Tag Archives: blessed

If you can make a situation better, DO IT!

In life we gain contacts, and connections, and wisdom that comes as we gain more and more life experience. As this happens we will inevitably start to find ourselves in situations where we might have either the talent, or the experience, or the resources to make a contribution to a situation that might really be […]

Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action

I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is only a week away!  Time has flown this season!  As I laid in bed super sick again today (grrrr…..) it hit me that I hadn’t even taken one moment to think about Thanksgiving yet. I have been so wrapped up in my son’s recent wedding that the holidays had […]

Life Is Better With Friends

I have learned through the years that family isn’t just made up of blood…it is made up of those people in your life who build you up while giving you input on how you can improve, those who help put a smile on your face, those who pick you up when you’re feeling down, those […]

We Are Not Human Doings, We Are Human Beings

Today I was involved in the President’s Leadership Council board meeting down at Brigham Young University. As part of the program a great speaker named Brad Wilcox gave an inspiring talk. There were a few comments he shared that really stood out to me and I couldn’t wait to share them with you. First he […]

“Every day may not be good, but there is something good in every day.”

Within any given week we are going to have good days, and bad ones. Rarely is an entire week perfect…at least I’ve never had a week like that myself. There are up days, and down days…there are stressful days and fun days…there are monotonous tasks that have to get done and there are new and […]

You Never Know the Impact You Can Have On Someone

I have to start tonight’s blog off by saying I am the luckiest mom in the world and here’s why – Today I was asked to give two keynote presentations for two different groups down at Brigham Young University. The groups I spoke to were both awesome and amazing and I loved every minute of […]

Curiosity, Courage, and Courtesy

Today I was fortunate enough to be invited by President Holland to attend a lunch and sit at the table with Sir Christopher John Greenwood, a Judge for the International Court of Justice and his lovely wife Susan at UVU’s Constitutional Conference for Constitutional Studies. Both of them went up from our table to speak at the lunch event […]

Ordinary Miracles

Life is full of ordinary miracles. Sometimes we recognize them and sometimes we don’t even realize they have happened until much later. Back in July of 2011 my family was headed down to Lake Powell when we experienced some pretty cool ordinary miracles happened to us. I shared the experience in a blog I wrote […]

Look at it from a different perspective

Over the weekend I thought quite a bit about gratitude and our ability to completely change our thinking and perspective of situations that would be easy to be upset about or frustrated about to instead see a situation where there is something to feel truly grateful for.  I realize that as easy as it sounds for me to say […]

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” So often in life we get so sucked into thinking about every little thing we still want that we totally lose sight of just how blessed we […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Most Amazing Advice Ever!

A young girl just starting High School this fall emailed my daughter Ashley (19 yrs old) to ask her what advice she could give her. My daughter sent her the following letter and as soon as I read it I instantly knew I had to share it with everyone! Every single one of us needs […]

“I Am An American”

This weekend we head into the Fourth of July holiday here in the United States and as we do I want to proudly and gratefully say that I am an American. Too often I take for granted how #blessed I am to be an American, to live in a country that stands for freedom of […]

Promise Yourself

Promise Yourself To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. To make all your friends feel that there is something in them To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. To think only the […]

I’ll Be The One

I received my once a week email from my daughter Ashley today – I love her emails because they always share something incredibly inspiring that literally makes my entire week. Today she talked about a story that her teacher Kami shared with her when she was a teenage girl that she said changed her life!  […]

The Impact Of Having True Friends

“There are some people in life that make you laugh a little louder, smile a little bigger, and just live a little better.”   -unknown Yeah…those are true friends and having them makes life SO MUCH BETTER! I have been incredibly blessed in my life to have amazing friends who have been a part of my […]

#Blessed

Well hello there sunshine! How are all of you? Can I just say that I LOVE sunny days and summertime!  I mean really, they are the greatest!  There is something about the feeling of sun on your skin that just makes you happier…am I right?! Today I am thinking a lot about all the good […]

Don’t let yourself take any of it for granted

This last week has been an absolute whirlwind! It has been back to back events for the Sundance Film Festival. I wish I could sit and write every amazing experience I have had this week but it would result in far too long of a blog for anyone to want to read. I will tell […]

“Everybody deserves somebody who makes them look forward to tomorrow.”

Back when I was single someone shared this quote with me: “Don’t marry a man unless you would be proud to have a son exactly like him.” That really made me rethink the men I was dating in my life. I hadn’t thought of them in that light before. Would I be proud to have […]

20 Words to the Wise

This time of year we hear the stories of the Wise Men so I thought it would be a fitting time to share an Anonymous posting I came across called “20 Words to the Wise” that had 20 great words of advice to help each of us become more wise in our own lives: 1. […]

Never Suppress A Generous Thought

In our cities so full of hustle and bustle it is amazing to watch how people are so absorbed in their own thoughts that they barely notice one another as they hurry past each other on the streets.  Often times we see someone lost or someone who dropped something on the ground and is struggling […]

December is the “Friday” of the Months

Seriously, don’t you just LOVE December! It really is like the Friday of the months…the month you look forward to all year and you relish it, wishing it wouldn’t have to end. It just seems like we spend more time with family and friends just being HAPPY during December, and it is so nice!  December […]

Stop and Thank the People Who Make A Difference in our Lives

On this week that we celebrate Thanksgiving, I cannot think of a better way to honor this holiday than to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives. When I stop and really think about all the people who have made a difference in my life I am overwhelmed with how […]

The Friends We Choose

“If you find yourself racing through life, slow down long enough to take along some good friends.”  – L. Tom Perry This last week I was reminded of how blessed I am to have amazing friends in my life.  My husband and I were able to spend last week with a group of 15 friends […]

“Love your Parents. We are so busy growing up, we often forget they are also growing old.”

Life the past few months has been a reminder that I am growing older, especially facing an empty nest.  However, in all my focus to deal with seeing my own children grow older I have honestly lost sight of the fact that my own parents are also growing old… My parents stopped by the other […]

“Sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary…”

“Sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people.”  -Elizabeth Green How true that quote is!  Today was another rough day for me…sick again…arghhhh….not fun.  I woke up thinking if I jumped in the shower that it would somehow magically make me feel all better today…nice try, […]

A Good Life

“A good life is when you assume nothing, do more, need less, smile often, dream big, laugh a lot, and realize how blessed you are.”  – Anonymous Is it really that simple to have a good life?  In many ways I actually believe it is.  I really think that so much of our level of […]

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet.”

I love that quote by William Blake, although I change it to read “where women and mountains meet” for the version on my wall :).  Today I want to talk about overcoming obstacles, mostly to help remind me of how I need to always take on the obstacles in my own life. One of the […]

Some days you need a good cry and a great cuddle

“…you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.” – Lemony Snicket So I will start by admitting that what I am about to tell you might seem a little ridiculous so right up front I am going to just admit […]