Sunday Gratitude Post

Maybe I should change it to my "Monday" gratitude post. I just usually don't get on the computer on Sundays...

* I am thankful for beautiful spring short sleeve weather

* I love going on family walks

* I love the smell (and feel) of freshly turned dirt in the spring

* I love all the tulips and daffodils that are currently in bloom. (Tulips are just starting to come into bloom in our neighborhood, those that are in sheltered areas up against houses)

* I am thankful for good health and a strong body that allows me to do things I want to do (like this morning I went walking and spent 30 minutes working on the rock wall I'm building to create the next terrace in my back yard

* I love the feeling I have on days when I know I've earned a good night's sleep after a day of good hard work (I especially love it if I actually GET the good nights sleep that I've earned, but that's another story ...)

* I love observing a baby's amazingly quick development (Caleb is getting to the point where he is trying to roll over. He can't do it yet, but it isn't far off)

*I am thankful that by tonight, ready or not, we will be DONE with our taxes! Tim has got everything entered in and now it's my turn to do my job - I'm the official "reviewer." (Can I just tell you - I could NEVER EVER EVER be a tax preparer. I just couldn't do it - it makes me crazy!!!)

*I am thankful for my new "system" to motivate me to work hard and get lots done. (I will talk about in a separate post)

* I am thankful for the slightly sore feeling in my legs (and bum) that tells me that I went walking this morning

I think that's good for today. Aaron has the week off for Spring break, so I don't know if I'll have time to get back to blogging today but I'll try to pop back in and post about my new "motivation" thing. I started it last week, and I had the most productive week that I've had in a long time. If I don't get to it today, I'll try to do it tomorrow.

PS - Melissa (formerly Sheets) - Glad you found my blog, it's great to hear from you. I wasn't sure if you'd check back in the comment trails, so I thought I'd say hi to you here.

Book Tag

Jennica posted this book tag this morning and I decided to do it. (A few other people have done it recently, but I wasn't in the mood to do it; today I was. Inspiration maybe???)

Here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages)
2. Turn to page 123
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the 5th sentence on your blog
5. Tag 5 people

* The nearest book was The Book of Mormon - Another Testament of Jesus Christ. (I carried it in here yesterday when I was updating my reading for the Hinckley challenge)

* page 123 brings me to Jacob 3

*it was a challenge counting sentences, since in most cases the sentence was very long and was the whole verse..., but according to my counting - My sentence is verse 11

"O my brethren, hearken unto my words; ^aarouse the faculties of your souls; shake yourselves that ye may ^bawake from the slumber of death; and loose yourselves from the pains of ^chell that ye may not become ^dangels to the devil, to be cast into that lake of fire and brimstone which is the second ^edeath.

This was a good thing for me to hear, as I seem to need constant reminding to awake and arise - I am far too complacent, content, and prone to say "all is well." On Charlotte's blog I recently read the quote, "The key to success in the gospel is to make small adjustments often" --Lee Cantwell (one of her religion teachers)
I need to focus on making small changes often, and sticking with them, (until they stick to me), instead of jumping in with a big ole' honkin' list of things to do, and then fizzling out after a week...


(Jennica's blog is a private one, so you can't go read it yourselves, but her quotes were really good, and I wanted to share them here as well, since I know that many of you, my blogging friends, deal with just a tad bit of stress every now and then:) So I hope Jennica won't mind, here are her words:

"Ok so I picked up two books that I am reading right now... The first one is "simplify" by Carolyn J. Rasmus. Here is the fifth sentence on page 123: "When we feel stressed, troubled, unsure, or discouraged we need to remember the things that we are taught in Primary: We must believe in Christ and all He has promised to do for us. " What a great thought!

Here is the second book that I am sort of reading (or just starting)... "Mary, Martha, and Me" by Camille Fronk Olson. ... Here is the fifth sentence on page 123: "His grace is sufficient. Sufficient means enough."

Beautiful thoughts eh??? Thanks Jennica. If anyone who read this wants to do the book tag, feel free... I am awake and aroused, so I am going to go get to work. Y'all have a great day!

No hope for me... (out of the mouths of babes)

I have been vocally telling my children that I want to be a good mother and that I really am trying my best. They have heard me ask many times for help to be "more patient," a "better mother," or a "good mom" in our family prayers.

Yesterday during General Conference, Elder ? (I forget who it was, but I think maybe Elder Nelson???) said something like "there is no one way to be a good mother." (Meaning, of course, that there is no ONE, as in single, guaranteed way that will always produce the positive desired result.)

Trina's head jerked up suddenly and looked at me, with true pity and sadness showing on her face.

"I'm sorry mom, he said there no way you can be a good mother."

I had to smile at that one!

another Sunday (late) Gratitude post

I love LDS General Conference!

I am so thankful for a living prophet and apostles who speak directly to ME and my needs, every 6 months

I am thankful for the personal confirmation (of the divine calling of our living prophet) that I have been blessed with during every solemn assembly that I have attended or witnessed

I am thankful for the (much needed) gentle reminders to do a little better in my life

I am thankful for the reminder to find joy in my life as a mother. to enjoy the "moments"

I AM thankful for my children (even thought they make it a lot more difficult to get the full value out of conference, I love them very much and I am proud of them for trying their best to listen and be reverent for 8 whole hours!)

I am SO THANKFUL for a wonderful husband who has seen me floundering recently in my duties as a homemaker, so he spent several hours last night cleaning up the kitchen and working on the storage room project so that I could start my week without feeling "behind"

I am thankful that Tim is almost done preparing our taxes, and that as of right now, we don't owe any money to the government, in fact, we should be getting a refund. (by the way, does anyone know the rules about deducting medial expenses? Do you claim them based on when you PAID them? or based of the DATE OF SERVICE? If we claim them based on date of service, we meet the minimum required, if we have to go by the date we got the bill and paid it, we will just miss the amount...I supposed that's one of the joys of having a December baby, Eh?)

I am thankful for BIG FLUFFY BEAUTIFUL snowflakes. (I really love Spring and I'm ready for winter to go on its way, but if it HAS to snow, it might as well be beautiful while it does it.)

I am thankful for strawberries that go on sale. (The Reams on Center Street has strawberries for .99/lb. The sale ends today, but I went down this morning and bought 14 lbs - which I will slice up and then dry today. My family LOVES strawberries in their cereal and to snack on. At this price, I couldn't pass it up. I may try one batch of jam too. We'll see.)

I am thankful for Central heating. We've had the thermostat turned off for the past while, but I turned it back on today because I was CHILLY! It's so nice to be able to just flip the switch and voila' - HEAT!!!

Have a THANKFUL week!

The Fugal Family Flip-Off

This morning as I was reading Charlotte's blog (which lead to reading Jacob's blog) it brought back loads of fun memories that I have of playing silly, made up games with my family. I will share this one... (I started to leave a briefer version of this as a comment on Charlotte's post, but then decided it would work better as a post of its own, so Charlotte, feel free to consider this a very long comment on your "eggstravaganza" post:)

One night I was sitting around the table just yakking with my brothers Mark, Eric, and Mike, and Mike's girlfriend, (now wife) Rachael. For whatever reason, there were a couple pennies on the table, which we started casually spinning while talking. This soon turned into a very intense competition. We collected a bunch of pennies, then we would each carefully choose our penny, making sure that we all had a penny of a different year so that we could tell them apart. Imagine us, sitting around the table, intently poised with an outstretched index finger holding the penny upright and the other index finger ready to flip the edge of the penny to send it spinning. The judge for the round yells go, and everyone flips their penny. The pennies spin wildly around the table, and the last to fall is the obviously the winner. This may sound stupid (and really, it was) but we laughed and laughed, and played that silly game for HOURS! it was well after 2 am when we finally decided that it was time to be done. Before Mike left to go back to his apartment, we officially named the game and then terminated the "First Annual Fugal Family Flip Off."


It is funny to me how often that memory is brought back up when we siblings get together. It is a great reminder to me that many of the best memories I have of growing up didn't cost any money, didn't involve a lot of planning and preparation, they just seemed to happen spontaneously and unexpectedly. I am afraid that all too often I try to "BUY" memories for my kids. I know that it doesn't work that way, I just have to keep reminding myself of it, and then try to give the kids a bit more free time and free space so that they can create memories and relationships that will last forever.

The JOY of pictures

So - today was spring picture day at Aaron's school. I thought it would be a great idea to get the kids dressed up in spring'ish clothes and get a picture of them all together.

ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I gave Bryan a haircut (which ended up being the only part of this adventure that turned out reasonable well), got Caleb, Katrina and Bryan bathed and dressed, and picked out some matching clothes for Aaron to change into. (We all know he'd never be able to keep something clean for a whole 4 hours of school.) As I was just starting to dry Katrina's hair, Aaron called from school. Apparently his nose connected with someone's head and he was hurting in a bad way... (It only bled a little.) It was his teacher's recommendation that he should come home for the rest of the day. I'm thinking - "great, what about pictures??? I just got everyone dressed!" I did a rush job on Katrina's hair - not great, but passable, put Bryan's newly washed sweater vest on, and buckled everyone in the van.

About 71/2 minutes later we got to the school, and somehow Bryan had gotten dirty, wet, slimy, black marks all over the front of his sweater!!! Don't ask me how, I have NO IDEA! I checked Aaron out of class, made sure he could still smile and that his nose had stopped bleeding, then had him change his clothes. I took off Bryan's sweater and turned it around backwards so it looked like a round neck sweater instead of a v-neck. I figured that if anyone seeing the photo happened to think the sweater was on backwards, I am sure they would instantly think, "It couldn't really be, what kind of mom would have pictures taken with a sweater on backwards? Of course it must be on right."

ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The pictures were being taken in the cafeteria, and as soon as the smell of food hit Katrina, she lost it. She was instantly "starving!" We got situated for the pictures, with Aaron sitting down holding Caleb and the other 2 standing next to them. (It looked very cute for about 1 second) At this point it went from bad to worse.

ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First (and middle and last) Bryan wouldn't smile, then started pulling down his pants, then kept moving out of the camera lenses' range, etc... the longer it took, the more whiny and more unhappy Katrina became. When it was all said and done and we quit trying, I looked through the photos. (thank heaven for digital cameras) This was my commentary, "Delete, delete, not great but at least everyone is in the frame and looking at the camera, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete..." you get the idea. We ended up going with the "not great but at least everyone is in the frame and looking at the camera" option. (Since it was the ONLY "non-delete")

ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe in a couple weeks I'll try it again with a "real" photographer who is used to getting four kids to all look at the camera at the same time. Then again, I'm pretty worn out with today's whole picture episode, so I think I'll just wait until it's time to get this year's Christmas card photo.

And now, I NEED A NAP!

comparisons

One of my worst habits popped up again this morning...

I was reading my blog roll and Shellie (little but loud) awarded "Jenna" (whom I had never heard of or read or anything) with an award for the following post: Simmering Down. I of course popped on over and read it - and loved it. It was beautifully written and very insightful. I decided to read a few other of Jenna's posts to see if they were equally good. I randomly picked "sugar and spice" from her recent posts and again found it well written and right on the mark.

Of course, me being me, I instantly began comparing myself to her in my typical negative fashion. "I can't write even remotely as well as she can..." "Her posts are interesting, contemplative, and thought provoking; mine are boring reports of what chores I did or didn't accomplish during the day." "Why do I even bother..." etc...

After a few more thoughts along this line, I stopped being negative and reminded myself that in order to be "thought provoking" and "insightful," you need a working brain and some time to think and have insights. Right now, I really don't have either of those essential items. My brain is on hiatus, I can't recall the last time I had a good nights sleep, I have 3 preschoolers at home with me all day, who can undo at lighten speed anything that I actually manage to get done when not holding my 3 month old bundle of joy. My one child that is gone to school during the day makes the Tasmanian devil look calm. As soon as he walks through the front door, I wonder why I even bothered to try to get the house in order...

(deep breath) To every thing there is a time and a season. (exhale)

So basically - for the next 4 - 5 years, feel free to just check in here periodically to see if by chance something deep and profound shows up. But DO come back in about 5 years. I'm planning that by then I should have my brain in partial working order again and I should be able to have at least a couple hours each day (while kids are in school) of semi-peaceful, quiet, "pondering" time in which I can develop some deep and meaningful insights to share. (OR NOT, I guess only time will tell)

Until then, I will continue to simply keep a record of my days - my ups and downs - my challenges. LOVE TO YOU ALL - who show an interest in my simple little life; well written and meaningful, or not...