Gratitude List

I am doing a wellness challenge that my sister-in-law posted about. Along with a physical challenge I need to pick 4 mini challenges. One of them is to write down 10 things you are grateful for.

1. My family. What more can I say. They are there when I need them. I can call them and chat, or vent. When I have a problem, they either help me feel better, or find a way to help me fix the problem. They are a constant in the sea of change that is life.

2. My husband's family. This could be joined with #1, but I felt it deserved it's own spot. This is a family that has a different background and different traditions that I have. It can be challenging when two people come together and begin to learn the traditions and habits of the other. My in-laws have been so wonderful in loving me and showing me the wealth of tradition and knowledge that is there family. They have also been really great to help take care of me when my husband has been gone for work. I don't know what I'd do without them.

3. Good neighbors. Out here in the country the term neighbor means anyone within about a 15 mile radius. I love that the people around here are so willing to lend a hand and for the friendships that we share.

4. Yarn, knitting needles, and crochet hooks. Technically that is 3 things, but I'm going to put them as one. I love how relaxing it can be to sit down and create something. I love making things and giving them to friends who can use them more than me. I love being able to create something beautiful and useful and to be able to take care of myself.

5. My clothesline. I love how line-dried clothes smell like sunshine.

6. My church calling to be Primary Pianist. I'm not very good at piano...yet. I'm getting better, though. For that I'm very grateful for my calling. It gives me incentive to practice and I can see improvement. I also love to hear my kids sing the songs that I've been practicing.

7. Cell Phones. We've relied on them to keep in touch with my husband since his new job includes a lot of travel. We still are able to read scriptures together and pray together over the phone. One day we may progress to video conferences, but for now, the phone is great!

8. Bountiful Baskets. This is a food co-op that we have been participating in for a year now. I love that we get to try new foods all the time. My family eats more fruits and vegetables than we used to, we are healthier, and our knowledge of different fruits and vegetables has increased. One of the biggest surprises, one of my children really loves cabbage! We also all really like artichokes.

9. Blogs. I love that I can keep in touch with family through their blogs, and they can read about what is going on with mine. I love all the tutorials that people put on their blogs. I love reading about other people's cooking adventures and finding new recipes. I love learning new things from other people. I don't know if I'm a blog-a-holic, but I do like reading blogs of worth.

10. My testimony of Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Life can be really hard sometimes. I find so much comfort knowing that I am never alone. I have felt peace and comfort even when I don't have any idea how things can get better, but soon they do. I believe there is a God in Heaven and that He loves me. I know when I go to church, treat others with respect and love, forgive those that hurt me, pay tithing, read my scriptures, and pray then I feel good. I feel happy, full of love and peace. Life may be hard but it is also wonderful, beautiful, and and fun!

Summer time

So, what do you do in the summer time? My daughter was complaining the other day because I told her that she was still going to be getting up fairly early, she needed to make her bed and pick up her room before coming out for breakfast.  She told me that summer time was when you are supposed to sleep in.  I guess I’m a mean mom and that isn’t my idea of summer.  I figure the kids are around and they are getting old enough to be a real help to me, so I’m going to teach them what it’s like to work.  I’m not sure who will get the bigger lesson, them learning to work, or me learning to teach them.

Now don’t get me wrong, we do have fun during the summer.  In fact, the kids and I sat down and made out a list of things that we would like to do this summer.  Some of those are things that we know are definitely going to happen, and some might happen.  The list included things like swimming lessons (they are currently taking those), my daughter’s baptism, going to my nephew’s birthday party.  Those ones are pretty set but then we included things like going camping, fishing, visiting some close touristy sites like the ice caves and the Hagerman Fossil Beds.  We will see how many of those we get done this summer.

So, we have set some new routines this summer.  They are very similar to the ones I set up for Spring Break.  I’m discovering as my kids get older what works now may not work then, so we may have to tweak this as time goes on.  I get up early and get my computer time in.  I have discovered that when kids are up, the computer goes off unless we need it for something like to look up a recipe or something, otherwise it is too big of a distraction.  So, once kids are up, I get to work making breakfast while they get dressed, make their beds and clean up their rooms.  After breakfast they each have a room that they are in charge of and they spend a few minutes cleaning that room.  The first day we picked rooms it took quite a while to get the rooms straightened and organized, but now it doesn’t take them very long at all.  Once their room is tidy we will usually all work together on something.  If the weather is nice we work outside.  We put a new house in the middle of an alfalfa field a couple of years ago and there is still a lot of work to do around the outside, along with taking care of the chickens and the garden.  So we have weeding, mowing, spreading gravel, picking up the lawn so I can mow, and hanging laundry out to dry on the clothes line.

Right now we have swimming lessons so after a little work we head to those, then lunch and come home for some free time/play time.  Swimming lessons will be over after this week and our family work time will increase.  I’m a little glad for that because we have a lot of projects to work on outside.  For free time the kids will often play outside on the swings, or in “Terabithia”.  Terabitha is an area of our yard where some big trees grow and shade one of our little irrigation ditches, so the kids built a bridge over the water, it’s the “bridge to Terabithia”.  They can climb the trees and have even built little forts over there.  For her birthday last year my almost 8 year old got a pair of little pruners and she will cut off the little dead branches.  She will probably help me prune some of our orchard later this summer with those little pruners.

If the weather is less nice then we spend a lot of time reading books.  One of the favorite places for my kids to spend their time is the library.  We have just a small little community library, but we also got a library card to a bigger library in the town where we do most of our shopping.  At that library the limit is 50 books per card and we’ve come close to bringing that many home before.  The kids pick out their own books, with me making sure that there isn’t anything I don’t want in them.  They do pretty good for the most part.  My daughters are also learning some handicrafts.  The oldest is learning to crochet.  Her sister just younger is learning to make things on a knitting loom.  I love to do yarn crafts so we all spend a little time working on our latest project.  It has been so fun sharing these skills with my kids.

At bed time after we read scriptures and pray as a family they all go and lay in their beds and I sit in the hall between the two bedrooms and read a story of my choosing to them.  We’ve done a lot of classics.  We went through some fairy tales, we read Pollyanna, some Nancy Drew, and currently I am reading them The Secret Garden (one of my all time favorites).  I have a whole list of books that I want to read to them.  This helps them unwind, and sometimes it brings up topics for conversation. 

So what do you think?  Am I a mean mom for making them get up early and sticking to a schedule?  I don’t think so.  My kids are happier, the house feels more welcoming and comfortable, and it’s easier for me to be a good Mommy.

Computer Free

I had this wonderful post all ready, and I left it overnight so I could proof read it the next day, then my computer crashed.  I decided that maybe I just hadn’t learned my lesson well enough yet.  So, here is what I started:

I didn’t have the internet or my computer for a week.  That was an interesting experience.  It was different than going on vacation and not being “plugged in”.  I’ve traveled and had no computer and it was fine.  I was out of my normal and had a different agenda and didn’t even miss not checking my e-mail, facebook, or blogs.  It’s different when you are home and used to doing all of those things.

The first couple of days I just kept thinking about how I needed to blog about my experience, but I didn’t have any way to blog.  Even without the internet, I usually have my computer, but when said computer gets a virus and you can’t do anything on it, well, even that is gone.  I took my computer to someone much more knowledgeable than myself and he fixed it right up, but since he lives an hour away, it took a while before I was able to go and pick up my computer.  In the mean time, some interesting things happened.  This is what I learned:

1.  Finding recipes is a lot easier with the internet.  I had something in my cupboards that I needed to find a recipe for.  I had never eaten it before and didn’t know exactly how to prepare it.  I went searching through my many cookbooks and magazines, but I just could not seem to find a recipe with that particular ingredient.  I also learned that I need a better filing system for some of my recipes and I have a lot of papers and recipes that I don’t need and will probably never use.

2.  I missed having my music and books played at this end of the house.  I play music using Pandora or my Itunes while I’m in the kitchen or living room.  I don’t have any other stereo at this end of the house.  I do at the other end, so I ended up spending a little more time down there listening to some dramatized cd’s.  That was probably a good thing, since I don’t usually spend much time down there and that part of the house needed some tlc.  Still, I’m glad that I can listen to books and music while doing the dishes again.

3.  I ended up actually talking to people more.  Since I couldn’t rely on facebook messages or e-mail to get a hold of people, I actually needed to talk or text them.  I also realized that I didn’t have everyone’s numbers who I may need to get in touch with.  It’s good to actually hear peoples voices when you communicate.

4.  I can survive without my computer.  I joked about having the shakes for the first couple of days, but it’s only a partial joke.  I really did go through some withdrawals.  We only took the tower in to be looked at so the monitor, keyboard and mouse were all still sitting there giving the appearance that all was okay, but of course none of them worked without the tower.  I would find myself looking over there and wanting to sit down and type something.  My eyes often found their way over to the computer before remembering that the screen would just stay blank.  I was constantly wondering what I was missing and thinking about what I was going to blog about next.  After a few days, though, those urges subsided.  I did a lot of heavy cleaning to distract myself.  I read a couple of books.  I played and worked with my children.  I made it through the days and evenings with no computer and it was okay. 

5.  It’s easy to get sucked back in.  I set my computer back up and immediately I wanted to get back on and find out all that I had been missing.  I checked my e-mail.  I had maybe 20 e-mails I wanted to read and really only about 5 of those were ones that contained information that was important to me.  On facebook I had 20 notifications, but most of them were not all that important either.  A couple of them pertained to things that had already passed before I got back on, and I didn’t really miss anything.  I also went and checked blogs, but again, I didn’t really miss much.  Yes, there were some good articles that I enjoyed reading, but nothing that was super important to my life that I couldn’t have lived without. 

So, after writing all of that and having my computer pick up another nasty virus and crashing again I realized that I had picked up right where I left off on spending too much time online again.  I found other things to do, again.  I began teaching my girls to crochet and use a knitting loom.  I began knitting some projects.  I think I have maybe figured out a way to get my screen time in without sacrificing time with my family.  We will just have to see how it works out, though.