Simple Things

I wanted to say a word about the name of my blog, and why I chose it. When my family was living in Tremonton my dad got the CD "A Thanksgiving of American Folk Hymns". He LOVED that CD, and we heard it a lot. One song on it was Simple Gifts, which I just learned with the help of good ol' wikipedia is an old Shaker hymn by Joseph Brackett written in 1848.

The lyrics of the song are:
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

For some reason of all the songs on the CD this one in particular stuck with me, and I've thought about that a lot over the years, simplicity being a gift. I am a mover and a goer, I love going places and filling my time with projects and people, but more and more I begin to feel the draw of the quiet places and times of just reflecting. Also with kids it is so easy for me to get caught up in all that needs to get done, and I forget to take time to enjoy the simple things that they find so much delight in.

So I guess the name reflects a goal I have in my life right now - to explore what "true simplicity" is, and just how you gain that.

Food this week

Here's what I'm cooking this week:
Monday - Refried Bean, Rice & Cheese Burritos
Tuesday - Oriental Cabbage Salad
Wednesday - 2-Cheese Veggies Pasta
Thursday - White Bean Chili
Friday - Lentil Dal and Rice

The cabbage salad, veggie pasta, and white bean chili are all new recipes, so I hope this week goes smoothly. I'm crazy trying 3 new recipes in a week, but I'm so tired of everything I've been making, so I wanted to try and mix things up a bit.

I started a 5:30 AM fitness "boot-camp" last week, and it's been hard but good. The hardest part is waking up sometimes. I did not realize how completely weak my abs are until I started this, well, how weak I am in general, but wow, my abs are feeling it, and there are several exercises that as they do them I just watch and can't believe I will ever be strong enough to do them.

It's not you, it's me. No, really.

Tonight was the womens broadcast at church. As I was on my way there, I was thinking about 2 friendships I have of friends that are very dear to me, and how I was wishing that our friendships were as close now as they had been in the past. I began to think of things that those friends were doing that I felt were hampering our friendship, and then the thought crossed my mind "perhaps, just maybe, it's not them that's the problem..." And I immediately felt guilty that I had even put the blame on them to begin with.

Then, somewhat interestingly, President Monson's talk tonight was not judging others. He told a story of a woman who moved to a neighborhood, and every time her neighbor hung her laundry out to dry she would complain to her husband how poorly the neighbor washed her clothes, and how dirty they always looked. One morning over breakfast as the neighbor hung up her clothes she said "Oh my!! Look, she finally learned to get her clothes really clean!! I wonder how she finally figured it out?". Her husband said "Well, I think I can tell you, I woke up early and washed our windows this morning".

So President Monson was saying we need to avoid judging others, because to some extent or another we are always looking out dirty windows. We can never fully see their circumstances, or know what all is going on in their life. It was a reminder I needed.

Some other things that stood out to me tonight:
RS Motto is Charity Never Faileth. Charity is the opposite of judgment, it is tolerant, patient, sympathetic, compassionate and merciful. It gives attention to those that are unnoticed, and is patient with someone who has let us down, and refuses to be offended easily.
We study history because it helps us learn what we are to do, and it changes us. It can give us definition in this world
We must be careful not to spend our labor for that which can not satisfy

Those are just a couple things, the meeting tonight was fabulous, and I feel like I have been spiritually lifted. I hope I can become more charitable and loving in all my interactions.

Preparation = No Fear

Recently I've been worrying about things a lot. With my new fall schedule, where I'm teaching 4 days a week, I just get anxious about being ready for my classes and students, and having food to feed my family when I'm done with said teaching. This morning as I was reading my scriptures I read the verse "When you are prepared you shall not fear". Which made me think I obviously lack some preparation in my life.

I feel like I talk about this all the time, but I still struggle figuring it out. How do I prioritize the many things that clamor to fill up my days? How do I stop wasting time? I feel like there are so many things that I NEED to be doing, but I don't get them all done, so how do I choose which ones are more needed? How do I stop doing things I feel like need to be done today to prepare for things tomorrow so I feel less stress?

One problem I face daily is I have such a hard time motivating myself when I am tired, which I usually am for at least an hour or two a day. Waking up early is great as far as getting a few things done before the boys wake up, but I'm really dragging through my late morning/early afternoon a lot of days. Maybe if I were eating more healthfully I would feel better?

I guess I should also be trying to be more open to the spirit as I plan my days. I believe God really does care that we are using our time wisely, and he'll help us to do that. I just need to be better at thinking about that.

Thoughts?

This is me writing something

I keep sitting down to write on here, and I type out a couple of sentences, and then everything I've written just seems to be... dumb, and so I delete it all determined to come back later in the day when I have better ideas. And as you can see by how long it's been since I've posted anything... I haven't actually been doing that.

So my idea is if I post SOMETHING, anything really, perhaps it will help pull me out of my writing rut. Here's to nothin'.

Yesterday I was cleaning Jefferson's room with him, and it was a pretty big disaster when we started. We cleaned for about 20 minutes, and got it looking fine, and I was ready to call it a day. As I looked around the room, I thought "Grant would finish the job, he wouldn't leave it like this." So I found homes for the little odds and ends that don't seem to fit quite anywhere, lined up the toys that live around the edge of the room, and vacuumed the floor. And the room went from fine to great in 5 minutes.

I think I tend to call it good at "fine" too often, when a little bit more effort would make it "great". So that's my mantra for the day. Make it great.

Glen Beck and I

Last weekend Grant's parents were here, and we went downtown to the Glen Beck rally. They had told Jefferson it was a big party, and he was sorely disappointed when we arrived. He began to walk around calling "Who has the candy?? Where is the candy??".

Anyways, I have been thinking about Glen Beck, and politics, and just trying to figure out my thoughts on them. For some reason listening to Glen Beck makes me... Cringe. And I'm trying to figure out why. I mean, I think I'm more republican then democrat, so I think I should agree with him. But I think I have a problem with the way he paints all liberals as either designing and evil or stupid, and republicans as the last hope for the future.

I don't really know if I am republican or democrat I guess. I don't feel like I'm either. I was thinking about it this morning, and I decided that I think it comes down to
Republican = take care of yourself & teach a man to fish
Democrat = take care of others & take the man some fish .
I'm a pretty independent kind of person, and I believe in taking care of yourself. But at the same time I do see cases where there are very real, legitimate needs, and it seems like the private sector isn't properly taking care of them, so I can't think badly of people who want to set up government institutions to help.

I was very blessed to have been raised in a home where I had opportunities for a great education, I learned to cook and clean and run a household economically, and I was rewarded for hard work and learned to appreciate that. I also have great family support, and I know that I can always call on them in times of need. I think sometimes I tend to take all those things for granted. But now I see there are a lot of really messed up homes in America, and kids are growing up without any of that, and to say to them "Look, I've managed to make it on my own, what's your problem?"... I don't know, but I used to think anyone who was living on welfare was just lazy and dependent, but I guess it's a lot more complicated then that. And while I do think you should teach the person to fish whenever possible, just because you grow up fishing doesn't mean you can just throw out fishing poles with instructions attached and say "It's simple stupid, just go out and fish" and then expect people to be able to provide for themselves in the same way you do.

But I do believe that government is by nature not very efficient, and simply creating more and more programs and spending more and more money is not going to solve all the social problems out there. So I guess I just feel like we need some balance. The government may have a very important role in the welfare problems of our day, but I think government alone can't fix it, and more government isn't necessarily the answer. But it doesn't get fixed by just shouting "self reliance and strong business!" in a megaphone either.

Well, the boys are awake so I'll have to solve politics in America another day. ha ha ha.

What are people doing falling off bandwagons anyway?

I don't really know what a bandwagon is or how people fell off them, but it must have happened a lot for them to make a saying I guess.

I'm trying to write right now, but I'm watching 2 little boys, so that equals 4 boys under the age of 5 in my house right now, not too conducive to thinking deep thoughts. But I guess the longer you stay off the bandwagon the further behind you get, so here were are, working to climb back on.

Here are a few things I'm working to find systems to implement in my life so they happen more regularly/smoothly:
Cleaning the house
Service
Health/exercise

I'm trying flylady, but having a hard time with the way her emails work, I wish there was a simpler way to get her daily tasks without reading through all the other stuff she sends out.

Weekday veg is going pretty well, but I'm getting tired of the options we have. Why does it seem hard to think of meals without meat? There are only a few kinds of meat and hundreds of fruits, vegetabls and grains, why does taking the meat out seem to limit my options so much?

Well, I better go while most the house is still in one piece.

Contentment

I guess this is kind of a continuation of last weeks post. I feel like I talk about this all the time... perhaps one of these days I will figure something out and I can stop thinking about it :). I just have been thinking about the desire for change vs. contentment with where you are today. Life is a constant attempt to find a place of balance, and this is a place where I guess I just don't feel that balance.

I think that a lot can be said for change, and not being afraid of change. But I think that I am missing out on enjoying a lot of moments because I am constantly looking ahead for the next change in life. I guess I fear missing out on some opportunity or life changing experience by being too complacent, but I think I'm just putting my complacency in the wrong places. I think I tend to be overly complacent in a lot of areas that I feel are "small" things (but when I say them they don't sound small and I feel dumb... I guess I just categorize them as small so I don't feel so bad about not making them a priority) like my health and home organization and such.

Anyways, as I type it's helping clarify in my mind what I've been feeling, and I guess it's that I feel like I am constantly yearning for change in the areas of life I can't control, but there are SO many areas in my life that are in need of improvement that I CAN control. So I need to move my complacency to the areas I can't control, and just enjoy the ride more, and move my motivation for change to things that I have control over.

I'm going to end with this mostly unrelated quote that Grant just sent me from The Shallows:
"The internet seizes our attention only to scatter it"

I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go

Today in church we sang that song - I'll go where You want me to go, dear Lord, I'll be what you want me to be". And for some reason I almost cried. And I've been feeling a little sad about it all day.

I have a condition that I think I inherited from my dad where every year or so I start to feel like I want a change. Not like a change in hair color, but like "I want to pick up and move" change. My pre-married adult life I don't think I lived any one place longer than 3 or 4 months in a stretch. When we first got married I loved it here, and thought we'd be here forever. Then a little less than a year later I started to feel the itch, and we moved to Logan. 4 months later we moved to Cedar. 4 months in Cedar, 4 months in Seattle, 4 more months in Cedar. A year in Bountiful. A month in Argentina. Moved out here. I loved it out here again. We looked for a house to buy. But recently I've just been feeling that itch again. That "I want to be somewhere new..." feeling. I want to be closer to family. Suddenly the West coast is sounding much more magical then the East coast.

Well, maybe more magical isn't the right word, I love the East coast. I really do. But the West coast isn't sounding too shabby recently. Yesterday Grant and I spent an hour looking at train tickets. And we are insane, but we desperately want to take our family on a 3 day train ride across America. Stop overnight in Chicago and see Grant's friend Billy. Watch America pass by out the window of a sleeper car.

And then live in Portland. Or Seattle. Or somewhere else in the NW.

But then today we sang that song. And I just felt like, I don't know what I felt. Just this feeling that I need to let go of MY desires for where I want our family to be, and be willing to look for what God wants. And for some reason that's hard for me. What if he wants me to stay here? Like forever?

I mean, I know that if that's what's right for our family, it's what is right, and we will be happy, and life will be fulfilling and hard and perfect. But it's hard for me to let go of my visions of my future. And maybe my vision of the future is His vision of the future for our family too, and I just need to let it be on His timing, but that's hard too. Giving up control is something I have never been good at. I'm officially a control freak.

Really though, if there's one thing that I should have learned by now, is that the future is never what I think it will be. And the harder I hold onto one certain picture of what the future is going to be, the worse it is on me when things don't go quite as pictured. So why do I do this to myself? Why is it so hard for me to let go of the reigns, when really the reigns are just tied to a stick by my foot, and I'm not really controlling anything to begin with?

I'll go where You want me to go, I'll go where You want me to go, I'll go where You want me to go. I can do this.

Service

Yesterday I was working on getting mom's book ready for e-publishing, and I read this quote:

Only when you lift a burden, God will lift your burden. Divine paradox this! The man who staggers and falls because his burden is too great can lighten that burden by taking on the weight of another's burden. You get by giving, but your part of giving must be given first.
~Spencer W. Kimball

I need to make a specific effort to be focusing on service in my life. I always think about wanting to do more service, but rarely make a concerted effort to actually DO something.

Sorry this is short today, I've been working on mom's book and now I need to get off the computer

Here we go again...

And again. And again.

Today I've been thinking about all the things that I do over and over and over again. It seems like life is chock full of stuff I do (or should do) in endless repetition.

First thing I thought of was food. I feed my boys 5+ times a day, and the amount of my day that goes into preparing, feeding, and cleaning up after the feeding is... Substantial. And it's not like I'm making gourmet meals here. And speaking of cleaning up after meals, just cleaning in general feels endless.

I'm not trying to sound depressing or begrudging, I was just thinking about it, and kind of wondering why. Why is our life set up in a way that we just do the same things over and over again? Why can't we just do something one or two times, and have learned it? And crocodiles only need to eat like once a week or less, that sounds nice sometimes.

Anyways, I guess I need to learn something from repetition. And I'm trying to figure out what. The only thought I've had so far is the sheer number of things always needing to be done keeps me from getting too complacent. Even if I spent all morning yesterday cleaning my bathroom and getting it spotless, 1 or 2 trips-to-the-bathroom-by-a-4-year-old-boy later it's destined to need to be cleaned again. I'm still thinking about it. Maybe I'll come up with something brilliant later today. After I clean the kitchen one more time.

Weekday Vegetarian

Our internet is down, it has been for 2 days. This happens on a fairly regular basis, so we decided to try a different internet provider. But for now we have no internet, so I'm writing this offline, then I'll move it online when I can connect to the internet again.

Dee just woke up so this is going to be very brief. For the last month we have been trying "weekday veg", which Grant saw a video about on TED

http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_weekday_vegetarian.html

So far, so good, although I do have a hard time coming up with recipes that feel filling enough for Grant that I can also send as leftovers the next day. I decided I should keep track on here of what I am making and what we like/don't like. I've lost the first 2 weeks of meals, but here's what I've cooked for the last 3 weeks, and short notes on it:

Week 1
Mon - Baked Potatoes & Oven Roasted Broccoli - Grant didn't really touch the broccoli, and didn't seem overly enthused about baked potatoes as a main course in general
Tue - Tofu Tamale Pie - This is a vegetarian version of a meal Grant really likes. He said don't remind him of the meat version and he'll probably like it even more. I really liked it, and the leftovers the next day were yummy
Wed - Tomato Avocado Sandwiches & Oven Fries - Easy and generally liked. Maybe I'd get a bagel for Grant's sandwich so it's more filling.
Thu - Falafel on corn tortillas with hummus - Always goes over well here
Fri - Went to a friends for dinner

Week 2
Mon - Homemade Pizza - Not too much to say, everyone likes pizza, right?
Tue - Can't remember what we had this day, it's not written down…
Wed - Vegetarian Cincinnati Chili - Everyone liked this, but Grant says don't call it Cincinnati Chili and he'll like it more (see a theme here?)
Thu - Black Bean Quesadillas & Watermelon - Good
Fri - Oven Fried Fish & Baked Potatoes - I tried Swai Fillets, and I don't know if it was how I prepared them, but they were very fish-y tasting, and no one wanted seconds

Week 3 - (updated with notes on the meals)
Mon - Lentil Tacos - always a good basic veg meal
Tue - Peppery Fusilli & Rolls - Grant said "this is a good spaghetti variation". I was like "Spaghetti?!?! this is nothing like Spaghetti". He just shrugged. So yeah, pasta = spaghetti here.
Wed - Spinach Quiche, sweet potato oven fries - this was good, but I did the quiche crustless, and Grant said he would like it better with a crust
Thu - Black & White Checkered Chili, Corn chips & cheese - very yummy. Grant liked it a lot.
Fri - Papusas w/refried beans, corn, lettuce & tomatoes - Never ended up making this, I think we made pizza instead.

Climbing Back on the Bandwagon

I haven't done so well at writing for the past couple weeks... I'll skip the excuses, and just say yay for fresh starts.

I've been thinking a bit about being good enough for... everything I guess. I feel like it's a constant pull, to be good enough for this or that. And how defensive I feel when I start to feel not good enough. I think a lot of my anger and sadness in life comes down to fear of not being good enough. I get angry at Jay when I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't know how to control the situation at hand. I get angry at Grant when I feel like I've failed or I feel like he's critical of me or my efforts in some area.

So I'm trying to figure out letting that go. How can I get to where I can say "I am a good enough person for the Lord to love. And His love is enough. If I am trying to be the kind of person he wants me to be, I can accept who I am. I am not perfect, but I can be loving and loved in my current state".

I do want to be more loving, and less... Needy. I feel like I want constant affirmations that I'm good enough, and I don't want to be like that.

On a somewhat related note, I started this little bit of prose the other day, but I don't know where I want it to go. It's a continuation of something I wrote a really long time ago. Anyways, here's what I've got so far.

Them

It wasn’t them. The realization was all at once relieving and frightening. It wasn’t those brass eagles, with their fierce beaks and sharp claws. The holes in our rafts were from us. We floated along keeping our eyes on the eagles, covertly slashing holes in our own rafts, then screaming in anger at the eagles as we sank.

I guess we blamed the eagles because we didn’t understand the holes. Against all reason, they surprised us. Our ability to hurt something we needed, something that kept us afloat, without even flinching... just seemed wrong. And the eagles were there, just asking to be blamed.

That's all I have. I keep starting a 3rd paragraph and not liking it. I don't know what I want to say from there. Anyways, I think that is all for today.

And lies...

I lied to you yesterday. I'm not going to write more about honesty today. I meant to, honestly I did. Okay, enough of that.

But really, I stayed up too late, and Duncan has a croup-y sounding cough, so things are not looking bright for a lot of sleep tonight.

But I did get the boys room fabulously clean today, which feels very nice. I even dusted the heater vents and floor boards. And I'm making progress in the sewing room (or the computer room, as Grant calls it :)). It looks like a disaster right now, but I have 2 full garbage bags and a sack full of fabric for the fabric sale. And all my fabric now fits on my shelf. So yes, progress is being made.

I'm going to try and sleep now before Duncan wakes up again. Poor little guy, he wakes up coughing and crying, and I go pick him up and he starts signing "more", which means he wants a drink of water, and then he just cries and buries he face in my chest like "Mom, I'm just miserable. Make me better." It's really heart breaking.

Honesty

So I said I was going to not eat sugar until the 4th of July... And I failed. I did really good for the first little bit, and then Grant's dad bought me some fudge, and I felt bad saying no, so I was like "I'll just eat this one thing..." and then after I ate the fudge I just was like "Oh, I already ruined it, what's the use?". And I've just been a failure at not eating sugar since then.

And I'm really ashamed to admit it. I mean, seriously??? I can't go without sugar for a stinkin' two weeks? So I'm kind of mad at myself.

More on honesty with myself tomorrow, Grant needs help packing to leave me again at 5:00 tomorrow morning... :(

Home Alone

I never liked that movie. The whole movie just makes me cringe.

Anyways, Grant is in NYC tonight for work, so I'm home alone. I guess growing up in the middle of 7 kids didn't give me a lot of chance to get used to being alone. In any case, I don't like it. I'm not even alone, the boys are here, but I just miss having Grant around, he makes me feel so much safer for some reason.

I had knitting here tonight to distract me from the fact I am alone, but now everyone is gone. *sigh*

Recently I've been thinking (I feel like I use that phrase every single day...) about growing up, and feeling more comfortable in my skin. I remember being a teenager, and just worrying about... Everything. My clothes, my hair, the size of my feet, my teeth, my makeup, exactly how righteous I needed to be to go to heaven when I died, just everything.

I still worry about things, but I feel like in general, I am just so much more comfortable with just being a person. Maybe you just have to grow into existence. Maybe it's a bad thing to be comfortable? Maybe you are more driven when you are uncomfortable?

But it's kind of nice.

Art & Copy

We just watched this documentary, and I loved it. It was so inspiring to me, I just felt like there's no reason we can't change the world. That we can't do something big, and great. There's a part where someone says something about a few good people working together is all it takes, and I thought of the amazing people I know, and I just kept thinking "we can do this!"

Now to figure out what "this" is.

I need a new attitude about hard things, like not looking at them as a dreadful thing to survive, but as.. I can't think of an analogy I really like, but maybe like a gate to greener pastures, or a pathway to a new adventure. Anyways, I think hard things are part of life regardless, but I need to learn to use them to my advantage and not fight them.

Grant is leaving town for NYC for work 2 days tomorrow, and then he comes back and goes straight to scout camp for 3 days, so I'm on my own with the boys this week. I'm hoping to get the sewing/computer room really organized as a surprise for him while he's gone, but I'll really have to work hard whenever the boys are down to get it done. Organizing yarn and fabric with little ones in the same room is somewhat counter-productive, it's just too tempting for them not to help :). So hopefully I can keep on task. Maybe I should just not turn on the computer in that room while he's gone, the main reason I first get on it during the days usually is to IM him or see if he's in a meeting or what not. Yes, I think that's a good idea. I'll turn off Papa G for Grant's trip, and I'll write on Kristine, which I usually do anyways.

Well, I'd best get to bed.

If at first you don't succeed...

Last night I was watching Jefferson try a game, and every time he struggled with an answer I would yell the right answer in from the other room. And then I realized I do that all the time. And how that probably isn't good for Jefferson. So that's a goal - let Jefferson and Duncan figure things out and do things on their own more. My mantra for the day - things don't have to be perfect all the time, and honest mistakes are okay. The last thing we need around here are more perfectionists, so I ought to do what I can not to breed it into them ;).

And hard things. I forgot to write anything yesterday, but sadly I didn't do anything really impressive. I This morning in the shower I decided I need to try a little bit harder at doing hard things, and decided I've been eating too much junk food recently anyways, so I decided no more sugar until 4th of July. Which is only like 2 weeks away. So nothing huge, but at least it will keep me from eating all Jeff's popcicles for a couple weeks.

Tomorrow we are going to Atlantic City for a day, I've never been there, so I'm excited to go see what its like.

Good Things to Come

I love this video.

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=bd163ca6e9aa3210VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD&locale=0

It reminded me of A. My life is so good! B. The best is yet to be.

This morning I read the talk "And upon the Handmaids in Those Days Will I Pour Out My Spirit"
https://beta.lds.org/liahona/2010/05/and-upon-the-handmaids-in-those-days-will-i-pour-out-my-spirit?lang=eng&format=conference&view=sessions

And I felt like I was underlining every other line. Some favorite parts were "The ability to qualify for, receive and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life." "Revelation can come hour by hour and moment by moment as we do the right things" "Promised personal revelation comes when we ask for it, prepare for it, and go forward in faith, trusting that it will be poured out upon us" I LOVE that - "Trusting that it will be poured out upon us".

She had a quote from Eliza R. Snow (who lived in the late 1800's) - "Women should be women and not babies that need petting and correction all the time. I know we like to be appreciated but if we do not get all the appreciation which we think is our due, what matters? We know the lord has laid high responsibility upon us, and there is not a wish or desire that the Lord has implanted in our hearts in righteousness but will be realized, and the greatest good we can do to ourselves and each other is to refine and cultivate ourselves in everything that is good and ennobling to qualify us for those responsibilities."

I am inspired to complain less and to work harder at improving myself.

Sweet Black Bean Burritos

That is what we are having for dinner tonight, and I'm excited. They are delicious.

I keep typing things and then erasing them. I am excessively tired, and can't seem to properly complete a thought. Something I don't really do even on the best of days, but today... I can't even think of a decent analogy of how I can't seem to think clearly today.

I will try again later if I can get a quiet moment this evening.

For now, the hard things I've done today -
- Stayed up after getting Duncan settled back down at 5:30 this morning
- Finished an exercise video again :)

Just Do it - Thank you Nike.

Today has been a little hectic - menu planning, grocery shopping, feeding kids, dropping them off, signing papers on the car loan, rushing Grant to work for a call, picking up the kids... Now we are home and everyone crashed. Except me. I'm wanting to crash but am trying to resist.

But this will be short because I have lots that needs to happen still before this day is through.

My thought for the day is - Why not do it now?

That is what I keep saying to myself as I go throughout the day. This goes back to procrastination, but as I do things instead of leaving something to do later (wiping the table off after breakfast for example) I'm trying to think "This will have to be done at some point, and it will probably never be amazingly convenient, so why not do it now and enjoy a clean table all morning instead of doing it right before lunch?"

As for hard things, I am not good at remembering the hard things I did the day before, which is probably proof-positive that I am not doing hard enough things. Dang it. But the hard things I did today are:
1. A complete exercise video. I tend to start them (even that very rarely) and then quit half way through when it seems not fun anymore.
2. I didn't want to do menus or grocery shopping today, but I just made myself do it, and then I even went to 2 different stores so I could buy the things that cost less at each of them to save money.

That's all I guess.

Stewardship

I have been thinking about stewardships today, and trying to clarify what mine are. First I'm trying to give names to the general categories my responsibilities fall under. Here's what I've come up with so far:

At home:
As Grant's Wife

The Boys Mother

As keeper of the house/creator of the kind of space I want my family to live in

Daughter/Sister/Daughter-in-law/Sister-in-law

At church:
As a visiting teacher

Activities Committee

And I think you have some kind of stewardship just as a member of society/humanity.

What else???

I also was thinking this morning about how having things I'm responsible is a beautiful thing. The privilege it is to be capable of being a steward over something. And also that I am responsible to God for my stewardships. And that he will help and bless me as I work on improving my stewardhips.

That's all I've been thinking so far.

As for yesterdays post and hard things, I still haven't thought of a way to motivate myself/track what I'm doing that I love, but here are some hard things I did yesterday.
- I didn't eat that big, soft sugar cookie. Harder than it sounds.
- I didn't take a nap during the boys nap time and instead worked on things around the house.
- I swear I was doing other things during the day that I thought were hard, but I can't think of them right now.

That doesn't sound very impressive, but I guess it's a start.

Signing off for the weekend,
~Anna

Hard things

But not hard like rocks.

Last night I was thinking about doing hard things, and I think for a while I might try and use this blog to chronicle my attempts to do more hard things in my life. I haven't clearly decided a format yet. I'm thinking maybe I'll try and write 3 hard things I did in the last day? I'm not sure. They will not often be big or grand things, just simple things that seemed hard, but I did them anyways.

I'm hoping that over time as I work on doing small hard things here and there I'll get better at it, and I'll get better at choosing the hard thing vs the easy thing more often. And my hope is I'll be a better person because of it.

I've been thinking about my physical body today, and the connection between our spiritual selves and our physical selves. And today I'm thinking that connection is a lot more important than sometimes I tend to think it is. That improvement in either part of me is an improvement of the whole.

I don't have anything profound to say yet, my thoughts on the issue are still pretty unformed but I've just been thinking about it, and I'm trying to figure it out.

So I'm off to try and do something hard, perhaps for now it will just be not taking a nap while my boys are napping and trying to finish formatting moms book.

Signing off,
~Anna

Change?

I saw this today for the first time:

http://www.youtube.com/mormonmessages#p/a/u/1/KHDvxPjsm8E

And it's beautiful. I think NieNie is so strong.

And I'm ashamed to admit I that as I watched the video I hoped I never have to be strong like that.

And I'm ashamed at how little I'm doing to be strong in my own life. How rarely I really make myself do hard things.

I guess that's all for today.

Grandma and Grandpa

We didn't buy a car on Friday - Phew. We went to Carmax and met the nicest car salesman, I'm guessing the nicest one in existence. He sat us down at his desk, and talked about the best times of year to buy new cars, and car loans, and selling cars. I learned a lot. It was all rather providential I think.

I was reading my cousins blog this morning, and she had some of her favorite memories of Grandma & Grandpa Reynolds, and I starting thinking of my own, so I decided to type them out.

I remember when they would come visit us in Nevada, and they would drive their truck pulling their trailer, and usually stop along the way to go fishing. My mom usually didn't let us get in their trailer, so I thought it was magical.

My grandma had a cupboard under her stove that she always had crackers in for us, her favorites were the little tiny ritz cracker sandwiches with cheese whip in the middle. I think it was also from her cupboard that I developed a love of chicken-in-a-biscuits.

I remember Grandpa always said "Hey Turkey" when he would see one of us little ones coming, and I thought it was so funny. I remember choosing books from magical built in bookshelf just with kids books on it, and him reading them to me. Above the books were a game cupboard, and when we would come visit Grandma often had a new game in their for us. One of my favorites was this fishing game, you had a little boat you would move around a lake and draw fish cards of different types and sizes of fish.

They had a beautiful, huge garden in their backyard. Every morning Grandpa would work in the vegetable garden and Grandma in her flower beds. Their yard was huge and always meticulously groomed.

When I was reading Brittney's blog she wrote about eating breakfast with Grandpa, and I laughed, because I always thought that was only my special Grandpa thing. I would wake up at 5:30, and go downstairs, and Grandpa would be cooking his breakfast. Until the Dr. told him he needed to start eating oatmeal for breakfast he made the same thing almost every day - One fried egg, a couple pieces of bacon, and hash browns. I can remember watching him peel and grate the potatoes, and how long they took to cook, because he always cooked them on med-low. I remember talking politics with him, even though I really knew nothing at all about them. I mostly just repeated what he had just said like I had thought it myself.

It was very sad to me when he stopped getting up and making those breakfasts.

When I was a young teen she would have my dad drive us down and drop us off in the morning on his way to work, and we would help with house cleaning and yard work. The main job I had was carrying her vacuum up and downstairs because they had a really heavy vacuum and she couldn't get it up and downstairs very easily.

I lived with my grandma on and off starting at 16. I wish I helped her nearly as much as she helped me. I have so many good memories of my time there. Our usual daily routine of me coming home from work, she would have dinner out, we would eat, clean up, go sit in the living room and watch her shows while we crocheted or did hand sewing things.

My Grandma always made me feel like I could do anything.

I miss her so much.

Procrastination

I had a whole post written on Procrastination, mostly because it started with P and I had a P thing going, but it was really boring. And it can all be summed up in 2 sentences:
Grants family is super awesome, and have taught me a lot about not procrastinating.
I want to be more like them, so I'm going to try and procrastinate less.

Now that that is said, I'm going to write about something that is kind of weighing on my mind right now:

Buying cars.

Grant wants to buy a car today and I am scared silly. Spending money in general is stressful for me, even just grocery shopping stresses me out because of how much it costs. So car shopping... Is not fun. Our last car purchase happened rather quickly. Our Subaru Forester (which I loved by the way) started doing really weird things, we took it into the repair shop, and they said it would be $5500 to fix it. We had been putting about $1000 into the car every 6 months for a while, so we decided not to fix it and move on.

And then the car died literally as we pulled into a Ford Dealership. Let me just say, a lot of reasoning and bargaining power went out the window.

Anyways, when it comes to car buying I have this constant battle in my head -
voice a "You should buy an older, expensive car, they last forever"
voice b"No way! You'll be dumping money into an old car all the time. Buy a cheap newer car. Newer cars have less problems"
And it goes back and forth and back and forth. Cheaper, newer car or more expensive older car.

And it never ends. As soon as I've decided on one thing the advantages of the other start an unordered list (with bullet points as opposed to numbers, because that would make things too organized) in my head.

So I'm stressed about buying a car. And I don't have any answers about car buying. And that's really all I have to say. Just that I don't know and I'm stressed. And I wish I did know.

But here's a really good quote I read this morning:
To live greatly we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness and triumph with humility
-Thomas S. Monson

So off I go to face car buying with courage.

Passion vs. Paying the Bills

It looks like this weeks letter is P. Priorities, Passion, Paying bills.

I guess today's title should be Passion AND Paying the Bills. Trying to live life passionately and pay the bills at the same time.

Every once in a while Grant and I sit and talk about our "ideal" life - where we want to live, what we want to do for income, what our house would be like, etc. And sometimes we want to just pick up and go, and start living our "dream".

And then we remember we have 2 kids. Who depend on us for food, shelter, etc. And really, it's not like our life right now is bad. At all. It's actually quite nice. Grant has a good job, works with great people in an interesting company with great benefits, we rent a cute little house in a nice neighborhood not far from Grant's work.

Even just typing all that, I feel guilty for even thinking I want anything different for my life, because really we are so blessed. But I do want something different, I really do. I want to live somewhere my boys can run outside and build forts and ride bikes and climb trees. I want Grant around more. I want to be close to other people who want the same things we want for our families. I want to be closer to family.

So here's where I struggle. How do I "advance confidently in the direction of my dreams" while still being grateful, responsible, and passionate today? Is there a point where you need to decide THIS is your reality, and you need to stop trying to create another one? I do feel like I am often waiting for the stars to align to start this-that-or-the-other, and I need to start using my time more wisely and doing some of the things I want to do today. So I guess thats a start.

This post is very dis-jointed. And I don't have a nice paragraph to wrap it up. But I'm still mulling it over.

For now I'm going to end with a quote again, by Thoreau.
“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler"

So here's to simplification.

Writing

I've recently felt I should start writing something every day. So here I go. These will mostly just be ramblings, so sorry for the rough-ness of them.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about priorities, and how my priorities shift over time. And how much those shifting priorities change my day-to-day life. There are times when my priorities seem clear, and it seems fairly straight-forward keeping on task. And then there are days where everything seems so pressing, almost crushing, and I feel like I'm drowning in things that need to be done. This past year I've felt like that a lot.

So I've been trying to figure out what is really necessary in my life, what is really important. There are so many nice and good things that I want to do, that sometimes it's hard for me to admit that something may not be what I need to be doing most right now. And there are other things that sometimes feel like they could be dispensable, but for one reason or another I feel like I need to make them more of a priority in my life.

Like writing. I don't really even know why I need to be writing, but as I've pondered my priorities I've just felt like I should be writing daily. So here I go.

I am going to end with this quote I got from my mom that I am really loving recently:

The moment one commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. . .
German philosopher Johan von Goethe