Junk

This article is on ksl.com today.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=19730032&title=helping-elyza-eat-family-struggles-to-give-daughter-better-life&s_cid=featured-1

She is such a cute little girl. I want to just give them the money that they need to get her procedure done, but I can't do that. I can give SOME money though. I look around my house and it is filled with STUFF. Things, things, things, stuff, stuff, stuff. Junk, junk, junk. I am surrounded by things that cloud my mind and clutter my surroundings.

Friend Spotlight on Jana

As promised, here is my friend spotlight on Jana. Jana and I were in the same ward in Orem. We lived one street away. We weren't really friends, but how we became friends was like this: we sat by each other at an outdoor relief society dinner. Remember that? And we sat by JayneAnne? We three laughed and laughed and laughed. After that, I knew I was addicted to Jana. And later we were called to serve in the RS presidency together. It was great.

Some things I love about Jana:

She is an amazing mother. She has three little kids, just younger than mine are. They are adorable and very good kids. I visited her and her kids in January and she made a delicious lunch. She's a great cook, by the way. She always has fun things that her kids are doing and things that she is teaching them.

She is funny. Conversation is never lacking with her.

Her house is always cutely decorated.

She is very level headed. There is a wisdom and strength about her that is hard to describe. She describes when women get together and rag on their husbands as "wife cancer" or something. And she never participates. Have you ever met women like that? They put their husbands down whenever they can? It's a toxic attitude and is incredibly hurtful.

She thinks of others. She cares about other people's feelings and she is genuine in her love for others. She has a charitable personality.

Anyway, I'm sure Jana is blushing so I should end here. One more thing. I have to write about my comment on her facebook page. She wrote that she loves Waldorf salad. My comment was, "I just threw up in my mouth. No, wait. I just ate waldorf salad." I send a message to Jana telling her that I was joking (and that I thought my comment was hilarious), but didn't really care for the waldorf salad that I have tasted. Anyway, she got me wanting to try it again.

I love you Jana, and look forward to many more years of friendship with you!

For my friend Jana.

My friend Jana wanted her friends to update their blogs. Done! I love you Jana. I'll actually do a friend spotlight on you for my next real update.

Why I love this picture

My two nieces are here and my son is at school. While all four girls are playing downstairs I've been looking at old photographs on my computer. And for some reason I couldn't stop looking at this one. At first glance it's just a picture of a view from our backyard. But then as I looked closer it has so many parts about it that I love. First, the apple tree in full bloom. I love springtime, mainly for that reason. I love blossoms. It signifies birth to me. New life. Hope and excitement of good things to come. That tree by itself makes me love this picture. But if you look closely you can see our garden boxes in the lower left corner. We have 4 garden boxes. Last year I planted tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, cauliflower, peppers, watermelon, and cantaloupe. I love to garden. I am not good at it though. But that's okay. Sometimes I forget to water our garden. We don't have it set up to automatically get watered (yet). The best cantaloupe I've ever ever had was from our garden in our Orem house.

The clouds: Some of them are grey, some are white. To me the sky is beautiful with just enough blue sky showing. To me it is kind of like life. You'll have pretty crappy, dark days. Days of storming, which might last a long, long time. Years maybe. But there are also beautiful bright days that might last for only minutes at a time. But overall, looking at the big picture, you know the sky is blue. You KNOW it is blue. The sky IS blue. It will always be blue when the storm is over.

And that sun shining on the mountain. This big, strong, stable mountain is very peaceful for me to look at. There is a lot of snow. People go through different things at different times in their life. The grass is never greener. We may think it is, but it truly isn't.

The blue kiddie pool at the bottom. Summer is almost here and the kids will be running around, screaming with joy and playing in the backyard.

Dave's trailer on the right side, just past the ugly chain link fence with white slats. A reminder to me what a hard worker Dave is. How much he loves his toys. I love my husband. He is my favorite person. I love to be with Dave. I love to be silly with him and give him a hard time if he doesn't laugh at my lame jokes. I love to hold his hand. And rub his head. And fall asleep with him. And wake up with him. I love to do his laundry. And I even love putting away his socks at the foot of the bed that he takes off in the middle of the night. I love cleaning the sink after he shaves. He calms me down and keeps me sane. He makes me smile and he makes me laugh. He is in school right now and that takes up a lot of his free time, time that he didn't really have to begin with. He gets home at 6:30, he plays with the kids and we eat dinner. Kids go down around 8:00 and then he hits the books.

The clothes line. I LOVE clothes lines. We had one growing up and my mom used it a lot, or so it seemed to me. I remember running through the sheets. I love that I'm tall enough to reach it without having a ladder. That just occurred to me. It's kind of like we have an automatic net for badminton or whatever.

I even love all the junky trucks and trailers in our far neighbors land. It reminds me that we live in a spacious area. In an area full of farmers.

I love the leaves on the left in the foreground. I'm not sure why I took this picture, I think it was because it was our first spring in our home and I was just getting a record of how it looked at that one moment in time.

I'm a spoiled, spoiled girl. Or just very blessed. Any way I look at it, I sure am grateful for my blessings. For this one picture. For my life.

Learn With Every Goodbye

– Veronica A Shoffstall / Jorge Luis Borges


After a while, you learn the subtle difference

and between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning

And company doesn’t mean security,

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts

And presents aren’t promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats

With the grace of a woman,

not the grief of a child,

And learn to build all your roads on today

Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,

And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight

And after a while, you learn That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your own garden

and decorate your own soul,

Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth

And you learn

and learn…

With every goodbye, you learn.