It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Here are some pictures of my decorations including the wreath I made with Mom on Tuesday and the cute new nativity I got.  Merry Christmas!!

I wanted a snowman wreath to go with my idea of someday having a snowman themed Christmas.  We found the stuff at Hobby Lobby and this is what I came up with. 

When Mom and Dad moved she didn't want to take the Christmas village because she didn't know where she would put it.  I didn't want it to get taken to DI so I took it and set it up on my coffee table.

My Christmas tree.  Mom and Dad and Grandpa Piercy (who passed away November 7) are responsible for most of the ornaments on this tree.  Mom wanted to make sure when we were grown up we'd have enough ornaments to decorate a tree since she and Dad didn't when they got married.  It's been fun collecting the ornaments over the years and then reminiscing about where they came from every time I put up my tree. 

This was a gift from my visiting teachers a few years ago. 

This was a gift from my dear friend Nicole last year, and since it fits the snowman theme, it gets a special spot outside the front door. 

This is my newest snowman set.  A snowman nativity.  I love it!!

Christmas Countdown

I decided this year that instead of letting December get away from me like normal I would do something every day that reminded me of the season.  Whether it was reading a Christmas story or watching a movie, listening to Christmas music or going to see the lights I would make this December memorable.  I started by making a calendar and planning out the whole month.  So far it's been really good.  On the first, I was in Idaho so I took Santa Maybe with me and read it in my hotel room.  The second, since it was Sunday I looked up all the scriptures under the heading Jesus Christ, Birth of in the Topical guide and read them all. I also listened to the Forgotten Carols and read the story.  On the third, Mom and Dad came up to my house and helped me put up my Christmas tree and decorate.  The fourth, Mom and I decided to make wreaths and listen to Christmas music.  Then when I got home I put up the Christmas village and watched White Christmas.  The fifth, we made a few Christmas treats.  Tonight, I'm watching the Forgotten Carols DVD and eating Christmas treats.  It's been fun so far and I'm excited to continue.

November 22

Happy Thanksgiving! Today I am grateful for so many blessings. I am so grateful that I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that I believe in a living prophet and continuing revelation.  I'm grateful for eternal families and the opportunity to spend time with some of them today.  I'm grateful for the opportunity to be in Arizona with my brother's family today and to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with them.  The kids want to list all the things they are thankful for and it can go on and on.  I love it.  I'm so grateful that I live in this free country and that I have the opportunity to vote and make my voice heard.  I'm so grateful for the blessing of prayer and for the support I feel from my Heavenly Father.  I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have this day of gratitude to help me focus on how many blessings I really have.

November 21

Today I am grateful that we had a safe drive to Arizona.

November 20

Today I am grateful for paid vacation.  Mom and Dad and I are leaving tomorrow to go to Arizona to spend Thanksgiving with Todd and Nicole and I get paid to be gone.  Kind of great!  Next weekend I get to go to Idaho for my friend Nicole's baby's blessing and since their church is so early I wanted to go up Saturday and try to get in a few temple sessions.  Again I get paid to be gone.  I've worked hard to get to this point where I have so much vacation to look forward to and I'm grateful.

November 19

Today I am thankful that I work at a place that is run by people who work together to solve problems and figure things out. You may have heard about Wonder bread closing down. The people at our corporate office had already been in negotiation with a different company to supply our buns and so with some careful planning on their part we should be able to be into the new product without any hiccups in our business. There has been a run on other bakeries to provide buns for all the food places and they are having to turn people away.  I'm happy that our corporate people make my job easy.  

November 18

Today I am grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ.  Today in Sacrament Meeting we had a high council speaker who spoke in depth about Jesus Christ as our advocate with the Father and he quoted 1 Nephi 19:9.  It reads: "And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him and he suffereth it.  Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men."  He said he's not grateful that Christ was scourged, smitten, or spit upon, but he was grateful that Christ suffered it because it was because of His suffering that He is able to succor us.  He said, "As Christ ministered on the earth he represented the Father and did his will.  Now that His mission is finished, He was able to ascend to heaven to represent us to the Father.  Jesus Christ is fighting for all of us to get to come home because of His suffering.  He is pleading my case in front of Heavenly Father and now my role is to choose the right and keep the commandments.  How grateful I am that He finished His mission.  How grateful I am that He loves me.  How grateful I am for his long-suffering and loving kindness.  I make too many mistakes over and over and I'm grateful that He continues to fight for me.  I'm grateful that He wants me to come home.  I'm grateful for the opportunity to finish my mission and then to be able to return Home.

November 17

Today I am grateful for a clean kitchen.  Keeping my kitchen clean is so hard for me.  I don't really know why but I let the dishes get stacked up for days and then I (and my Dawn) have to work harder to get the dried up food off.  Why do I not just clean up when I'm done??  Someday I will learn to figure that out, but in the meantime, it only took me about 20 minutes tonight to make it pretty, so feeling pretty good about it!!

November 16

Today I am grateful for my job.  I am so blessed to have a good paying job, that enables me to have the life I do.  I can afford to pay all of my bills and live in a pretty nice apartment, and eat every day.  In today's economy that's a really nice blessing.

November 15

Today I am grateful for sleep.  Nuff said...

November 14

Today I am grateful for nature.  This morning I went out with Todd and Nicole and Andrew and Rory and my mom and the dog and we went for a walk around the Jordan River parkway where my mom lives.  There was still snow on the ground, but because the snow came so suddenly there were still leaves on the ground as well.  There were ducks in one pond, but ice in another.  It was like we had entered a place where fall and winter collided and were trying to one up each other.  It was fun to watch the kids running around and throwing snow balls at the ice and chasing the ducks back into the pond after they fed them some bread.  I'm happy that I live in a place that has all of the seasons and I'm grateful for the time to go out and appreciate God's beautiful creations.

November 13

Today I'm grateful for sunshine.  We had the funeral for my grandpa today and we were a little worried that it would be a miserable day based on the fact that we got a lot of snow last weekend.  As we came out of the church to go to the cemetery the sun was bright in the sky.  We got there and it wasn't too cold and we were able to enjoy the graveside ceremony.  It was a really nice day.

November 12

Today I am grateful for extended family.  The viewing for my grandpa was tonight and a lot of my cousins and my mom's cousins were there.  It was a great opportunity to meet together and visit and just catch up.

November 11

Today I am grateful for music and the power it is in my life. I have the opportunity of being the choir director in my ward and as we learn the Christmas music that I got to choose it makes me happy. Today also was our Primary program and I just love hearing the kids bear their simple testimonies through music and word. I also get a great deal of inspiration from hymns and other songs and I'm grateful for the gift of music in my life.

November 10

Today I am grateful for weekends!!!!!  It's been a seriously long week.  When I made the decision to go to the temple everyday this week, it didn't occur to me how difficult that would be.  I've been so blessed to be able to spend a few hours of the last five days in the temple, but it's hard work to get dressed up and drive up and rearrange my schedule to make it work.  Today as I sat for an extra long time in the Celestial Room, because I had "nothing better to do" I was thinking about how drained I am.  Almost immediately the thought came into my head "I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it."  I smiled to myself, as tears came to my eyes, because it has been 100% worth it.  It's the best gift I could have given myself.  Now that I'm done, I am going to curl up on my couch under my new blanket and just enjoy the nothingness for a minute, because that's about all I have!!  Happy Weekend!

November 9

Today I am grateful for friendly happy people.  It's been kind of a weird day.  It's been snowing since about 7 this morning. Snow at Arctic Circle means that a lot of people don't roll down their windows all the way and it's really hard to hear them, and then when they pay they roll up their windows, so you're standing at the window waiting for them to notice their change or credit card, and then they act surprised to see you standing there... I love snow days!!  Anyway I had to work a 12 hour shift today and I started at 6:30 this morning at the temple so it was a long day.  About 40 minutes before I got off, I had pulled a car up so I could get a cone out to the car behind them and when I ran the food out after a few minutes, they thanked me sincerely and wished me a good night.  That happens quite often, but for some reason this time it touched my heart.  After so many people who were somewhat difficult to work with it was nice to be sincerely thanked.  It was nice to know that they were grateful to me for coming out in the snow... at least that's how I took it.  Sometimes I feel like I work in a thankless job.  It's almost as if people in the drive thru treat me like I'm somehow less intelligent than they are or that what I do for them is somehow below recognition, like it's expected somehow.  I appreciate people who recognize me as an intelligent human being and are sincerely thankful for what I do.  Those people are few and far between and they make me grateful.

November 8

Last night at 11 my grandpa Piercy passed away.  Today I am grateful for eternal families.  My grandpa was almost 90 years old.  He's been sick for several years.  He's been unhappy about being alive for a really long time, so in reality it's a serious blessing.  When my mom called to tell me today I was in the temple, and so didn't get the message for a while.  I reflected for a few minutes on the fact that I had made myself unavailable to find out such important news, but really, I was in the temple helping someone named Vilie Grace Slingerland receive her opportunity to be with her family forever and I just felt really grateful.  The plan of salvation is real and it is our blessing and opportunity to get everyone involved!  I've thought a lot about my grandpa today and I've tried to feel the emotion of the news.  I'm not sad, I'm not upset, I don't feel like I wished we had had more time.  I mostly felt grateful that Grandpa got his wish.  I felt grateful that he's free from pain and hurt.  Grandpa wouldn't want me to be sad for him.  He's home.  And we're an eternal family so he's waiting for the rest of us.  That just makes me really grateful.

November 7

Today I am grateful for the temple.  It's our Stake Temple week and our leaders encouraged us to go as often as possible.  I went last night and again tonight and it's such an amazing place to be.  As the election raged and opinions rage and facebook is loaded with comments on what is happening to America, it's nice to  sit quietly in a place where I know that God is in charge of this whole crazy mess and that in the end His will will be done.  It's nice to go and hear someone pray for the leaders of nations and have faith that that prayer will be answered.  It's nice to walk away from life and sit in a beautiful room and remember that God loves me and that this is the promised land to those who live righteously.  I am seriously so blessed!!

November 6

Today I am grateful for my crock pot.  I put breakfast in it last night and woke up to a delicious sausage hash brown egg casserole and now I'm attempting a crock pot lasagna.  It's so great to put food in and forget about it and come back to yumminess!!

November 5

Today I am grateful for my Mom.  It's her birthday today and we didn't do a whole lot of celebration this year, but I am super grateful for the influence she is in my life.  She is a fun grandma, loves to take pictures of flowers and nature in general and has taught me to love it as well.  We haven't always been on the same page. I was a pretty bratty kid, teenager, young adult, older adult... Anyway, my mom has stuck by me even when she didn't really like me and now we have a great relationship.  I count her among my best friends.  So Happy Birthday Mom.  I love you!!

November 4

Today  I am grateful for the Sabbath!!  I didn't have to get up early this morning.  I don't have to "Do" anything except get ready for church and go.  I work a 6 day work week.  It's so nice to wake up at my own leisure and then make the decision to do nothing for a few hours.  I read blogs, play on Pinterest, and don't feel guilty for not doing something "I'm supposed to be doing."  So today I'm grateful for the one day a week that no expects anything from me.

November 3

See it's only the 3rd and I've already missed a day, so I guess I'll write two things I'm grateful for today and we'll hope I can stay on this better.  Today I am grateful for autumn.  I walked outside today and it was crisp and clear and there was just a hint of the color left on the leaves.  It's hoodie weather and I love it.  I am also grateful for memories.  That one sounds funny so let me explain.  Yesterday I was going through some old stuff deciding if I needed to keep it or just get rid of it. As I was going through the boxes I was thinking about where the stuff came from and who gave it to me and as I looked through pictures, and wondered who those people from my mission were, I was really grateful that God gives us memories.  There's a whole lot of stuff I don't remember, but the things I can remember have given my life a lot of happiness, and so today I can smile at the memory.

November 1

I committed to this gratitude posting 4 days ago and now that it's time I'm doing it grudgingly... doesn't that sound grateful!!!
I've been pretty emotional all day long.  Blame hormones or my super late night at work doing month end last night, but little things are setting me off today.  Today I am grateful for friends.  I've been sitting on my couch wallowing in self pity and I've received like 50 text messages tonight.  Random requests, a chat, and one friend who just sends me random lines from Reba episodes.  It's made me feel rather loved on a melancholy day, so to those who I call friends... I am grateful.

Totally cheesy picture, but it works!!

Blog? I have a blog?

You know that point in your life when you go to your blog and look at the date of your last post and think, "No surely it hasn't been that long!!"  Time is FLYING!!  I can't believe we're all the way to the end of October.  Didn't I just start May??  I need to remember to update this thing more often.  One of the reasons I have for not updating, is that the computer is all the way in the other room and I can do most of my other online stuff from the tablet, so I forget to check back with my computer and thus my blog gets ignored.  Sorry little blog!!  I'll try to keep up on writing!!

This month has flown by.  October 4th I had the privileged opportunity to go to the temple when Aubrey received her endowment and then on October 23rd we went back together.  It is such a great thing that we are both temple worthy and that we have this thing we can share!!  I'm just so proud of her for making the necessary changes in her life and being able to receive the blessings of the temple.  Her countenance is bright and she reflects such a spirit!  Aubrey has been one of my favorite people for a lot of years, but she's different now... in a good way, obviously.  It's been such a treat to be on the journey with her, although sitting in the Celestial Room in the Salt Lake Temple last week, we both agreed that we were no where near finished with our journey.  We both have a lot to work on!!

On October 5th my parents moved from the house I essentially grew up in to move into one that is much smaller and a bit closer to me.  It only takes me 19 minutes to drive there instead of 25.  It's in Murray and it's small and perfect and I really like it.  I joke with them that I'm going to buy it from them when they're too old to keep up on the payments and then I'll have a house of my own.  It's super cute with just two bedrooms and a loft!!  I like it a lot.  In the meantime, I've spent a lot of time helping my mom pick out furniture and put things away and find storage places for all the stuff they didn't get rid of.  It's a lot smaller than the old house, so the cleaning out took some serious time, a dumpster, and a hundred trips to the DI.  I told them it was a good thing they were going through things now, so we didn't have to declutter as much when they die.

On October 11, (10-11-12) a friend of mine gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Olivia and I am so happy for her and her family!!  She is so adorable and I can't wait to meet her in person (they live in Idaho Falls).  It's such a fun thing to welcome new little spirits into this world.  I'm so thrilled for her blessed parents.

I'm trying to continue on the Dave Ramsey plan of getting out of debt and I'm down to 23 months and counting of being debt free!!  It feels so great to have a pay off date.  It's still a long way off, but not as far off as it was before I found the Dave Ramsey plan.  I helped a friend at work get started on it too, and it felt really good to share it with her.

I've decided that I'm going to do the grateful posts for November.  I need an overhaul and I think being more grateful will help, so I'm going to really focus on blogging my gratitude everyday.  Hopefully now that I've written that I'll really do it.  I've thought about doing it as a photography blog, but I'm not committing to that yet!!  We'll see if I remember to pull the camera out enough!!  Well I guess that's enough random for one Sunday night.  Until November 1st!!!

She's Alive!!! With some great news!

I've been sick for 12 days.  That is my life!!  Today I can almost breathe and I only cough when I try to sing... if you know me, that's a lot.  I skipped church last week because I had to work all week and Sunday was my only "day off".  I had to find someone to substitute choir director and unfortunately I wasn't able to find anyone to sit in my Sunday School Class, so I forced my co-teacher to break the rules (Sorry Kari!).  It's been tough for me who rarely gets sick to succumb to the snot, sore throat, gut wrenching cough, and overall feeling nasty.  I have been living on Dayquil by day and Nyquil by night, tissues in every room in my house and in my office at work, and sore throat lozenges the first hour and cough drops the second.  It's been horrible.  Today I had to teach Sunday School and the choir was singing in Sacrament Meeting, so God blessed me enough to feel good enough to magnify my callings... except for the cough when I tried to sing.  Here's hoping He sees fit to let me feel good tomorrow, because I'm sick of being sick and it's really hard to do my job when I feel icky!
My house is suffering.  My kitchen had a week worth of soup dishes and glasses and some other things when I was pretending I didn't feel bad and I sort of cooked.  I finally got that cleaned a few minutes ago and I'm blogging instead of folding laundry.  I really should take advantage of this almost feeling normal and get everything done, but I have been noticing when I check other people's blogs, how far down I am on the list.  Isn't that sad?? I base my self worth on how many blogs are above mine on your friends list!!

 AND I have something so super exciting to report... My dear friend Aubrey and I have been on this perfectionish quest to make ourselves feel better about our lives.  It all started when I went to Stake Conference in May and Elder Shayne M. Bowen of the Seventy invited all of us to think of someone in our lives who needed rescuing.  Immediately Aubrey's name came to mind and I thought about our relationship.  We've known each other since sophomore year in high school... that's more than half my life.  We have been casual friends, going to dinner when it was convenient, hanging out, sharing problems, etc.  She was faithful and diligent when I was on my mission, and wrote me weekly, sent packages of treats, and generally helped support me as a missionary.  Why it had never occurred to me to relate to Aubrey on a spiritual level still makes me wonder, but because of some past stuff Aubrey has been struggling with her testimony for some time.  Without getting too personal, I felt in May that it was time to invite Aubrey to get her life in order and go through the temple. Now on the one hand, it may have been slightly selfish.  I want someone to go to the temple with me.  I want someone who can help me on my quest to perfection and someone who would support me as I supported her back.  I can't remember exactly how it came up, but since text messaging is the way we generally communicate, it was a text conversation that I brought it up in.  We talked about it and then we made a tentative plan.  We would choose things that we both needed to work on and start there.  We started with praying every night.  We then moved on to reading the Book of Mormon daily.  I made "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus" jars, that had things for us to do each week.  We draw one and we compare and talk about it.  One Sunday Aubrey faced a great fear and went to visit with her Bishop.  He gave her a recommend to do baptisms for the dead and said he'd talk to the Stake President about what she'd have to do to go receive her endowment.  One Sunday she faced another great fear and bore her testimony in church.  Week after week we supported each other.  We went to Deseret Book and bought Emily Freeman's new book Becoming His.  It's a guide to discipleship.  The road has been long and hard and we've both struggled; though luckily we usually struggle at different times, so the other one can be supportive and encourage.  Last week Aubrey met with her Bishop and Stake President and left the recipient of a temple recommend that will allow her to enter the House of the Lord and receive her endowment.  She texted me just the other day and told me to set aside October 4.  Later she sent me a message that said, "If you had asked me a year ago if I would be going through the temple now I would have said you were crazy."  I honestly have to say that what began as a challenge for me to help Aubrey has turned much more selfish than I ever imagined.  Everything that I have done to help her has been returned to me exponentially.  I can no longer call Aubrey a casual friend.  She is someone who has helped me so much become what I am today that I am honored that we were allowed to meet.  The person whose name came to mind one morning in May has through no fault of her own become my best friend because she truly is the person who knows so many of my weaknesses and loves me anyway.  I am grateful for her and for this amazing experience.  I'm so happy that she will soon have the eternal blessings of the temple.  Our next goal is to find perfection seeking twins, because then we'll be sisters!!!  Wish us luck!!

Technologically Advanced

So I won a tablet at a work party!  Can I just say how cool this is?  I feel super cool having joined the world of Apps.  I never wanted a smart phone but a free tablet... yes please!

Losing My Balance

The other day I had a few minutes to spare before meeting a friend for dinner so I ran into the library to see if I could find anything to help with my quest to perfection, and also to see if they had any fun piano music.  I found a book by Emily Watts called Confessions of an Unbalanced Woman.  It was a talk she gave at a Time Out for Women.  I love Emily Watts.  She has a great way of teaching principles and also keeping it light, fun, and real.  She is a real person, striving to do the right thing.  Because it's a talk it's a really quick read and after I got home from dinner I stood in  my kitchen and started.  She talks about finding the lack of balance in her life over a load of laundry.  Socks, specifically.  She spent a ton of time sorting socks, only to find out later that she was still getting mismatched socks and it was causing such frustration, her husband suggested that she make the kids do their own laundry so they'd have to sort their own socks.  They began to teach their children at a pretty young age to do laundry, and they always started with towels, because it mattered less with towels if you got a red one in with the others.  One day she heard an awful sound and went down to the laundry room to investigate.  The high capacity washer was stuffed with towels, and had become unbalanced.  She says if you consistently wash fourteen towels in a machine that is designed to hold ten you will eventually break your machine.  She then took that as a metaphor for her own life.  She says, "I am a fourteen-towel woman in a ten-towel capacity life.  No wonder I feel so out of balance!  I have lots to do and all of it is good and worthwhile and important, but I simply can't do it all at once.  How can I balance everything?  This became the object of a serious quest for me."  She tried a few things:  Time management, which was fine when every day worked out, but most didn't. Finding her answer in the scriptures: didn't find much about balance there.  Then one day she was watching the movie The Ten Commandments and found the answer she'd been looking for... and ultimately the answer I've been looking for.  She says,"There is a scene where Pharoah is mad because Moses doesn't come to his birthday party and Ramses decides to try and get his rival in trouble by charioting down personally with Pharoah so they can see firsthand what is going on.  Moses is overseeing the building of a city, and his work site overlooks this immense valley filled with thousands of Hebrew slaves.  On the table is one of those scales with two sides and Ramses begins to use the scale as a tool to illustrate the gravity of his accusations against Moses.  He feeds the slaves with temple grain, Ramses says plinking down a little weight on one side of the scale.  He gives them one day in seven to rest, another weight, another plink, and the scale tips further to that side.  It goes like this for awhile and Moses just watches.  When Ramses is finished making his accusations, Moses picks up a brick from the table and says: 'A city is made of bricks, the strong make many; the weak make few; and the dead make none.'

And then he drops the brick on the other side of the scale, and all the little weights of Ramses accusations go flying.  There is no way they can compete.  Emily Watts continues, "In that moment it came to me in a flash- I don't want balance.  What I want is the brick!  I want to find the one thing in my life that, if I get that right, it doesn't matter what the world throws onto the other side of the scale.  It won't make any difference at all.  The love of God, the love of Christ- their love for us, and our love for them- that love is the brick, and when the brick is in place, everything else works out all right."
I have been struggling, trying to do so much, trying to do nothing... this never ending quest for something so elusive that I can't figure out how to get it.  And right here in my hand is this tiny little book with the answer so clear to me.  I need to find and feel God's love.  I need to realize that the mercy of Jesus Christ is real and that it is for me.  I need to stop trying so hard to get where I want that I get nowhere.  I just need to wake up every morning and try all day to choose the right, and then before I go to bed I need to evaluate where I am and pledge to do better tomorrow.  I need to pray and read the scriptures and fast and let the love of God work in my life.  I just need to "desire to believe and let the desire work in me".  I need to feel love, not guilt. I need to do everything I can to "be the kind of person that I know I'd like to be".
My life is full of 30 second conversion moments.  Things that I commit to and then I turn around and forget them.  I think I'm going to start using this blog as an outlet for those.  I'm going to write them down and depend on my faithful reader to keep me going.  I'm going to do my best to feel God's love and do the things that I am inspired to do.  I'm going to buy a brick and keep it in an obvious place in my house to remind me that all I need is the brick.  And then I'm going to believe.

Frustration

It's been a really long time since I posted and I'm not sure much has changed.  I stopped trying to be perfect and just stopped trying all together.  I decided chilling out was what I needed and then lost focus all together!  I need to find some balance!  It's been really hard to come to terms with who I am turning into so I shut down completely.  I have zero motivation for much of anything, so here I am going through the motions.  I don't know why it seems to be all or none for me, but that is what I feel like I'm doing.  I don't know when I lost complete focus.  I found this pillow on pinterest the other day that says "I never finish anyth".  I laughed a lot because it's true!!  My friend Aubrey and I have been on this striving to do one thing at a time to be better today than we were yesterday and she's doing great!!  I wish I had some motivation to do it too.  Two weeks ago I helped clean out my grandparents house and brought a bunch of stuff home and now it's in the living room because I don't know where to put it, so even my house is out of sorts.  I need to start over!  On the bright side, my mom decided she didn't want her piano anymore, so now it's at my house.  One more thing to occupy my time... Oh well.  Someday I'll be the person I want to be,  just as soon as I can figure out who that is.

Be still... and know that I am God

I have been seriously struggling lately.  I am so unhappy with everything in my life and I can't seem to get myself out of the thick of thin things and up where I can see the Light.  Today as I was studying my Sunday School lesson on the importance of Patriarchal blessings I had a small epiphany.  I need to chill out!!  I have been trying to run in 47 different directions and figure out all the answers to life's questions today.  I have been trying to simultaneously figure out how to get my spiritual, physical, financial, and emotional life into a place where I feel comfortable and all the while making myself totally uncomfortable.  I have been fighting with my budget, trying to figure out how to cut back enough to get out of debt.  I have been fighting with my diet trying to figure out how to go all or none.  I have been fighting with myself to get back on track with scripture study and prayer and do all the stuff "I'm supposed to".  I have been fighting with my heart, to help me find happiness!  Today I QUIT!!!  I refuse to continue these fights!!  I have decided that I need to be "content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me."  Not that I'm going to give up my quest to be debt free, lose weight, or strive to be the kind of person spiritually that I want and need to be.  I'm not going to give up on it.  I'm just going to take it slower.  I'm going to try to find joy in the every day.  I'm going to start counting my blessings and stop counting all the things that make me feel guilty.  I joined billionclicks.org yesterday.  It's a website started by singer/songwriter Hilary Weeks to try to get everyone to think positively and count their positive thoughts by using a clicker.  I'm going to get me a clicker and count my positive thoughts and actions.  Her whole premise is that by individuals thinking more positively we can change the world.  I encourage you to join.  Start today by counting your positive thoughts and actions and help me change the world.  Today I choose to be grateful for my myriad of blessings and the great things that make up my life.  Today I am choosing to smile and to eat what I choose without feeling like I'm a failure.  Today I choose to revisit my budget and stop letting it stress me out. Today I choose to read my scriptures and just let the peace of the Spirit flow through me.  Today I choose to CHILL!!

Hee Hee

Nature

I've been thinking a lot about taking time out to stop and "smell the roses".  It seems like I don't appreciate outside as much as I should, so this last weekend I decided to take the photo opportunity.  I went with my Mom and Aunt and Grandma to California for my cousin Leah's wedding.  The following five pictures were taken as we were hustling down the freeway.  Mom was driving and I was seeing how well my camera did at 65 MPH through the car window.  Not half bad if you ask me.  The clouds were AWESOME!!

 We drove past this rainbow and then another one appeared (below) and we drove past it too!  It was a really cool thing to see!

 On Monday Mom and I ventured to Thanksgiving Point for the Tulip Festival!!  I love it!  These pictures were all from that and my amateur hand.  I decided when the subject of your pictures isn't running or whining, it's pretty easy to make your pictures look good.

Happy Spring!!

This is one of those posts that happens because you feel like you should update something, but you're not really sure where it might go.  I feel like I haven't written in a really long time and I just need to catch up.  Sometimes I think this blog might be the only personal history I have so I should keep it somewhat updated!  Life is actually pretty good right now and overall I'm a pretty happy girl.  I started focusing a lot of my energy on physical, financial, and spiritual well being and it's amazing to me how well it's going.  I was introduced to the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover by my cousin Hailee and I've learned a lot about all the things I've been doing wrong.  It kind of sucks when you realize you have a huge hole to dig yourself out of, money wise, but on the other hand, it's nice when you realize that in 2 1/2 short years you can be totally debt free and on your way to financial freedom.  A year ago if someone told me I would be able to pay off all my debt in a few years I would have laughed, but when you practice proper principles the impossible becomes possible.  As for the physical well being... well let's just say it's slow going.  I'll do really well eating right for like a week and then something throws a wrench in the plan, like a 65 hour work week.  If I could convince my body that french fries and corn dogs are disgusting, this would be a lot easier.  It's so hard for me not to eat at work.  I just need some self discipline... anyone know where I can buy that??  I also need to exercise more.  It's so hard to be good!!  Spiritually I struggled for about 3 weeks before I remembered that if I remember to pray and read my scriptures my life is better and easier!  I started again Monday and my goodness, it's miraculous!!  Living by correct principles works!  Who knew!!  Anyway, that's about it... till next time faithful reader!

The path to Discipleship

I was playing around on facebook and saw this link.  It was just what I needed to hear today.  Hope you enjoy!

My favorite part is when the girl says, "I think being reconverted is consciously making choices every day that will lead you in the path you want to be in."  It sums up what I've been trying to do the last few months.  

Catching Up

I thought it was time to post a little something to catch up on the goings on in my life.  On January 26, my grandpa passed away.  He was the first of my four grandparents to go and while it was "fun" to see the relatives that came for the funeral, it's hard to have to see them for funerals.  I went to see my Grandma the other day and I asked how she was doing and she said she was lonely.  I felt sorry for her.  They had been married almost 62 years!  That's a long time to live with someone and then to have to adjust to the big quiet house has got to be difficult.  At the cemetery, after the service was over, my brother and sister in law and I sang Families Can Be Together Forever.  It was kind of my grandpa's theme song.  It is definitely his goal.  The night of the viewing my uncle read us a letter that Grandpa had written, talking about how he was glad he was going first, so he could get our mansion ready!!  It makes me happy to think of my grandpa in heaven wielding a hammer, building us a mansion that we can all live in together!  This is the first time in my life, that I saw the blessing in the death of a loved one and I felt that the Atonement took all the pain out of him dying.  I struggle a lot with death when I feel it's too soon but Grandpa lived a long life and at the end was really suffering, so I'm glad that he is now pain free.  It is a little strange going to their house and him not being there, but I think that time will heal that for me.
In other news, I am pretty much the same boring person!!  I am still struggling with what I might say on a dating site that might make me attractive to all those singles out there.  I told my cousin Hailee that I have this desire to be brutally honest.  If I was going to be honest, I would write things like, "Sometimes I get angry and I yell.  Sometimes I go to bed without brushing my teeth.  Sometimes I go a whole month without shaving my legs."  How many men do you think will be interested after I reveal all that!!!  Probably not the ones I want.  She told me that it was probably important to be honest, but I should be sure to let him know that I wasn't perfect but I was at least trying.  I think that's probably a good idea.  Maybe I should try harder to not lose my temper, brush my teeth and shave my legs!!  That might make me more desirable!!  Anyway at the end of the day, I'm a happy girl so I guess I can't complain too much!!!  Life is good!

Because I Haven't Been Brave

 The other night I was very sick.  I came home from work early and slept for about 3 hours then got up, showered, and turned on a movie.  I chose You've Got Mail.  It's one of those fun romantic comedies with a predictable ending where boy meets girl and after some struggle, they live happily ever after.  I was sitting there watching when Kathleen, Meg Ryan's character, said this line:
"Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, valuable, but small. . And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around?"  
It struck me because I feel exactly the same way.  And sadly, I have discovered that the answer to the first question is that I lead a small life because I haven't been brave.  I have an acquaintance who I like to blog stalk.  She is a girl I know from high school, but we aren't really great friends.  Not because I wouldn't like to be.  Maybe we're just too busy to be anything but facebook friends, but I read her blog faithfully.  She hasn't had an easy life.  She has struggles like anyone, maybe even more than anyone, but the way she's come out of her refiners fire makes me envious.  I want the clarity she has.  Maybe I'm required to go through a refiner's fire that I haven't been through yet to get that kind of clarity.   Maybe I don't desperately want it because I'm not willing to pay the price, but her testimony of the role of her Savior in her life is something to envy.  Last  year I began a reformation of sorts trying to get myself into a position I was comfortable with.  I began to question things I've always done in an effort to get closer to my Father in Heaven.  I got rid of a whole bunch of inappropriate (in my eyes) movies and started reading some amazing church books all in this effort to become a better person and here somewhere in the middle of that, I'm losing focus.  I'm losing sight of what I gave it all up for.  I struggle daily with the Sunday School answers (prayer, scripture study) when I desire a close personal relationship with my Savior.  It's like I have the equation backwards.  I want the blessings without the sacrifice and therefore I lead a small life and I do so because I am not brave.  I do so because I am trying to find the answers in all the wrong places.  If I was going to be brutally honest with myself (and in turn with all you loyal blog readers) my future frightens me.  I have this desire to find that one single person who completes me, but truth be told, I have absolutely no idea how to go about that, that isn't scary.  I have wandered onto dating websites, but even filling out my profile terrifies the snot out of me.  I have no idea what to write.  I have no idea what person I am representing and that is ridiculous to me.  How do I not know how to answer the question "Tell me about yourself"?    And so like Kathleen in You've Got Mail, "I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.”