Aleksandra Safronova Graybeal AKA "Shirley" Graybeal AKA Mutti

Aleksandra Mikhailovna Safronova Graybeal is my grandmother. A beautiful petite Ukrainian woman with a huge heart and spirit. Tripp's middle name Aleksander is after her. We called her Mutti, which is German and my dad called her that. I think about her a lot when I work in the garden. I remember being 3 and we were living with my grandparents in Kathleen, GA. We had a big garden. I remember snapping peas, digging for potatoes, and shucking corn. I also remember eating her homemade pickles, blueberry and strawberry muffins(out of the package), and her chicken and mashed potatoes- YUM!! She would wear a scarf around her head and work out in the garden, growing huge tomatoes from plants that were taller than her! I remember climbing a pile of hay in the barn and literally getting ants in my pants, which were blue corduroy with alphabet letters on them. I remember that I got stung by a bee for the first time while I played on the wooden fence in my little sundress. I remember finding a men's razor in the bathroom and slicing my thumb when I tried to shave it with toothpaste. I also remember sleeping in sleeping bags in front of the tiny TV and watching the old black and white King Kong movie- a real snoozer back then.

Funny how your earliest memories are so vivid and vague at the same time. Like, I have memories of times when I'm very young, but I absolutely have no memory of my father living with us... at all. And there were two more kids after me! You may find that sad, and I do too, but it's kind of funny to me. How does that even happen? I mean, sure it means that he probably wasn't there a lot and when he was, he just didn't interact with me much. But I guess I didn't pay very much attention to him either. I was always drawing or outside playing and it's a true miracle that I survived- no offense Mom :) My grandfather and Mutti were blessings for us and good examples to me. After my mission, I met a guy at a church dance named Daniel. He was from around Macon, Ga and I attended his ward down there and when I introduced myself in Relief Society, some of the women asked me if I was related to Ron and Shirley Graybeal. Ron is my grandfather's name, but Shirley?? What you talkin' bout Willis? I went home and asked my mom and she said that Shura was a nickname that my grandfather called my grandmother and that instead of Shura, people called her Shirley. Bwahaha!! That made me laugh and I was really relieved to hear that too.

Mutti would tell us that we shouldn't waste our money on McDonalds because we would just poop it out later. She ALWAYS smelled of garlic! Maybe that's why I love garlic so much. She lived an extremely hard life as a child and as a young woman and mother in her first marriage. She had an article about her printed in a magazine called the Ensign. Click on this title to read it: On the Wings of Prayer

This is a photo of my dad's family-

 Ronnie, Aleksandra, Ronnie Jr, and "Deanie"

Doesn't my grandfather look like Vincent Price? 

Her father Mikhail

Her mother Anna

Carrying a Tune

Now that Erick is 8 and is baptized, and can read fortunately, I am requiring him to go to choir practice with me after church. He was not happy about it until he found out he got to get a piece of candy afterwards. He is such a crazy little character when he is in a playful mood. When he is mad though... ugh! It is Pity City with that boy and he told me that he wants to just go to his room and pout- ha ha. Anyway, our church stake has a conference twice a year where all the wards congregate at their designated stake center and have a service. That is where we hear more of the "business" side of things as well as hearing uplifting talks and musical numbers and I appreciate the publicity of the inner workings of the organization side of my church. I love to sing in stake choir. It has a certain standard that my regular ward choir tends to lack and it just boils down to discipline and experience in singing and technique. This stake conference is going to have a youth choir as well as a primary choir(ages 8-11). I've decided to take Erick to the choir practices and let him experience it for himself. And I want all of my children to be exposed to this at an early age and carry it with them throughout their lives. Erick has been taking lessons for a while now, since March or April, and he will sit at the piano and practice all the time without prompting from me. Sometimes it's annoying when we are trying to get everyone settled down to eat dinner and he starts plinking out a song that he's memorized, but I secretly adore that he does it. And even though it seems like he has a knack for playing the piano(my dad was a natural musician), he can barely carry a tune in a bucket! He sounds so tone deaf when he sings that I try not to be too concerned with it, but I want to help him work on it while he's young. He has been able to correct his pitch, so while that is promising, it is going to make for an interesting choir.

Hoarding...

Like the dragon Smaug hoarding his mountain of stolen gold in The Hobbit by J.R.Tolkien, I hoard clothes. I'm not proud, nope. No. It's just an observation that has now become quite obvious and too hard to miss once you have as many kids as I do! But this tendency, nay, obsession that I have, developed a long time ago. I was one of those middle children who never got what they wanted out of the donated bags of clothes that my mom brought home. Rachel and Sarah got all the good stuff, possibly there was stuff for Bekah, but maybe a shirt or one pair of Jordache jeans(I still remember the shiny pink thread subtly running through the denim like some funky pin stripe) that I was able to claim for my own. Now, 20+ years later, the addiction is rearing its bulky head from the shallow depths of my upstairs closets!

 A youth from my church had a clothing drive today and I decided it was time to purge my home and my soul of the laundry menace in this house. Seriously, it's like reaching into Mary Poppins' tote bag of a bottomless pit laundry basket! I donated 4 huge white bags and still have a bazillion to even go through! I have a strategy. I'm not just going from one extreme to the next and tossing it all out, so that I am never "cured" of this Scrooge-like tendency and go on a "yes-I'll-take-those-off-your-hands" clothing binge. I'm counting out 14 outfits of all sizes, 7 winter and 7 summer. Then 14 more of the same to store as "extra" in the attic in case of muddy puddles, red kool-aid stains, etc. Lastly, 4 church outfits, 2 stored away. I'm exhausted already thinking about all the work that lay ahead, but it is so necessary for the maintenance of my home. I'm like the hub of everything here. If mommy is sick, lazy, distracted... things don't get done and speedily decline in cleanliness while rapidly increasing in quantity. How is that even possible? It sounds like physics but works like some evil black magic.

I recently decided that I need to down-grade and simplify materialistically(yet realistically) in order to truly appreciate the things that I do have. This beautiful house for instance. Now yes, it needs a good exterior painting job, new floors, and just an all around make over, but it is a really beautiful house. Especially when it is not cluttered with paper and other junk that has no purpose and definitely does not add to the decorum of the room. I've realized that these emotional attachments that we make to material things can be very tangible and dangerous if left unchecked. I'm not talking about the physical act of hoarding now, but the effect on our spirituality. It isn't a sin to want nice things, but are they uplifting the spirit in your home and creating an atmosphere of welcome-ness and peace. Yeah, not so much around here. I know that when Adam comes home from a long, hard and fast-paced day at work, he would be able to leave his burdens at the door to walk into a home of love and support. How could he not? This isn't all on me, I know it, but it is a very real concern of mine that my husband WANTS to come home and be home. My kids too. I grew up not spending a lot of time at my house, and by the time I was 16, I was living with friends and had a hall closet filled with my only belongings... wow. Yeah, you can see that addiction developing, huh?

Well, like so many other things that I've learned, a mother sets the mood of her home. I know there are exceptions to any "rule", but this one sits very close to home for me. If I lose my cool, all @%#? breaks loose! Lil' Evil meets Evil Devil and my poor children have no idea what I'm capable of and my delicate-on-the-inside husband would be totally mind blown. But who wants that? Not me. I want simplicity. I want peace. "I'm a minimalist at heart," says the lady with 5 kids. 'Tis true though. It's like a blank canvas. A still, flaccid reflective lake. Any moment a child's piercing scream could break the tranquility, but I tend to think peace promotes peace. A peaceful environment will create a peaceful existence. And don't think about those exceptions right now, you'll break the spell...