Tag Archives: friend

Four Things You Cannot Recover

I once heard a story called the Parable of the Cookie.  It’s a simple story with a surprising twist that teaches an incredibly valuable lesson. See for yourself: The Parable of the Cookie A young woman was waiting to catch a flight in the boarding area of the airport. Given that her wait was going […]

“I’m Grateful For All The Things My Parents Didn’t Do For Me”

Tonight I received a phone call from one of my dearest friends who is out of the country right now traveling.  He said he was thinking about me and my husband today because he realized I was probably saddened with my kids leaving off to college and he just wanted me to know he was […]

Nursing a Hole in My Heart

Today was brutal. Today I moved my baby girl down to her college dorm and tonight is the first night of her being gone from home.  Even though I will get to go see her tomorrow for the Orientation meetings on campus, it doesn’t change the fact that after today things will never quite be […]

Friends by Design

“In friendship…we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another…the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting–any of these chances might have kept us […]

What Do You Want To Do Before You Die?

Life is hectic.  We go go go and we are way too busy and we can’t seem to keep up with the ever growing to do lists we have.  We spend most days just trying to make it through our day and hope to get one or two items done on our list.  And this […]

Before You Assume…

“Before you “assume”, try this crazy method called asking.” Wow….that is a powerful quote.  When I first read it, it really hit me.  It is so true!  So often in life we just assume we know…we assume we know what someone thinks, we assume they did something just because someone else said they did, we […]

Mental issues: we all have them, so now go fix them!

Mental Illness is something everyone deals with in one form or another – whether they deal with it personally, whether they are living with someone who has a genuine mental illness, or whether they have a friend who is suffering from it. It touches all our lives in one form or fashion. And I personally […]

Life Isn’t About Avoiding the Storms, It’s About Learning to Dance in the Rain

Life is full of storms and always will be. Some days are a heavy rain, other days a light drizzle, and other days are torrential floods. And the fact is that these stormy days will come and go throughout our entire life because no matter how much we wish it could be all sunshine and […]

Live your life, love your life, and leave this life with no regrets

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service […]

Happiness is Contagious!

A research study at Harvard Medical found that, in fact, happiness is contagious. It suggests that happiness is influenced not only by the people you know, but by the people they know. The study showed that happiness spreads through social networks, sort of like a virus, meaning that your happiness could influence the happiness of […]

If You Want to Achieve Your Goal, Share it!

“Research recently conducted by [Dr. Gail] Matthews shows that people who wrote down their goals, shared this information with a friend, and sent weekly updates to that friend were on average 33% more successful in accomplishing their stated goals than those who merely formulated goals.” Goal setting is one of the things I am the […]

Finding Out Who You Are By Learning Where You Came From

Figuring out who your ancestors are is one of the coolest things in the world.  I was lucky to have Grandparents who were big into doing genealogy research when they were still alive and they provided me life history books for their own lives as well as providing me life histories written by my great-grandparents […]

“If People Are Trying to Bring You Down…”

“If people are trying to bring you down it only means that you are above them.”  I spent time tonight talking to a close friend who has a teenager daughter who is being horribly bullied in school.  Her daughter, like many teenage girls, suffers from low self-esteem.  She thinks her body isn’t thin enough, she […]

To have a friend, be a friend.

How does one go about being a good friend?  We all have friends, and we all are a friend to someone else. But how often do we stop and take note of whether we ourselves are being a good friend to those we love?  I would admit that I don’t do it often enough.  And […]

Embrace Sentiment

Packrat, hoarder, collector….we have all heard the terms.  Some of us even relate to the terms.  Maybe not to the extent that we see on the TV show Hoarders, but somewhere between that and a packrat.  My son is someone who I have teased for years as being somewhat of a packrat.  He saves every […]

Advice to Pass On To Every Young Woman You Know

I came across an article written by a woman named Patricia Davis in which she had put together a list of advice of all the things she wanted to pass on to younger women.  I think her advice is amazing and we should share her advice with every young woman we know, whether its a daughter, a sister, […]

Endings and Beginnings, Happy and Sad, But Never Alone

I hate that we sometimes feel alone in this life – the fact is that we are never alone – there are always others out there going through the same thing that we are, it’s just that we need more of us who are willing to be honest about it so we give permission to […]

Happy Anniversary and Happy New Year!

Six years ago December 31st I married the man of my dreams in the most beautiful wedding imaginable.  My husband wanted us to get married on New Year’s because he said that would ensure that he never forgot our wedding anniversary – smart man 😉  … On that day we were surrounded by family and […]

Tips for Coping With Holiday Stress

Today I was feeling the stress of the holiday creep in and I decided that I needed an action list of things I could do to help take the stress off during this holiday season.  Here is the list of ideas I came  up with to help all of us cope with holiday stress: Make […]

The Healing Power of Human Connection

Today started out rough.  I had to deal with a situation related to someone from the past that I once considered to be a friend, but who turned out to be an incredibly dishonest person who did a lot of horrible things that caused a lot of damage to a lot of people. Not exactly […]

And Everyone Wins

Hug O’ War I will not play at tug o’ war. I’d rather play at hug o’ war, Where everyone hugs Instead of tugs, Where everyone giggles And rolls on the rug, Where everyone kisses, And everyone grins, And everyone cuddles, And everyone wins. – Shel Silverstein When someone tries to pick a fight with […]

Happy or Sad, Good or Bad, Love It or Hate It, It’s All in How You View It (Forbes Article)

As a business leader, one of the many lessons I learned was that employees often viewed the world around them in ways that were completely different from what was actually going on. I observed time and time again employees who interpreted something one way when the reality was actually totally different. I learned that when […]

IF you can…

IF If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or […]

We Weren’t Meant To Do It Alone

So as many of you are aware, my 20 year old son is serving a 2 year mission for the LDS church in Mississippi right now.  Each week I get an email from him letting me know how things are going out in the field.  This week he sent an email that had an AMAZING […]

People Who Add To Your Fun Jar

Today was an exciting, whirlwind of a day.  First I attended my board meeting for the Governor’s Economic Development Board that I serve on for the State of Utah, and then I ran over to attend the Women’s Tech Awards where I was humbled to receive their Impact Award at a large luncheon.  Next I […]

Love It While You Live It

So it is not very often that I would write about a quote from a sitcom as being a great life lesson, but this particular quote was so good that I haven’t been able to get it off my mind, so I figured I had better write about it today.  It was a quote from […]

“A good definition of family”

As I mentioned yesterday we were able to Skype with our son Dalton and it was the happiest day ever. Today Dalton sent an email to our family and his friends and in that letter he shared something that was worth sharing – in fact he even mentions in his email that someone should quote […]

How to Overcome the Doom and Gloom of Tax Day

So it’s tax day April 15th.  Oh my gosh there is just no way to say that without bringing everyone’s mood down into the dumpster.  So for my blog today I thought I would put together a list of suggestions of things you can do to help get over the sadness and gloom that comes […]