Monthly Archives: August 2015

One Season Ends, Another Begins

I cannot believe that summer is coming to an end and fall is beginning. Our summer vacations have come to an end, most everyone’s kids are back to school at this point, and we all have to get back into our normal routines again. In some ways it’s sad to have summer playtime behind us […]

Learn to Doubt Your Doubts

This last week was a stressful one. And in going through that stress I found myself beginning to really doubt many things that I had previously felt really good about. The more I thought about those doubts the more and more I began to really question things and wonder if I had been completely wrong […]

Don’t Shy Away From Hard Work

I was raised to believe in the value of hard work. I don’t know if hard work came naturally to me or if it was a learned trait by watching my parents work their tails off. All I know is that being a slacker was never even a temptation for me. I always took personal […]

Those Words A Parent Never Expected to Hear

As those of you who follow my blog know, my son Dalton recently got engaged to his sweetheart and we are now in full blown wedding preparation mode. Because they want a short engagement it is like wedding planning central at our house with invitation selections, picking colors for the reception, figuring out venues, booking […]

Don’t Close the Book, Just Turn the Page.

Some days things happen that throw us for a total loop. When that happens it often causes you to feel totally out of sorts. You can find yourself questioning things that you used to feel certain about. You notice let fear and doubt creeping in. The picture in your head seems suddenly erased and you’re […]

Express and Live A Life of Gratitude

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward Tonight I have been thinking a lot about Gratitude. My life has been a huge whirlwind the last several months. Some things I have experienced have been amazing and some things I have experienced have been […]

“Don’t wait for the perfect moment. Take the moment and make it perfect.”

“Don’t wait for the perfect moment. Take the moment and make it perfect.” This last week was a truly momentous week in my life. My son Dalton proposed marriage to his girlfriend and she said YES! In the weeks leading up to the proposal my son and I spent a ton of time planning out […]

The Future Can Be Better Than You’ve Ever Imagined

“Just because the past didn’t turn out like you wanted it to, doesn’t mean your future can’t be better than you’ve ever imagined.” -unknown Everyone has a story of disappointments they have faced. Times when things didn’t go their way. Times when the thing they were praying for didn’t happen. Times when they tried their […]

Talk to each other rather than about each other

“A lot of problems in the world would disappear if we talk to each other instead of about each other.” Talking negatively about others is an easy trap to fall into. It typically starts innocent enough with a simple comment about something as trivial as the outfit someone has on that day, but then over […]

Don’t put off living

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We dream of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our window today.”    -Dale Carnegie I totally agree that too often we put off […]

I was really here and I really lived

“I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there […]

A Simple Gesture

Mark was walking home from school one day when he noticed the boy ahead of him had tripped and dropped all of the books he was carrying, along with two sweaters, a baseball hat, a glove and a small tape recorder. Mark knelt down and helped the boy pick up the scattered articles. Since they […]

Life’s Tug of War

Life’s Tug Of War  Life can seem ungrateful and not always kind. Life can pull at your heartstrings and play with your mind. Life can be blissful and happy and free. Life can put beauty in the things that you see. Life can place challenges right at your feet. Life can make good of the […]

Schedule a Clean-Up Day

Every now and then you just have to schedule a Clean-Up Day! A Clean-Up Day is a day where you literally spend an entire day cleaning up all the things that have been piling up for far too long and that have managed to make your space feel like total chaos. To begin your clean-up […]

The Feeling of Home

We have traveled extensively over this summer. On a European front we have been to London, Paris, Belgium, Germany, other parts of France, Switzerland, and Amsterdam. Then back in the states we have been to Lake Powell three different times and now Idaho for my husband’s family reunion….Where we haven’t been much this summer is […]

You’re Never Alone

“Right now, there are people all over the world who are just like you. They’re lonely. They’re missing somebody. They’re in love with someone they probably shouldn’t be in love with. They have secrets you wouldn’t believe. They wish, dream, hope, and they look out the window whenever they’re in the car or on a […]

Never Assume..Let Them Know

Over this last few days my husband and I were able to go and visit his family up in Idaho where he is from for his family reunion. His family, like mine, is large and spread out to several states across the country so it becomes increasingly more difficult to get everyone together in one […]

You Can Love Donald Trump Or You Can Hate Donald Trump, But You Can’t Deny Donald Trump is Making Politics Interesting Again (Forbes Article)

You can love Donald Trump, or you can hate Donald Trump, but what you cannot deny is the fact that Donald Trump has managed to make politics interesting again. I normally cannot stand watching Presidential debates because I always end up feeling I’ve just heard a bunch of politically correct answers that use a whole […]

The Secret To Getting A Job After College: Pick A University That Offers Experiential Learning (Forbes Article)

The approach of most higher education institutions is completely backwards today. Rather than first year college students picking their classes based on their goal of a specific dream job, they end up picking classes based on what the University deems to be generally required, the classes their friends are signing up for, and what time […]

“He’s not only reading your story, He wrote it.”

“What you and I might rate as an absolute disaster, God may rate as a pimple-level problem that will pass. He views your life the way you view a movie after you’ve read the book. When something bad happens, you feel the air sucked out of the theater. Everyone else gasps at the crisis on […]

We Will Never Regret The Moments We Took

Here we are on August 3rd and I am suddenly aware of the fact that this is our last month of summer vacation before our kids go back to school again…And even though we can’t change the fact that summer vacay will be coming to an end in a few weeks for all our children […]

Unplug and Make Time For Friends and Family

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”   –C.S. Lewis Last week was a great experience. My husband and I took both our sets of parents as well as several other couples we are friends with along with our son Dalton and […]