What It's Like Working Inside a Latter-day Saint Temple

When I sent my youngest child to kindergarten, I found myself wondering what I should do first: enjoy an uninterrupted morning shower? eat meals comprised of more than his leftovers? have an existential crisis? In the end I settled on a little of all three, but one other thing I really wanted to do was start volunteering at the temple of my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Since May, I've been working at my church's temple twice a month, and I really love what I do there. But it's unfamiliar to many people, so I wanted to write this post.

First Thing's First: What's a Temple

If you want to know what I do at the temple, it helps to know what a temple is. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a Christian religion, and temples are buildings where our most important ordinances (i.e: ceremonies/rituals) are performed.

Right now, there are 168 Latter-day Saint temples in the world and something like 100 more that are either being planned or built. 

Latter-day Saint temple in Houston, TX.

Latter-day Saints have a great respect for the temple, so much so that we don't discuss specifics of the ceremonies when we're outside of the temple, even with other people who've been there. But it's not breaching any confidences to tell you that there are four different ordinances done in temples:

• Baptism for the dead - like a regular baptism, but you do it on behalf of someone in your family tree who has died without being baptized
• Initiatory - preparation to make further promises with God, symbolizing the washing and anointing done in the Bible to prepare people for priesthood service
• Endowment - learning about God's overall plan for humanity and the central role of Jesus Christ in that plan, starting with the creation of the world; it culminates in making promises of faithfulness to God
• Sealing - like a marriage but with two important distinctions: (1) sealing lasts for "time and eternity" and not "until death do you part," and (2) it doesn't just seal the two spouses together, but their children or future children as well

June 20, 2003: Phillip and I were sealed in the St. Paul, Minnesota temple.

After Latter-day Saints come to the temple for their own ordinances of initiatory, endowment, and sealing, they can come back to do them on behalf of ancestors who've died.

What Do You Do in the Temple When You Volunteer?

Like everybody who comes to the temple, I drive there wearing my Sunday best and when I get inside, I change into white clothes. (Because I work there, I also get to wear a snazzy name tag.) Everyone wears white inside the temple to symbolize holiness and purity, which makes for a pretty striking visual reminder that we're in a heavenly place.

Sapporo, Japan temple.

The workers attend a short prep meeting that consists of a devotional and some training on our responsibilities. There are logistics to cover, but what's emphasized most is the sacred character of what's going on in the temple. You can practically feel the heartfelt desire of everyone in the room to simply be a facilitator in God's holy work that day.

Then, for the bulk of my 6-hour shift, I'm helping in various capacities in the temple. 

I could be involved with any of the four ordinances I mentioned a few paragraphs ago: guiding youth groups around the baptistry as they get baptized for their ancestors, delivering the words and prayers of the initiatory ordinance, assisting people as they go through the endowment ceremony, or witnessing a sealing to make sure it's done correctly. My role in the ordinances is always different, but I feel the same spiritual significance every time.

I accommodate people who come to the temple with special needs, from language translation to physical disabilities, and answer questions for people who are new to the temple and might not know what to do next. 

Depending on the day, I could also be welcoming people at the front desk or lending white clothes at the clothing desk to people who didn't bring their own. Whatever I'm doing, I try to do it with a kind smile and a gentle voice so that everyone who comes to the temple can feel the presence of God in His house.

What Do You Think of Your Experience So Far?

The 98-year-old president of our church sometimes mentions spending a lot of time in the temple with other church leaders (most of them in their 70s and 80s), and halfway through my first shift I said to myself, "Ohhhh... so this is why they live so long." 

Entering the temple is like hitting the 'pause' button on everyday life, and I can't help but think the regular reset-and-refresh is good for my mind, my spirit, and possibly even my physical health.

It's powerful to go somewhere that is completely devoid of anger and loudness, where every single person is there out of a common desire to follow Jesus and help others (remember, people come to the temple to participate in saving ordinances for themselves or others). 

Temple in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It's hard to accurately explain the peace I feel in the temple, but the best I can do is say that when I'm there, there's a very palpable sense that I'm in a holy place. The temple's influence makes me a better, more patient person — even after I leave. 

I don't think it would be exaggerating to say that the long stretches of time I get to spend there as a temple worker have become the highlight of my week.

LDS temple in Madrid, Spain.

I suspect there are probably people on the Internet who are happy to breech the sacredness of the temple by sharing plenty of details both true and false, but I appreciate you respecting how special the temple is to me and other members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you have more questions, shoot me an email or see the church's website. 

And if you want to see more pictures of temples worldwide, here's a photo gallery. Most are exterior pictures, but there are also several interior pictures from the Rome, Italy temple. Enjoy!

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Is a No-Gift Christmas with Kids Really Possible?

Have you ever come to dread something you once loved? Last Christmas, I realized that even though I looked forward to the cookies, the lights, the general goodwill in the air, and of course the special religious meaning for my family, I also felt an overwhelming desire to hide under the covers and not come out until January. 

The problem was my family's gift-giving, which had gotten out of hand. We were spending way too much time, effort, and money on stuff that didn't add value to our kids' lives, and on top of it all the house was always a disaster because it was too much for any of us to organize and manage. 

So we simply quit giving the kids gifts at Christmas. No more toys. No more stuff. 

How did our first no-gift Christmas go? Would we do it again? And would it ever in a million years work in your family? 

Here's everything you ever wanted to know about going gift-free this Christmas, but were afraid to ask.

Q: What did your Christmases look like before?

We used to get each kid four presents, plus one from Santa. That doesn't sound excessive, but with 6 kids it quickly added up, and when you added in extra toys and gadgets from extended family members it was way too much. 

I know it's a privilege being able to complain about having too much stuff, but it certainly doesn't feel like a privilege when you're drowning in it.

Q: What does a no-gift Christmas look like?

A: Each child gets one experience gift from us, and that's it. The only tangible items they receive are a stocking filled by Santa, one physical gift from Santa, and whatever their grandparents choose to get them.

Q: Were the kids actually on board with this?

A: We started by having a family meeting. We explained to the kids we wanted to avoid waste and focus on doing stuff together instead of giving stuff. At first they were skeptical (especially the younger ones,) but once they started making lists of fun places they've always wanted to go they got excited about it.

Q: Wait a minute. Wasn't Christmas Day super-lame without gifts to open?

Well, they still have a few gifts to unwrap from Santa and their grandparents. But aside from that, we tried to make the experience of opening the experience gifts fun by printing out a certificate for each experience and packaging it creatively. 

We rolled up the 5-year-old's certificate and stuck it in a balloon for him to pop, and the 13-year-old's went in this folded paper pyramid. In future years maybe we'll wrap certificates in a bunch of boxes inside each other, have them follow a strand of yarn all over the house to find it, make a scavenger hunt, or write it in a scrambled language to decode.

Q: What kind of experience gifts did you give?

We're big believers in family time over individual date nights with each child, so it felt natural for us to include everyone who was able to participate in each experience. Here's what we did last year:

5yo: Trampoline park for the whole family

7yo: Laser tag for the whole family

10yo: Escape room for one parent and the 3 kids who were old enough

13yo: Adult go-kart racetrack for one parent and all kids who met the height requirement

15yo: Virtual reality room for the teenagers and a parent

17yo: Semester of piano lessons at a local music school (not exactly a family experience, but it was something she really, really wanted)

We found a lot of ideas by searching our city on Groupon and Trip Advisor. You could try indoor skydiving, pop-up museums, an overnight hotel stay with a pool and pizza for dinner, or one of those pay-by-the-pound ice cream places where you do all the toppings. The experiences could even be free: a cool sledding hill they've never been to before, or an "anything goes" night where they stay up late and create the itinerary.

Q: How did your first giftless Christmas go?

Every time we drove home from one of those experiences with the kids talking about it excitedly with each other in the backseat, I felt like we'd done the right thing. This year there was no wasted time and effort tracking down presents no one used, no landfill of wrapping paper and packaging waste in the living room, no meltdowns the week afterward trying to organize the avalanche of toys. I even heard my 10-year-old exclaim several times at the escape room "This is the best Christmas present EVER!!!"

Q: Were there any downsides to not exchanging gifts at Christmas?

A: It was challenging to juggle so many people's schedules to find a time to actually do all the experience gifts. We tried to complete as many as possible in the week between Christmas and New Years, but we didn't finish all of them until March. Also, our no-gift Christmas was not cheap. Most people assume we saved a ton of money, but obviously eight admissions to the trampoline park costs more than a few plastic toys. In all, it probably ended up costing about the same as before.

Q: Any tips for me if I want to try a no-gift Christmas with my family?

A: In the past, we'd tried encouraging extended family members to get us experience gifts, which was met with mixed reactions and didn't work well for a variety of reasons. We found it was much easier to fix our own gift-giving and let everyone else do what they felt comfortable with.

Start out by clearly deciding what you're trying to accomplish with a no-gift Christmas: to be more environmentally conscious? more responsible with your money? less overwhelmed by the number of toys in the house? Involve the kids, come up with a plan, and commit to trying it for just one year. Explain you can always go back if they don't like it.

Q: What if I want to downsize Christmas but I'm not ready to give up gifts altogether?

Dip your toes in by giving experience gifts with a small related trinket, like a zoo pass with a dollar store bag of plastic animals or tickets for a monster truck rally with a Hot Wheels vehicle. It will get you and your kids used to the idea without going completely cold-turkey.

You can also explore other ways to ease your holiday burnout. If there's Christmas decor you don't really like putting up, get rid of it. Ask your family their favorite Christmas traditions and eliminate the ones on the bottom of the list. Deep down you probably know what should be cut out to make things simpler, you just need to give yourself permission to do it.

We're heading into our second no-gift Christmas, and I couldn't be more excited. It's freeing not to orchestrate who's getting what with a literal spreadsheet starting in September, and I know that the day after Christmas I'll wake up to a calendar of fun things to do with my kids instead of a house full of clutter and chaos. At least, not any more full of it than usual.

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Becoming a Part-Time Empty Nester

"So you're a part-time empty nester now!" my friend Bridget joked on my youngest child's first day of kindergarten.

I laughed and told her I was surprised with how uneventful the transition was. When my son climbed on the bus on that first morning, I waved goodbye and skipped back into the house to work on my million mile long to-do list and didn't have any qualms about it. 

Everything seemed strangely fine. I seemed fine.

A few weeks later another friend asked how I was handling having all my babies in school, and when my eyes started leaking in the middle of my answer (weird!) I realized I wasn't as fine as I thought.

It's not that I don't love the morning quiet. Cleaning up the house in the morning and knowing it will stay that way for six hours is nothing short of amazing. And it isn't like my little boy has even left me yet: he still cuddles with me and laughs at my corny jokes after school like he did before. 

But still, I felt a profound loss I couldn't quite name. I finally figured it out weeks later, in line at the grocery store watching an exhausted young mom with a cart full of Gerber puffs playing peek-a-boo with her 9-month-old.

I'd been standing there staring off into space, but not her. She could fill every spare second — in fact, she had to fill every spare second — connecting with the little person who mattered most in the world. 

When you have little ones at your side all the time, you don't have to go looking for moments like that one in line at the grocery store, they find you. They're relentless at finding you. They find you in the middle of the night, they paw at you while you make dinner, they pound on the bathroom door shrieking until you let them in. It's overwhelming, because that's what motherhood is: too much of a good thing.

And for the first time in my career as a mom, I don't have access to those moments 24/7. It was once inconceivable to me that meaningful connection with my kids would require effort and planning. But here we are, squeezing it in between school and their various sports and activities.

When my kids were still little, I thought women who raved about their kids growing older were lying to themselves. They'd say how great it was not to mop up spilled milk at the dinner table and finally decorate the bottom third of the Christmas tree (with breakable ornaments, even!) and I'd think, So what? That's a sad consolation prize.

Now that I'm in their place, doing the same thing, I realize I was only half-right. Given the choice between a solo trip to the bathroom and the unconditional love and affection of a toddler, I'd choose the toddler every time. It's no contest.

But I don't get to make that choice, and it's not a contest anyway. Those older moms were just choosing to find the good in their current stage of life, whatever it was.

If I'm going to thrive in, and maybe even enjoy, my new life as a part-time empty nester, I'm going to need to celebrate the good things about where I am right now.

It doesn't come naturally to me, delighting in a life that isn't filled from sunup to sundown with hugs and kisses from a sticky 3-year-old. The joys, as well as the hard parts, of raising big kids are different.

Moms wrangling toddlers in Target, if I look a little too long or smile a little too hard when you pass by, please forgive me. I remember so fondly the place you're in right now and always will. But now it's time to move from living those days to smiling at photographs of them as the kids and I plan our next adventure together.

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What We Learned from Our Family Dopamine Detox Experience

I've been hearing a lot about dopamine lately. And the more I heard, the more I became convinced it was time for a family dopamine fast.

In a nutshell, dopamine is the feel-good chemical released in your brain whenever you do something enjoyable. It also plays a role in motivation, making it harder to enjoy or even start low-dopamine activities if you're indulging too much in high-dopamine ones.

While you wouldn't want to eliminate all dopamine (when scientists block the dopamine in mice's brains, the mice starve because they lack the motivation to eat), I decided it was time for a little experiment of our own: what would happen if we cut out things that added a lot of dopamine but little overall value to our lives?

Sadly, this was not a staged photo.

For one week, my family of 8 — two adults plus six kids ages 5 to 17 — were going to try doing just that. For our purposes, we identified the following high-dopamine, low-value activities:

1. Using computers or phones for any non-work or -school activities
2. Playing video games
3. Listening to music
4. Eating sugar and processed food

After the week was up, I gave separate interviews to each member of the family, including myself, to see how it went.

Q: What did you like about the dopamine fast?

Me: Everything. The kids were less crabby. I wasn't constantly policing screen time or reeling the kids back in from watching someone else play Minecraft. When I couldn't pull out my phone during moments of downtime, I was more accessible to the kids. And I loved not having the teens wearing their headphones around the house closed off to the family or scrolling on their phones when I drove them somewhere like I'm the hired help.

Phillip: I was calmer and less stressed. I had more motivation to do things so I wasn't sitting around stressed about not doing things — I just did them. I found enjoyment in activities like reading and thinking. I interacted with the kids more.

17:  I used to listen to music or watch a video when I was bored; when I was forced to do something like reading a book, it took more energy in the short term but actually gave me energy and was more satisfying in the end. It forced me to slow down and think about what would actually make me feel better, so I felt less bad about how I was spending my time. I don't want to use my brain because I'm tired, but I feel better when I use my brain more. 

15: Everything felt more grounded and physical this week.  There were less days where I felt blah. I didn't do more things, but I felt less rushed when I did do things. I knew where all my time was going so that was nice.

13: Nobody was screaming and yelling about screens. We did more stuff together like board games, instead of me being off doing my own thing. I didn't really miss screens, even though my brain was like "I want to go back to screens!"

10: I liked how everybody wasn't grouchy because of screens. When I had screens I wanted to use my time as much as I could with no one bothering me so I would get grumpy and tired and it hurt my eyes, but I still wanted to play it. I also liked the no-screens part because my friend messages me too much, and I got to do more with family.

7: I don't know.

5: I didn't really get distracted [by watching other people playing games when I'm supposed to be doing something else.]

Q: What did you dislike?

Me: Nothing, really.

Phillip: I missed access to information. Sometimes I was curious about something but decided not to look it up. Like right now, I was wondering why trees don't freeze in the winter. Last week I wouldn't have looked it up, but this week I did and it's fascinating, actually.

17: I don't like doing homework with no music. There was also no easy distraction when I wanted to distract myself from negative thoughts I was having. I don't think cutting out sugar made any difference.

15: Sometimes it was inconvenient when I wanted to text something or check the [online] calendar and couldn't. I got bored a lot, like when I finished a test early at school and then just sat there for 50 minutes doing literally nothing. 

13: There were a few times when I was at activities where they had hot chocolate and it was annoying to turn it down.

10: I still want to have some sugar! And since I couldn't message my friend, if I had something to tell her I had to try to remember it until the next day and I didn't like going home and never talking to her again.

7: I kind of didn't have anything to do except read and play outside. I just didn't know what to do, it was kinda boring.

5: I can't have all the foods.

The kids may not have liked the "no sugar" rule, but no one can say they weren't committed. In the cabinet, I found our shaker of cinnamon sugar with a new label reading "POISON."

Q: What surprised you?

Me: I read a whole book this week, which would normally take me 6 months. I used to go on YouTube when I was tired, but I think it only made me more tired. I think it stresses my brain to keep switching between the real world and the virtual world. I was also surprised that I liked not using the car radio all week. Less constant sensory input like background music in the car made me feel more relaxed and slowed down.

Phillip: Nothing. It was basically what I expected.

17: I was expecting to miss certain online activities but I found other things to do with my time. I was also expecting to feel like I did a lot, but I think I ended up just doing things slower.

15: I expected to be more tired but I was actually less tired. I could just go home from work and do stuff, I didn't really need a break [to scroll my phone]. Also, I ended up getting offered a lot of sugar that week [namely a juice/chocolate muffin/donut breakfast, cupcakes, hot chocolate and candy, and two donuts with brownie batter filling] and before I probably would've eaten it all but felt bad about it. 

13: I expected to miss screens but I didn't, really. Which is weird because we've done screen-free weeks before and it was painful. [Mom's note: maybe because we focused on why instead of just me making a rule that seemed arbitrary to the kids.]

10: I thought it wouldn't be very good but it was okay. Kind of boring, though.

7: Nothing surprised me, I didn't even think about it.

5: I thought it would be worse than this but it's not.

Q: What do you want to do differently now that this is over?

Me: I want to confine all my Internet use to daytime hours and be totally present once the kids come home from school. I also want to drastically cut back screen time for all the kids. It has no benefit to them, especially the 5- and 7-year-old who just get crabby when it's time to stop playing. 

Phillip: The main thing I don't want to do is browsing so much. I want to go on the Internet with a specific question or purpose and then get off of it. So less idle browsing and refrain from using screens late in the evening.

17: I want to be more aware of why I'm looking for dopamine. I want to slow down and actually evaluate my options to see if I want to relax with a low-value, high-dopamine activity or do something else. I didn't always make that decision before, I just did it.

15: I kind of liked not have a phone at school because if you have your phone on you, you feel pressured to respond to calls and texts right away. I might not take it with me every day.

13: I used to think 30 minutes [my usual allowed screen time] wasn't much and I thought it was stupid that you guys cared so much, but there are better ways to spend my time so I'll only play maybe only every couple of days. And not too long. After you hit like an hour, you're not really even having fun anymore anyway, you're just doing it 'cause dopamine says so.

10: I want to do less screens, and pick an amount of time I can spend on them.

7: How am I supposed to know? I kinda just do stuff and then the day's over, that's what I do.

5: Go shopping because we need more food. We can get pistachios. [These weren't forbidden, by the way.]

Final Thoughts from Mom (Because Moms Always Get the Last Word)

None of us realized it before, but I think we were all a little addicted to the Internet. This week helped us all check ourselves and set the 'reset' button in that department. 

For us, the sugar part didn't make that much of a difference because we don't normally eat many processed food or sugary treats, but if that's your family's vice it might pan out differently for you.

The older kids were more introspective about our offline week, but I think the younger kids need more help finding meaningful activities to replace screen time. The next time we try this, I'll make sure to engage them in a good project or at least set them up with more playdates.

In the meantime, I'm definitely more likely to distract the younger kids when they ask for screen time (75% it ends in a tantrum, anyway.) Sometimes I say things to the older kids like "I thought you didn't want to play on a screen every day" and they'll more willingly limit their own screen time.

Living without the Internet as much as we could for even a week was nothing but good for the whole family — especially for the kids and teens, who genuinely don't know what it's like not to grow up with a bazillion different bluetooth devices in their faces 24 hours a day. Attempting a detox like this is like swimming upstream in our dopamine-saturated world, but it sure does feel good to try sometimes.

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Extreme Decluttering 101: Everything I Learned From Tackling My Messy House

Confession: I've always liked throwing stuff away, and I've always been quick to get rid of stuff that served no purpose. At least I thought I was.

But this spring I discovered a YouTuber called The Minimal Mom and long story short, ended up getting rid of 50% of our belongings. 

During an intense two months of attic-to-basement decluttering, here are some invaluable lessons I learned about figuring out how to live with less.

1. Invest in a "Maybe" Bin

When I first embarked on my decluttering journey, I kept the things I couldn't live without and put everything else in a temporary "maybe" bin. I was really aggressive about putting things in the "maybe" bin because nothing was permanent: if I regretted not having something, I could always take it back out and forget it ever happened.

I planned to keep things in the bin for 6 months as a test run of minimalism, but I was surprised to find that most of the time it only took about 10 minutes. The act of physically separating an item from the collection of "my stuff," then stepping back to look at my decluttered closet/shelf/cupboard and seeing that I still felt good about it, made letting go of things shockingly easy. 

After decluttering the entire house and garage from top to bottom, I think I ultimately took about five things back out of the "maybe" bin.

2. Consider a Tattoo that Says "Do I Use This?"

I'd done my fair share of decluttering before, but now that I was serious about it I approached each item we owned with the question "Do we use this?" instead of "Could we use this?" (It's super-important to note that these are two completely different questions.)

Honestly answering the question "Do we use this?" helped me part with items I've kept for years but could've been stolen by a burglar in the night and I most likely never would've known the difference.

If I got stuck on any item, I'd ask a follow-up question: "Would my life be any different without this?" It helped to acknowledge that getting rid of many things wouldn't negatively impact my life, it would only make the house less cluttered and easier to clean.

3. If You Won't Regret It, Get Rid of It

I encountered plenty of items that passed the "do we use this?" test, but I still got rid of them because they weren't adding very much value to my life. These two questions helped me identify those items:

• "Will I miss this?" 
• "What would happen if this item was gone?"

"Will I miss this?" helped me part with clothes I still wore but didn't particularly like. If I had other clothes I liked better, was I ever going to regret getting rid of that cream-colored sweater that shrunk a little in the dryer?

"What would happen if this was gone?" helped when I came across a cache of thermoses in my kitchen. If I didn't have the large size, I'd feel annoyed for less than a second and make do with the medium one, so I decided to donate it. 

Everything is a trade-off, and I decided that for me, the convenience of keeping an item has to justify the inconvenience of having to clean, maintain, organize, and store it.

4. We Become Immune to Our Stuff

Everything in our home multiplies, including furniture, decor on the walls and tabletops, and the contents of every cupboard, closet, and drawer. I think this is because we keep adding stuff, only "seeing" the new pieces and not the ones that were already there. 

Less than two years ago, I bought a storage cabinet because our family's scriptures and church books were scattered all over the house and we desperately needed a place for them. But once I purged the bookshelf we already had, it turned out there was plenty of room for them in there. 

I moved our church stuff into the bookshelf, sold the cabinet we'd apparently never needed, and learned a valuable lesson: don't add anything new to your house until you look around at what's already there. 

5. We Don't Have Time for All the Things... and That's Okay

For me, the kids' stuff was the hardest to declutter. We had a large craft cabinet, game cupboard, activity shelf, and a bunch of toys that rotated in and out of the attic. They were all perfectly good things that the kids played with. 

Well, when they remembered those things were there, anyway.

Eventually, I came to the realization that my kids don't have time to play with every good toy in existence (just like I don't have time to read every good book or visit every exciting place in the world) ...and that's okay. 

Decluttering is, at the heart of it, acknowledging that we have limitations on our time. In the end, I made peace with the fact that the kids will play with whatever we have, and they won't play with whatever we don't have, and either way they'll be just fine. (And, by the way, I didn't get rid of anything without their knowledge.)

6. Get Rid of Duplicate Items

We are a family of eight people who eat virtually every meal at home, so I honestly thought we needed two cheese graters, six spatulas, two sets of measuring cups, and eight mixing bowls... because we used all of them!

But I realized the duplicates were actually part of the problem with my messy kitchen. If something was dirty, we'd just grab the second (or third) duplicate instead of washing it, and so it would go, and by the end of every day the dirty dishes were stacked sky-high.

Once we got rid of the duplicates, we could no longer make that enormous stack if we tried. With fewer dishes, we end up washing the same number of things in a 24-hour period — but now the counter stays clean in between loads. 

I've known for a long time that a perpetually messy kid's room is a sign of having too many toys, but I guess the same principles also applies to kitchens, too.

7. You'll Feel Relieved

Did you know our stuff can make us feel bad? Me, neither. But as I decluttered, some very strange things happened.

For example, I got rid of a dress I love and a wave of relief washed over me. Why? Because years ago, the undershirt that goes with it went missing, and I'd been hanging onto the dress ever since in the hopes of finding a new shirt that could work. It wasn't until I finally decided to donate the dress that I realized I'd been feeling bad every time I saw it hanging in the closet, unable to be worn.

Later that same week, my daughter told me she was glad we pared down the craft supplies. She'd grown into other interests, but the presence of those unused craft supplies made her feel guilty about not using them. Meanwhile, I had no idea she even remembered they were even there.

It's kind of hard to describe the contented feeling of looking around a room and knowing that everything in it is something you use and love, but that's what I love most about decluttering. I'm more likely to fix broken things or deal with paperwork now instead of putting it off, and more motivated to clean up because it doesn't take all day to make a difference. 

And that's really saying something, because I hate cleaning.

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Go Ahead, Ask for Help (I Dare You)

When our washing machine broke down, I wasn't even mad. More like amazed that it lasted as long as it did. Our family goes through a lot of clothes, and after almost 15 years I was starting to suspect it was a Horcrux.

My husband got on YouTube and within an hour he'd disassembled the machine, diagnosed the problem, and ordered the part required to fix it. (My deepest thanks to YouTube University for teaching him how to be an auto mechanic, plumber, electrician, and now appliance repairman.)

With the part ordered but not scheduled to arrive for several days, our minds turned to more immediate concerns.

The washer had died just as we were about to do a critical load of laundry. And I mean critical, as in there were going to be multiple people going commando if we didn't do something ASAP.

Things get worse before they get better.

Groaning, Phillip and I looked up the closest laundromat and started to make arrangements. We both had a full schedule of things we needed and wanted to do today. Who would be least inconvenienced by this 60-minute detour? (Answer: neither of us.)

Then I remembered something I'd seen earlier that morning in the juice aisle of the grocery store.

A woman was trying to reach something on the top shelf, but instead of the popular hop-and-grab method or (my personal favorite) scaling the shelves like Kevin in Home Alone, she simply looked around and said to a tall guy walking by: "Excuse me, could you grab that for me?"

People these days love to say "we're all in this together," but how much more would we really feel that way if we gave and asked for help more freely? What if we didn't let our fear of inconveniencing anyone prevent us from connecting with each other?

Yes, I could drag my laundry to the Bubble 'n Wash and wait there for an hour... or I could call my neighbor and ask if I could throw a quick load of laundry in her machine. 

Was picking up the phone and texting her slightly awkward? A little bit, I'm not going to lie. I really like my neighbor, but we're not exactly wash-my-underwear-at-your-house friends, if you know what I mean.

But building relationships requires stepping outside of your comfort zone, and it's not like I had to tell her exactly what was in my laundry basket (unless she reads this, and then I just did.)

I felt a little sheepish showing up at her doorstep with some dirty clothes and my detergent, but if she minded, it didn't show. She's a lovely person who was probably happy to help, and we had a great conversation while I was there.

I came home glad I didn't go to the laundromat, and not just because this way ended up being much more convenient. Asking for help once in a while, even if we could technically twist ourselves in a knot to avoid it, might even be a good thing. 

And the next time my neighbor needs something or runs out of eggs in the middle of making brownies, she's got my number. 

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I Tried It: My 90 Minutes in a Sensory Deprivation Tank

In 2015, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek post about how all moms really want for Mother's Day is peace, quiet, and basically a stint in a sensory deprivation tank. Later that year, my dad asked what I wanted for Christmas and on a whim, I think you can guess what I told him.

And because he's always willing to entertain my wacky ideas, an email gift certificate for a place called FLOAT appeared in my inbox on December 25th.

Where it sat for over a year.

Partly because it's hard to schedule 90 minutes (plus drive time) for something like that when you're a mom. But also, if I'm honest, it's because I was terrified.

I loved the idea of a sensory deprivation tank; I just wished it could be more of a sensory deprivation very-large-and-wide-open-space.

The words that came to mind when I first saw this tank were "commercial dryer" followed by "cremation furnace."

When I was little, I remember visiting a cave with an exhibit outside demonstrating the tight spaces a cave explorer might encounter. On display was a small cross-section of a cement tunnel just barely large enough for an adult to squeeze through, which gave me nightmares back then and still gives me the creeps 30 years later.

I don't think of myself as claustrophobic, just someone who's not a fan of being trapped.

When you go to one of these sensory deprivation places, here's what happens: You shower off. You get naked. You lie in what they call a "pod," effortlessly floating on about a foot of water that has hundreds of pounds of salt added to make you ultra-bouyant. There's no sensory feedback: you're wearing earplugs, floating in the water, with the pod door closed to block out all light.

It sounded great, except for parts like the pod door.

Actually, it was only the part about the pod door. In fact, lying awake imagining an "open the pod bay doors, Hal" kind of situation was what had me hyperventilating into my sheets at night.

But last week my dad and stepmom were here to watch the kids, Phillip and I were planning an overnight trip in the vicinity of FLOAT, and it just made sense to finally put on my big girl pants and use my gift certificate.

I was thrilled when I went online to schedule my session and saw there were two styles of tanks: the classic model shaped more or less like a chest freezer, and the "summer sky" model that was roomy enough to stand up in.

Unsurprisingly, the summer sky was booked solid.

Should I just abort the whole mission? Do it another weekend? Wait for the summer sky tank like every other sane person in New England?

No. I could do this. It would be fine.

Probably.

I made the appointment and announced my intentions to the kids, who were simultaneously horrified and amused. I stated explaining the process but my 8-year-old interrupted me: "Wait, you'll be naked?"

"It's a private room," the 15-year-old told her. "No one else will be there when Mom gets in the coffin."

The morning of my session did not start out well. I rolled out of bed half-asleep, planning to cut Phillip's hair before he left for work, and somehow I hurt my neck while reaching for the clippers.

I went back to bed with a heating pad and was lying there bemoaning my fate when the 3-year-old wandered in with a diaper that had leaked poop overnight. The good thing about being paralyzed is that you can't change diapers; the bad thing is that the 3-year-old threw a fit because he wanted me instead of Phillip.

So at 6 AM I was lying there in pain, listening to the 3-year-old screaming his head off over the sound of Phillip dry heaving at the contents of the diaper he was changing.

Good times.

Later that afternoon, I walked into the blue-tiled lobby of FLOAT. It was decorated with abstract pictures of blue swirls on the walls, and on the counter was a display of KIND bars and stack of books for sale called Get High Now (Without Drugs.) Behind the front desk were two nice young ladies with bull nose rings.

"Have you ever floated with us before?" one of them asked.

I thought the answer was pretty obvious, since between the three of us and the one other person in the lobby, I was the only one without a nose ring.

After I traded my shoes for a pair of blue plastic flip-flops, she showed me to a pale blue room about the size of a one-car garage. Silhouettes of bamboo shoots were painted on the walls and a large healing crystal sat on an end table near the door.

She explained the rules, pointed out the earplugs, and opened the tank to show me the inside. I cannot tell you how relieved I was to see the panic button on the inside of the pod door (she called it a "call button" but I know a panic button when I see one.)

Thank goodness someone thought to install a freakout alarm.

The tank actually looked a lot bigger in person than in pictures, and I had no trepidation crawling in and closing the door behind me.

I forgot how salty the water was, until I sat down and my feet popped right up to the surface.

My neck was still stiff from being old hurting it this morning, and I had a hard time finding a comfortable position. I tried letting my arms float at my sides, but in the end what felt best was lacing my fingers behind my head like a country boy in a Mark Twain novel so that's what I did.

Then I waited.

It was quiet, obviously. I could hear my heartbeat.

I was paranoid about getting the saltwater-on-steroids into my eyes, so I had to fight the urge to touch my face or scratch any itches.

Occasionally, my foot or elbow bumped up against the edges of the tank.

Sometimes I got a feeling of swaying back and forth gently, like I was in a hammock. Other times, I got the sensation of slowly beginning to turn head over heels, but not in an unpleasant way. Sometimes my legs felt like they were made out of wood.

After I got into relaxing, I did enjoy it. It was nice swaying (or at least feeling like I was) in the dark to the sound of my heartbeat. But mostly it was... nothing. Neither good, nor bad.

The whiteboard in the lobby of FLOAT.

At some point I vaguely recall twitching a few times, like you do when you start falling asleep, which was really weird because each twitch was followed by a ripple of water. And then I definitely fell asleep, because I remember suddenly coming to and wondering "Did they forget me in here? I feel like I've been in here my whole life."

I got out to check what time it was, and there were only a few minutes left of my session. So I climbed back in the tank but left the door open this time.

I was starting to get bored.

It was almost a relief when the music came on to signal that my time was up: a peaceful, flowing melody that sounded like the soundtrack of a National Geographic documentary on whales.

I got out and took a quick shower with the provided lemongrass body wash and sulfate-free unscented shampoo, at about which time the peaceful music gave way to a loud and aggressive rap. I couldn't understand all the lyrics, but the gist of it was: "Time is money! Get out!"

Phillip wouldn't be there to pick me up for another 30 minutes, so I headed back to the lobby to kill some time. Turning to the lady at the front desk, I asked, "How long have you been working here?"

"About five years."

"Do you do... it... often?" I gestured toward the hallway leading to the tanks, unsure of the appropriate verb to use. So, do you sensory deprivate often?

Apparently, since "sensory deprivation" sounds like a method for extracting secrets from enemies of the state, people who make a living running places like FLOAT don't call it that. They call it 'flotation therapy.' And the correct word for what you do in a sensory deprivation tank — I mean 'pod' — is 'float.'

She answered, "I try to float once a week."

When I asked what she liked about it, she said she's normally an anxious person, so when she gets overwhelmed it helps her to recall "the peace of the tank."

Okay, so I think I get it.

I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that my experience was kind of... nothing, because it literally was nothing. My senses were given no input for 90 minutes.

The value of floating, I'm thinking, is that it strips away your feelings of stress and negativity, bringing you back to neutral. Regularly floating probably helps you learn to get back to that neutral state on your own when you need to.

I'm glad I tried it once, but I think that was enough for me.

If I had 90 minutes of free time, I think I'd rather spend it outside in nature, or soaking in a regular bathtub with music going, or reading my scriptures. You know, something that also has a positive element to uplift and elevate.

But it makes sense.

After Phillip and I returned home, the kids were crowded around the computer watching a YouTube compilation of goats screaming like humans, and just a tiny piece of me wondered if I didn't want to go back for just a few more minutes of quiet after all.

I survived!

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The Trip So Perfect, You Can't Believe It Happened

When Phillip first told me he had to attend a conference for work last month, I groaned inwardly as I always do at the idea of him going out of town, especially during busy times like, oh, say, December.

But this time there was a twist: the conference was in Florida, and did I want to come, too?

For years I've dreamed about tunneling out of the Massachusetts snow in the depths of winter for a tropical vacation, but we haven't been able to make it happen. Is Florida tropical? No. But it's close enough.

After we figured out how to keep the kids alive for 4 days and bought my ticket, I could hardly sleep. Four days of not getting stuck in an icy driveway! No static electricity! No dry skin! Nobody running away from me screaming "Don't touch me, your hands are freezing!"

I was so excited I didn't even ask any questions.

I didn't know Phillip's itinerary for the conference or whether I'd even really see him. When a friend said "I used to live in Florida! What city are you staying in?" I had no idea. Wherever it is, it was 75° and that was all I needed to know.

And that is how I went from sledding with the kids to eating cupcakes on a hotel balcony overlooking a courtyard full of palm trees, legitimately getting overheated in a light cardigan. It was heavenly.

This picture makes it look as if I'm in jail, but it was actually lovely.
Also, even if I was in jail, I would still be in Florida.

It was relaxing and restorative beyond imagination, but first I want to tell you that I have never been so seasonally confused in my life.

Having always lived in places that are cold and snowy in the winter, I never even thought about the fact that sunny Florida was also celebrating Christmas.

I mean, I logically knew they used the same calendar, but I was so deep in vacation mode that it wasn't until I got off the plane in Tampa and practically ran into a holiday garland-wrapped pillar that I remembered, "Oh yeahhhh... it's Christmas for them, too."

From there, things got weirder.

The display case at the bakery was full of pumpkin spice donuts and eggnog-flavored cupcakes, which I associate with sweater weather but I guess Floridians, like, eat them by the beach while applying SPF 50.

Christmas carols were playing in the trolley that took us from the resort to the beach walk downtown. We listened to "Little Drummer Boy" with the windows down, something I could never do at home without risking frostbite.

To me, palm trees are the ultimate symbol of the relaxed pace of a summer beach vacation, so seeing them inexplicably wrapped in Christmas lights (which symbolize the hustle and bustle and thermal base layers of winter) was beyond disorienting.

I know it's completely normal to people who live here, but not to me.

Where I live, it's not Christmas until you go outside and the surface layer of your eyeballs freeze.

Everything, from my complete lack of personal responsibilities to the tourists wandering around in their khaki shorts, confirmed that I was indeed on vacation... but then we'd pass a car with a Christmas tree tied to the roof and suddenly I wasn't sure of anything anymore.

Just stick the Christmas tree between the palms and pretend like we didn't have to ship it 1,000 miles here from Cleveland.

I also associate the warm weather with long summer days, so imagine my surprise when it continued to be winter and the sun set at 5:30 every day.

I mean, I did get to watch the sun set from the hot tub at the resort so it's not like I'm complaining.

For the rest of my life,  I think I'll remember how it felt to walk down to the ocean with my sandals in my hand, feeling the sun on my back for the first time in months. 

I just closed my eyes and took the deepest breath ever, like I was trying to literally inhale the moment. I WAS LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF THIS. 

This break from real life would've been welcome at any point during the year, but to abruptly go from the misery of single-digit temperatures to walking barefoot on the beach was like an out-of-body experience in all the right ways.

Phillip and I did have some logistics to discuss (because purportedly, Christmas was still coming) but I insisted that we do it all from the balcony or beside the fire pit on the patio. I didn't want to waste a single second sitting indoors.

It pained me whenever I had to go inside. I would've slept out there if they'd let me.

The view from our balcony, which I probably should've slept on now that I think about it.

This trip was a weird combination of a solo vacation and a couple's trip.

While Phillip was in talks and workshops during the day, I laid at the poolside or walked on the beach or went downtown and ate lunch with a book. After he was finished in the late afternoon, he'd join me and we'd figure out what we wanted to do for the rest of the night.

We took an evening walk along the beach and came across some people singing Christmas carols by the ocean, and strolled a pier where we could browse vendors' booths of overpriced jewelry made from shells.

We had tasty food and milkshakes (flashback to our trip to New York City where we got milkshakes from the same place twice in one day because they were so good, I guess that's how we party hard on vacation.)

We tried not to rely solely on selfies to remember this vacation, but when we asked a random person to take our picture on the beach it just turned out like this:

Not pictured in this crooked shot: the beach or Phillip's head.

So we decided that selfies would have to do.

Four days and three nights came and went, and it was time for me to go home. Though I would've loved to stay longer forever, I did notice that by end I was getting used to the ocean and the sunshine. The Christmas decorations on the palm trees didn't seem noteworthy anymore.

In retrospect, four days was the perfect length of time for me to be there and still appreciate every single second of the trip.

When I woke up the first morning after coming back home to New England, I looked out the window to see it had snowed overnight.

Even though it was colder, every branch was coated in white and I took the same deep breath I had taken that first day in Florida and thought Well, this is ridiculously beautiful, too.

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