Tag Archives: effort

Worth The Effort

Normally for Thanksgiving I host my family and extended family at my home for dinner, but because my Mom and Dad have to stay isolated this year there wasn’t a dinner planned. So my husband and I decided we’d take our kids to Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with two of my brothers and their families.   […]

Live Every Day In Fourth Quarter

It’s been a crazy week of being up til 2 or 3am in the morning every night so in hopes of me getting to bed before midnight tonight I asked my daughter Ashley to write about a recent lesson she’s learned. Here’s what she shared: “Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big basketball fan… […]

They Are Trusting You – Don’t Blow It

Last night after I finished judging a business plan competition down at Utah Valley University my family and I met up at a restaurant to take my Father and Mother-in-law, who had traveled down from Idaho to visit us for the night, out to dinner. We were excited to see them as my father-in-law was […]

Connecting The Dots

“One of the great innovators of our time, Steve Jobs of Apple, had this insight: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward,” he said. “You can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” What did he mean by that? Perhaps an illustration will […]

Success Comes From Doing The Little Things Over A Long Period Of Time

Today I heard “The Stonecutter’s Creedo” for the first time. It was written by Jacob Riis: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will […]

But Seriously Though, What’s Your Excuse?

Tonight I was a judge for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy Shark Tank where students from the age of 8 – 18 pitched their business plans in front of a panel of four judges and a room full of their parents and several of their peers. As these young people walked us through their business idea, […]

Gossiptown – Where Rumors and Falsehoods Abound

Gossiptown Have you ever heard of Gossiptown On the shore of Falsehood Bay, Where Old Dame Rumor with rustling gown Is going the livelong Day? It isn’t far to Gossiptown For people who want to go, The Idleness train will take you down In just an hour or so. The thoughtless road is crowded, you’ll […]

How To Be Awesome

For a long time I have wanted to get T-shirts printed up that say W.U.B.A. on them to remind everyone to “Wake Up, Be Awesome”.   I think W.U.B.A. is the perfect mantra to guide our days because we all want to wake up and we should all decide each morning to BE AWESOME that day! […]

Think BIG!

From the time I was young I have had an inability to think small. I don’t really know why I am like that, I just always have been. In college when friends wanted me to sell $10.00 lipsticks I immediately thought, “Why sell just $10 of something when for the same effort I could sell […]

Between who you are and who you want to be

“Between who you are and who you want to be, is what you do.” I was in the kitchen peeling an Orange when I squeezed it a little too hard and juice ran down my hand onto the counter. And of course it did because it’s an Orange, so when we squeeze it, orange juice […]

Maybe it won’t work out, but maybe it’s worth seeing if it does

“Maybe it won’t work out. But maybe seeing if it does will be the best adventure ever.” That’s a quote we all needed to hear! I love it because it totally reminds us to have courage to go ahead and try things, even when we aren’t feeling totally sure that it is going to turn […]

Never Think Nor Say “I Can’t”

Someone once told me that the moment you either think or say the words “I can’t” you’ve lost, so never to do it. Hearing that advice had a big impact on my life because I believed it and I tried to never allow myself to think or say it when it came to my business […]

The Link Between Traditions and Happiness

This weekend marked the beginning of my family’s holiday season traditions beginning. Each year in October my parents and siblings and their families who are in the area all come together and we go to a place called Rowley’s Red Barn where we start by enjoying their homemade donuts and apple cider for breakfast and […]

When it doesn’t work out the way you had hoped..

If you have done all you can do, giving it your very best effort, and it still doesn’t work out the way you had hoped it would, then you have to trust that it wasn’t in your best interest for it to work out that way. Sometimes when we are excited about something going a […]

You don’t need money to lead a rich life

“You don’t need money to lead a rich life. Good friends and a loving family are worth their weight in gold.” Last week was a week about friends and family for me and it was definitely a reminder of how our friends and family really are worth their weight in gold. From the start of […]

Do It So Well They Can’t Forget You

Our first three stops on the cruise were all locations in Italy. I happen to LOVE Italy. A few years back my brother and his family were living in Rome and we had come to stay with them for several weeks and we absolutely fell in love with the country…after all, they do food better […]

Lessons on Surviving, Turning Trials into Trails, and Choosing Happiness (Part 5 of 5)

Today is the part 5 of a 5 part blog series I have been sharing all week this week. Throughout this week I have shared snippets of emails that my daughter Ashley sent home while she was serving her 18 month mission. For those who have followed along all week this week I am hoping […]

Lessons on Study, Selfishness, Repentance, and Never Looking Back (Part 4 of 5)

We have come to month fourteen of the eighteen months of lessons learned along the journey. I hope you are all enjoying reading these email snippets from Ashley’s emails. The life lessons she shares as she learns them was so valuable to me and I hope it proves to be valuable to all of you […]

Lessons on Love and Charity (Part 3 of 5)

Today was one of the happiest days of my life!!  My daughter Ashley is HOME!!!! Yep, after 18 months of doing service as a missionary she is finally back home with us and I am beyond words with happiness. This enitre week I have been sharing snippets of emails I received from my daughter Ashley while she was out serving her […]

Lessons on Character, Change, Hardships and Blessings (Part 2 of 5)

Today is a continuation of yesterday’s blog sharing some favorite snippets of my daughter Ashley’s emails she has sent home over the course of her 18 month mission with the valuable life lesons she was learning along the way – these lessons are such relevant lessons for all of our lives and I hope you […]

Incredible Life Lessons Along an 18 month journey (Part 1 of 5)

This week is one of my happiest weeks EVER as my daughter Ashley is coming home from her mission Tuesday! In last Thurssday’s email I explained just how much I have loved getting Ashley’s weekly emails she’s been sending home over the last 18 months because they share the cool life lessons she has been learning along the […]

Feeling Like A Little Kid On Christmas Morning!

Going into this weekend I feel just like a little kid on Christmas morning! I have waited 18 months for my daughter Ashley to finish serving her LDS Mission so she could come back home to me…and next week she is finally coming home!!!   YAYYYYYYY!!! I literally cannot describe how excited I am. It’s impossible to describe […]

Big Decisions and Avoiding the “What If” Bus

We are all familiar with the quote “Decisions determine destiny” and I genuinely believe that is the case. That is why it can be especially hard to make big decisions that come up in our lives. Anytime I have a big decision to make in life I think to myself “It would be so much […]

The Champion

The average runner runs until The breath in him is gone, But the champion has the iron will That makes him carry on. For rest the average runner begs When limp his muscles grow, But the champion runs on leaden legs. His courage makes him go. The average man’s complacent when He’s done his best […]

Be Prepared…In Advance!

How many of us will find ourselves still awake at 1:00 or even 2:00 in the morning still assembling Christmas presents and getting them wrapped and putting bows on them?  How many of us will be tired and worn out instead of feeling relaxed and rested so we can enjoy this holiday week? There is […]

Give It Your Best Til The Bitter End

Tonight my husband and I took my son and daughter-in-law to the Utah Jazz versus the Golden State Warriors basketball game. Now anyone who follows basketball knows that the Golden State Warriors are killing it this year – playing undefeated so far this season. So going into the ball game we didn’t have the expectation […]

“All great changes are preceded by chaos”

Chaos is exactly the word I would use to describe my surroundings right now, so when I heard the quote by Deepak Chopra “All great changes are preceded by chaos” I knew exactly where the chaos was leading as this weekend will be one of great change for my family as we come to the final […]

Focus on what you can control

Focus on what you can control, not what you can’t. We only have so much energy to expend each day and every second we waste focusing on things we have absolutely no control over we are wasting that energy and our time. Instead we need to put our entire attention toward focusing on the things […]

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 […]

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 […]