Challenge Accepted

My fortune cookie tonight:

I've been thinking a lot lately about pursuing my dream of writing a book.... My life is crazy busy, but I need to find a way to fit that in.

A Weekend Breather

What can I say.... I'm an introvert!

I LOVE it when I have a weekend with nothing planned. An evening and two days ahead of me to use however I want. For me, it's invigorating. Trevor is the total opposite--he likes to keep busy.

This weekend, I finally get a chance to take a breather, and I'm already so relaxed. Life has been a blur lately. We moved into our new house, Trevor left for two weeks to hike Kilimanjaro, my parents and I worked like maniacs to get the house set up and liveable. Not long after that came the news about Grandma and I was off to Utah, first to say goodbye, and then to attend her funeral.

Every weekend that Trevor and I have both been in town, we've been working at the temple, which takes up most of the day. Our time in the temple is wonderful, and I wouldn't trade it. But between that, working full time, and everything else that's happened... Trevor and I have only ever had 2 full days to dedicate to setting up our house. Needless to say, there is still SO MUCH to be done. We try to do what we can in the evenings after work, but besides all of that there are the basic necessities of life we have to take care of--laundry, shopping, cleaning, just life.

Anyway, with all of that, we haven't made the progress I'd hoped on our house, and sometimes it feels like we never will. But tomorrow we will have an entire day to work on things, and I am so hopeful that we can make some real progress. It won't be a laid back day, since my list is a mile long, but we won't have a set schedule and no time limits--we can take as long as we like.

I am looking forward to it so much! Maybe I need to carve out more time like this.

Goodbye Flowers

When Molly was little, I loved to put flowers on her collar.

Unfortunately, I realized before too long that she didn't like them. They would slide around and get in her face. I'm not sure if they were really comfortable.

So it's been a long time since she's worn one.

Yesterday somehow she got into a box of her stuff and emerged with the biggest flower! And completely tore it to shreds.

Guess that really is the end of that!

Blogger days of yore

Sometimes I miss the days when blogs were new and exciting things. Most of my friends had them and updated on a fairly frequent basis.

But time went on and lives got busy, and one by one, friends' blogs crawled to a halt. (Props to those of you still writing--I'm still reading! :) Now, that seems to be happening to me. Two years ago I wrote 68 blog posts in a year (!!!) a personal record! The year after that while I was busy dating Trevor and wedding planning, it dropped to 32... and this year I've written less than 20.

In a way I know it's a good thing. I'm not writing about my life because I'm too busy living it. But... I still miss my blogging days. I'm going to try harder to post more often.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

This may look like we didn't put together a couple costume and just pulled stuff out of our closets.

Which is mostly true... We wanted to be Mr. and Mrs. Incredible but it didn't pan out.

BUT! A true Trekkie such as myself looks at this and says, "Plato's Stepchildren or Who Mourns for Adonais?" (The answer is Who Mourns for Adonais, but with a happier ending and cuter/more realistic love story.)

One of the problems of loving a 1960s TV show is NO ONE gets references like this but me! :')

Fasting From Social Media

Every April and October, our church holds a General Conference where we hear from our Prophet, apostles, and other church leaders.

This year, the Prophet extended a challenge:

1. Go on a 10 day social media fast (and fast from other media that is not uplifting),
2. Read the Book of Mormon between now and the end of the year, and mark each verse that speaks of the Savior.
3. Establish a pattern of regular temple attendance.
4. Participate fully in Relief Society.

At first I was reluctant to do a social media fast, for a couple reasons. In an effort to curb my all too real social media addiction, I had Trevor change all my passwords so I can only get on when he's around. That alone has cut back my social media use quite a bit. Also, the Prophet extended the social media challenge to the teenagers this summer (only 7 days instead of 10) and at the time my husband challenged me to see if I could go 2 weeks instead of just 1. So my first thought was, wait, I already did this. Do I need to do it again?

But.... what came to my mind is the story of Naaman--he was sick with leprosy and came to Elisha to heal him. Elisha actually didn't even come to talk to him--his servant did. His servant told Naaman that he would be healed if he washed in the river Jordan 7 times, Naaman was a bit insulted. That seemed ridiculous to him I guess--he'd expected a big dramatic healing, and he certainly thought the . In his words (2 Kings 5):

"11 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.

12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.

13 And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?"

I'd like to think I would do something big if President Nelson asked it. Pick everything up and move to Missouri? Join Zion's Camp? Live the Law of Consecration? I hope that I would do it.

It hit me that if I want to follow the prophet in the big things, I need to follow him in the little things too. This was a small thing that he asked for--a simple thing. I needed to act on it.

And it has blessed my life! In additional to social media, we were challenged to give up other media that is not uplifting. During conference, I was prompted that I needed to give up certain news sites and advice columns and general time wasting websites that I've been spending a lot of time on, things that have filled my internet time since I cut back on social media.

I hadn't realized how much those things were cluttering up my mind. Without stressing about the news going on every day, I could focus more on my life and my husband and the things that matter most. Without spending so much time on time sucking websites, I had more time to do other things. I read my scriptures more (okay, some of that was the Book of Mormon challenge), I did some family history, I spent more time on uplifting meaningful things and I felt closer to my Savior and my Heavenly Father.

It was a successful experiment! Trevor is hopeful that I'll give up social media altogether like he has. I'm not ready for that yet, but I think I need to continue to cut back--not just on social media but on the internet in general. There's more to life!

Memories

My grandmother wanted a representative from each family to speak at her funeral, so ultimately 3 grandchildren ended up speaking. I volunteered to speak for my family since I am the oldest... we are by default the tribute children.

Here's what I shared:

               I thought long and hard about what memories to share today about my grandma. It’s hard to pick because I have so many!

               My grandma always made me feel very loved. She was always happy to see me or hear from me. I knew I could tell her anything—she would patiently listen to my childish flights of fancy, and later to my dating woes or school stresses. My family lives in Colorado so we were farther away than the other grandchildren, but somehow Grandma always stayed in the loop on our lives. Whenever I talked to her she’d know exactly what was going on in my life and she’d ask about specific details of my latest adventures and struggles. I knew she cared about me because she remembered all the little details of my life.

               She was always patient with me, no matter what. I can’t remember her ever being mad or impatient with me. I remember when we came out to visit as kids, my sister and I would sleep in the room across from my grandparents’. We would often stay up late talking and giggling, but Grandma never complained or shushed us. She told us she was happy we were enjoying our sister time.

Grandma was selfless and she would bend over backwards to serve those around her. When I grew up, I moved out to Provo to go to school at BYU. My sophomore year I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment. I didn’t have a car, and neither did any of my roommates. I didn’t have a good way to go grocery shopping. Grandma and Grandpa came every week that first semester to take me to the grocery store. It was a big sacrifice of time—I think it was at least an hour round trip—but they did it to take care of me. Figuring out what groceries I needed was a learning curve—I was so slow at first! But they were always patient with me and never made me feel rushed, and they were always willing to give advice. Afterwards they would always treat me to Burger King, and where they would listen to all my stories of life at the Y. Their service made me feel so loved. When Christmas came, they drove me all the way to the airport, even with snowstorms pending.

One of my favorite memories of my time with my grandma happened last year in February. I flew out to Utah for one of my friend’s weddings, and I stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. That weekend Grandma and I spent a lot of quality time together, going out to eat, talking about life. I was happy that my friend was getting married, but I was also sad and worried that I was still single at 29. Grandma and I had some heart to heart discussions about how she still had hope that I would find someone. She was so encouraging…. Back then I told her I was going to give up on men and go buy a house and a dog. She always told me that I could have all 3. In the end, she was right! One of the last things she said to me was, “You did! You got your husband, your house, and your dog!”

When I got married last year, she was too sick to come to the wedding, but I was able to stop by her house and model my wedding dress for her. I felt her support and love that day even though she wasn’t physically with me.

When we got the news a couple weeks ago that Grandma was going into hospice, I hopped a plane the next day so I could come say goodbye. I think all of her kids and grandkids came to see her that day. My siblings and I got to visit with her for a few minutes. We started to leave her so she could get some rest, but she called us back so she could share some spiritual experiences she had in her life concerning death. She bore her testimony to us that there is life after death, and she promised us she would be okay after she was gone. That was so comforting to me, and it’s something I’ve thought about often since. She was the one dying, but she comforted us.

I love my grandma so much! I will miss her. But I am so grateful to know that families are forever, and I know that I will see her again. I look forward to that day.