2012 is Our Year

The best words to describe the last two years is that they have been learning experiences.  I can't say that all of those experiences have been very enjoyable, but we sure have learned a lot from them.  This year some of that is going to change, I just know it.  We have a lot of learning experiences yet to go through, but I believe that more of them will bring smiles to our faces.  My sweet husband is embarking on a new career in a field that we have very minimal experience in.  Yet, the opportunities are amazing, if we just work hard and stick to it.  So, we will do just that.  I am fully prepared to support him in whatever he needs me to do.  I will be fine with him working long hours and coming home late, grateful that he is coming home instead of staying in a hotel like he did much of last year.  I learned that I can take care of a lot of things around the house that he normally took care of, so I can help him that way too, and I will be very grateful for the weekends when he can help me.  There is so much potential in our future and I am very excited to see where we are going.  We are putting together some plans and goals for our life. For the first time in a long time they actually seem attainable.  That feels amazing!  The next couple of months I believe will be quite trying for us, but I hope to soon be able feel like I can breathe again.  I look at all of the things that have happened in the past two years and how they have led us to where we are now.  I am grateful for some of those challenges which I can now view as blessings.  I am grateful for all of the things they taught me, all of the lessons I learned, but I'm also ready to enjoy the good things that come from learning those lessons.

That brings me to what I want to have happen this year.  I've wavered back and forth on the idea of New Years Resolutions.  On the one hand, if you need to change, do it now.  On the other, a goal without a time line is just a dream.  It seems like the New Year is just as good a place to mark time as any.  So, this year I have a lot of things I want to do.  I want to paint some more of my house, specifically my hallway and my bedroom.  I want to make a new quilt for my bed.  I want to grow either kale or swiss chard in my garden this year, along with other favorites that I already know how to grow.  I have a goal to attend the temple more often this year.  I don't have a specific number of times right now, but I will take that up with the Lord.  I want to get some shelves installed in my sewing room.  I still want to eliminate more of the "stuff" from our house.  I also want to plant some more flower beds outside so that we can have pretty colors next summer.  Along with those, I have lots and lots of things I want to do, but I'm not sure when I want to have them done by or what priority they really are for me.  And of course, there are the things that my husband and I have decided together, like planting more grass, raising chickens for meat, and maybe even going in with my brother on a cow for meat.  He has a lot more plans for the outside that I mostly just give him my input on, but he will be doing most of the work, so I let him figure more of it out.

The best thing is, I have such a feeling of hope for this year.  Last year I clung to faith, believing that things would get better because we were doing the best we could.  This year I feel like we've passed some kind of test and while there are more tests to come, we will be getting a reward for the ones we've already passed.  I don't know if that makes sense, but honestly, I will take these feelings of happiness and go with it.  Words cannot describe the feelings of peace and love that the Spirit of the Lord can bring to you, even when life doesn't make sense and you wonder where all the good things have gone.  Thirteen months ago I gained a greater understanding of the word "despair" and now I hope to understand better what the word "hope" means also.

Who do I resemble?

I read a blog the other day where the author asked what fictional character you felt like you resembled, or that you could associate yourself with.  Well, I have a list of character that I wish I was more like, but I could not think of one, or even 2 that I felt I could compare myself to, until I read another person's response.  They referenced a short children's story, that reminded me of a book I really like.

I'll Do Better Tomorrow, I Promise by Maurine Reynolds Adamek.  The book goes through the day of a little boy and all of the ways he tried to help, but ended up trying is mother's patience.  At the end, the little boy is feeling kinda bad, but then the mother prays for forgiveness and promises to do better tomorrow.  I feel like that so many days.  I look back on the times I lost my patience, on the times when I wasn't as understanding as I could have been and think about how I could have done things differently.  This unnamed mother is probably the fictional character that I think I am most like.

The Blahs......

I have the winter blahs.  Not to be confused with the winter blues.  No, I am just really cold all the time.  It seems that very little of what I do seems to work to get me warm.  I will take a warm bath, but as soon as I get out, I'm cold again.  I dress in layers every day.  Changing my socks works for a while, but then I get cold again.  I am really missing warmer weather.  (At the same time I'm hoping for snow because it is January in Idaho and that is what is supposed to happen).  Also, I am so tired.  I think it has something to do with shorter days.  During the summer I could get up early and be busy most of the day and still have energy in the evening.  Now, I'm falling asleep almost before we put the kids to bed, and I have to drag myself out of bed in the morning.  It doesn't help that I'm snuggled up to the hubby and he's warm.  I need to get up earlier, I get so much more accomplished in the mornings, but I just don't have the motivation to get out of bed, especially when I'm so cold.

2011 Review

I had one goal this past year, to simplify my life.  I think I did well in some areas, and not so good in others.  On another blog instead of defining new goals, she looked at the things she did get done this past year.  I like that idea, so, here's some of what I did:


I did clear out a bunch of "stuff" from my house.  I went through our books and purged the ones that I felt were less needed and filled the shelves with more substantial reading, including children's stories.  I also went through my clothes and some of the kids clothes.  We have gotten rid of more toys than we have accumulated this past year which is also good.

I gained a new appreciation for single moms and learned I can make it on my own when my husband has to travel for a week or two at a time.

We still had family scripture study and family prayer while husband was gone.

I learned how to split wood. 

I extended the life of many of my girls pairs of pants and shirts by turning them into skirts and dresses.  I also patched many of my son's pants and made the patches look cool.

I read a number of "classic" books that were on my to-read list.

I don't know what the New Year will bring, but I hope to keep on improving in all areas.  I think that is my all time goal and doesn't just go from January to December.  Of course, the specifics will change, as will the focus, at different times.  I just want to end 2012 a better person than when I started.

Struggling With a Few Things

As I mentioned before, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Lds or Mormon).  Our leaders a number of years ago issued a statement about some of our beliefs.  They called it The Family:  A Proclamation To The World.  In this Proclamation it states:

We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.

and

Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.

 These are things that my parents taught us since we were little.  I know many other families teach similar things to their children.  Sometimes kids listen and sometimes they don't.  I did, my sister didn't.

Right now my sister is pregnant.  She is not married and right now there is no chance of her marrying the father of her baby because he is married to someone else.  It doesn't matter that he was separated from his wife when he helped my sister sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to go and live with him.  After getting her pregnant he decided that he still loved his wife and wanted to get back together with her and basically told my sister to take a hike.  What a charming guy, huh?

Right now I am all kinds of torn up inside.  I am mad at my sister.  I am mad that she has betrayed us.  I am mad that she is using my parents.  I am upset because she seems to think that this is all okay and she doesn't see anything wrong with living with a married man and getting pregnant by him.  I love my sister, she is family after all.  I want to help her though this because I know pregnancy can be really hard.  I don't want my sister to think that I think this is in anyway okay, though.  It would be a difficult situation at best, but you also add to the fact that my sister has a mental disorder and she cannot take her medication while she is pregnant. 

If I lived far away this would be a mute issue.  I would let her and my parents and whoever deal with it and I wouldn't have to hardly see or talk to my sister.  That isn't the case, though.  She lives with my parents, who live about 25 minutes from me.  It's the holiday season and we are getting together fairly often, and right now she is staying with me.  My parents are having some remodeling done on their house so my sister is staying at mine for a week or maybe longer.  I get to see my sister every day.  She eats meals with us.  She reads with us when we have family scripture time and family prayers.  My kids beg her to read them stories and after bed times she and I chat until it's time for me to go to sleep.  I know this can all be a wonderful opportunity to bond with my sister, but it's also stressing me out.  I don't like confrontations and I am not comfortable when she starts talking about the baby.  I think that baby deserves something a lot better than being raised by my sister.  She is also in contact with the father's family quite often.  She will quite frequently refer to them as her family also.  She calls his mother "Mom" and tried to tell my children that his niece was her niece.  I did correct that one, but maybe not in the nicest way.  It just galls me.  I don't want things to be uncomfortable since she will be here for a while, but I don't want her teaching my children that it's okay to have a baby and not be married, in fact, not have anything to do with the baby's father.  I am trying to teach my children the values I was raised with.  At the same time, I want to teach my children to love people, even if you don't love their actions.  We believe that we are all sons and daughters of God and therefore all brothers and sisters.  I don't want to confront my sister but I don't think I can go on and just change the subject whenever she brings something up that is uncomfortable.  I am just so unprepared to handle this.

I know my children will learn more from my actions than from things I say so I want to teach them right.  I want to teach them to stand up for their beliefs, and teach them to respect that others may believe differently.  I want to teach them to be good parents, and that means thinking about your children more than yourself.  I want to teach them that being a parent is a wonderful thing, but it's not something to get into on a whim, it's also a very challenging job.  I don't want to teach them to run from, hide from, or avoid all confrontation (which is what I like to do).  It's not good to go out seeking an argument or fight, but some things need to be stood up for and that may mean standing up to someone.  Maybe I'm just too nice.

I Have Seen a Miracle

I have seen a miracle.  A friend of mine's son died a week ago.  Through modern medicine and the power of God he is alive today.  After he died his heart was shocked back into working, but it was only working at 10%.  His organ were shutting down and they had to cool down his body and then warm it up again.  My friend was told first that they didn't expect him to make it.  After they cooled his body down she was told that they didn't expect him to wake up.  A friend of the boy, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, asked him if he would like a priesthood blessing.  He said yes.  I talked to my friend a couple hours before the blessing, she is not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  She was so worried.  Her son was awake, but was hooked up to tubes and monitors.  She didn't know what was going to happen and she was so worried.  The next day I got a quick note saying her son was talking and then the following day she told me he was going to be released the next day.  I saw them on Saturday.  He was walking, talking and acting like a normal 19 year-old boy.  I wanted to cry happy tears.  Me and my family were all praying for my friend and her son.  I know there were many others praying as well.  The doctors and nurses have never seen anything like it.  His heart went from 10% to 100% in less than 5 days.  He has suffered some memory loss, and they are still monitoring him, but his is alive and functioning.  He can sit and visit with friends and family, he was playing with my daughter.  It is a miracle, and I am humbled to see it.

Monday's Miracles

It's Monday again!  I'm undecided on my feelings for Monday.  I love that after a crazy weekend it's a chance to jump back into routines again, but it also means that I have to get back to doing laundry.

1.  Shovels.  Out here in the country they are especially useful
2.  Straws.  Did you know you can make a whistle out of a straw?  My mom taught me that.  I have not taught my children that yet, though.
3.  Aunts and Uncles.  My kids love theirs, and I am grateful for all they do for my kids.
4.  Canning.  I love that I can preserve my summer bounty to eat during the cold winter months.  I also love that it tastes so much better than stuff I buy from a store.
5.  Clear Vinyl.  We put a map on our table and used some clear vinyl as a tablecloth.  The kids love looking for countries and seeing the different flags of each country.