quote of the week...

"Starting small is still starting."


--Becky Higgins

I've had days like this...

I went to a wonderful meeting today, and the speaker showed us this picture and reminded us that oftentimes we can feel a lot like this poor donkey, like the weights and burdens we carry are too much for us to handle.

I appreciated her gentle reminder: "You don't have to do everything all the time."

I forget that, and find myself spinning my mental wheels in 20 different directions and becoming increasingly more miserable as I calculate just how many people I am letting down in how many different ways. I needed that reminder to be realisitic about what I carry.

So, I share it here. In case someone else might have needed to hear it, too.

quote of the week...

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

--Henry David Thoreau

quote of the week...

"A consecrated life is filled with work. Sometimes repetitive, sometimes menial, sometimes unappreciated...but always work that improves, orders, sustains, lifts, ministers, aspires."

--D. Todd Christofferson

quote of the week...

"I think you may need to hear something. You may be at odds with God right now. You're not happy with the way your life is turning out. You may be praying and pleading with God...or not. But it is possible that you don't really want God? Is it possible that you just want what you think God can give you?

One of the things I believe God is teaching me in my life these days is that at times we want our dreams more than we want God. We want what God does for us, instead of just God."


--Pete Wilson, Plan B

quote of the week...

"It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it."


--Steven Wright

I do stuff, part 2

I never met a good idea that I didn't want to steal, so when I saw a young women's leader in another ward (congregation) make a treat for her girls with this attached poem, I totally knew I wanted to make them for ours.

I made homemade oreo cookies. over 80. Two things kept me from going completely insane while I made them. 1) I love those girls! and 2) 'Date Night' was on pay per view and kept me entertained while I baked and cooled and frosted.


So, I guess the girls have Steve Carell to thank for these.

I do stuff...

Sometimes I just lay in bed at night and think, "I am exhausted...what the heck did I do all day?"


It's after about a month of saying that when I finally decide to take on an overdue project, or just fix an area of my house that drives me crazy. When you stay at home and work, it feels good to have something concrete to point to that's been accomplished. This time around it was the office shelves.

Before

After

quote of the week...

“When you’re safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you’re having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.”

--Thornton Wilder*



*I got this from Andrea Merriman's blog. She has an amazing story, and if you ever find yourself with some time, you should read about her experiences.

quote of the week...

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free, and then discover that the prisoner was you."

--Lewis B. Smedes

I got something pretty...

How fun is this? I have been a fan of these stamped disc necklaces for awhile now, but never could decide what kind I wanted. Kids names, The Hubby and I's names, a scripture or quote...I never could set my heart on one.

Then I saw the above over at The Rusted Chain and fell in love.

quote of the week...

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

---Ralph Waldo Emerson

tagging...

I have had several people ask me to tag my quote posts so they are easier to find. I finally got around it...so when you click on the "quotes" tag, it should bring up every quote of the week and a few posts that have quotes in them.

Thanks for liking them!

quote of the week...

"When you judge people, you have no time to love them."

--Mother Theresa

love, logic, and a little 70s rock...

Teenager: So...I want to go out with my friends tonight.
Me: Uh huh. That's nice.
Teenager: Sooo...can I?
Me: Here's the thing: if you are going to rock and roll all night, you gotta party every day. And, to me, 'partying every day' does not mean 'sleep on the couch for 6 hours'. Do you see where I am going with this?
Teenager: I...think so. You want me to do more around the house during the day if I am going to stay out late with my friends?
Me: See those brains? You get those from me.
Teenager: Okay. And Mom? That KISS reference? Was. Totally. Awesome.

solid evidence that facebook is not a tool of the Devil...

I had a really, really bad day on Tuesday. I'm not going to elaborate, because it'll just bring back painful memories and I am trying very hard to get out of the bitter barn and play in the hay.

Anyway, i updated my status on facebook to reflect said day of suckage, and guess what happened?

This.

A very sweet, very funny, and entirely too busy to be worried about me woman came to my house and brought me Moose Tracks. EXTREME Moose Tracks, thank you very much.

And I do. Thank her. Very, very much.

quote of the week...

"The easiest way to destroy people is to give them exactly what they want. You might not realize it at the time, but the struggle to achieve something is, in many ways, much more satisfying than actually getting it."

--Patrick Swayze

it's "someday"...

Throughout all of The Hubby and I's parenting years, we have always looked ahead and talked about what life would be like on certain "somedays". You know what I mean. "Someday, this 6 year old will be a teenager, can you even believe it?" or "Someday, we won't have to change diapers anymore!" or 'Someday, the older kids will drive and can take the younger kids and go for little outings together."

One particular someday we have always talked about was the someday that our last child would go into kindergarten. For the last 20 years, I have always had at least 1 child home with me during the day. There were days in these last 20 years that the idea that they would ever NOT be with me seemed a forever away. In the thick of raising all these little people, I couldn't even picture a time when I might have an empty house on a regular basis.

Well, you know what I am going to say. It's here. This past week, The Hubby and I got to experience the bitter sweetness of that little goodbye...goodbye to the toddler years, that we have loved so very much. Goodbye to knowing that even though the bigger kids were gone and we were missing them, we still had a little one to cuddle at home. Goodbye to the little boy, and hello to the big kindergartner!

Hello, Someday. You got here so much faster than I ever thought you would.

small and simple reminders...

I think it's really important to create an atmosphere in our homes that reflects and reminds us of what we believe and what is important to us. I have tried to have items around our home that serve as visual reminders of what matters to me, and to my family.

So, now and then on my blog I am going to share a small and simple thing I have done in my home as a reminder, and maybe it will encourage you to find a way do the same.

This is in a corner of the window seat in our front room, a room I probably pass through 30 times a day. The sign is an old metal gas station pricing sign, and the quote is one of my recent favorites. The 2 of them together remind me of this: I never would have thought in a million years that having 7 children and all that entails would be the path my life would take...but I love it so much. So the number and the quote remind me that even though life will surely continue to have its twists and turns and complications, and it may not happen the way I pictured it would, so far those twists and turns have been pretty amazing and most of all--better than anything I could have come up with on my own.