New Year's "Attributes"

For the record, I do not believe in making New Year's resolutions. Mostly because I can never keep them but also because I don't think you should have to "resolve" to start or stop something that you should or shouldn't have been doing all along.

With that being said, I am going to try to work hard this year on a few "attributes" that I would like to have. These came as a result of a lesson that I taught in church today.

1. Faith - specifically for me, Faith in my Savior.
2. Hope
3. Charity and Love
4. Virtue
5. Knowledge
6. Patience
7. Humility
8. Diligence
9. Obedience

Happy New Year!

What is most important...

Lately I have been feeling bad that I have not kept my blog up-to-date. I felt like my life hasn't been exciting enough to but anything down in black and white (or black and tan as the case may be).

This weekend my guilt and bad feelings are gone. My life is exciting. I have four wonderful little boys to play with, do homework with, take to basketball and put up Christmas decorations with. I have a husband who I can spend time with talking about whatever it is that we feel like talking about. We go to church meetings together, watch movies together, we play with the boys together.

So, although I enjoy the blogging and facebooking world, I have come to realize that my priorities are a little out of wack and that I have greater interestest elsewhere. For now, I will commit to blogging when the urge comes but until then, I will enjoy my life with my family.

For my posterity

This past weekend I had the opportunity to teach Sunday School at church. The lesson was on Family History work. Of course they say that the one who gains the most from the lesson taught is the teacher themselves. This was no different. Preparing and teaching this lesson made me realize how little I know about my parents and grandparents lives before I came around. It made me really stop to think about how important it is to keep a journal of some kind.

When I first started this blog I honestly had the intention of using it as my "electronic journal" and recording in it as much as possible about my days, my kids, my family. I have failed miserably at this task. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure those of you who are kind enough to read my dribble would want to hear about all of this.

This once again brought me back to keeping a handwritten journal for my posterity to read when I have moved on from this life.

When I was attending college I diligently wrote in a journal nightly detailing the days events. As I read back now, my life really wasn't any more exciting then as it is now. After college I wrote here and there but never really carried it on as I had done.

Thinking back, I wish I would have realized in my youth what I do now and kept a journal of my experiences. I don't remember very much at all. I wish I would have written down the details of my last birthday party at our home on Wilson Lane in Ogden before we moved to Washington State. Or the time I was buried alive from my neck down by our neighbor boy and my dad had to dig me out (I can still see his face and feel the end of the shovel as it barely touched my stomach).

This life goes by so fast. I realized this weekend that I need to take time for my children's and grandchildren's sake to write this stuff down. Help them to know me and who I am.

So, my commitment to myself is to write in my journal. It may not be every day but I am hoping for at least twice a week to share my thoughts, feelings and experience with my posterity.

If you don't currently keep a journal, will you join me?

One of my favorite hymns

I will never forget when I saw this performance of one of my favorite hymns. I have heard many versions and seen many performances of this hymn but this will always be my favorite performance.

Enjoy.

Balance

I attended a meeting this week where the topic was Balancing Stress in Your Life. One of the handouts given listed several suggestions for accomplishing balance in your life. One suggestion was "Don't fret about things you can not control". I leaned over to my friend sitting next to me and pointed out that suggestion letting her know that this was something that I needed to work on. She told me that it is liberating when you do. She said that she has recently been able to do this and it has made a difference in her life. Of course I had to ask how she did it.

I must admit, her response surprised me. She said that I needed to get in touch with my spirituality. She realized from reading a passage that if she continued to fret about things that were out of her control then that meant that she didn't trust that God could handle it.

Wow!!! I didn't know what to say. Here I am a 39 year old woman who was raised in a religious family and have tried to allow God to be a part of my life. I will admit, I haven't been very successful the past few years. The thought that I didn't trust that God could handle things never, ever crossed my mind. I get it though.

So with this blog I challenge myself and anyone else who is reading and would like to take the challenge. Don't fret about things that you can not control! Trust that the Lord will not give you more than you can handle. Trust that the Lord is going to help you along the way if you allow Him to do so. Trust that the Lord knows you.

Thank you to my dear friend for opening my eyes.