts determined that the weight pushed the tiny foot down into the carpet and no permanent damage occurred, except to TerriLu’s nerves.

During the move from Seattle back to Boise, TerriLu placed many of the family photographs on the floor directly below where she planned to hang them on the wall. The pictures were a little confusing to Twinkie who sniffed at the photos of her master and asked, “How did he get so small, so cold, so boring, and so lifeless?” Surprisingly, a lot of people have made the same observations about me.

In the process of selecting the perfect puppy, we received quite a bit of advice. One breeder wisely advised, “Just pretend you have a ‘toddler’ in the house for the next year. She’ll have accidents and get into things you don’t want her into. Plan on keeping up with the maturity and disposition of an energetic two-year-old child and you won’t be as frustrated and you won’t go as crazy.”

That advice has proven to be a great pearl of wisdom.

Panhypopituitarism and Self-Reliance

(This is a slightly modified talk I gave at church a few years ago…)

In 1997 we just finished building our dream home on five acres. We then took three years to put in an acre of lawn and landscaping with pavers, sprinkler systems, and much more. It took all of our vacation time and all of our discretional income just to grow it and maintain it.

After living in our dream home for a while, within a few days of each other, TerriLu and I independently had the strongest impression that we needed to sell our dream home and downsize. The spiritual prompting was so powerful that we never questioned it.

Three years after building our dream house, we moved out. Our square footage dropped in half, our five acres dropped to a fourth of an acre, but most importantly our house payment dropped by more than one half and became a very comfortable and small percentage of our income and it was on a fifteen-year loan instead of thirty.

With what was coming ahead of us, we never would have survived if we had still been in our dream home. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, it was the headlight of an oncoming train.

Joseph in Egypt told Pharaoh there would be exactly seven years of plenty and then exactly seven years of famine (Gen. 41:1-45). We had no warning that we would have three years of plenty and so far eight years of famine with a lifetime of famine ahead of us. These days, we don’t have our own personal “Joseph” to tell us exactly when our personal or family years of plenty will start and end and when our personal or family famine will start and end. We do have prophets who have spoken on a broad level that these are turbulent times and we need to prepare in many ways to be more Self-Reliant.

The prophets speak to and warn the church collectively and generally, but it is usually a spiritual prompting that addresses anything at the individual or family level. These promptings do not usually come with all the details about what will happen—they usually just prompt you to do something. We had no detailed warning that years of famine were just around the corner, but the prompting gave us three years to prepare—for what, we didn’t know. We just followed the promptings.

So what happened in 2002? My pituitary gland stopped functioning. That sounds fairly benign, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s just a small hormone gland carefully protected in the center of the head. How big of a problem could that be, right?

Actually, it’s a very big problem. It’s called panhypopituitarism meaning complete loss of function of the pituitary gland. It is quite rare—statistically based on the Treasure Valley population there should be 3½ people with panhypopituitarism. I haven’t met any of the others but I would actually like to meet the half person. Actually, I might be the half person…

The pituitary gland is called the “master” gland because it pretty much tells all the major hormone glands in the body what to do and when to do it.

That may not sound like much, but when your pituitary gland shuts down, your entire endocrine system or hormone system pretty much shuts down. When that happens, a boatload of awful symptoms strike the body. These symptoms taken individually wouldn’t be too bad, but together they are devastating. They include fatigue, hot flashes, weakness, muscle spasms, muscle pain, muscle loss, joint pain, joint stiffness, flu-like symptoms, body aches, cold sweats, night sweats, weight gain, dizziness, depression, intolerance to cold, mood swings, loss of body hair, decreased taste and smell, nausea, slow speech, shortened stature, drowsiness, to name about half. Imagine your worst day you have ever had with the flu or other sickness, multiply that times ten, and that’s a good day for someone with a dead pituitary gland and it goes on 24×7. Some days you feel liking dying and you would if the Lord were taking volunteers. It feels like an out-of-body experience: you’re in some strange body and nothing works right. Hormones are not only vital to have a properly functioning body, but they are also crucial to staying alive.

Needless to say, I have tremendous sympathy and empathy for women and all the hormone adjustments they deal with in life.

I have had panhypopituitarism since 2002  and most likely will have it for life. It took almost a year for the doctors to figure it out. And when they did, we began the long, tedious process of trying to bring my hormones back up to approximate appropriate levels without upsetting the body too quickly.

A critical hormone is the corticosteroid secreted by the adrenal glands that sit atop the kidneys. One thing the corticosteroids do is help your body deal with stress, whether it is physical, mental, or emotional stress. In a normal body under stress, the adrenal glands release the right amount of the steroids into the body at just the right time. In my case I take a tablet in the morning to hopefully hit an average amount for the day. Then my body doesn’t deal well with any extra physical, mental, or emotional stress during the day because my adrenals aren’t producing corticosteroids during stressful periods.

With severe stress on the body, such as in a car crash or during surgery, the doctors must load me up with corticosteroids, or I will likely die on the table, not from the crash or the surgery but because my body can’t deal with the stress without massive amounts of corticosteroids.

The disease has impacted other areas of my body, including the bones and joints. Working in harmony with my degenerative-disc disease, the disease has nearly crushed my low back. I had one back surgery with six laminectomies and a second back surgery to fuse three vertebrae together with metal and bone and I think some duct tape and chicken wire. A second back surgery fused a couple more discs. I also have a nerve stimulator implant in my low back which is like sitting constantly on an electric fence.

Then they found I have sleep apnea. Then I had gallbladder surgery and a pesky parasite in my stomach that Dr. Livingston blasted away with the heavy-duty medications. I also suffer from forgetfulness—I can’t remember what I’ve told someone already. I also suffer from forgetfulness—I can’t remember what I’ve told someone already. I also have developed mental lapses, exhaustion, gastritis, high-blood pressure, and Schaumburg Disease which is poor circulation in the legs.

So today that’s who and what I am medically, physically, emotionally, and mentally, but at least not spiritually.

In the beginning I was too weak and exhausted to even make it to church. The rumor was that I was inactive and on drugs, which is in fact a fairly accurate description. As I slowly got better, I started coming to Sacrament meeting only, where I could hold up for an hour and fifteen minutes. As I got stronger I stayed longer.

Today I’m fairly stable. The problems are still all there—but many of the symptoms have stabilized.

I have my very own miniature pharmacy at home as every day I take fourteen different prescription medications plus a pile of vitamins:

At four prescribed times of the day I swallow a handful of pills. I have so many prescriptions that everybody at the Albertson’s pharmacy knows me by my first and last name. Before changing all my meds to a mail-order pharmacy, I think I was their single biggest customer. They even recognize my voice on the phone. That’s a bad sign when the entire pharmacy staff knows you that well.

I have one frustration. Because I’m not wearing a cast and I don’t have any visible scars and I don’t have crutches or a walker or wheelchair or anything, people don’t understand that I have these very horrible things going on inside of me, chemically, mentally, and emotionally. I only have energy to put up a good front at this intensity for so long and then I go home and crash. People usually look at me and think, “Well, he looks okay to me. He can’t be that bad off.”

I know I look okay. In fact, I should point out that I am really handsome. And I have to point out my handsomeness because if I don’t, nobody seems to notice. Even when I do point it out they still say, “Well, um, sorry, I just don’t see it.” The only people who do actually see how handsome I am are my wife, those at least one hundred yards away, and those who up close are not wearing their glasses. So just remove your eye glasses and you’ll see how much better looking I am.

I’ve shared my recent medical history, not looking for sympathy, but to give you a clear picture of our last eight years and how they relate to Self-Reliance. In just being here, I serve as my own visual aid.

Some of you may wonder how I can speak so openly about these things.  I tell you, any pride on my part was vaporized in the explosion when the hormones blew up. Also, I am speaking of these things because they are real and they could happen to you and your family. Are you prepared?

Eight years ago I think we thought that we were living all the principles of Self-Reliance and Provident Living. In fact, if you had asked shortly before the illness hit, we would have said, “Yes, we are all set. We are well prepared.” And we were in many ways. However, we could have been a lot more prepared for this affliction affecting my health and my employment!

I was placed on full medical disability which dropped our income by 25%. How grateful we are that we paid those disability insurance premiums or we would have had nothing. At the same time our out-of-pocket medical bills escalated quickly to an average of just under $25,000 per year for eight years now. Just my co-pay on all those prescriptions is around $5,000 a year.

So how did we cope with all this? At first, not very well. All of these things hit so hard and so fast and with such deadly accuracy at all the key stressors physically, mentally, chemically, and emotionally, that we didn’t cope very well. At first I was so sick and weak and exhausted that I couldn’t do anything except get in the car and go to doctor appointments and for medical tests.

Employment: I worked at HP for twenty-one years. I expected to work forty years for HP.

An unexpected and unplanned illness got in the way of that goal. I first went on disability for six months and HP promised me the same or similar job when I came back. Well, when I returned, they couldn’t find the same or a similar job so they put me in a really different job and with my disability, for the first time in my career, I failed miserably.

Eight months into the failing job I was put back on fulltime disability. A year later I got a nice letter from the company saying they were terminating their association with me, taking my name off the database, and in fact did not guarantee any job whatsoever, if and when I might return to work. …Oh, and have a nice day.

Resource Management: How did we cope with the financial side of things? Well, we managed our resources by burning right through them. We used our savings. We sold all of our stock. We refinanced the house. And we borrowed $32,000 on a loan out of our retirement. We sold my nice four-wheel drive truck and I started driving the old teenage clunker, a giant Ford LTD Crown Victoria that was approximately the size and weight of a barge. But it ran better than I did, and it was more reliable and dependable than I was—at one point the family considered trading me in for a second one.

We also sold the motorcycles. TerriLu got a job. We stopped eating at restaurants, and I love Italian, and Mexican, and Chinese food, and pizza. We even stopped going to fast-food places which I also really love. We stopped buying junk food with no nutritional value, and I love junk food with no nutritional value. It’s one of my leading qualities.

Once when TerriLu was sick I had to do the grocery shopping. When I got all my groceries on the conveyer belt, the checker said, “Having a party?” With a confused look on my face, I asked, “No, I’m buying groceries. Why do you think that?” And the checker slowly looked over at the potato chips, nachos, Fritos, refried-bean dip, soda pop, ice cream, chocolate sauce, hot fudge, butterscotch, caramel, peanuts, popcorn, and red licorice vines, and said, “Uh, no reason.” And TerriLu responded the same way when I got home. So I’m not allowed to do any grocery shopping anymore, unless under the direct supervision of a mature adult.

In addition to nixing the junk food, we also stopped all entertainment that cost money: No going out to movies, no “going-out” on date nights, no vacations, no Lagoon, no Boondocks, no Po-Jo’s, no hockey games… nadda, nothing, zilch, zip. We pretty much cleared out all the fun. And we started living on Food Storage which is also not fun. The most fun we had was watching my legs twitch from the nerve damage in my back.

Speaking of Food Storage and Emergency Preparedness: Are you spending on unnecessary luxury items when you could be building up food storage? Are you spending on necessary items, like a car parked nicely in the garage but only the model with all the bells and whistles. Instead you could be converting at least the bells and whistles into wheat and beans stored nicely in the garage. How prepared are you for a small local emergency, or for a large personal or family emergency?

For eight years my wife has lived with and cared for a living, breathing medical nightmare. For a long time we had many doctor appointments every week. One week we had eleven appointments —usually it was six to eight. I couldn’t drive so TerriLu had to haul me around everywhere to doctors and to do blood tests and MRIs and x-rays and CT scans and to get giant needles stuck in my back and arms and other tests.

In the beginning when my body had more estrogen than testosterone, TerriLu would often find me sobbing, on the floor, under the desk, in a fetal position. She has truly been an angel with tremendous patience. I cannot say enough about her endurance and her love and her compassion through everything.

Men, I would ask you, “Are you as caring and kind and patient as you could be when your wife’s hormones are out of whack, whether it is due to pregnancy, PMS, periods, menopause, or anything else.” If you are not, you better learn to be. Since my Machoectomy, that is, losing my hormones, I have much greater empathy for the ups and downs of women’s hormones.

Someone asked us how this has affected us spiritually. We feel so blessed. Nothing important has changed for the worse. So what if we have a smaller house instead of a dream home. So what if we have a reduced income that will not increase with inflation. So what if I don’t drive a 4×4 pickup? So what if I don’t have the gymnast physique and health I had in high school. So what if in this life I’ll never be healthier than 75%? So what if my body is a decade or more older than my actual age. So what if we only have a fourth of an acre to take care of—wait, that’s actually a plus.

And of course, I still have my good looks—and some of you still haven’t taken off your glasses so you can see for yourself.

I testify that none of those things matter in the least degree. A few years ago I held my father’s hand as he passed away and the year before I held my mother’s hand as she passed away. I’m here to say, they took nothing of this world with them—not their house, not their cars, not their retirement, nadda, nothing, zilch, zip. Near the end, nothing in this world really mattered to them — it’s really just stuff anyway.

And if waiting for us are worlds without number, can anything of this world really matter?

My parents may not have taken anything of this world with them, but they had plenty of things already there waiting for them. It’s all the treasures in heaven they were building throughout their lives on earth, and oh, they built a lot of those treasures by loving and caring for, and helping others, through selfless service over many years.

What really matters, we still have. We still have kept all our covenants. We still are temple worthy. We still have our testimonies and in fact, they are even stronger because we have had to rely more on the Lord and that brings us closer to Him. We are still on the strait and narrow way and we’re still headed in the right direction. Even though my parents are gone, I am still sealed to them, and we feel them close from time to time. We still have our family, and whoa, twelve grandchildren!!!

Someone said that grandchildren are God’s gift for getting old. Someone else said, “The reason grandchildren and grandparents make such great allies, is because they share a common enemy.” I am so grateful that that is not the case in our family. We love are children just as much as the grandchildren – we just don’t spoil our children as much. My favorite bumper sticker is: If Mom OR Dad says No, Call 1-800-GRANDMA.

For the most part we have just learned to live life a little differently. It’s amazing what Self-Reliance adjustments we can endure when we have to. Over the last eight years we have actually learned to live happily with those adjustments.

So why have I told you all this? It’s not for your sympathy. It’s not because we’ve handled all these trials perfectly or that we are the poster-family for Self-Reliance. We are not!

I’ve shared this because it’s real and it could happen to you. It really could. We never expected it. We took both my health and my employment for granted. I had perfect health for forty-four years and always did great in any job. I had been a gymnast in high school, an athlete, I was healthy and strong. I could walk on my hands across the gymnasium floor — which always comes in handy when you have muddy shoes and a clean carpet. Obviously, from my “enhanced” girth I’m no longer an athlete…but I may still qualify on a technicality: I am on steroids, as I already mentioned.

In twenty-one years at Hewlett-Packard I was rarely too sick to work, or if I was sick, I worked right through it. I only missed work when I was recovering from surgeries and one time with bronchitis and the doctor made me stay home to recover. I had boundless energy to complete any project. I worked all nighters. I traveled all over North America and Europe.

And suddenly that all changed—it came to a grinding, screeching halt. I couldn’t do any of it. I could barely make toast in the morning without crying.

And so I ask, “Are you ready, just in case something happens to your health or to your employment or both?”

Are you applying the principles of the Self-Reliance now so you are ready then? When the hurricane hits, it’s a little late to board up the windows.

Provident Living is not just having several barrels of wheat in your garage and a 72-hour kit containing a spare T-shirt with a couple of granola bars. I’m asking much more than that…

I’m asking: Are you living on less than you earn, or do you spend everything you earn and borrow more? Do you have savings equal to six months’ pay? Do you have resources to draw from, such as investments, stock, real estate, and more?

Is your house payment considerably lower than the limits allowed by banks or are you maxed out? Are your cars completely paid for or do you have large loans on luxury vehicles? Do you have money for fun that could actually pay off those school loans sooner? Do you pay your credit cards in full each month or is there a balance carried over? Have you gotten a second mortgage to buy expensive toys or to go on a nice vacation? Do you have a supply of food to feed your entire family for a year? For that matter, can you make anything with plain, raw wheat? More precisely, can you make anything with wheat that your family can and will actually eat? It’s kind of late to build the ark when the rain starts falling.

If you have all of the above in place and under control with plenty of cushion, that is wonderful and I am thrilled for you. But if you are not so safe and don’t have much cushion, then you may need to think more about Self-Reliance and Provident Living principles.

Do you feel at all overextended? Do you feel pressure at work or at home? Are you stressed out? If you are stressed out, at least you now know from our inspired discussion on the adrenal glands that they release natural corticosteroids to help you deal with the stress…but the corticosteroids won’t pay the bills. And the bills may be causing much of the stress you feel.

Even in our downsized condition, we still haven’t completely made it. We are still working through many things. But by following those original spiritual promptings, we at least have our heads above water, still in the rapids, on some days, of course, but above water.

In a conference talk in October 2004, Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin said, “We should end our fixation on wealth. It is only a means to an end, which end should ultimately be the building up of the kingdom of God. I feel that some are so concerned about the type of car they drive, the expensive clothes they wear, or the size of their house in comparison to others that they lose sight of the weightier matters.⁸ We must be careful in our daily lives that we do not allow the things of this world to take precedence over spiritual things.” (Joseph B. Wirthlin, Oct Conf 2004)

This venerable apostle is not saying it is bad or evil to be wealthy. He is just saying we need to have our priorities straight, and not be so focused on worldly things that we miss the more important spiritual things. And we need to be prepared to give it all up to the Lord, if required, unlike the rich man who approached the Savior and asked what he needed to do to enter the kingdom. The Savior recited several commandments and the man said, “All these things have I done from my youth up.” And the Savior said, “Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.” (Luke 18:18-25, Mark 10:25).

Now, the Lord is not asking us to give it all away. But that’s a good question to ponder, “Would you, if the Lord or his prophet asked you to? Could you part with some things that you really, really like?” When my parents passed on, they left everything behind.

At a leadership training meeting in 2003, President Hinckley said, “We are living in difficult times…. We do not know what is just over the horizon. We do not know what the economy is going to do…. There is a great deal of unemployment…. I see a great imprudence on the part of so many of our people, saddling themselves with debt, homes that are costly, automobiles that have to have all the bells and whistles….and credit card debt…. I don’t what to cry calamity. I want to speak of wisdom and restraint and discipline and…encourage our people to be modest in their expenditures.” (President Gordon B. Hinckley, from leadership training meeting, Spanish Fork Utah Regional Conference, February 15, 2003, Church News, week ending May 7, 2005, page 2).

The easiest financial plan I know of is: Starting at the earliest age, preferably by 25 and continuing until retirement, put 10% into tithing, 10% into retirement, 10% into savings, a percentage into fast offerings, temple building, missionary work, humanitarian, and Perpetual Education. And then you can just about blow the rest on taxes, big homes, fancy cars, nice vacations, and anything you want. You will become wealthy!

And if you want to build up extra treasures in heaven with some of your wealth on earth, increase the extra percentage to the Lord’s kingdom on earth and find ways in the world to bless those who are less fortunate.

I am not here to judge you, I am not here to condemn you, and I am not saying that we have done anything extraordinary or special—we have not. We are just hanging in there.

I am here simply to raise your awareness of the combined voice of the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve, the Presiding Bishopric, and the General Relief Society presidency, as outlined in the Church Provident Living principles. These are the words of prophets, seers, and revelators to all of us, generally as a people and as followers of Jesus Christ. Now, individually and with the Lord’s help in serious prayer, you must judge yourself and see where you fit in the Lord’s plan for Self-Reliance for our times.

Maybe everyone here is totally, precisely, exactly in perfect financial shape and your Provident Living situation is in perfect order. Wonderful! Then you really didn’t have to listen to all this, other than getting an insightful overview on the endocrine system.

If you are in that perfect financial condition, you can still benefit by prayerfully considering the other areas of Provident Living and also by teaching the principles to your children, even your adult children, and your grandchildren. Teach them, and this is important, not to run out and put today on credit cards what you have taken forty years to accumulate.

Maybe there is just one person or one family here today that is living financially on the edge or very close to the edge and the spirit will prompt you to make some critical changes, to make a few necessary adjustments in your Self-Reliance and Provident Living.

Maybe one person here is years or just months away from a medical fiasco or an employment upheaval and you will be prompted by the spirit to make some preparations, even though you may not have a clue what you are preparing for. But several years or months from now you will be grateful that you followed the prompting. It’s a little late to prepare once the tornado hits.

I hope and pray that you have a good, healthy, happy, wonderful life, but if something unexpected comes into your life, I hope and pray that you will be prepared through Self-Reliance and Provident Living, and still be happy, and keep your faith in the Lord.

Someone said, “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and take what comes.” I hope for the best for each of you, but I ask you to prepare for the worst, and I pray that you have the faith to take whatever comes.

I know that there are people who have had or now have debilitating illnesses and difficult times worse than what I have described in our home. My thoughts and prayers reach out to you. Every day I see at least one person who has life much worse than I have, and for whom I have the deepest sympathy and empathy. I realize each day how many blessings we have from the Lord.

I also hope and pray that you will listen for the spiritual promptings so you hear them or feel them, and even more importantly, that you follow them.

I testify that the Lord helps those who help themselves and that he wants us to do all in our power to care for ourselves through Self-Reliance.

The eternal treasures, the only lasting treasures, are the treasures we build in heaven, not the treasures of the world. You can have anything in this world with money, but money doesn’t buy a thing in heaven, and how much money you had on earth doesn’t matter in the least, except for how you used it to help build up the kingdom and bless others.

I testify that the real things that matter are making and keeping our covenants, staying temple worthy, strengthening our testimonies, blessing our families, staying on the path in the right direction, serving where we are called to serve in the kingdom, whether the calling be great or small.

Panhypopituitarism – The Heartbreak of No Hormones

In February of 2004 I went on permanent, fulltime disability from work. Thankfully, I had signed us up for disability insurance and we paid the premiums for twenty years to be able to get 75 percent of my last income, but with no cost of living adjustments.

I got very sick near the end of 2002 and it took nine stressful months for the many doctors to figure out the problem was a non-functioning pituitary gland, a rare, but complex and serious disease known as panhypopituitarism. I also had several related maladies and low-back problems. For the nine months, I had an extended, out-of-body journey literally to hell and most of the way back, and I would not wish the trip on anyone, even with the frequent-flyer miles. Without the pituitary I have few natural hormones in the body. I lost most of my body hair and one day while looking in the mirror I asked TerriLu, “Are my breasts enlarging?” Sure enough, blood tests showed that the only hormone I had in my system was the lactating hormone that produces breast milk.

Hormones pretty much rule the body. Without a brain, you die in seconds, although amazingly I have survived quite well without one for several decades. Without a heart, you die in under a minute. Without lungs, you die within minutes. Without hormones, you don’t die – you just feel like you’re dead or wish you were dead, or both.

I now take artificial hormones every day. I take a thyroid tablet, a corticosteroid tablet, testosterone gel, and a Human Growth Hormone injection (fun), and I just do without the other three or four key hormones that cannot be replaced. I think that with my use of the steroids and the Human Growth Hormone, I have a good chance to make it in Major League Baseball (I did play little league for four years). I also take about eight additional hormone-related, back-related, and other related medications.

Apparently my body is falling apart faster than normal due to the lack of hormones. That is, I’ve aged beyond my actual years. When I was about forty-five, Dr. East suggested that my body was closer to that of a sixty-five-year old. My eye doctor said at the same time that I had the eyes of a sixty-five-year old. At the dentist in four years I had to have eight molars extracted and replaced with implants and then crowns to top them off – and I even stopped drinking soda pop and sucking on Lifesavers, to no avail! The lack of hormones and some of the medications contribute to dry mouth which is not good for the teeth.

With sleep apnea and for other medical reasons, I do not sleep well at night and I usually need at least one nap during the day. My energy level is low, to say the least, but my spirits and mood are good, especially considering the circumstances. Life is great with TerriLu, our children, and our grandchildren.

My own initiation into the heartbreak of no hormones was somewhat embarrassing. Because I was off the chart low on testosterone, the urologist prescribed a double dose every day. When I went to the pharmacy to fill my first testosterone gel prescription, the pharmacist asked me if double the normal  dose was a mistake and I assured him the doctor said “double” the dose. The pharmacist still wasn’t comfortable with that so he said he would call the doctor. The doctor sort of chewed out the pharmacist saying he was busy with patients and shouldn’t be questioned by a pharmacist on what he’s written as a prescription and what he has clearly explained to the patient. To the pharmacist’s credit, I think he was just looking out for me, thinking with a double dose I might start growing hair on my tongue or something.

When the cute, petite female pharmacy technician came over with my double-dose of Androgel, she asked if I had ever used testosterone gel before, and of course, I whispered I had not. So she yelled loud enough for the pharmacist who was at the other end of the pharmacy to hear as well as the entire store, “Counsel, please.” So a very nice woman pharmacist with a big booming voice came over to talk to me about the testosterone. With a voice that exceeded the PA system, she bellowed, “So you must be really low on testosterone!” I kind of lowered my head, looked around and whispered, “Yes.” She didn’t take the hint so her voice boomed again for everyone in the store, “So this is testosterone in a gel. Everyday you rub this testosterone gel on your upper arms, shoulders, and stomach. Now because you don’t have any testosterone in you, your doctor has prescribed a double dose of testosterone. So be sure to take this testosterone as prescribed. You’ll probably have to use this testosterone for the rest of your life because you apparently can’t produce any testosterone on your own. Now this testosterone won’t work immediately—it will take several days or more for this testosterone to work like real testosterone. Let me say testosterone really loud like five more times so everyone in the store and the parking lot knows you don’t have any testosterone, like no testosterone, like zippo testosterone, like you ain’t gonna ever have real testosterone! You got that loud and clear? No TESTOSTERONE!”

By now I slouched so low I was nearly below the counter. I quietly thanked the pharmacist and as a turned around, the person right behind me was a lady from church. I wanted to evaporate into thin air. She smiled and politely asked how I was doing. I wanted to say that it pretty much got explained in full by the pharmacist, but instead said, “Fine, thank you.” And I walked away as quickly as I could.

So a week later I was at the mall with six days of testosterone in my system. I thought I’d drop in at Victoria’s Secret and get something to spice up our sex life that barely existed for twelve testosterone-less months. I found a skimpy little item and took it to the counter. The cashier held it up so everyone could see and said, “Oh, she’ll really like this, Honey.” I thanked her quickly and turned around and came face to face with the same nice lady from church again who smiled even bigger than at the pharmacy. This time when she asked how I was doing, I figured she wasn’t thinking the normal “How are you doing?” It was more like Joey on Friends asking with a heavy sexual overtone, “How you doing?” Well, at least that’s how she sounded to me. I decided then and there to never go to Victoria’s Secret without wearing a hat, a face mask, and dark sunglasses.

 And yes, after years of using testosterone gel I now have a hairier chest…and stomach…and upper arms…and shoulders. Now, I’m thinking of having all the hair lasered off – not “waxed” off—I’m too big of a wimp to endure that.

Into the Stable – The True Meaning of Christmas

Like many families with young children, TerriLu and I tried to teach our four kids the true meaning of Christmas. This included a dramatic production that rivaled a low-budget Broadway production. One year we built a stable for the set, but got a little carried away with the plans—the stable ended up being so large we could barely fit it in the family room. Given the stable’s quality construction and enormous size, we seriously considered selling the house and moving into our makeshift barn.

To help teach the principle of service and especially service for Jesus, TerriLu came up with a brilliant tradition for the holidays. She filled a box with artificial straw made from varying lengths of gold-colored ribbon. Every time the kids did something helpful or nice, they could grab a handful of straw from the box and drop it on the floor of the stable. When the box was emptied by our little do-gooders, the kids could place the baby Jesus on the straw.

After TerriLu explained the concept of the good-deed box, she asked the kids how they could be helpful. Jonathan, ever efficient even at age 4, pointed to the stable and suggested, “We could put some of this straw in there.” When the kids were small it took many handfuls to empty the box and fill the stable floor. Over time the much larger hands and proportionately larger handfuls were a sad reminder for Mom that her kids were growing up much too fast.

On Christmas Eve, our two oldest, Melissa and Michael, acted out the part of Mary and Joseph, respectively, on their trek to Bethlehem while Jonathan and William took dual roles as shepherds and two of the three wise men. Unfortunately my IQ was not high enough to qualify me for the part of the third wise man. Besides, I was the narrator, having memorized St. Luke’s classic story after hearing Linus recite it in Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special every year in my previous childhood. “…And there were in the same country, shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night…”

TerriLu, in addition to being the executive producer and director, handled wardrobe, choreography, casting, computer-graphic imaging, backgrounds, art direction, video, sound, lights, makeup, music, photography, stunts, stage layout, and special effects. She also perfectly and appropriately played the part of several angels (she made me put that in). Additionally, for Animal Protection Services, TerriLu certified that no animals were injured during the production. This became important when we bought a white, miniature poodle to co-star as a sheep watched over by shepherds abiding in the field. Three years later, we purchased an obstreperous yet multi-talented boxer pup to play several adjunct roles including Mary’s donkey on the trail, a cow in the stable, a camel for the wise guys, and a partridge in a pear tree.

The last time our children played the nativity-scene roles, I inappropriately substituted one, small word in my recitation. I began reverently, “And there were in the same country…plumbers….” This small misstep caught all of the actors so off guard that they never recovered sufficiently to carry on with the Christmas story. Even Brindle, the boxer, and Twinkie, the miniature poodle, laughed hysterically and commented on the humor injected into the dialogue, although really they had no clue why it was funny – they were just going along with the family. And it came to pass…well, no, it didn’t come to pass that year.

Several years later Melissa married Rick and within a few months she was “with child.” By Christmas she was “great with child” and TerriLu thought it was appropriate to resurrect (no pun intended) the sacred script since she could now cast a truly pregnant Mary who was espoused and married to Joseph. Not wanting to offend his new in-laws, Rick reluctantly but uncomplainingly went along with the role of Joseph, complete with a bath towel over his head and a rope headband. With Rick in the role of Joseph, TerriLu was able to cast three shepherds, Michael, Jonathan, and William, and more importantly, all three wise men.

The next year TerriLu tried to again recruit Rick for the part of Joseph, but Rick said his agent was demanding $20 million per picture and two assistants. Once Rick realized that his place in the family was secure, no amount of cajoling could convince him to drape a towel over his head in the lead actor’s role. Of course, as soon as the dogs realized that Rick was bailing out, their agents started asking for more money and bigger movie-star trailers.

So our Christmas story production went on hiatus for a few years…until Rick and Melissa’s two oldest children, Brenna and Josh, were old enough to be pressed into theatrical service. And the dogs happily took their respective roles alongside their favorite little people, all of whom are contracted for the next seventeen Christmas Eves. So once again I recite the Christmas story as Mary and Joseph make their way down the hallway, across the barren DuPont carpet, and into the family room to place their precious baby Jesus on the beautiful, golden straw.

Toilet Tissue and Other Marital Misunderstandings

It’s been my experience that we tend to put our best foot forward outside of the home. Why do we lose our tempers or criticize or sulk or get grouchy with family members, but we can control ourselves at work or with friends or at church? Why are we on our best behavior outside the home? We seem to treat our friends and co-workers with greater respect than we do our families. Someone said that home is where we are treated the best and yet we act the worst.

I was a typical teenager – most of the time I got along with my family but I had my moments with my siblings and my parents. Sometimes I wished I had different parents, but it was okay because sometimes they wished I had different parents too. I’d fight with my brother and if I was in a bad mood, I’d sulk and brood and mope around and give the silent treatment. But did I act that way around my friends? No, or I wouldn’t have had any friends.

And I’ll just say for the record that the silent treatment is one of the most cruel and unkind behaviors known to mankind, and I was grandmaster, but only around my family.

At work, if we treated our co-workers like family, I think we’d soon be unemployed. Nobody would want to work with us.

And yet we seem to control ourselves pretty well at church and work. You would probably assume I’ve never raised my voice at a church member. But you’d be wrong. I have actually raised my voice at four members of the church. They happened to be living in our home at the time of the yelling. We call them our children.

Thirty-three years ago when TerriLu and I first met at college, I felt drawn to her, not only because she was the cutest girl on campus, but also because of a special, spiritual quality about her.

As I courted her, she didn’t see my faults because I was on my best behavior, trying to win her over, always putting my best foot forward. I never criticized her or sulked or got moody or gave her the silent treatment…but then we got married. Once we were married and she was family, I could start giving her the silent treatment.

Apparently, while we were courting, I won her over, and it wasn’t until after we were married that she realized her momentary lapse in judgment when I proposed. But to her great credit, she has never brought that up in all these years. She’s never held that against me. Instead, because of the marriage commitment, she just hung in there. She put up with me and endured patiently while married life slowly wore off some of my rough edges.

As newlyweds, my initial perception was that I was nearly perfect. After all, I was an Eagle Scout, I was a college graduate, and I even had a note from my mom that said I was special – I thought I was close to walking on water.

For years I felt superior to my wife in several areas. Now, I realize that I am superior to her in only a few areas, like I can open the pickle jar when she can’t, I earned more boy scout merit badges than she did, and I can drive a stick shift better than she can. And of course, these accomplishments have nothing to do with the things of eternity.

I felt that part of my new husbandly responsibility was to point out TerriLu’s shortcomings so she could overcome them and be more perfect like I was. I thought she was lucky to have me helping her improve and she surely would appreciate my enlightening criticisms. I felt that since I was nearly perfect that my way to do everything was the right way to do everything and she would therefore appreciate learning to do everything the right way. In hindsight, this was not a good strategy and I do not recommend it. Now I wasn’t trying to be mean—I just didn’t know any better. I was actually trying to help.

I felt that I had very minor weaknesses, while TerriLu had some serious character flaws. Mine were just little things, like I sulked, felt sorry for myself, gave the silent treatment, and didn’t listen very well. Almost trivial indiscretions, especially when compared with TerriLu’s far more egregious faults. Like, she didn’t arrange items in the refrigerator the way I liked them, she didn’t hang shirts in the closet facing to the left, she didn’t fold bath towels the right way, she didn’t vacuum the carpet in the proper direction, and worst of all, she constantly put the toilet paper on the roller upside down, with the paper rolling underneath instead of correctly over the top. TerriLu would open the wrapper and just carelessly put the roll on the roller. Then she’d pull at the paper and however it came out of the roll – over or under – that’s how she left it.

I grew up in a home where we learned to put the toilet paper roll on properly — always over the top, never underneath. I think we had family training on it. I knew my way had to be right because ergonomically it is easier on the wrist to unroll the paper going down rather than up. I believe I’ve read that unrolling the paper the wrong way is one of the leading causes of carpel-tunnel syndrome. Also, when I lived in South Africa we had maids, and I noticed the maids always put the roll on with the paper coming over the top. Finally, just look at all hotels — always over the top. The nice hotels even fold the corners up so it makes an arrow showing that it is supposed to go over the top correctly — clearly pointing the direction of the Bill Ross method. Statistically, TerriLu should have put the toilet paper roll upside down only half the time but I was sure she was purposely doing it the wrong way to bug me because she seemed to put it upside down a good majority of the time.

I tried telling TerriLu that over the top was the right way, but she said either way was just fine. I told it was easier to roll down than up but she said she was equally skilled, up or down. I warned her about carpel-tunnel and she said there’s always surgery. I told her that the maids in South Africa couldn’t all be wrong, and she said they could be. I asked her to explain about the hotels and she said she didn’t have to. I even threatened to tell my mom on her and she said to go ahead — I didn’t expect her to call my bluff on that one. I tried to tell TerriLu that she shouldn’t leave something so vitally important to happenstance and she said she’d take her chances. When I told my mom on her, my mom was shocked at Terri’s boorish behavior. She totally supported me. I think her exact words were, “So Bill, what’s your problem?”

Try as I might, I could not make her do it my way — she just continued with her hit-and-miss method. Since TerriLu wouldn’t do it my way, I did the only responsible and emotionally mature thing left to do — I gave her the silent treatment. Whenever she asked what was wrong, I gave the standard silent-treatment response: “Nothing. There’s nothing wrong.” And she was supposed to then read my mind to know that last Tuesday, four days ago she got the roll on the wrong way.

And here you can see one more of her significant deficiencies: she couldn’t read my mind.

Well, this went on for quite a while. I never thought to just ask her nicely to do it my way as a favor to me — she probably would have been happy to do it my way, especially if it would amount to at least three fewer days of the silent treatment every month. Eventually, I just gave up trying to make her do it my way. It was too much work trying to change her and too much energy to give the silent treatment properly. It was just easier to turn the roll over myself.

In her defense, she does actually feel that it’s easier to roll upwards rather than downward. Also, it was a trick she learned in her Early Childhood Education degree: it’s harder for children to unroll a roll upwards.

Then after many years I had a life-altering change in attitude. An epiphany. Inspiration — perhaps even revelation. I gained two new perspectives that I think are great keys to happiness and harmony in the home, especially in a marriage.

First, I realized that my way was not the right way – it was just my way; and her way wasn’t the wrong way – it was just her way. It’s not a question of right or wrong – just different. And that applies to just about every other difference of opinion in marriage – they are just differences, not right or wrong.

I found that when I began to see things as just differences, I began to accept those differences. Then I learned to appreciate the differences. And now I cherish the differences. What a boring world it would be if we were all the same.

The second bit of inspiration that came to me was what a sad day it would be if TerriLu were taken and I were left all alone…to be master of the toilet paper roll, making sure it went on correctly the first time, every time. I’d rather have her right here with me.

So today with new perspective, when I find a new roll upside down, I just smile to myself, and I’m grateful for this simple reminder that TerriLu is still part of my life. It reminds me that I love her and I’m so glad she’s still here with me…and then I turn the roll over – because it’s still the right way. But I smile about it because I’m truly happy for the reminder.

But why do we let such little things cause such big problems in our homes, with the people we love and cherish? Why do we make mountains out of mole hills? Why do we allow silly, unimportant things like that to threaten a marriage and a family? How do we let such pettiness into a marriage? Why can we control our tempers and criticism and sulking at work and school and church, but not at home? Why do we look for flaws instead of virtues? Why don’t we express more appreciation in our homes?

I believe that the home is the best setting established for us to learn to control our tempers, our criticism, the silent treatment, our moods, and our petty faultfinding. The home is the primary learning institution for us to recognize our weaknesses and overcome them.

I don’t think showing self-control and self-restraint at work and at church and at school and with friends is a good enough. The real measure is: Can we do it at home with our families?

I am so grateful for my wife. Some of you know her. You know she is just sweet and wonderful. Does she have a mean bone in her body? No. Other than her choice in a husband, can you find any fault with her? Neither can I…now. How sad that I did so much faultfinding back then.

Some wise man said, “The key to a happy marriage is to just do everything your wife tells you to do.” I’ve found that to be true 97.8 percent of the time.

At a 50^th wedding anniversary celebration, a son mentioned to his dad that he rarely saw his parents fight. The father replied, “Oh, we had our moments, but they didn’t amount to much because it usually didn’t take very long for one of us to figure out that I was wrong.”

So do yourself and your spouse a favor and quit looking for the faults. When you see differences, learn to accept them, appreciate them, and then cherish them.

Training Dolphins and Children

I saw a documentary on PBS about dolphins and how they are trained at SeaWorld. (Dolphins are my favorite sea animal, orca whales are my second favorite).

When you see a dolphin at SeaWorld leap from the water ten feet in the air to poke a red ball with his nose, do you ever wonder how the trainers got him to do it? Did they go out in the ocean, hang a red ball off the boat ten feet in the air, wait several months for a dolphin to jump out of the water to bump the ball with his nose, and then capture that dolphin to use at SeaWorld? It doesn’t work that way.

The training for dolphins is fascinating.

First, the trainer has to build a relationship with the dolphin. She rubs the dolphin’s belly and his head. She squirts water on the dolphin’s back. She basically spends a lot of time with the dolphin, becoming friends, learning what forms of affection the dolphin most enjoys, and basically, building a relationship with the dolphin. And, of course, dolphins love fish as a reward.

Second, and most importantly, the trainer only rewards good behavior. That is, she never punishes wrong or bad behavior. She just looks for the good or right behavior to happen by accident or on porpoise (sorry, on purpose – couldn’t help myself).

The trainer starts with any dolphin and first establishes a relationship as described in step one above. Then she tosses a red ball in the water. The dolphin swims around the tank and whenever he happens to bump into the red ball, the trainer gives a hand signal and a reward. The trainer may bump the ball herself to show the dolphin what to do. Soon the dolphin realizes that anytime he bumps the red ball, his trainer gives a hand signal and then she gives him a fish as a reward. Soon the dolphin associates the hand signal with bumping the red ball to get a reward.

Then the trainer hangs the ball one foot above the surface of the water and gives the hand signal to bump the ball. With minimal effort the dolphin rises out of the water, bumps the ball, and gets a reward. Then it’s just a matter of slowly raising the ball to ten feet above the water a foot at a time. Eventually, the dolphin sees the hand signal and soars ten feet into the air and bumps the red ball.

Line upon line, here a little, there a little and the dolphin is trained on that behavior with no punishments for incorrect behavior. Certainly this can be applied to parenting, but it takes patience and time, perhaps even persuasion, longsuffering, gentleness and meekness, and love unfeigned (D&C 121:41).

First, you need to establish a relationship with the child by spending time together and learning what makes the child tick, what affection he or she likes, how to praise him or her, and so on.

Second, you reward good behavior and try very hard not to punish wrong or bad behavior. That is, you watch for even small movements in the right direction and reward or effusively praise those behaviors.

In nursery, we can’t/don’t yell at the children. When it’s time to clean up we sing the clean up song and then we overly praise the little ones who are helping to clean up. Each time they put a toy away we gush over them and encourage them to continue. We ask them to take toys across the room to the cabinet. It works wonders.

When we need the children to share toys, we strongly praise them when they do share so that sharing brings a good feeling – superior even to the feeling of having the desired toy. We find another toy and let them know they can have the other desired toy in a minute or two when the first child loses interest in it. Again, we thank them for sharing and tell them how good they are for sharing.

With dogs we use positive and negative reinforcement, but mostly positive. When the dog piddles on the rug, we scold and make him smell it and we say, “No, bad dog.” When he accidentally gets it right by going outside on the lawn, we give a command and praise him and say, “Good dog. That’s a good dog!” Before long the dog learns that going anywhere inside the house is bad and going outside on the grass is good. Pretty soon, he starts associating the command with the urge to urinate. We give the command when he’s outside and the urge is suddenly there to go. And again, we praise generously praise him for his good behavior.

Remember that “reproving betimes with sharpness” does not mean “reproving at times with harshness” (D&C 121:43). It means reproving quickly (or betimes) with clarity and focus and specifics (or sharpness).

Certainly you can think of many other examples that will work for you.

New Nursery Calling and Still Temple Workers

We celebrate several milestone ages in the Church including eight years when you are baptized, twelve years when you go into young women or the Aaronic Priesthood, eighteen years when you go into Relief Society or the Melchizedek Priesthood, nineteen when an Elder goes on a mission, twenty-one when a Sister goes on a mission.

One of the most celebrated and most looked forward to milestone ages is eighteen months which parents with little ones recognize as the special time when Mom and Dad get to drop off their child in the Nursery so they can enjoy two hours of baby-free Church time. In June TerriLu and I were called to serve as Nursery workers. A few people have offered condolences that we are “stuck” in Nursery or have pointed out that it won’t be forever. Well, we are thrilled with our calling and the chance to work with these little ones to give them their first real Church experience.

Just a few years ago when Eagle 7^th ward was part of the Eagle 1^st ward, I saw Sister Longson in the foyer of the stake center with her two beautiful blue-eyed, blonde daughters, ages three-and-a-half and one-and-a-half. I effusively gushed, “Oh, Sister Longson, your little girls are just so adorable.” Sister Longson stared at me and deadpanned, “That’s because you haven’t been with them for the past week.” And she was right. I’d forgotten. It had been a long time since we’d had fulltime toddlers in our home. But having the Nursery children for two hours a week is a joy partly because after two hours we hand them back to the parents, just like grandchildren. But while we have them in Nursery, we just enjoy them and love them, have a prayer and a snack, and teach a little gospel lesson.

At last general conference President Eyring talked a bit about Primary. I’ve been carrying his quote around with me. In the first eight years of life children are protected by the atonement. In those years, Satan cannot cloud the path that leads back to Heavenly Father.  “In those precious years the Lord helps families by calling Primary workers to help strengthen children spiritually…. Many bishops in the Church are inspired to call the strongest people in the ward to serve individual children in the Primary. They realize that if the children are strengthened with faith and testimony, they will be less likely to need rescue as teenagers. They realize that a strong spiritual foundation can make the difference for a lifetime.”

Now, I’m not saying the bishopric called me as one of the strongest to serve in Nursery. But they did call many strong Primary and Nursery workers. They called me to go along for the ride, and I too love the children and the calling. What a tremendous impact loving teachers can have on these little ones who so recently left the presence of their Heavenly Father.

Some time ago while we were in Nursery, Brother Slaughter mentioned that if the Savior were to come to Church, he would first visit the Nursery and Primary. And I thought, of course he would…. These are his little ones – those who are covered completely by his atonement, completely innocent, pure and without sin.

With all due respect to those who teach adult classes, I don’t think I’ve ever heard an adult share in a testimony meeting, “I love my Mom and Dad and I love my…gospel doctrine teacher, or my…third Sunday Elder’s Quorum teacher.” It hasn’t happened as far as I know. Yet nearly every Fast Sunday, we hear Primary children express their thanks and love for their parents and their Primary teachers. I think that’s due in part to the fact that these young ones are so spiritually impressionable and malleable.

I know that the Primary children are in good hands and are developing testimonies because they have good parents teaching the gospel in the home, and a strong Primary presidency and strong teachers that love them and teach with the spirit. Many great members of the ward are serving in Primary to firmly place these wonderful little souls on the path that leads back to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Primary workers are helping to strengthen children spiritually. The Primary program is inspired of God and serving in the Primary is one of the choicest callings a person can hold.

Boise Idaho Temple

TerriLu and I are still working at the temple every Wednesday and have done so for four years now and we haven’t gotten over the thrill of it. We love the spirit we feel there and serving the people who come and go each day. In the afternoon we work in the baptistery, mostly with the youth who come for “open baptisms” available to anyone who wants to just drop in at the temple.

Week-before-Christmas fun

The week before Christmas, TerriLu and I drove over to Rexburg to pick up William from BYU-Idaho. On Thursday, we piled all of his stuff into the Explorer – packed from floor to ceiling. There was just barely enough room for the three of us to get seatbelted in the vehicle.

Friday morning we attended the dedication of the BYU-I Center that seats 15,000 people. William sang in the choir and they did a great job.

We had a quick lunch and then hurried back home so we could pick up Joshua who came to town to wrestle in a National Tournament. The next morning Rick dropped off the rest of the kids for some grandparent babysitting. TerriLu and I got to babysit for the day while Josh and Rick were at the tournament with Josh doing the wrestling and Rick doing the coaching. Josh took second place and got a trophy that was half his height.

Reverse Order

Please be aware that the Christmas newsletter in this blog is in reverse order – that’s how blogs work.