The Privilege of Friends

I have the privilege of knowing some pretty amazing people. People who inspire me. Today I had the opportunity to sit and chat with two of those amazing people. They are both single mothers. We were talking about the every day adventures of having children. As I sat and listened to how their days usually go, I realized how blessed I am to not only have a husband who helps so much with the chores around the house and keeping the boys in line, but also how lucky we are to have been blessed with four boys. Each of these wonderful ladies have one son. It's just the two of them together before work and school and then after work and school every day.

I don't know how many times I have whinned and complained about having a messy house or having to clean up after the boys. At least my boys can entertain themselves. When you are an only child in a single parent home, who do you play with?  Mom or dad, whichever the case may be. When they told me that they keep their homes clean by staying up until after 11:00pm to "straighten up" I was humbled immediately.

Bless you my friends. You are truly amazing in my eyes. I resolve to do less complaining and more playing with my boys. I resolve to stay up a little longer to make sure my house is in order.

Thank you for teaching me.

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.