TV

In June my husband and I decided that we were spending too much money on cable TV, so we had it shut off. We purchased a digital antennae, which by the way only seems to work on the TV in our bed room. Not such a big deal during the summer. We missed it the first week but found plenty of other things to do. Even the first few weeks after school started we both patted ourselves on the back because we realized with out TV the kids were getting their homework done faster. Nashawn and I both even compromised on the TV show schedule. He gets sunday night football and I get Grays Anatomy on Thursday. And on Wednesday all of us pile into the bedroom for The Middle. It really has been better for all of us. That being said.....I miss TV!! I didn't get to watch any Hallmark movies through the holidays. If I am not home....I miss my show and  so I really miss my t-vo and the good old day of recording my shows and being able to watch them latter and,..... and.....fast forward threw the commercials. Seriously I am having with drawls. Nashawn is too. We both keep talking of turning it back on for just a few months, but know we are better off with out it. Soon we won't even know what great programing were missing out on. Soon when people ask if we miss cable we won't be lying to them when we tell them no :) Soon......Soon.....Soon.....(or at least its my hope!)

Good Idea!

So I borrowed this idea from a good friend of mine. I must tell you that same said friend is also the person who inspired me to start blogging. She is very creative and not afraid to say whats on her mind. Qualities that I am working on :)! (yes Lyndee.....this is you!)

Ok...her blog is recoveringcrafthoarder.blogspot.com.  She has a list of 35 things to do before she is 35. I loved this idea. At first I thought it would be super easy to come up with 35 things. For me....it wasn't so easy. I found myself putting things down that I usually do anyway. I decided for myself that there was no point to making a list if I wasn't going to stretch myself. I really wanted things to strive for and look forward to accomplishing. Then like Lyndee I didn't know if I wanted to share my list. I have decide like her to share.

I don't have too many people view my blog, but for those of you that do I wanted you to see  my list so I had more people to keep me working on it besides my husband and kids. So if any of you think I've gone too long with out sharing how I am doing on my list......bug me:)

35 Things To Do Before 2013

1. Pray More
2. Blog at least once a week
3. Budget....then stick to it!
4. Meal plan
5. Camp at least 3 times
6. Take my kids on a road trip
7. Hike with my kids at least 10 times
8. Exercise 3 time a week
9. Organize my officeOrganize
10. Read at least 12 books and 3 of them must be a Classic
11. Feel good about the way I look
12. Go on 12 dates with Nashawn
13. Plant a garden with my kids
14. Go on a horseback ride
15. Plant grass in my front yard
16. Plant flowers in my front yard
17. Find an old bench for my front porch and re-finish it
18. Learn to use my sewing machine
19. Go to Bear Lake swimming
20. Run a Mile with out stopping
21. Quit drinking energy drinks/pop
22. Visit the temple 6 times
23. Learn more about family history
24. Read the book of mormon myself and with my kids
25. Have a special day with each of my kids
26. Learn to Meditate
27. Go to lunch with a friend 12 times
28. Get my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving
29. Go to Conference at the Conference Center
30. Take more pictures
31. Really research who I want to vote for....all of them!
32. Find a Hobby....something other than cleaning.....:)
33. Have family game night 3 times a month
34. Check something off my "Bucket List"
35. Breath more.....so I can Enjoy more!!

There it is. I am already almost done with one of the 12 books. When I am finished I will write about it. I think this list alone with help me blog once a week. So it begins..........

2011

I must admit that 2011 was a great year. All in all it was a quiet year and for that I am most thankful. The funny thing is when you look back over the years of your life some years are defiantly better than others. Some years seem to drag on from one year into another and it feels like the bad luck will never run out and the "storm" will never pass. Then before you know it you are at the end of another year and realize that the "storm" of previous years has indeed passed and the last year of life was rather dull and a much needed rest. And because you have know lived long enough and been through enough and seen enough you know realize that sometimes you get much needed rest before the "storms" in life continue on. After all isn't that just life?! Isn't it how we learn and then appreciate all the good?! Isn't that how we grow in hopes of becoming something more, someone better, so when we leave this world we leave it a better place?!

Yes there are many good things in saying good bye to the end of another year and saying hello to the start of a new one. Being able to reflect back and see the good. Also being able to look back and see what you need to change and work on. The difficult thing is realizing somethings you can change and somethings you can't. Learning to find the good and accepting it in the the things you can't change is hard. But digging deep and actually doing the work to change the things you can change then changing them is harder.

So what goals do I have for the new year? To simply dig deep. "Just Do It" if you will. And to remember, "when your happy like a fool.... let it take you over.... when everything is up you got to take it in!" Because its going to be a Good Good life:)

Long Break

I didn't intend to quit blogging over the summer, it just came and went and I never took the time to put down any thoughts. It was a different summer. Not the summer I spent many a day during the last long winter planning. No, other lessons needed to be learned. What am I talking about....well lets start on June 4th.

My kids finished their last day of school on the 25th of May much to everyones delight and the 4th of June was the 1st day of our official summer "fun" break. Its also the day that my mother-in-law, Floydene, had made arrangements to take the cows to the Howell Valley for summer range. Its a fun and very long day, but we always make the most of it and the kids actually really look forward to the adventure. The day began early as Nashawn and the boys had to do a few more "chores" before the truck came to haul the cows and their calfs. Brooke and I were still at the house getting breakfast and packing a few snacks for the 3 hour car ride. My oldest son Jace made it in first and explained that his dad had gotten hurt. When Nashawn came in he explained that they were having trouble loading the animals and that he had gotten mad at a cow. Said cow was making its 3rd attempt at escaping and because things hadn't gone as planned and they were running behind, Nashawn was pretty sure he could pick up a 16 ft. gate with one hand and throw it in the way of the cow, stoping it!. Don't be fooled.... this is my husbands 3rd attempt at being "Superman".... he has failed all 3 times. Needless to say the cow didn't escape and neither did my husband. But one must push on right?

So after looking his right arm over and noting that his bicep muscle was not looking like it was attached to his forearm I encouraged him to let me take him to the emergency room. Not my Cowboy:) He would be "just fine thank you very much". We journey onward. By the next morning his arm really hurt's and he has three little purplish spots where blood had surfaced to the skin. Nothing big right....he's "just fine". By Monday morning his arm from his shoulder all the way down to his wrist was purple and beginning to swell but on to work he went because he was "fine...just fine".  A few hours after arriving at work he called me to say he was on his way home. His boss thought he should have it looked at and another man he worked with had had a similar injury and waited too long before going to a dr. and his out come wasn't so good. So off to the dr. we went. That dr. sent us to a specialist for a Wednesday appointment. And that dr. scheduled a bicep repair for the following day that being June 9th.

7 weeks latter on August 1st Nashawn went back to work. Luckily he has a good job and he has good benefits.  He was able to be on short term disability. Still overtime during the summer is usually a bonus and he missed out on it, but divine intervention stepped in again when only two weeks before he got hurt we had made the decision to sell our 2004 dodge truck that was my husbands dream truck and pay off some lingering debt we felt was holding us down. Bills all caught up and the prospect of overtime...we were finally going to get a head....flash forward to June 4th. Still what a blessing in disguise. One I am most grateful for!!

No summer didn't go as I had dreamed and planned in the long, longgggg winter months of April, May and yes JUNE (not kidding) lessons were learned. I learned that I would love to have 7 weeks off to play with the kids even if it met I was recovering from an injury. Nashawn learned that he likes work. And the kids learned that moms chores are easy compared to dads.

Don't worry we did have fun this summer. Just in ways we weren't expecting. So kids are all back to school and new schedules are finally working into a routine again so hopefully I can get back to sharing "Things Tucked Away"!

P.S. Just had to post this beautiful pitcher. This is the view from my kitchen window. I am a lucky girl!

Music

So I know there are some really great blogs out there with links of some sort that allow anyone reading said person(s) blog can listen to music while reading. I love it, but can not figure out how to do this myself. However if I could figure out how to, or when I figure out how to, you will hear some music while you read!

I have grown up with a love of music. Some of my first memories are of my dad singing to me. And I grew up listening to all types of music. Country was the music most listened to, but my parents being so young and also loving music listened to all types. Simon and Garfunkle, The Beatles, Bread, and the BG's just to name a few. Old country and new country, the Tabernacle Choir and easy listening were played as well. And as I grew older and developed my own taste in music they even listen to and liked my choices as well.

I have tried to give this gift of listening to all types of music to my own kids. And its so fun now that they are big enough to pick and develop their own taste in music and to see what they love.

Its fun to look and think back to the songs that were my favorite in my childhood, pre-teens, teens, young adult hood, newlywed, and new mother life stages. Its interesting to me even at this moment to listen to some of my favorites at this point in my life. It seems my favorites all tell a little bit about those moments in my life. Seems like songs are memory keepers that help to tell the story of my life.

So, on occasion you will read and hopefully sometime in the future listen to, bits of songs that remind me of who I was or who I hope to be. Songs about the way I feel or have felt. Songs that have inspired me to do better or to just remember who I am and to just be me. After all "The song(s) remembers when".  :)

Mom

In early March 1999 I gave birth to my first child. The moment he arrived here on earth change my life forever. Becoming a mother gave me perspective I never new I even needed, it gave me compassion I never new I had. It brought me sleepless nights, and early mornings. And the worry and gulit.....well...who but a mother would even understand except maybe a father. But mostly being a mother has taught me unconditional Love! Love I never understood until I held my babies for the first time and each time I meet my three perfect little spirits one by one each with the same amount of Love!!

It wasn't until I became a mom that I could really understand how much my own mom must really love me. She was always so good at telling me, showing me, and making me feel Loved. I never remember a time of not feeling loved, maybe not liked a few times, but always Loved. 

I realize more and more all the time how truley blessed and lucky I am to have such a great mom. She is more amazing than I can even put into words. She is one of the bravest women I have ever met. She has always been there when I've needed her. And she is an amazing listener!! She is one of my very best friends and I don't know what I would have done with out her as my MOM!

Mom--- I love you! Thanks for being the woman you are. 

Happy Mothers Day!

Easter Memories

Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays. I have been thinking lately about some of the wonderful Easter memories I have. My parents have always been really good at holidays. They always made each and every holiday seem somehow magical and Easter was no exception.

The last easter I believed in the Easter bunny turned out to be one of those magical Easters. My family usually always spent Easter with one side of the family or the other. On this specific Easter my cousin Amanda and her family were down. Amanda and I were inseparable when she and her family came down for a visit. I remember begging her parents and mine to let her stay over and they had said yes. Amanda and I stayed up late on that easter eve playing. My mom was very tired and she fell asleep before Amanda and I did. Needless to say the Easter Bunny hadn't arrived when we ran out that morning to see what was in our baskets. My mom came out and explained how we got up too early. That it was a very wet spring and that the Easter Bunny had trouble getting to our house because of all the mud. Mom told us to go back to bed and back to sleep for one more hour and when we got up the Bunny will have arrived. So we went back to bed but not back to sleep. We talked and listened. And you know something.....we heard the Easter Bunny! Yes...its true Amanda and I actually heard the Easter Bunny. We felt like the luckiest kids ever.

Years latter I asked my mom how she had made it sound like the Easter Bunny was on the roof of our house. She said she got lucky. It was a beautiful spring morning and the birds were playing on the warm tin of the house at just the perfect time. Mom said she could hear Amanda and I just a giggling, which gave her time to put things out and not spoil Easter. I know its an Easter I will never forget.

Another Easter I will never forget was an Easter spent with a very special friend. When I first became a CNA I worked for over a year in a care center. I meet some of the most amazing people and learned so much about myself. One of the special people I meet was one of my patients. Her daughter brought her to Utah to live in the care center from New York City. My little friend stood at the giant size of 4 ft. but her personality made her at least 7ft tall. She would tell you just what she thought weather you liked it or not and I love that about her.

She was Jewish and as we were getting to know one another it didn't take her long to ask if I was a christen. I told her I was and from time to time the two of us would talk about God and our beliefs. In time we decided we had many things in common and on the subject of religion, well she told me she was just glad I believed in God. That as long as I believed in God I would be just fine. After knowing her for a year she asked me if I would take her somewhere. She explained that it had been over a year since she had been to synagog. She had found one in park city and had talked with the rabbi there several times. He had even been to see her and she had introduced me to him. Passover was in week and she really wanted to go and asked me to take her and join her. I felt honored and so with permission from all parties needed, I took a day off and we went to synagog.

I am not sure I can express in words the experience I had that day. It was one of the most spiritual experiences in my life. I sat in awe hearing the beautiful language that I knew my lord and savior spoke while on this earth. Heard the worship that he had experienced while he was in the temples. The songs that have been passed down maybe even the same songs he had sung. It made me feel that much closer to my father in heaven. I just sat with my friend with a new understanding.  I heard and absorbed the testimony the spirt bore to me. That Jesus Christ was indeed the son of God. And that he had lived and experienced the same human experience I was now experiencing. That he hung on a cross and bleed and died for me!! For me that I would be able to return to live with him and my Father in Heaven again one day. That Joseph Smith at 14 years old had the courage to get down on his knees and ask for the truth. And then with the power of God restore the gospel to the earth. And that I chose before my earthly existence to follow my eldest brother and my Heavenly Father and gain a body. That every person around me chose too! I felt so honored that my friend asked me to take her that day and that I was able to have this experience.

So with another Easter almost here I find myself looking back and enjoying some of the memories made during Easter time. I also look forward to making new memories with my own family in hopes that one day they can look back to magical Easters spent with family or close friends.

Happy Easter :)