Feeling Well

Picture by Jake

Today I actually feel well!  My headache is gone.  I don't feel like hiding under the covers and sleeping a few extra hours!  It is so much easier for me to enjoy everything, and to feel grateful, when my head doesn't hurt and I actually have a little energy.  Days when I don't feel well have a lot of good in them too, but oh how thankful I am for days when I am feeling well!

Good People

My girls are some good people!

My Family

I know "good people" isn't very specific, but just imagine how bad it would be if I left someone out!  I know a lot of good people.  People who care about me, and my family.  People who go out of their way to be kind, and to help, and to make sure we're okay.  People who send emails, and messages.  People who call, or come by.  People who may not do either, but who remember us in their prayers, or smile when they see us.  A lot of the good people I know are family -- including my children.  They love each other, and try to help each other. 

Life would be a lot less happy without all of the good people I know!  I am thankful for all of you -- if you're reading this, be sure to count yourself as a good person!

My Derek

Hiking Angels Landing in Zion National Park

Derek, Me, and Jake -- on top of the world (sort of)

Derek with Angels Landing behind him.

Today and every day I am thankful for Derek.  He goes to work every weekday even though the commute stinks and he has to sit through lots of meetings that aren't always that interesting.  He does a good job, and he works with good people, but it isn't always fun and he goes anyway.  Because of this we can have a nice house and food and clothes and puppets and instruments and other fun stuff.

When he can, he calls me at lunchtime.  I am glad he calls every time, but there are days like today where I cry at him because I'm tired, and I have a headache -- still, and it won't go away and whine, whine, whine.  That probably wasn't what he was hoping for, but he doesn't complain.  He's just always so good to me!  On days like this I don't feel very useful, and I'm not too impressed with myself since my to do list just sits and mocks me, but he just thinks I'm awesome anyway.  I love that!  What a blessing for me!

Derek is a great dad, and he's fun.  He's also really patient when we are hiking up a steep mountain and I have to eat every 10 minutes so I don't cry and I take about 100 breaks.  But hey.  We made it!  That wasn't today though.  Today I'm just really glad that he loves me no matter what.  That is a great gift for me, and I am thankful.

Primary and My Missionary

I didn't write yesterday.  It was a busy Sunday!  I have been called to work in the Primary again (the children's organization in our church).  I am super grateful for good people to work with, for teachers who teach, and especially for the children.  It is easy to be happy when you get to spend time teaching cute children about the gospel of Jesus Christ!  They were all really good, and really smart.  We were learning about how to be missionaries by serving people.  That leads me to what I am thankful for today.

This morning the first thing I did after turning off my alarm was to read a letter from my missionary son Connor.  I am thankful for him.  He is in Japan, and I check my email lots on Sunday nights hoping his email will come early.  I have read them in the middle of the night before too.  The time difference is rather large.  Now that we've had daylight savings time they are 16 hours ahead.  I think.  He's already up on Tuesday and I haven't had dinner on Monday.  I love to hear the good things he is doing, and laugh that he tries to stick in so many Harry Potter references in his letters when he writes.  I am really proud of him for bravely heading across the world to teach people that Jesus loves them!

Shared Knowledge

This morning I was able to go to a Women's Conference held by the Stake Relief Society (The Women's organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints).  It is so nice that there are people who are willing to share the knowledge they have gained through their own hard times.  I went to three classes.  Here is an idea from each class.

1.  If you ask someone what you can do for them, and they say nothing, try asking what you can pray for them.  We can all use extra prayers!

2.  We all have a lot to do.  Allow the Holy Ghost to speak to us each day to tell us what the most important thing is that we can do.

3.  We can't control our children (or anyone else).  We love, support, serve, teach, and pray for them.  Teens are always receptive to love.

A Savior Who Can Help

Picture by Anton Dietrich

This morning I said a prayer for help before studying my scriptures.  Help for me.  Help for my children.  Help in knowing how to help.  I didn't say it in those words, but I'm sure that our Heavenly Father heard me.  As I read I recognized just how much knowledge God gives us in the scriptures.  He would not have bothered if He didn't care.

It struck me that there is not a limit to the good that God can do in our lives, except for the limits we create by our lack of faith.  This is not a harsh fact, but a hopeful one.  We can increase our faith!  No problem is too big for God to solve.  No person is too unimportant for Him to help.  In fact, no person is unimportant!

I know that I have put limits on what He can do for me.  I have refused to ask for help because I was sure I wouldn't receive an answer.  I thought I had faith in God, just not in my ability to hear.  It turned out that God was willing to answer AND to help me hear.  I wonder in what other ways I have limited God without even realizing that's what I was doing!

After all of our failures in faith, and trust.  After all of our sin, and lack of belief, the Lord still says that His "arm is lengthened out all the day long".  He is reaching out to us.  He never gives up.  At the end of my study, my challenges were the same, my children's challenges were the same, but my load was lighter because I was reminded very kindly that I have a Heavenly Father who cares, and a Savior who can, and does, help.

*This morning's study was 2 Nephi: 28

Gratitude for Music

I am starting a November series on things that I am grateful for.  Today, like every Thursday, is "Thankful Thursday" for me.  I have noticed that looking for, and paying attention to the good things that are around, and the good things that are said and done in a day, can make all of the difference in how I feel.  Noticing is important.  Expressing gratitude for those things I notice is important.

This morning, at the beginning of November, I have had one of my favorite Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas specials on while I fold some laundry that I washed on Monday.  There are many who will cringe because Thanksgiving hasn't even happened yet, and Christmas music has been playing in my car for a month, but I often pull out Christmas music throughout the year when I want something to lift my spirits.  There are very few things in this life that can bring me peace, or joy, or just a feeling that there is good in the world, as quickly as a good song, or a joyful melody.  Hymns and Primary songs have helped me through many a rough patch.  Christmas music has extra power because it reminds me not only of the birth of my Savior, but of many happy memories that have been created throughout the years.

So today, and every day, I am thankful for beautiful music.  There is great power for good in all good music.  I hope you will hear some today, and have your spirits lifted.

The Encouragement Challenge

From Google Images

I heard something on the Christian radio station more than a week ago that has stayed in my mind.  I want to share it because I think it is a great idea, but I don't know who to share it with, and so I am putting it here where it will most likely be read by my very encouraging family and friends!  On the program they were adapting something from Revive Our Hearts called the 30-Day Husband Encouraging Challenge and making it more general, so that you could choose to do this for anyone you wanted to improve your relationship with.   You can find the original, more detailed program here .

The basic gist of the adapted program is this.
1.  For 30 days you don't say anything negative to your person, or about them.
2.  For 30 days you do tell your person something good that you notice about them , and you also tell someone else something good about them.
3.  You find a small way of serving them each day.

The only other guideline they suggested was that you only do one person at a time, though I think it is implied that you don't go announce to your chosen person that you are doing this.

There were some pretty incredible stories about how wives participating in this challenge had seen marriages restored that had seemed doomed.  One lady was so worried that she wouldn't have one nice thing to say about her husband every day that she carried around a notebook so she could write things down when she saw them just in case she saw two one day and none the next.  She was surprised that at the end of the 30 days, her notebook was full.

A lot of the good things I have done are, at least in part, due to the encouragers in my life.  Without the encouragement of Derek and my kids I probably would have quit writing songs -- or at least been afraid to share them.  Without the encouragement of my parents I might never have made it through reading the scriptures the first time.  Sometimes Derek's encouraging, "We can do this" as he heads off to work helps me to get through the day.

So, we can do this!  We can all be more encouraging if we put our minds to it, and it might make a much bigger difference than we expect.

Desk Project

Our old desk was rather old and ugly and I really wanted a new one.  On a seemingly unrelated note, we have a lot of left over laminate flooring that I don't know what to do with.  So, one day when I was looking online, I found an idea to use the left over flooring as a desk top.  Derek was game to help me, and this is what we ended up with.  I like it LOTS better than the old one!

The two cabinets are stock base cabinets from the Home Depot with the bottom cut off.  The top is a piece of particle board with left over laminate from the guest room locked together and glued on. Trim is nailed around the top to finish it, and Derek made the part to hang the keyboard. Derek could have finished this faster by himself, but I wanted to help so we worked together.  I got to use the chalk line, the circular saw, the glue, and the nail gun -- plus a few other things.  Yay for a new desk and thanks to Derek for helping me with it.

Tia's Birthday

Tia decided to go on an adventure for her birthday, and so after work on her birthday she took Kayli, and drove to Cedar City to Trisa and Travis' house so she could spend time with her sisters.  They didn't get to do all of the things Tia was hoping to, but they did have some fun.  Sunday when they came back we had Tia's birthday celebration with presents, dinner, and dessert.  Tia is great!  We are always glad that she is in our family.

Connor with a smiling Tia

Tia got a puzzle with all of the states.  She is always hoping to improve her knowledge of geography.

I got Tia a book I think is fun.  She read it really quickly.  She thought it was fun too.

I added these because Connor has a different facial expression for every picture.
Maybe Dan didn't get all the dramatics in the family.

Tia getting ready to blow out all four candles on her fruit pizza.

It's good to have enthusiastic helpers?

I love Kayli!

Spring Break

At the beginning of April we had a whole week of Spring Break.  Since I try to be fun every now and then, I took Jake and Dan to the Bean Museum at BYU.  It was a very beautiful day and so we walked around afterwards and had a picnic.  Then we walked some more and went to see the BYU library which Dan said "blew his mind".  He'd never seen so many books in one place.  I don't think Jake was impressed.  Libraries aren't on his list of places he likes to go.  He was patient though.

I discovered that President Boyd K. Packer's collection of carvings and artwork is there and I loved every minute of looking at it.  Jake and Dan didn't even pester me to hurry.  That was nice.  Here are the fun pictures from our trip.

An eagle puppet at the gift shop.  We had fun in the gift shop.

A picture by the wolves because when we were looking at tee shirts -- Jake liked the wolf one best.
Also, Dan poses for EVERY picture he's in.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this rather gruesome but cool posing of these animals.
And my boys are cute.

Jake's Birthday

Jake's birthday was in February, but I haven't been blogging and so you never heard a thing about it.  Here are some pictures to prove we celebrated Jake turning 15!

Spicy Cheetos that didn't last very long!

Snoopy and a good Jake look.

I think Jake's dessert was brownies -- no ice cream.

Jake is a good son, and a good brother.  He is good with little kids, and animals.  He has a good sense of humor and loves his family -- a lot.  He likes to call his oldest sister Trisa on the phone, and writes email to the lucky Grandpa Fuller.  He is a big fan of grandparents.  He knows a LOT about Yugioh, and likes spending time with his good friends either playing Yugioh, board games, video games, outside games, or talking.

Little Things are Big

sparrows
google images

I feel like I've had way too many of "those days" lately.  The days where the alarm goes off and I want to groan, and hide under the covers.  I often wake up with headaches, or just so exhausted that once I sit down it's a major production to get myself back up again.  I get the kids off to school, and find myself climbing back into bed.

Even when I manage to make a menu, and buy the food for it, most days the meal goes unmade and everyone ends up fending for themselves -- again.  I have many good moments during my days, and usually a nap because I can't stay awake, but there are days when I let discouragement get the best of me.  I cry over the things I can't manage to do, and forget to notice all of the good things I do manage to get accomplished -- which is probably a lot more than this paragraph makes it sound like.

It was a day like this last week, that started off feeling so difficult, that I realized again what a big difference little things can make.  My family loves me (which is huge).  They hug me, and try their best to help me.  They let me know that I am not alone and that they can help.  They don't even complain when dinner doesn't really exist again.

The beauty outside helps.  Right now the piles of melting snow might not be gorgeous, but the birds that come to my bird feeder are fun to watch, and I like to remember that Jesus knows when a sparrow falls and is aware of me during all of the good times and the bad.

On a super hard day last week I went to Walmart and had the hardest time getting anyone to smile at me (I always try to get people to smile at me), but when I walked into one aisle the worker there gave me a huge grin and asked if I needed help.  I was buying bathroom cleaner, which was right at eye level, so no, I didn't need help with that -- but the smile helped!

Texts, phone calls, books, smiles, kind words, and my children laughing can all be considered little things -- but little things really are big when it comes to making a difference.  Little things can change one of "those days" into a truly happy one.  The really hard morning last week actually morphed into a great day all because of the little things.